#self_organization

How #cells in #plant #leaves organize themselves to ensure optimal area for #photosynthesis.

#RNA #signalllng #self_organization #genomics

#Life as the ultimate form of #self_organization is usually thought of as ***resisting*** the *Second Law* of thermodynamics that says all #order eventually dissipates over time into a state of thermal equilibrium and enduring uniformity (disorder).

An alternative explanation says that organization (order) spontaneously emerges in dissipative structures ***because*** of the Second Law of Thermodynamics because ordered structures are much better at dissipating energy (thus more rapidly increasing the #entropy) than disordered ones.

The explanation (for which I now can't find the proper reference) exemplified this with whirlpools and how they spontaneously emerge because the water molecules in them don't bump into each other as much so the flow through the drain (transition to an equilibrium state) is faster when they are streamlined (organized) into a vortex.

Same source:

>Self-organizing systems are characterized by their intrinsic, nonlinear operators, (i.e., the properties of their constituent elements, macromolecules, spores of the slime mold, bees, etc.), which generate macroscopically (meta-) stable patterns maintained by the perpetual flux of their constituents. A special case of #self_organization is #autopoiesis. It is that organization which is its own Eigen-state: *the outcome of the productive interactions of the components of the system are those very components*. It is the organization of the #living, and, at the same time, the organization of #autonomy.