Dynamics and indeterminism in developmental and social processes / edited by Alan Fogel, Maria C.D.P. Lyra, Jaan Valsiner

Papers originally presented at a workshop on "Determinism and Indeterminism in Development" held in July 1993, in Serrambi, Brazil

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

Introduction : perspectives on indeterminism and development / Alan Fogel, Maria C.D.P. Lyra, and Jaan Valsiner -- Que será será : determinism and nonlinear dynamic model building in development / Paul van Geert -- Change in the process of change : coping with indeterminism / Aydan Gulerce -- Metacommunication as a source of indeterminism in relationship development / Alan Fogel and Angela Uchoa Branco -- Processual dynamics of interaction through time : adult-child interactions and process of development / Maria C.D.P. Lyra and Lucien T. Winegar -- Determinacy and indeterminacy : theoretical and philosophical perspectives / George Butterworth -- Play and imagination : the psychological construction of novelty / Zilma de Moraes Ramos de Oliveira and Jaan Valsiner -- From disordered to ordered movement : attractor configuration and development / Maria Isabel Pedrosa, Ana M.A. Carvalho, and Amélia Império-Hamburger -- (In)determinacy and the semiotic constitution of subjectivity / Ana Luiza B. Smolka, Maria Cecilia R. de Góes, and Angel Pino -- Transforming the canonical cowboy : notes on the determinacy and indeterminacy of children's play and cultural development / Cynthia Lightfoot -- The semiotic argument for indeterminism in development / Gorjana Litvinovic -- Personality self-organization : cascading constraints on cognition-emotion interaction / Marc D. Lewis -- Epistemology of cognitive development theory / Antonio Roazzi and Bruno Campello de Souza -- Changes in social-conceptual development : domain-specific structures, self-organization, and indeterminism / Maria Legerstee -- Cascades on an epigenetic river : indeterminacy in cognitive and personality development / Helena Hurme -- Looking backwards and forward, and the place for indeterminism / Hideo Kojima

One of the most profound insights of the dynamic systems perspective is that new structures resulting from the developmental process do not need to be planned in advance, nor is it necessary to have these structures represented in genetic or neurological templates prior to their emergence. Rather, new structures can emerge as components of the individual and the environment self-organize; that is, as they mutually constrain each other's actions, new patterns and structures may arise. This theoretical possibility brings into developmental theory the important concept of indeterminism.