On Self-Organizing Systems and Their Environments - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 2

FIGURE 1.

d
d

S
t

s < 0,

otherwise we would not call it a self-organizing system, but just a mechan-
ical d S s /d t = 0, or a thermodynamical d S s /d t > 0 system. In order to accom-
plish this, the entropy in the remaining part of our finite universe, i.e. the
entropy in the environment must have increased

d
d

S
t

E > 0,

otherwise the Second Law of Thermodynamics is violated. If now some of
the processes which contributed to the decrease of entropy of the system
are irreversible we will find the entropy of the universe U 0 at a higher level
than before our system started to organize itself, hence the state of the
universe will be more disorganized than before d S U /d t > 0, in other words,
the activity of the system was a disorganizing one, and we may justly call
such a system a “disorganizing system.”
However, it may be argued that it is unfair to the system to make it
responsible for changes in the whole universe and that this apparent incon-
sistency came about by not only paying attention to the system proper but
also including into the consideration the environment of the system. By
drawing too large an adiabatic envelope one may include processes not
at all relevant to this argument. All right then, let us have the adiabatic
envelope coincide with the closed surface which previously separated the
system from its environment (Fig. 1 b ). This step will not only invalidate the
above argument, but will also enable me to show that if one assumes that
this envelope contains the self-organizing system proper, this system turns
out to be not only just a disorganizing system but even a self-disorganizing
system.