Arbitrariness in Nature: Synergetics and Evolutionary Laws of Prohibition

Journal for General Philosophy of Science. 2000. Vol. 31. No. 1. P. 57–73.

Haken H., Knyazeva H.

The philosophical consequences of synergetics, the interdisciplinary theory of evolution and self-organization of complex systems, are being drawn in the paper. The idea of discreteness of evolutionary paths is in the focus of attention. Although the future is open, and there are many alternative evolutionary paths for complex systems, not any arbitrary (either conceivable or desirable) evolutionary path is feasible in a given system. There are discrete spectra of possible evolutionary paths which are determined exclusively by inner properties of the corresponding systems. Synergetics allows us to reveal general laws of self-organization and, therefore, certain limits of arbitrariness of nature in choosing possible paths of evolution as well as in constructing of a complex evolutionary whole. A comparative analysis between the modern synergetic notions and a few ideas of the Western philosophy (F. Nietzsche, N. Hartmann, M. Heidegger) and of the Eastern teachings (Taoism, Buddhism) is made.

Keywords: самоорганизация, синергетика, эволюция, нелинейность, nonlinearity, сложные системы, self-organization, synergetics, evolution, complex systems, структуры-аттракторы, pre-determination, soft management, structure-attractors, преддетерминация, мягкое управление