Measuring Complexity in an Aquatic Ecosystem

We apply formal measures of emergence, self-organization, homeostasis, autopoiesis and complexity to an aquatic ecosystem; in particular to the physiochemical component of an Arctic lake. These measures are based on information theory. Variables with an homogeneous distribution have higher values of emergence, while variables with a more heterogeneous distribution have a higher self-organization. Variables with a high complexity reflect a balance between change (emergence) and regularity/order (self-organization). In addition, homeostasis values coincide with the variation of the winter and summer seasons. Autopoiesis values show a higher degree of independence of biological components over their environment. Our approach shows how the ecological dynamics can be described in terms of information.Comment: 6 pages, to be published in Proceedings of the CCBCOL 2013, 2nd Colombian Computational Biology Congress, Springe

Towards Autopoietic Computing

A key challenge in modern computing is to develop systems that address complex, dynamic problems in a scalable and efficient way, because the increasing complexity of software makes designing and maintaining efficient and flexible systems increasingly difficult. Biological systems are thought to possess robust, scalable processing paradigms that can automatically manage complex, dynamic problem spaces, possessing several properties that may be useful in computer systems. The biological properties of self-organisation, self-replication, self-management, and scalability are addressed in an interesting way by autopoiesis, a descriptive theory of the cell founded on the concept of a system's circular organisation to define its boundary with its environment. In this paper, therefore, we review the main concepts of autopoiesis and then discuss how they could be related to fundamental concepts and theories of computation. The paper is conceptual in nature and the emphasis is on the review of other people's work in this area as part of a longer-term strategy to develop a formal theory of autopoietic computing.Comment: 10 Pages, 3 figure

Preliminary Concepts for Economic Systems Analysis

In preparing theoretical tools to analyze economic systems we need several fundamental concepts that are often applied in various scientific investigations outside economic studies. Amongst others, the concept of autopoiesis, which was introduced by Niklas Luhmann into his sociological systems theory, is the most important in constructing a theoretical model to explain the working of economic systems. An autopoietic system may be regarded as the functional core by which other elementary concepts such as homeostasis, machinery, corporate system and social entropy can be logically connected. In conclusion, all economic systems are contained in distinct social systems of autopoietic character and incorporated with them as a subsystem or partially independent system.system, autopoiesis

Autopoietic organization of firm: an illustration for the construction industry

Generally poor productivity, delays, low profitability and exceeded budgets are Common problems in modern construction management, however it seems that a basic obstacle lies far deeper in the understanding of a firm's fundamental mission, its existence. The main objective of this paper therefore is to examine the operational living of a construction firm and by doing that to reveal the key problem or the solution for a construction firm - its organization. A firm as a social system in which interactions between its constitutive components (employees) are surordinated to its maintenance (keeping a system alive) is an autopoietic social system. Two domains of external perturbations are uncovered to which a construction firm has to adapt (market driven and project driven perturbations). Constructed conceptual model of an autopoietic organization is based upon two necessary and sufficient operational domains that a firm has to create in order to become an autopoietic, adaptive social system. The first one is a domain of interactions between employees and other operationally external systems, which is representing an idea-generating domain of interactions. The second is employee's autonomous operational domain, which embodies employee's autonomy and individuality and represents a necessary condition for the establishment of an idea-generating domain. Finally, it is recognized that interactions within these four domains keep a construction firm alive

Autopoiesis in Virtual Organizations

Virtual organizations continuously gain popularity because of the benefits created by them. Generally, they are defined as temporal adhocracies, project oriented, knowledge-based network organizations. The goal of this paper is to present the hypothesis that knowledge system developed by virtual organization is an autopoietic system. The term “autopoiesis†was introduced by Maturana for self-productive systems. In this paper, Wikipedia is described as an example of an autopoietic system. The first part of the paper covers discussion on virtual organizations. Next, autopoiesis’ interpretations are delivered and the value of autopoiesis for governance of virtual organizations is presented. The last parts of the work comprise short presentation of Wikipedia, its principles and conclusions of Wikipedia as an autopoietic system.autopoiesis , autopoietic system, Wikipedia.

Self-reproducing entities in an artifical chemistry: implications of autopoietic and other organisations

The SCL model system, an artificial chemistry used for the illustration of the concept autopoiesis, is extended to show self-reproducing entities. The theory of autopoiesis was developed by the biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela around 1971 to point out the organisation of living systems One of the aims of this theory is to explain the perceived autonomy of living beings. The degree to which the theory succeeds in doing so is investigated. Along the way some ambiguities m the theory are pointed out and suggestions for improvements are made. The conclusion, however, is th at autopoiesis alone is not sufficient for a high degree of autonomy, although it is a step in the right direction. Furthermore it is shown that the entities exhibited in the original SCL model system are not autopoietic, whereas in the extended system they are. Together with SCL some other real and artificial chemical model systems are investigated with respect to the two concepts autonomy and autopoiesis. Furthermore, the utility of autopoiesis as a guiding principle for Artificial Life research is considered. The conclusion is that because autopoiesis suffers from too many ambiguities, other concepts in conjunction with some aspects taken from autopoiesis should be preferred. In particular, the concept of organisation developed by Fontana and Buss (1994) and the theory of collectively auto catalytic networks advanced by Kauffman (1993) seem to be better starting points when working towards a definition of life or concerning questions of the origin of life. Nonetheless, autopoiesis remains useful because some of its variants stress the feature of self-individuation of living beings which the previously mentioned two theories only do to a lesser extent

Artificial in its own right

Artificial Cells, , Artificial Ecologies, Artificial Intelligence, Bio-Inspired Hardware Systems, Computational Autopoiesis, Computational Biology, Computational Embryology, Computational Evolution, Morphogenesis, Cyborgization, Digital Evolution, Evolvable Hardware, Cyborgs, Mathematical Biology, Nanotechnology, Posthuman, Transhuman

Autonomy: a review and a reappraisal

In the field of artificial life there is no agreement on what defines ‘autonomy’. This makes it difficult to measure progress made towards understanding as well as engineering autonomous systems. Here, we review the diversity of approaches and categorize them by introducing a conceptual distinction between behavioral and constitutive autonomy. Differences in the autonomy of artificial and biological agents tend to be marginalized for the former and treated as absolute for the latter. We argue that with this distinction the apparent opposition can be resolved