p.339 For policy and behavioral assessments, it is therefore essential
to understand the ‘interests’ of different actors and systems. If ‘fundamental interests’
can be identified as ‘basic orientors’ of behavior, then it should be possible to deduce likely behavior even
in unforeseen circumstances: it will tend to protect the fundamental interests.
Whether a particular interest is violated or not
can only be decided by observing indicators relating the state of a system and its environment to that interest (e.g.
the interest to ‘avoid starvation’ requires an indicator of ‘available food’). Hence identification
of fundamental interests of a particular system, and of derived interests, is a necessary prerequisite for defining a proper
set of indicators providing a comprehensive picture of the state of viability and sustainability of an actor or other system.
In particular, this approach is important for finding comprehensive and ‘complete’ indicator sets for sustainable
development, for all types of studies dealing with future developments, and in particular for actor simulation (Bossel, 1999).
The present paper explains the derivation of 'basic
orientors' as reflections of universal and fundamental 'interests' of (self-organizing) systems, relates the findings
to those in other fields, shows the 'basic orientors' to be emergent properties in the self-organization
of agents, uses assessment of basic orientor fulfillment for assessing alternative development paths, describes
the selection of relevant indicators and a numerical assessment method using historical time series, and uses the
concepts to supply a simulated actor with cognitive ‘intelligence’ for successfully controlling a simulated world
under adverse conditions. However, more realistic simulation of a human actor requires representation of his:her
cognitive system and reasoning processes by (mostly nonnumerical) information processing.
p.339-340 For assessment or simulation of behavior, it is essential
to know the normative criteria directing the behavior of the actor. The ultimate goal of survival, viability and/or success
is much too general to be of practical use, while the bottom-up approach of identifying all objectives of an actor in a particular
environment becomes a formidable task bearing the risk of incomplete and biased representation.
Orientation theory (Bossel, 1977c) argues that there are ‘basic
orientors’ just ‘below’ the ultimate goal (of viability) that represent ‘fundamental
interests’ and are common to all self-organizing systems, irrespective of their physical nature, because they
have developed in response to certain ‘fundamental properties’ that are common to all system environments. Adequate
fulfillment of each of the basic orientors is required for survival, viability, and success. The essential
idea is that in coevolving with their environment, successful systems evolve structures and functions that allow dealing
successfully with the particular features of the environment. This appears to an observer as if the system’s
behavior is (consciously) directed by the ‘basic orientors’ as normative constraints. Conversely - and this is
important for actor simulation - if actions are directed by explicit reference to the ‘basic orientors’,
they can be expected to lead to viable and successful behavior and development.
A system can ‘perceive’ the static and dynamic features
of its environment only in terms of the physical flows (material, energy) and information flows it receives from the environment...
Systems must be compatible with their system environment and its
characteristic properties in order to be viable and to exist sustainably. The environmental properties can therefore be viewed
as imposing certain requirements and restrictions on systems, which ‘orient’ their functions, development, and
behavior (Fig. 1) (Bossel, 1977c, 1987, 1999).
p.344-345 Orientation theory postulates that systems evolving
in a given environment can only survive if they learn to cope with the fundamental environmental properties, i.e. if they
pay a necessary minimum of attention to each basic orientor.
p.346 The basic orientors can be used to develop a general scheme
of questions for checking viability and sustainability of a system.
