Self-Destruction of Complex Systems -

Self-Destruction of Complex Systems

Communicative and Structural Aspects

Kirill Postoutenko (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover
216 Seiten
2025
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-43018-8 (ISBN)
168,35 inkl. MwSt
This book is the first to provide a general theory of self-destruction in complex systems. The volume suggests a unified theory of systemic self-destruction applicable to natural, social and cultural phenomena.
This book is the first attempt to provide a general theory of self-destruction in complex systems applicable to natural, social and cultural phenomena.

The contributors work collaboratively to prove that most of the non-distributed complex systems in nature and society sooner or later experience critical development leading to unintended and irreversible self-annihilation. The individual chapters also show that the relations of such systems to their own distinctiveness and other systems may result in specific communicative pathologies (such as redundancy, inflation and noisy signalling) which tend to mitigate or reinforce each other, depending on circumstances. Finally, the volume updates some popular models of systemic self-destruction—from autoimmunity and self-organized criticality to imperial overstretch—and discusses some prominent cases (from supernova explosions to the civil war following Russian Revolution of 1917).

The interdisciplinary style of narration ensures the accessibility of the materials and theories presented for the specialists and students from different fields. As such, it will appeal to those interested in complexity studies from the areas of sociology, history, media and communication studies, immunology, computer science, literary criticism, cultural studies, political science and international relations.

Kirill Postoutenko is Senior Researcher in the Special Research Area 1288 (Practices of Comparison) at Bielefeld University, Germany, and Adjunct Associate Professor (Docent) of Russian literature and culture at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is the author and editor of eleven books and ninety-five articles devoted to systems and communication theory, conversation analysis, history of identity, history of media and communication in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the history of Russian poetry and literary criticism. His most recent books include the edited volumes Ruler Personality Cults from Empires to Nation-States and Beyond Symbolic Patterns and Interactional Dynamics (together with Darin Stephanov, 2021), Media and Communication in the Soviet Union: General Perspectives (together with Alexey Tikhomirov and Dmitri Zakharine, 2022) and Beyond 'Hellenes' and 'Barbarians': Asymmetrical Concepts in European Discourse (2022).

1. Introduction: Saving ‘Self-Destruction’ from Itself at the Times of COVID and War

2. Some Thoughts on Systems and Their Self-Destruction

3. Studying Communicative Mechanisms of Self-Destruction in Complex Systems: Structures, Modes, and Self-Reinforcing Dynamics

4. Reproduction and Eventual Dissolution of Some New Guinea Secret Cults in the Light of the Overlapping Generations Model

5. Entropy Dynamics and Self-Destruction

6. Signalling, Vagueness, and Meaning in Political Ritual

7. Semantic Inflation and Systemic Breakups in Nature and Society

8. Reading John Read’s Ten Days That Shook The World: Tacit Segmentation, Robust Proximal Codes, and the Elusive Meaning of “Counter-Revolution” in the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922

9. Autoimmunity, Life, and Death in Deconstruction

Erscheint lt. Verlag 18.2.2025
Reihe/Serie Complexity in Social Science
Zusatzinfo 2 Tables, black and white; 1 Line drawings, black and white; 2 Halftones, black and white; 3 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Maße 156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt Informatik Theorie / Studium Algorithmen
Sozialwissenschaften Politik / Verwaltung
Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie
ISBN-10 1-032-43018-4 / 1032430184
ISBN-13 978-1-032-43018-8 / 9781032430188
Zustand Neuware
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