Ilya Prigogine and the Behavior of Dissipative Structures

Newtonian physics works well if a system is isolated from its surrounding. Isolated systems are also called “ideal,” or closed, in terms of being separate from their environment. In ruthlessly non-idealistic reality, closed systems do not exist and their openness increases in living species. The degree of continuous change, which fluctuates between absolute stillness and movement but never reaches either of the poles, discerns living systems from nonliving ones.

Complex and living systems are open to a continual flux of matter and energy from their environment. Unlike closed systems, which settle into a state of thermal equilibrium, open systems dwell, develop and maintain themselves far from equilibrium in a steady state characterized by continual flow and change, in a state of dynamic balance. The intricate behavior of open systems far from equilibrium inspired the Russian-born Nobel laureate in chemistry and physics Ilya Prigogine to explore the phenomena linked to them. He named them dissipative structures.

A living system is a dissipative structure. It is organizationally closed and energetically open: it remains autonomous in terms of its own rules of organization, while it is open toward its surrounding through a continuous flux of matter and energy. Exchange, co-evolution with its environment does not condition the rules of organization of the system. The system responds in the limits of flexibility within its own set of rules, with its own order and behavior. Under particular circumstances the system may or may not respond with a structural change.

Still, this change does not follow the organization of the environment, but it depends on the history of previous structural changes of the system. Thus systems can be environmental to each other, they can be inextricably intertwined, in communication, in inter-cognition, and still remain autonomous in their organization.

Moreover, communication between systems may empower the self-governing difference of the system. Interaction does not determine the organization of either of the systemic components that enter into communication.

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