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Correspondence between Organism and Society
The analogy between society as a complex control system consisting of individuals and an organism as a complex control system consisting of cells is made more explicit in the tables below. The tables list general functions characterizing all
"living" or "autopoietic" systems, and for each function gives the corresponding subsystem in an organism and in society. The functions are loosely based on the 20 critical subsystems proposed by James Miller in his  Living Systems Theory, although I have left out some of the less important ones (e.g. timer), and added a few which seemed missing in Miller's list (e.g. "Immune System", "Energy carrier"). I have also renamed some functions to more traditional system terms (e.g. "sensor" instead of "input transducer"). I hope that the below correspondence shows that the "superorganism" model of human society is more than a vague metaphor, but rather an accurate framework for analysing the collectivity as a living system in its own right.
General System Properties
Example
Function
|
Organism
|
Society
|
Units
|
Cells
|
People
|
Differentiation
|
Tissue
types
|
Division
of labor
|
Subsystems
|
Organs
|
Organizations
|
Boundary
|
Skin
|
Walls,
Covers, ...
|
Defenses
|
Immune
system
|
Army,
Police
|
Metabolism:
processing of matter-energy
Example
Function
|
Organism
|
Society
|
Ingestor
|
eating,
drinking, inhaling
|
mining,
harvesting, pumping
|
Converter
|
digestive
system, lungs
|
refineries,
processing plants
|
Distributor
|
blood
circuit
|
transport
networks
|
Energy
carrier
|
hemoglobin,
ATP
|
oil,
electricity
|
Producer
|
cell
growth
|
factories,
builders
|
Extruder
|
urine
excretion, defecation
|
waste
disposal, sewers, chimneys
|
Storage
|
fat,
bones
|
warehouses,
containers
|
Support
|
skeleton
|
buildings,
bridges...
|
Motor
|
muscles
|
machines,
people, animals
|
Nervous System: processing of information
Example
Function
|
Organism
|
Society
|
Sensor
|
sensory
organs
|
reporters,
researchers
|
Decoder
|
perception
|
experts,
politicians, public opinion
|
Channel
and Net
|
nerves,
neurons
|
communication
media
|
Associator
|
synaptic
learning
|
scientific
discovery, social learning
|
Memory
|
neural
memory
|
libraries,
collective knowledge
|
Decider
|
higher
brain functions
|
government,
market, voters
|
Effector
|
nerves
activating muscles
|
executives
|
Reference: Heylighen F. (1997): "Towards
a Global Brain. Integrating Individuals into the World-Wide Electronic
Network", in: Der Sinn der Sinne, Uta Brandes & Claudia Neumann
(Ed.) (Steidl Verlag, Göttingen) [in press]
Copyright© 1997 Principia Cybernetica -
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