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Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 22, No. 5, 141-163 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0263276405057048
© 2005 Theory, Culture & Society Ltd.

Complexity, Ecology and the Materiality of Information

John Smith

Freelance writer and Artist

Chris Jenks

Brunel University

This article contributes to understanding the effect of complexity theory on the social sciences. It analyses the relationships between complex processes of self-organization and the environment or ecology in which these dynamics take place. Two factors are prioritized: the role of information in the formation of complex structure and the development of ‘landscapes’ or topologies of possibility (and impossibility). The authors argue for an ontology that founds both material and informational structures, and for a radical continuity between the general thermodynamics of emergent complex orders, cognitive theory and the complex structures of human thought and culture.

Key Words: adaptation • auto-eco-organization • auto-exo-reference • contingency (or randomness) • evolutionary psychology • operational closure • post-natal plasticity


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