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Adaptation and Self-organization in Life and Society

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Energy, Information, Feedback, Adaptation, and Self-organization

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering ((ISCA,volume 90))

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the role of adaptation and self-organization in life and society. The range of adaptation is very wide and includes, among others, animal physiology adaptation, immigrant adaptation, animal fertility adaptation, emotional adaptation, adaptation to stress, etc. Self-organization is an intrinsic process taking place in both biological and societal systems. In both cases, the rules of self-organization are determined on the basis of local information only, without information from a global level. Examples of self-organizing biological systems or patterns include a raiding column of army ants, a termite mound, pigmentation patterns on shells, etc. This chapter illustrates the presence of adaptation and self-organization through a number of representative examples, namely: adaptation of animals, adaptation of ecosystems, adaptation of immune systems, adaptation of socio-ecological and general societal systems, self-organization of knowledge management, and self-organization of technological and man-made systems (traffic lights control, WWW, multiagent robotic systems, bio-inspired systems). The above examples demonstrate clearly that adaptation and self-organization are fundamental processes for the survival of living organisms and societies, and the optimal operation of hard and soft man-made systems.

For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the human race.

Ellsworth Huntington

The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.

Dave E. Smalley

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  1. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Spyros G. Tzafestas

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Tzafestas, S.G. (2018). Adaptation and Self-organization in Life and Society. In: Energy, Information, Feedback, Adaptation, and Self-organization. Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering, vol 90. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66999-1_13

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