Introduction

Abstract

The idea for an interdisciplinary and international conference on self-organization was born about two years ago. It seemed to us that during recent decades there has begun to spread a new idea of how to view things in almost all sciences: emerging paradigms, synergetics, neuronal networks, quantum computing, chaos, non-linear dynamics etc., many aspects that might refer to self-organization shedding light on many old riddles, e. g. evolution, living systems, consciousness, artificial intelligence, social and technical systems. And so we wanted to callexperts on different subjects under the coordinating idea of self-organization, presenting a conference in Kaiserslautern, Germany, with the title: Self-Organization As A Paradigm For Sciences.

For after all, what is man in nature? A mere nothing in comparison with the infinite, an all in comparison with the infinitely small, a midpoint between nothing and everything. Infinitely far from grasping the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are for him invincibly hidden in an impenetrable secret; and he is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he is drawn, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up. “Blaise Pascal”