Ecosystems, organisms, and machines

Abstract

My theme is the concept, and the term, "self-organization". The history of this term, originally introduced by Immanuel Kant to characterize the unique properties of living organisms, is inseparable from the history of biology. Only in the second half of the 20th century does it begin to acquire the promise of a physicalistic understanding. This it does with two critical transformations in the meaning of the term: first, with the advent of cybernetics and its dissolution of the boundary between organisms and machines, and second, with the mathematical triumphs of nonlinear dynamical systems theory and accompanying claims to having dissolved the boundary between organisms and such physical phenomena as thunderstorms. How do these transformations affect the applicability of self-organization to the ecosystem - that provocatively hybrid entity that is part organism, part machine, and perhaps even part thunderstorm? © 2005 American Institute of Biological Sciences.