Dynamic Stability as a Category of Dialectic Interaction Between Chaos and Cosmos in the Ontology of Network Existence

Abstract

The increasing information flow has led to, inter alia, the dominant role of networking in communications. Devirtualization of networking in information and physical networks has made it possible to introduce network discourse into modern philosophy. The study of writings by Laozi, Confucius and their followers demonstrates that network discourse and network thinking were developed in the philosophical works of ancient Chinese scholars as representatives of Eastern philosophical discourse. At the same time, Western philosophical discourse, which can be traced to Plato and Aristotle, rests on linear logic and linear thinking. It is only towards the end of the 20th century that the linear/network thinking opposition weakened with the recognition of network interaction, under the influence of a profound transformation during the transition to a new stage of civilization’s development, that is, to the information/digital society. This can be illustrated by the evolution of the perception of the categories chaos and cosmos in Western (linear) and Eastern (network) philosophical discourse as the basis of the development of the modern representation of dynamic stability of the network interaction system. Using the information and communication method, this paper analyses Western and Eastern philosophical discourse from the Axial Age to the present day and substantiates the introduction of the category of dynamic stability. The latter stands for a dialectically connected process of creation/destruction of communications between actors of a network interaction under the influence of the dynamics of information exchange, which indicates that a network interaction system is autopoietic. Further development of the concept of dynamic stability requires creating a mathematical apparatus for calculating measures, that is, information entropy, of a dynamically stable network. These purely abstract studies are expected to be of practical importance for the development of social networks of interpersonal and intergroup communication.