A classic and somehow obsolete method to investigate complex systems relies upon dualities such as closed vs. open systems.
In the realm or information, this creates a logical paradox:
A system informationally closed - a system that does not exchange information outside of its boundaries- is a 'black box' without input or output (Landry, Banville, 1997).
The experience of such a system becomes impossible: for all outside observers, such a system does not exist. The only system that can be described as closed is the one that hosts all and everything, namely the Universe. Only the Universe is supposed to host all observers and objects observed, all the information.
- An system informationally open is indistinguishable from its informational environment, for it does not have any. The subjective experience of such a system becomes impossible. For all observers, such a system does not exist. The only system that can be open is the one that hosts all and everything, namely the Universe. Only the Universe hosts all observers and objects observed, all the information.
A system functioning within the Universe has therefore to be open and closed: the openness allows the perception, and adaptation to environmental changes, as well as the production of environmental changes, and the closeness allows the preservation of its organization and identity (Morin, 1977).
The Autopoietic Theory introduced by Maturana, Varela, and Uribe, in 1970, considers living systems as being organizationally closed, while being open to exchanges across their boundaries. Surrounding systems can influence changes in the systems organization through structural coupling but nevertheless cannot fully determine them.
It seems suddenly less paradoxical to state that a system as a whole can tend towards a state of openness or can tend towards a state of closeness without ever being completely one or the other
I propose that to the two possible states of a system correspond two phases, which alternate:
- an exclusive phase (during which the system tends towards closeness), and
- an inclusive phase (during which the system tends towards openness).
I propose that the maximal duration of the phases corresponds to:
- the maximal amount of change the system can be confronted with without risking a failure of its informational homeostasis (sensoristasis) in the case of the inclusive phase, ('dilution' of its organization, indistinguishability with the surrounding systems' organization as expressed for example in schizophrenia, see Reitman, 1951*).
- and to the minimal amount of change the system can be confronted with without risking a failure of its informational homeostasis (sensoristasis) during the exclusive phase (informational isolation from surrounding systems).
The alternation pattern of the phases is driven by the capacity of the system to select (or selectivity) which state is suited to satisfy the system's perennity through homeostatic adjustments.
Any system, due to its ontogenetic** and its phylogenetic plasticity may be attuned to operate more efficiently during one phase or the other and therefore seeks to maintain itself rather in one of the two states.
I propose that this scheme is of fractal nature:
The organization of the relations in between the components (and thereby the behavior of the components) is invariant over scale, symmetrical from one dimension to the next. The limit being set by the physical property of the system considered.
Of course shortcuts can lead to nowhere and sometimes to dead ends but it would be interesting to look at the following ideas through the lens of the proposed scheme:
- Jungian typology proposes a dichotomy in between introverts and extroverts.
- Conformer- regulator paradigm in biology: "When an animal is confronted with changes in its environment, it normally shows one of the three categories of response: avoidance, conformity or regulation". (…) "Avoiders have some mechanism for getting away from an environmental problem either in space (…) large scale migration, or in time (…) torpor. The conformer undergoes changes of internal state similar to the changes of states imposed externally. Regulators maintain some or all of the components of their internal environment close to the original or 'normal' level." . It is important to emphasize that organisms are not entirely avoiders, conformers or regulators but exhibit those three strategies in an adaptive manner. (Wilmer et al. 1999, p13).
- Some Theories of Developmental Psychology gravitate around the notion of a rhythmic oscillatory development: the Wallonian "Loi d'alternance" presenting sequential phases of centrifugal orientation - inclusive -, allowing the construction and the maintenance of the subject as a unity distinguishable from the environment, and of centripetal orientation - exclusive - allowing the construction and the maintenance of sets of relations with that environment. Following Tran-Thong (1992 p.408), Freud (introjection/projection), Piaget (assimilation/ accommodation), and Gesell also propose ideas about such a dialectic giving birth to the next developmental stage.
- The long lasting opposition in between conservatism and liberalism guaranteeing social change through Hegelian dialectic mechanisms.
- Language shift and defensive purism.
The overall inclusiveness or exclusiveness of the upper system (in a hierarchical scheme) is an emergent characteristic determined by the non-linear interactions of the subsystems that compose it. The upper system has recursively the capacity to determine and induce linear interactions in between its subsystems by selecting which phase they shall enter and its duration.
Thanks
Italics in text added
* Remarquably Reitman shares the work of Louis Wain's cats paintings as his schizophrenia progressed. One is puzzled when noticing the extraction, the increased abstractions , the blurring of the boundaries and the symmetrization of the representation of the subject...
see: http://www.cerebromente.org.br/gallery/gall_leonardo/fig1-a.htm
** Ontogenetic plasticity (during the development of the individual) may be distinguished from adaptive plasticity (once the individual has reached maturity or adulthood). Nevertheless development is here understood as 'life-span development' encompassing maturation and the state of maturity. Therefore the distinction is not retained here.
References:
- Landry M., Banville C. Caractéristiques et Balises d'évaluation de la recherche systémique. Etude de sur l'évaluation des recherches en ingéniérie des organisations. Document de l'Atelier-Forum MCX-APC; @ http://www.mcxapc.org/docs/ateliers/landry.pdf
- Morin, E., (1977). La Méthode - La Nature de la Nature, Editions du Seuil
- Reitman F., (1951). Psychotic Art. NY: International Universities Press, Inc. .
- Tran Thong, (1992). Stades et concept de Stade dans le développement de l'enfant dans la psychologie contemporaine' 11eme tirage, Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin.
- Wilmer P., Stone G., and Johnston I.A., (1999). Environmental Physiology of Animals. Blackwell Science, 1999.
