CYBERNETICS & HUMAN KNOWING

A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics & Cyber-Semiotics

Volume 5, No.2 1998

Contents:


Volume 5 No. 2, 1998

 Søren Brier: Foreword Full text

Peter Bøgh Andersen: WWW as self-organizing system Abstract

Joy Murray: Information, Communication and Technology: What can second order cybernetics contribute to the literacy debate Abstract

Erminia Vaccari: Knowledge as Modelling Abstract

Louis H. Kauffman: Virtual Logic - Self Reference and The Calculus of Indications Abstract

Ranulph Glanville: A (Cybernetic) Musing: The Gestation of Second Order Cybernetics, 1968-1975 - A Personal Account Full text

 

WWW as self-organizing system

By Peter Bøgh Andersen

Abstract:

This paper contains a short introduction to the World Wide Web (WWW) and suggests a number of concepts for analyzing it. The concepts are mainly borrowed from theories of self-organizing complex systems. It is tentatively suggested that it may be useful to define a new class of (semi)autopoietic sys-tems, namely technical autopoietic systems that are different from, but on the same level, as other types of autopoietic systems, such as biological, psychic and social systems. The main motivation for this claim is that WWW exhibits some, but not all, features of systems that are normally called autopoietic. These features include self-reference, recursion, lack of central controlling agency, integration of use and evolution, dynamics, and a tendency towards autonomous processes.