Self-Organization of Complex Systems

Background

Let's look at previous studies, grouping them by the questions in this chapter.

Researches have shown that the human body and its subsystems are complex systems date back to the post-medieval period and associated with the names M. Servetus and W. Harvey.

The achievements of their followers made it possible to rely on reliable anatomical and physiological foundations when discussing a human as a complex system (Georgieva et al., 1981; Luria, 1985; Gegenfurtner, & Sharpe (Eds.), 1999; Ivanitskiy, 2008; Carter, 1998; 2014).

One of the founders of neurophysiology was Pavlov (1949) and Anokhin (1978). Modern brain research (including using MRI) has allowed us to go much further. In particular, a detailed map of the brain was compiled (Carter, 1998), correspondences between certain abilities and areas of the brain were found (Miller & Cohen, 2001; Fuster, 2003), the state of neural networks for various types of brain activity was recorded Human Brain Project (Human Brain Project, n/d,), brain rhythms were determined for various states of wakefulness and sleep (Zidermane, 1988; Libet, 2004), and data on brain physiology were substantially replenished.

Numerous works have been devoted to the search for the relationship of consciousness, mind, emotions with various areas of the brain and states of its activity (Edelman, 1989; Pribram, 1991; Abbott, Sejnowski, (Eds.), 1999; Damasio, 1999; Beauregard, (Ed.), 2003; Chalupa, & Werner, (Eds.), 2004; Hameroff, 2006; Harris, & Jenkin, M. (Eds.) 2007; Monserrat, 2001; 2007).

These results provide enough material to substantiate the idea of a human in general and his brain, in particular, as complex open systems.

The idea of the unity of man and the Universe has philosophical and mathematical components.

The origins of this doctrine are in ancient times. Let’s remember the myths of Purusha or Pan-gu, from whose bodies the Universe was created; very developed representations of Taoism and, especially, Sankhya (Radhakrishnan, 1956-1957), describing a complex picture of the structures of consciousness and the Universe, their mutual connections and synchronizations. Ancient natural philosophy shows that such ideas were truly global. Antiquity includes the concept of the unity of microcosm and macrocosm; ideas about the origin of all things from the primary elements of water (Thales) and fire (Heraclitus), Protagoras thesis about man, as the measure of all things.

Modern researchers sometimes return to these ideas, of course, already at the level of modern knowledge. For example, M. Todeschini’s (Todeschini, 1949) theory of the role of the fluid in explaining the motion of celestial bodies, gravity, manifestations of life and nervous activity is consistent with Thales’s ideas, the Big Bang theory is consistent with Heraclitus’s point of view, and the anthropic principle of cosmology (Kuzhekina, Voronina & Lukoyanova, 2016) correlates with Protagoras thesis. Some scientists find a similarity between quantum physics and Taoism (Capra, 1999) or Confucian philosophy (Chung, 2014)¹.

The founder of the theory of complex systems – a kind of reincarnation of ancient natural philosophy of philosophy – was a biologist L. von Bertalanfi (Bertalanffy, 1950).

The development of mathematical methods for modeling complex systems is associated with the names of M. Mesarovich, and Y. Takahara (Mesarovic, Mano & Takahara, 1973; Mesarovic, Takahara, 1978). Note, that the classical mathematical paradigm, largely based on the logic of Aristotle, was used.