%0 Journal Article %1 Haken2008 %A Haken, Hermann %D 2008 %J Scholarpedia %K Selbstorganisation %N 8 %P 1401 %T Self-organization %U http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Self-organization %V 3 %X Self-organization is the spontaneous often seemingly purposeful formation of spatial, temporal, spatio-temporal structures or functions in systems composed of few or many components. In physics, chemistry and biology self-organization occurs in open systems driven away from thermal equilibrium. The process of self-organization can be found in many other fields also, such as economy, sociology, medicine, technology. Many objects in our surrounding and daily life such as furniture, houses, cars, tv-sets, computers are man made. On the other hand, especially in the animate world, objects grow, acquire their form, and function without being created by humans. The animal kingdom abounds of examples. It is increasingly recognized that even the human brain may be considered as a self-organizing system as well as quite a number of manifestations of human activity, such as in economy and sociology. But processes of self-organization can be found also in the inanimate world: formation of cloud streets, planetary systems, galaxies etc. A fundamental question is: Are there general principles for self-organization? In the inanimate world a positive answer could be found for large classes of phenomena. In the animate world so far at least some insights could be gained. In biology (and perhaps other fields) there is a controversy: are there general principles or do we need special rules and mechanisms in each individual case?

@article{Haken2008, abstract = {Self-organization is the spontaneous often seemingly purposeful formation of spatial, temporal, spatio-temporal structures or functions in systems composed of few or many components. In physics, chemistry and biology self-organization occurs in open systems driven away from thermal equilibrium. The process of self-organization can be found in many other fields also, such as economy, sociology, medicine, technology. Many objects in our surrounding and daily life such as furniture, houses, cars, tv-sets, computers are man made. On the other hand, especially in the animate world, objects grow, acquire their form, and function without being created by humans. The animal kingdom abounds of examples. It is increasingly recognized that even the human brain may be considered as a self-organizing system as well as quite a number of manifestations of human activity, such as in economy and sociology. But processes of self-organization can be found also in the inanimate world: formation of cloud streets, planetary systems, galaxies etc. A fundamental question is: Are there general principles for self-organization? In the inanimate world a positive answer could be found for large classes of phenomena. In the animate world so far at least some insights could be gained. In biology (and perhaps other fields) there is a controversy: are there general principles or do we need special rules and mechanisms in each individual case?}, added-at = {2008-09-20T18:45:12.000+0200}, author = {Haken, Hermann}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/23e0b1fe65accd3576cdee8cbd5bb2433/mathias}, interhash = {8371a68042c8a40b431c2a27c550f7d8}, intrahash = {3e0b1fe65accd3576cdee8cbd5bb2433}, journal = {Scholarpedia}, keywords = {Selbstorganisation}, number = 8, pages = 1401, timestamp = {2008-11-24T19:09:57.000+0100}, title = {Self-organization}, url = {http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Self-organization}, volume = 3, year = 2008 }