Sistemics, self-organization and information

• Grant number: 10/52627-9
• Support type: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• Duration: May 01, 2011 - April 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Itala Maria Loffredo D'Ottaviano
• Grantee: Itala Maria Loffredo D'Ottaviano
• Home Institution: Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência (CLE). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Co-Principal Investigators: Alfredo Pereira Junior ; Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez ; Mariana Claudia Broens
• Associated grant(s): 14/22560-0 - Mr. Jérôme Havenel academic sojourn as visiting scholar regarding interconnected research groups and academic projects on Peirce and cont. (UNESP/ASSIS); cognitive study (UNESP Marília); Center for Pragmatism Study, Intern. Study on Peirce (PUC SP); auto-organization (UNICAMP), AV.EXT; 13/06182-3 - Thirteenth annual gathering in Biosemiotics, AR.EXT; 12/16917-8 - Information and action in complex systems, AV.EXT
• Associated scholarship(s): 16/06172-6 - Epistemological and social basis of a scientific society, BE.PQ; 14/03157-0 - Contributions of self-organization and complex system theory to information ethics, BP.DR; 13/19376-0 - Semiotics as the logic for a pragmatic theory of communication, BE.PQ; + associated scholarships 11/16344-5 - Necessary structures for knowledge and LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL structures: a study in genetic EPISTEMOLGY, BP.MS; 11/15591-9 - Information and Abduction in the Process of Scientific Discovery, BP.MS; 11/15601-4 - The "informational turn in philosophy", BP.MS; 11/16719-9 - Virtual reality in psychomotor intervention of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: self-organization and affordances, BP.MS - associated scholarships

Abstract

The central problem to be investigated in this Thematic Project is the epistemological status of self-organizing processes in complex systems. The project's research it will be methodologically divided into the following sub-problems: What is the epistemological status of the processes of self-organization supposedly present in certain complex systems, especially in informational and cognitive systems? What is the role of such processes in the constitutive dynamics of the habits present in day-to-day action and common knowledge? What are the difficulties faced in the modeling of self-organizing processes, with regard to the incompleteness of the formalisms used to describe the spontaneity observed in the dynamics of certain classes of complex systems? We argue that a general definition of the concept of self-organization and an outline of a theory of self-organization, based on systems theory and the theory of information, can contribute to the epistemological analysis of the dynamics of certain classes of complex systems. The research will be conducted in an interdisciplinary environment involving the areas of philosophy, logic, mathematics, physics, biology, sociology and engineering. The project consists of three subprojects, which aim to contribute to (i) the development of a theory of self-organization, (ii) the investigation of the role of information and processes of self-organization in the acquisition of common knowledge, (iii) the development of theoretical concepts for the elaboration of models for processes of self-organization in certain types of dynamic and complex systems. The Project will also involve the creation of the "Self-Organization Observatory", conceived as a virtual space that makes available on the internet the activities and results of the research group. (AU)