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Public and private codes in living systems theory
Author(s) -
Bailey Kenneth D.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
systems research and behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 1092-7026
DOI - 10.1002/sres.640
Subject(s) - explication , autopoiesis , public key infrastructure , coding (social sciences) , business , computer security , internet privacy , law and economics , public key cryptography , computer science , sociology , epistemology , encryption , social science , philosophy , artificial intelligence
An extremely important, but often unheralded, contribution in living systems theory is the explication of internal coding and data transformation within a system, particularly recoding from ‘public’ to ‘private’ information, and vice versa. The importance of such coding and recoding in systems has received increased visibility recently through the development of ‘public key infrastructure’ (PKI) technology for Internet security. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of the subsystems of LST in dealing with public and private codes. The relevance of public and private codes for social autopoiesis is also discussed. It is shown that public and private codes play a central role in providing both system security and system identity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.