Behavior Organization Substance
Three Gestalts of General Systems
Theory
Vincenzo De Florio MOSAIC research group
University of Antwerp & iMinds
Driving Technology’s Future…
• …by standing on the shoulders of Giants!
• Those Giants are the foundation we stand on
• But they also “direct research towards the
gaps which they reveal”
• Here: reflections on how much we still owe to
three such Giants
General systems theory
• The study of the concept and principles of
systems in general – without referring to a
specific discipline
• Systems (natural or otherwise) are classified
according to general criteria
• Anatomical (structural, architectural);
physiological (organizational); behavioral traits
= Gestalts
Theories and Gestalts
• The quality of a theory depends on the quality
of its “axioms”!
• This presentation: three theories based on
three gestalts
– Behavioral classification: Aristotle, Wiener
– Organizational classification: Leibniz,
Wiener, Boulding
– “Substance”: Aristotle, Leibniz
1) Behavior
• Wiener et al.: “behavioristic study of
natural events”
• Classification based on “the change produced
in the surroundings by an object”
• Structural / architectural / organizational traits
are not part of the model
– “…omit the specific structure and the intrinsic
organization…”
1) Behavior (cont.’ed)
• Classes: Passive, Random, Purposeful;
Teleologic (reactive), Predictive (proactive)
cybernetics
In nuce, autonomic systems! MAPE loops!
• What next? Auto-predictive behaviors!
Auto-resilience!
– Individual and social behaviors
– System-env fit; strategy-env fit
– More info: Session V.2 tomorrow at 2pm
2) Organization
• K. Boulding, Skeleton of Science
• Organizational characteristics of
natural and artificial systems
– An “arrangement of levels of theoretical discourse”
based on organization, openness…
Social “*”: organizations, systems, behaviors…
• What next? Bio-inspired social organizations!
3) Leibniz’s Substance
• Leibnitian system: very complex and
fragmented corpus of ideas
• Starting points:
– Aristotelian substance: “subject that
underwent change”
– Aristotelian entelechies: substances that
“bring about their own changes from one
state to another”
BEHAVIOR!
ACTIVE BEHAVIOR!
Substance is a network
• Substance: fully interconne-
cted network of all-open
entelechies
– “Harmony”
• A social organization
[ Boulding!] with a controlling substance
(mind) representing “the whole”
Social constructivism; ANT
Substance is a KW unit
• Every possible
substance network
becomes a new
UNIT of KNOWLEDGE
Table of instructions!
Subroutines! Boxes in flowcharts!
Components in CbSE!
Substance is a KW module
• A new “Knowledge Digit”,
or pictogram,
• A template that can
be reused into a
Greater Module
Fractal organization!
A hierarchy of WHOLEs emerges
– each GREATER than the SUM
of its PARTS
• Characteristica
Universalis:
language to repre-
sent KW modules
• Calculus
Ratiocinator:
tool to reason
automatically about
KW modules
Substance is … code!
• Substance is a code!
• Instance of a substance: phenotypical code
produced by a genotypical code
• Life is execution of codes!
There is no such thing as a physical life!
• Concepts are “real”, matter is fake
• What is the world then?
Everything is code!
World is a substance
• World: the network of all networks
• A finite resource! The world has limited
“receptivity”, limited “capacity”
• Purpose: maximize quantity and quality
• “Like in certain games where all spaces on the board
are to be filled according to certain rules […] as
fittingly as possible […] In short it is just like tiles that
are arranged so that as many as possible occupy a
given area”
Cellular automata!
Artificial Life! Virtual Reality!
Multi-agent Systems!
Three selection criteria • A purposeful-behaviored system controls
the world! (A demiurge? A Middle-Ware?)
• Purpose: select the best substance
ecosystem for the current world.
• Best = f (I, C, E)
–Intrinsic quality
–Compossibility
–Extrinsic quality
Session V.2
tomorrow at 2pm
Intrinsic quality
• Certain recombinations make more sense
A greater purpose emerges from the parts
• The greater the emergence, the stronger the
“demand for existence” (I)
• A classification emerges: a GST!
– Purposeful, openness, awareness, …
→ Elements of Wiener’s and Boulding’s!
Compossibility
• Aim: ecosystems of substances in equilibrium!
• Not all combinations are possible. Some
lead to contradictions or clash with other
substances
selection criterion C
• For instance: Ultimate Predator clashes with
other substances and leads to an empty world
– Lotka-Volterra
– Man ??
Extrinsic quality
• Properties that are not “systemic” or intrinsic
• Call for a match with external conditions
– Criterion E: System-environment fit!
( Session V.2 tomorrow at 2pm)
• Leibniz: “unpacking” ( unknowns facts(t) )
Unmoved Mover is Substance
• A Characteristica
Universalis script
could describe “God”
• Ultimate ordinateur,
ultimate craftsman,
able to achieve
the best with the
minimal swarf.
Philosophy or science?
FRACTAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 001122222222
A hierarchy of WHOLEs emerges
– each GREATER than the SUM
of its PARTS
Phenotype
Genotype
Philosophy and science!
• FSO: networks of “concepts” embedding other
concepts
• Each FSO is a KW unit represented by an
unique symbol, a pictogram
• Every FSO is a KW module: a KW “template”
representing, e.g., a social response
• FSO is genotypic code that produces
self-similar phenotypic “products”
(3D pics, audio, social behavior, ...)
23
012222222 001122222222
Conservation of modularity!
24
Conservation of modularity!
Conclusions • Whose shoulders are we standing on??
• Have we reached the shoulders yet??
• “A far greater secret lies hidden in our
understanding, of which these are but the
shadows”
• Conjecture: conservation of modularity!
The Reason why evolution “evolves”, and why
nature “naturally” develops ever more complex
substances.
FSO videoclips
Antifragility
Autoresilience
Fractal Social
Organizations
Resilience
Quality
Recommended
