Rethinking the International System as a Complex Adaptive System
the system level ( Mitchell , 2009 , p . 40 ). Self-organization , as previously mentioned , arises from the local interaction of agents with limited information and computational power and creates stable macroscopic patterns at the aggregate level ( Epstein & Axtell , 1996 , p . 35 ). It entails that systems themselves compute information .
Organized behavior occurring without centralized control is the outcome of parallel information processing at the individual and aggregate level . Agents process information , as previously explained , by using internal rules of behavior . Information for them is something static and specifically located . It is something that is fed to them or that they retrieve something passive that they can precisely or statically locate in a particular place of the system ( Mitchell , 2009 , p . 180 ): a page on the Internet , a book in a library , a law in the civil code . Information , however , comes in another shape and forms at the aggregate and social level .
In biology , information is often referred as “ analog patterns distributed in space and time over the system ” ( Mitchell , n . d .). Instead of being something , static and statistically located , information takes “ the form of statistics and dynamics of patterns over the system ’ s components ” ( Mitchell , 2009 , p . 180 ). Because data are encoded “ as statistical and time-varying patterns of low-level components ,” no single agent “ of the system can perceive or communicate the ‘ big picture ’ of the state of the system ” ( Mitchell , 2009 , p . 180 ). In other words , information cannot be retrieved deliberately ; therefore , the system has to rely on agents sampling data in a stochastic and decentralized manner ( Mitchell , n . d .).
Accordingly , social organizations make sense of system dynamics via agents working together in a “ parallel fashion ” and acting with elements of randomness ( within the boundaries of self-regulation ) to sample and explore information across the whole system ( Mitchell , 2005 , p . 4 ; Zhong et al ., 2005 , p . 137 ). Randomness , in turn , is always adjusted by coevolutionary dynamics and occurs in a back-and-forth of bottom-up and top-down processes that channel agents ’ behavior . As Mitchell writes :
As in all adaptive systems , maintaining a correct balance between these two modes of exploration [ bottom-up and top-down ] is essential . Indeed , the optimal balance shifts over time . Early explorations , based on little or no information , are largely random , unfocused , and bottom-up . As information is obtained and acted on , exploration gradually becomes more deterministic , focused , and top-down , in response to what has been perceived by the system . ( Mitchell , 2005 , p . 5 )
Having discussed what plays the role of information and how information is sampled , the final part of this section addresses what is the meaning of information and why information processing leads to self-organization in the international system . The meaning of information is important because
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