Why was self-organization so poorly represented in STS?

STS directly on self-organization was rare Evelyn Fox Keller: slime molds Sherry Turkle on “bottom-up” programming styles Isabelle Stengers “Influence” could be implied for some: Network theory on Latour, Deleuze, etc. Autopoiesis on Barad, Haraway, etc. Open source on Kelty DIY on “critical making” (Ratto, DiSalvo, etc.)

“Influence” could be implied for some: Network theory on Latour, Deleuze, etc. However it is increasingly important because our society is moving in that direction: Open source on Kelty DIY on “critical making” (Ratto, DiSalvo, etc.) And because “new materialism” is forcing closer encounters with nature: Autopoiesis, simpoiesis etc. in Barad, Haraway, etc.; Gaia in Latour, etc.

Two sides of STS Political (“low church”) 1960s: biased science critique, biased technology critique: Mumford, Carlson, Commoner, etc s: Critique of science-as-usual: Science itself as authoritarian power (e.g. Merchant, Keller) s 1990s-2000 Cultural studies: Sandra Harding's "strong objectivity" Haraway, Barad, etc present Re-emergence of interest in alternative practice (doing, making), collaboration with scientists (upstreaming); multispecies ethnography, etc. Apolitical (“high church”) Fleck Kuhn (paradigms) Relativist critique of science (Feyerabend, Collins) Constructivist (Knorr-Cetina, Bloor, Scott, ). Bloor Latour; ANT. New Materialisms

STS Political (“low church”) arguments against self- organization studies 1.When applied to humans, this is nothing but neoliberalism 2.When applied to non-humans, it is science projecting neoliberalism into nature 3.We need to hold corporations accountable; self-org promotes a lack of responsibility 4.Social problems are caused by lack of regulation (unregulated science, technology development, etc.). Self- organization is against regulation, Apolitical (“high church”) arguments against self- organization studies 1.It is our job to reveal the hidden ways that society constructs science. Since self-org is discovered by science, we cannot possible use it as an explanation or discovery ourselves. Which means I have an excuse for doing an introduction to self-organization in an STS grad seminar

What isn’t self- organization? Top-down: someone in charge organizes stuff Military—general, commander Corporation—CEO Catholic church—Pope Suburban layout—architect Automotive design—designer Computer chip--engineer Fine art—artist Orchestra-conductor What is self- organization? Bottom-up: the stuff organizes itself: Biological evolution Flocks and swarms: bees, birds, whales, wolves, etc. Crowdsourcing: WWW, Wikipedia, Open Source, etc. Subsumption architecture (robotics), Molecular self-assembly (nano),

Why do dictatorships love linear order?

Why do democracies accept disorder?

What about in-between? top-down bottom-up This spectrum exists for many other systems: eg human nervous system combines centralization (brain vs peripheral ns) with self-organization (neural nets) Note that thinking about social structures can help us think about natural structures

How disorganized can self-organization be? Toss a handful of particles in the air: “self-organized” but without order. Trival case Sand waves from wind action: a quasi-ordered emergent pattern. Significant case. Self-organization tends to be a more salient description when describing systems between total order and total disorder Salt crystal forms from evaporating water. Completely ordered. Trivial case.

Top-down tools Bottom-up tools ToolLinearNon-linear Spatial analysisEuclidean geometryFractal geometry DynamicsNewtonian mechanicsChaos theory Collective behaviorStatisticsComplexity theory

Top-down tools Bottom-up tools ToolLinearNon-linear CommunicationShannon-weaver (classical information theory) Network theory (scale-free topologies) OptimizationOperations research (linear programming etc.) Fitness landscape, genetic algorithms Artificial IntelligenceGOFAI (Expert systems, high level symbol manipulation) Neuromimetics, subsumption architecture, etc.

Most theories of self-organizing systems fall under the rubric of “Complexity Theory.” But what is the distinction between Complexity Theory and Theorizing Things that are Complicated? Which is more complex? A gas made of 15 million molecules randomly crashing about? OR A school made of 15 fish gracefully swirling though water?

Emergence is global behavior of a system resulting from collective interactions of loosely coupled components. Temperature: an emergent property of swarms of molecules. But temperature is based on the average velocity of molecules (E=3kT/2). Linear relation, you can use statistics. Flocking: an emergent property of swarms of animals (birds, ants, fish, etc.). Flock movements are not well characterized by averages or statistics. They are nonlinear, adaptive, anticipative, have memory. They have synergy: the whole is greater than the parts. “Complicated” just means there is so much going on we can’t keep track of it Complexity: synergistic emergent behavior; often adaptive (hence “complex adaptive systems”).

But we can go even deeper At the heart of self-organization lies recursion Recursion is also at the heart of many social ideals: democracy, freedom, egalitarianism. Therefore it should be no surprise that some of the founders of self-organization in science were also activists for self-organization in society.