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, ...)

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Conservation of modularity!

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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