Paper in “Sociology of Japanese culture and society“ for Prof.

Sakurai Hiroshi
Aesthetics of Self-Organization and Emergence
Avner Peled
(Waseda student ID: 97105077-1)

The concepts of self-organization and emergence are re-occurring concepts in many

different fields and sciences. They occur in physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer
science, sociology, philosophy, linguistics and more. Perhaps the reason they are so abundant is that
they represents a point of view on nature itself. The fact that there is no central authority in nature
(at least in an atheistic view), that there is no external source of knowledge or plan to how
everything should work, and yet , when the individual microscopic parts are formed together they
emerge a new macroscopic structure, means that the nature is self-organizing. The concept of self-
organization was conceived both in western and eastern philosophy. In Immanuel Kant's Critique of
Judgment1 he uses self organization to distinguish between a living organism who has no external
planner and a machine who does. Aristotle defines emergence in his book of metaphysics2 as the
whole being more than the sum of his parts. In Buddhism, the 'Engi' law of dependent origination
and a chain of causation hints of a self-organizing nature3. The Buddhist term “skandhas” describes
the emergence of the self from the five forms – body, feelings, perceptions, impulses and
consciousness.
It seems that in addition to their role in nature and science, the concepts of self-organization
and emergence play a key role in aesthetics. A work of art which seems to emerge something new
out of its individual parts is perceived as beautiful. But first, we should ask: In what way does self-
organization appear with emergence? It seems the relation between self-organization and emergence
can be seen from 2 different perspectives:
1. Continuous self-organization over time emerges a macroscopic process – In this
kind of relation, the emerging property is more of a process than a phenomena. For
example, the forming of a geometric terrain by a microscopic change of the surface.
Perhaps the biggest example of such a relation in nature is evolution. Evolution is a
macroscopic process of change which occurs only due to its microscopic parts. There
is no master planner that managed to develop life from a single cell entity into a
complex human being. It was all self organized using the inter-dependent principles
of genetic heredity and survival of the fittest. Self organizing evolution can be

1 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, Translated by James Creed Meredith, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007 (original publication date 1952), Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 9780192806178
2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book H 1045a 8-10:
3 Course lecture 10/29 Ⅱ-1. Philosophy of Becoming
 applied to other fields such as computer learning algorithms, mathematics and other
mechanisms within an organism. It can also be applied to the evolution of society
itself.
2. Immediate emergence and self-organization - In this type of relation, the
emerging quality always appears along with the self-organization and its change over
time is less important. For example, the emergent property of the solidness of wood
as a result of interactions between molecules. A popular example is also the
emerging conscious experience as a result of the self-organization of neurons.
Another example which can be taken from nature and also from computer artificial
intelligence, is the behavior of a swarm. The swarm is composed of many particles
such as birds, bees or computer bots. Each particle has its own behavior but together
they emerge a new behavior of the entire swarm.
Although this two perspectives seem to portray different kinds of emergence, they are
essentially the same thing. The only difference is how we perceive the emergence logically. In
evolution, or the forming of a terrain, we see the self-organizing process over time - but we can
choose to pause at any minute and review the macroscopic structure. An immediate emergence can
also be inspected as changing over time. Nevertheless, aesthetic-wise, the way we perceive a self-
organizing structure matters.
In philosophy, it is also possible to look at 2 kinds of emergence4:
1. Weak emergence –The new qualities are reducible to their parts.
2. Strong emergence – The new qualities are irreducible to their part
An example of a strong emergence is the conscious experience or “qualia” . The nature of
the conscious experience or feeling is a macroscopic phenomena which cannot be reduced to the
relations between neurons which emerge it. Strong emergence rejects a materialistic view.
When viewing the aesthetic aspects of emergence and self organization, it seems that all of the types
mentioned above play a role.
In Japanese aesthetics, the concepts of “Mu-Jo” and “Hen-Reki” are very important5.
A design that shows temporality and creation is favored. Landscapes and cities are designed to give
the sense of temporality and dynamics .When analyzed through the perspective of self-organization
and emergence, we can say that say that this kind of design shows a kind of weak continuous
emergence. The emergence is weak because we do not see any different and irreducible properties
emerge. The design is reducible to its micro-parts. The design is one that symbolizes a continuous
self-organization which emerges new structures, just like in nature. A highly symmetrical, simple
and straight-forward design suggests an external planner who thought of the entire design from the
4 Bedau, Mark A. (1997)."Weak Emergence". http://academic.reed.edu/philosophy/faculty/bedau/pdf/emergence.pdf
5 Lecture III-2 – On light and shade
beginning, but a non-symmetrical dynamical design shows self-organization. An impressive aspect
of self-organization in nature, is that even though there was no external planner, the design still
“works”. It seems almost magical but actually it is the power of evolution. A design which tries to
imitate this kind of magic of nature becomes beautiful, especially to the Japanese people – perhaps
because of their shinto origins which worships the magic of nature and creation.
One of my favorite examples for real self-organizing design in nature is proteins. The
structure of every protein has evolved in a dynamic and self-organizing way, until it has reached a
certain balance and level of productivity. But evolution has an interesting aspect, it is much easier to
go forwards than backwards6. For example, once a certain structure has evolved, if there is
something wrong with it, a mutation which changes it in order for it to work better is much more
likely to happen than a mutation that removes it completely. Thus, when looking at a protein, its
design may seem crazy and inefficient – but in fact it has evolved for million of years and was
tested by nature itself. Here is a picture of the protein ATP-Synthase which is in charge of
converting the chemical energy found in food into the “Energy coin” of our body called ATP:

