What is Self-Organisation?
🌀 Self-organization and autopoiesis
Self-organization is the hidden order behind chaos: it reflects how life and structure can arise without external control. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela used it to ground their theory of autopoiesis. In the 1970s, Chilean biologists H. Maturana and F. Varela introduced the concept of autopoiesis: the ability of living systems to produce and maintain themselves. At the heart of this idea lies self-organization, a process where order spontaneously arises in a disordered system.
Self-organization happens when patterns and order appear in a system on their own, guided by the system’s inner workings (internal processes) and the external energy it receives. This is called a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system, meaning it can stay organized and stable even though energy is constantly moving through it.
Analogies
🐟 School of Fish Analogy
Imagine a huge school of fish in the ocean:
- Each fish follows simple rules: stay close to neighbors, don’t bump into them, and move in the same direction.
- No single fish is the leader, yet together they form beautiful swirling patterns that look perfectly organized.
- This is self-organization: order appears naturally from local interactions and energy (the fish swimming).
🏫 Busy Classroom Analogy
Think of a university classroom during group work:
- Students start talking, moving desks, and forming groups
- No teacher tells them exactly how to sit or who to pair with, but patterns emerge: clusters of students working together, some moving around, others staying put.
- The classroom looks chaotic at first, but it *settles into a stable structure* where learning happens.
- That’s like a *non-equilibrium system*: energy (students’ activity) keeps flowing, but the overall organization remains stable.
💡 Definition and core ideas
- Definition: Self-organization is 'A dynamic and adaptive process in which systems acquire and maintain structure by themselves, without external control.'
- Key point: Certain structures can arise in a chaotic system without external interference. This means that no divine intervention (“Deus ex machina”) is required. Instead, natural laws and interactions between parts create order.
- Emergence: It is an emergent phenomenon. The system gains new properties that are not present in its parts.
- Human role: No one deliberately structures the system. However, people can create conditions that allow self-organization to occur.
🔬 How Does It Work?
Self-organization is an emergent phenomenon: the whole system gains new properties that its individual parts do not have.
Examples:
Quantum & Atomic Level: Atoms form molecules, molecules form cells.
Physical Systems: Radiation of light or sound can create patterns.
Biological Systems: Cells replicate and organize into tissues.
Human Systems: People spontaneously form groups to solve problems.
Chronological Cause and Effect
From molecules → self-organizing cells → living systems:
1. Prebiotic chemistry (~4.1–3.8 Ga):
- Cause: Energy sources (sunlight, geothermal heat), water, and simple molecules.
- Effect: Formation of amino acids, lipids, and nucleotides.
2. Spontaneous structures (~3.8–3.7 Ga):
- Cause: Lipids in water; cycles of heating/cooling; mineral surfaces.
- Effect: Micelles/vesicles (membrane bubbles), short RNA-like strands.
3. Autocatalysis and replication (~3.7–3.6 Ga):
- Cause: Chemical networks that speed up their own reactions.
- Effect: Self-copying polymers and metabolic-like cycles.
4. Compartmentalization (~3.6–3.5 Ga):
- Cause: Vesicles trap replicators and reactions.
- Effect: Protocells that maintain and rebuild their parts.
5. Autopoiesis and evolution (~≥3.5 Ga):
- Cause: Variation, heredity, and selection inside compartments.
- Effect: Cells that produce themselves and adapt over time.
In geology, astronomy, and evolutionary biology, 'Ga' stands for giga-annum, which literally means 'billion years ago.'
📊 Examples in Nature and Science
Granular sorting
'Brazil nut effect':
Observation: In a shaken box or muesli, large nuts rise while small grains sink.
Mechanism: Gravity plus vibration causes convection and percolation. Order emerges from local motions.
Cymatics and Chladni patterns
Observation: Sand on a vibrating plate forms crisp geometric figures.
Mechanism: Sound waves create nodes and antinodes; grains gather where motion is minimal.
Note: Chladni (18th–19th c.) showed the patterns; Hans Jenny (20th c.) popularized 'cymatics.'
Image A: Mathematical exhibit to illustrate Chladni figures, available on the collection of Matemateca IME-USP.
By Matemateca / Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton.
Light and sound organizing matter
Observation: Radiation can align particles and trigger pattern formation.
