Donald M. Braxton, “Naturalizing Transcendence in the New Cosmologies of Emergence,” Zygon 41, no. 2, 347-364,
To cite cosmologist Timothy Ferris, “it seems permissible and helpful . . . to regard living creatures, planets, stars, galaxies, and the atoms and molecules of which they are made as products of cosmic evolution.”[1] At the beginning of the twenty-first century, therefore, we live and move and have our being in a world radically redefined intellectually.[2]
At the heart of complexity studies is the discovery of the dynamics of self-organization in natural and cultural systems. Self-organization occurs as a result of two basic factors: (1) a set of positive and negative feedback loops and (2) information transfers in the form of stimulation from the governing environment and cues from other agents within the system.
A positive feedback loop is a self-reinforcing algorithm built into the behavioral repertoire of any agent within a network. An example of a positive feedback from genetics is that when a certain chemical is present, systems synthesize a certain protein (Kauffman 1993). This example is a simple rule that has the effect of creating a self-reinforcing process. Each time the results stimulate a repetition of the same behavior. Positive feedback loops are the source of growth in self-organizing systems.
A negative feedback loop, on the other hand, counters the potential for unchecked growth implicit in all positive feedback loops. Whereas a positive feedback loop amplifies behavior, negative feedback loops introduce inhibitions to the same behavior.[3] Together, positive and negative feedback loops produce the self-regulatory systems that govern many of the structures we see in the natural world.
Chemical interactions give rise to the possibility of the highly specialized forms of self-organization we find in biological systems.[4]
[1] Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang: The State-of-the-Universe(s) Report (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 194.
[2] Donald M. Braxton, “Naturalizing Transcendence in the New Cosmologies of Emergence,” Zygon 41, no. 2, 349.
[3] Donald M. Braxton, “Naturalizing Transcendence in the New Cosmologies of Emergence,” Zygon 41, no. 2, 352.
[4] Donald M. Braxton, “Naturalizing Transcendence in the New Cosmologies of Emergence,” Zygon 41, no. 2, 355.