Immediate emergence also plays a key role in aesthetics. In western culture, an obvious
example is the German concept of gestalt psychology. Emergence is a key principle of gestalt
systems7. It can be demonstrated using the following dog picture:

6 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17841-for-proteins-evolution-cant-go-backwards.html
7 Lehar, S. (2003). ‘Gestalt Isomorphism and the Primacy of Subjective Conscious
Experience: A Gestalt Bubble Model.’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26(4).
 The dog is not recognized by first identifying its parts (feet, ears, nose, tail etc.), and then
inferring the dog from those component parts. Instead, the dog is perceived as a whole, all at once.
Gestalt is a theory of mind and brain, positing that the operational principle of the brain is holistic,
parallel and analog with self-organizing tendencies. In this sense, the whole is more than its parts. It
can be argued whether this kind of emergence is strong or weak - I believe the gestalt feeling is
irreducible to its parts. Of course, we can show how the black lines and dots in the picture compose
a dalmatian dog, but we cannot describe how these patterns formed into the conscious experience of
the dog in our mind. Gestalt is important not only for recognizing objects like the dog within a
picture, but it dictates our aesthetic impression of art and design. It is hard to define, but our holistic
experience is something which emerges only from the macroscopic view and cannot be found in
any of the microscopic parts.
In Japanese aesthetics, the concept of Ma – The sense of “betweenness”, is realized through
emergence in a way quite similar to gestalt. In one style of Ma painting, one uses the space between
the color in order to enhance it. Here is a common example of such use of “Negative Space”:

Of course, Ma is much deeper than these simple tricks of Negative Space. But I believe the
emerging sensation of some self-organized quality, which is more than its parts remains. Professor
Gunter Nitschke defines Ma the following way:
“Ma is not something that is created by compositional elements; it is the thing that takes
place in the imagination of the human who experiences these elements. Therefore ma can be
defined as experiential place understood with emphasis on interval."
Thus “Ma” also implies an immediate conscious emergence due to self-organization.
It is now left to wonder, why emergence and self-organization are attractive aesthetically. As
I have previously mentioned, the feeling of intimacy with nature probably donates to the aesthetic
value of a work which shows self-organization and emergence of the continuous type. The style of
“Wabi-Sabi” is an example of this. In Andrew Juniper's book about Wabi-Sabi8 he writes:
“Japanese art, infused with the spirit of wabi sabi, seeks beauty in the truths about the
natural world, looking toward nature for its inspiration. ...Since nature can be defined by its
asymmetry and random imperfections, wabi-sabi seeks the purity of natural imperfection.”
Biologically speaking, even though evolution always strives to improve, it is a process of random
mutations and a lot of trial and error which results in many imperfections and imbalances along the
way. Because evolution does not go backwards, we always see the nature evolving in progress, and
thus its many imperfections. Moreover, death, decay and imperfection are a part of the natural
process. There is an aesthetic attractiveness to something which seems worn out due to self-
organization over time.
The other type of aesthetics attractiveness, of immediate emergence, is less related to
evolution but more to consciousness and the nature of experience. The concept of “Flow” by
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi9 describes an holistic state of optimal experience. Enjoyment from a pure
and focused state of conscious experience, such as when concentrating on some task or on some
kind of media (music, pictures, etc) until you lose your sense of self. Teachings of Yoga and
Buddhist enlightenment also describe something similar. Going back to biology, recent studies10
suggest that there might actually be a biological basis to enjoying this kind of self-organized
emergence. One prominent theory for the biological nature of the conscious experience is that it is
based on an oscillatory synchronization of neurons (synchronized electro-magnetic waves). It is
suggested that this gestalt that we experience emerges from the synchronization of specialized
neural networks and is perceived as a state of holistic consciousness that is more than its parts. This
synchronization also involves “reward” networks, which give the sense of pleasure. This may
explain why we like art which seem to self-organize in our mind to create new experiences. It is
very interesting to see how ancient concepts of aesthetics relate to the most modern research in
neurobiology and I will surely continue to investigate this subject.

8 Juniper, Andrew, “Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence.” Tuttle Publishing.
2003.
9 M. Csíkszentmihályi (1990), Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York:
Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-092043-2
10 René Weber, Ron Tamborini, Amber Westcott-Baker, Benjamin Kantor. (2009) Theorizing
Flow and Media Enjoyment as Cognitive Synchronization of Attentional and Reward Networks.
Communication Theory 19:4, 397-422