Fontana, Walter, and Leo W. Buss. “The barrier of objects: From dynamical systems to bounded organizations.” (1996).
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Self-maintaining natural systems include the global climate system, all living organisms, many cognitive processes, and a diversity of human social institutions. The capacity to construct articial systems that are self-maintaining would be highly desirable. Yet, curiously, there exists no readily identiable scientic tradition that seeks to understand what classes of such systems are possible or to discover conditions necessary to achieve them. Given the ubiquity of such systems naturally and the desirability of self-maintenance as a feature of design, any credible approach to establishing such a tradition merits serious attention.