Mechanism: Energy flows drive systems away from equilibrium, enabling order.
Astronomical order
Observation:
a) Jupiter’s moons show orbital resonances: these moons orbit the planet in a self-organizing, harmonious relationship.
Image B: Some lunar trajectories of Jupiter (NASA, public domain).
b) Saturn’s north pole hosts a hexagonal jet: The atmospheric flows create a continuous six-sided storm at the north pole. This way, Saturn’s north pole has a continuous hexagonal vortex (the Saturn hexagon).
Image C: Saturn’s hexagon (NASA, public domain).
c) Earth’s orbit is stable: it's orbits around the sun is also a result of self-organization, as are the characteristic curlicues in the clouds when viewed from the moon.
d) In general, planetary orbits have a gravitational balance that leads to stable, harmonious motion of moons and planets.
Mechanism: Gravity and fluid dynamics yield self-maintained structures without an external designer.
Cellular Automata
Self-organization also occurs in cellular automata;. These are theoretical mathematical models, used, for example, to explain biological phenomena. With these formulas humans can calculate which repetitions of patterns will occur in practice. The result may be: predictable repeating biological-like patterns.
Self-organization in Starling murmurations
🐦 Real-World Wonder
Think of a flock of starlings swirling in the sky. Each bird follows simple rules: keep distance, match speed, avoid predators. Yet together, they create breathtaking patterns that no single bird controls.
This is self-organization in action: simple parts, complex whole.
Image D: Starling murmurations: huge flocks of birds move as one organism.
Image E: Starling murmurations have local rules of flight that cause huge flocks to move as one organism.
Self-organization at the base of Autopoiesis
| Concept | What it describes | Key feature | Example |
| Self-organization | How order arises from interactions. | Emergent order. | Chladni patterns; flocking of birds, fish. |
| Autopoiesis | How living systems produce themselves. | Operational closure. | Bacterial cell maintaining its membrane. |
Table A: Comparison between Self-organization and Autopoiesis.
🎶 Mathematical Beauty
Math patterns and caution
Self-organization often follows mathematical rules, but be cautious:
- Helpful guides: Harmonics (standing waves), resonances (orbital ratios), fractals (branching), and nonlinear dynamics (feedback).
- The Harmonic Series in music.
- Golden ratio: Appears in some growth patterns, but not a universal law.
- Gödel’s work: Concerns logical structures in mathematics, and limits of formal systems; it is not a direct generator of natural patterns.
- Takeaway: Use math to model self-organization, but avoid overgeneralizing.
These patterns remind us that nature is not random: it is structured by hidden laws.
Real-world applications
- Biology: Understanding how cells maintain membranes and metabolism.
- Physics: Designing materials that self-assemble.
- Ecology: Modeling how species form stable communities.
- Computing: Cellular automata and local rules can simulate growth and pattern formation.
🌍 Why It Matters
- Origin of Life: Many scientists argue that life itself began through self-organization of molecules.
- Respect for Nature: Understanding this process shows how fragile yet powerful life is.
- Applications: From designing AI (cellular automata) to predicting weather systems, self-organization helps us model complexity.
✅ Summary
Self-organization is order from local interactions. Autopoiesis is living order that maintains itself. Together, they explain how life can emerge and persist without external control.
Recap:
- Self-organization = order from chaos, without external control.
- It is the foundation of autopoiesis (life’s self-production).
- Examples of self-organization range from atoms and cells to planets and galaxies.
- It inspires us to see nature’s creativity and respect its laws.
👏 Thank you for reading carefully; you just explored how nature builds itself.
Question to ponder:
If simple local rules can create global order, which rules might underlie the emergence of consciousness in neural networks?
References
- Varela, F., Maturana, H., & Uribe, R. (1974). Autopoiesis: The Organization of Living Systems. BioSystems.
- Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. D. Reidel Publishing.
- Ball, P. (2012). Shapes: Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Oxford University Press.
- Cross, M. C., & Hohenberg, P. C. (1993). Pattern Formation Outside of Equilibrium. Reviews of Modern Physics.
- Wolfram, S. (2002). A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media.
- Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis_and_Cognition.
- Starling murmuration: birds swarming and self-organisation.
https://www.roeselienraimond.com/starling-murmuration/.