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The purpose of this paper is to consider the history of certain modular elements: Truchet tiles, Op‐tiles, Kufic tiles, and key‐patterns, which occur as ornamental archetypes from Paleolithic times until the present. The appearance of the same ornamental archetypes at the same level of the development in different cultures, distant in space and time can be described from the cybernetics point of view as a specific kind of self‐referential systems or cellular automata present in the intellectual and cultural development of mankind. The aim of this research is to show a continuity of the development of ornamental structures based on modular elements used as ornamental archetypes.

Research of the material from archaeological findings, history of art, painting, architecture, and applied arts.

Existence of universal geometrical construction principles based on modularity.

Creation of new patterns or designs (e.g. TeX‐fonts, tiles, etc.) based on modularity.

The paper presents a new explanation of constructions of labyrinths and different Islamic patterns.

While working with clients in the last years of his life, Gordon Pask produced an axiomatic scheme for his Interactions of Actors Theory which is a development of his well known Conversation Theory. These axioms are interpretable as a general theory of self‐organisation and are discussed as characteristic of field concurrence and as part of the second‐order cybernetics canon. An application to population density is reported supported by both kinematic and kinetic simulation. Implications for cardiovascular anti‐coagulation therapy and planetary evolution are discussed.