International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

St. BEER states: "This subtle feature of effective organization was (thus)… named by the distinguished American cybernetician Warren McCULLOCH" (1968, p.457).

BEER explains it in the following way: "… it is the possession of information, rather than bestowed authority, that confers the right to act. So in any network of channels and nodes, some SUb-system of the total system acquires a commanding state of knowledge at a given epoch of time… In a completely established hierarchy, it is known in advance what Sub-systems work as entities, and which of them command what aspects of control. But i a self-organizing system, or in a system designed for learning, adaptation and evolution, it is necessary for alternative groupings to be possible. So the third form of redundancy lies in the potential for command: it is a behavioral, not a structural component of the system" (Ibid).

The potential for command is, in last resort, the potential for creating new relevant organizing or regulating interrelations.

BEER emphasizes that: "The trick was learnt from the brain, once and again, and may readily be observed in operation in any social group" (Ibid).

This is the most general explanation of the sudden appearance of organizing centers or new leaders in developing systems. It will probably also be the final basic condition of self-organizing artificial intelligent systems.