Self-Organizing Systems & Dissipative Structures

I found this great book in a used bookstore back in the summer of 03 and have been chewing away on a number of chapters, revisiting annualy. This marks my 4th visit (took one year off) to The Web of Life, by Fritjof Capra. It had a pretty cover; I couldn't help myself. So chew on this -- -

He summarizes three characteristics of "self-organizing systems" --as, "we can say that self-organization is the (1) spontaneous emergence of new structures and new forms of behavior in (2) open systems far from equilibrium (aka. those that have a constant flow of energy or matter going through them - like any living being), (3) characterized by internal feedback loops and described mathematically by nonlinear equations." He elaborates, "The striking emergence of new structures and new forms of behavior, which is a hallmark of self organization, occurs only when the system is far from equilibrium." I liken this to when I have WAY to much to do - and somehow, in all that chaos, I ramp up into a better more efficient mode of juggling and accomplishing. Or you could liken it to water flowing down a drain... once that drain system is overwhelmed by too much water, much greater pressure and movement... only then does the little trail of a super-organized and efficient whirlpool/vortex appear, enabling the water to move more quickly down the drain.

"thus natural selection may favor and sustain living systems "at the edge of chaos" because these may be best able to coordinate complex and flexible behavior, best able to adapt and evolve" (attributed to Stuart Kauffman, a evolutionary biologist in the 1940s, but related to Ilya Prigogine's interest in dissipative structures and the puzzle of how living organisms maintain stability and their life processes under conditions far from equilibrium).

now I need to go find some more approachable wisdom like the amazing Hawley finds in in the car ads in Martha Stewart Living.