Information Technology Reference
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building other pillars in the same area. This pattern of competition is recognised as
negative feedback.
Positive feedback coupled with negative feedback provides a powerful mechanism for
creating and balancing structures and patterns in many physical and biological systems.
Kauffman (1995) points out that feedback and its consequences also apply to organisations
- driven by simple behavioural rules, actions and activities. Examples include attraction,
aggregation, self-enhancement, clustering and amplification, and they lead to the pro-
cesses of self-organisation within an organisational system.
Information, communication and cooperation
Another characteristic of self-organisation is the reliance of organisational processes on
multiple interaction and passing of information among individuals. In fact, as Fuchs
(2003) points out, '… all self-organising systems are information-generating systems'
and thus, '… information is a relationship that exists as a relationship between specific
organisational units of matter'. Systems use communication to process meaning and
perform internal and external operations, but it appears that it is the search for inform-
ation that triggers the emergence of internal order.
Kauffman (1993; 1995) asserts that the patterns of communication of information in
biological systems are characterised by cues and signals. It is the same for human systems.
As Mingers (1997) describes it, the communication of information does not necessarily
have to be characterised by language; symbolic interaction via cues or signs alone can
generate the information transfer between individuals in a system.
Vanderstraeten (2000) asserts that the identity of information is established in the com-
munication process. But what is the purpose of information? Based on systems theory
(e.g. Checkland, 1981) information can be considered as the objective relationship between
the elements inside the system's structure and the environment of the system. This ba-
sically means that the purpose of information is to establish the relationship of reflection
between a system and its environment. This interaction causes structural changes, which
result in order, to emerge in the system. It is important to highlight that a system's en-
vironment also refers to the surrounding self-organised systems - or neighbours - from
which information can be gathered.
Camazine, et al. (2001) assert that, in a good number of the cases, the most important
information comes directly from an individual's closest neighbours. So, it could be argued
that information is a result of a cooperative process with an individual's neighbours,
from which coordination emerges. Fuchs (2003) points out that a detailed study of nature
shows that cooperation within animal species and biological organisms is a main aspect
of self-organisation. Human beings differ from animals in various ways but cooperation
is, of course, also necessary for the existence of social systems. Even competitive situations
that create negative feedback (e.g. competition among termites when building pillars)
can still be considered cooperative processes that generate information (i.e. termites'
interaction) and cause a new order to emerge (i.e. new pillar constructions).
Fuchs (2003) asserts that, in a communication process, a portion of subjective, systemic
information (cognition) is conveyed; hence cognition becomes the third aspect of inform-
ation-generation in self-organising systems. He reiterates that '… information in self-
organising systems has cognitive (subjective), communicative (new subjective information
[= structures] emerges in systems due to interaction) and cooperative aspects (interaction
results in synergies that cause the emergence of new, objectified information in the
shared environment of the involved systems)'. These general aspects can be found in
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