Autonomy

Autonomy is the condition of something that does not depend on anything else.

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• In politics, a self-governing city or region, e.g. Kurdistan, Kosovo or Hong Kong SAR (not necessarily as a result of formal secession), is autonomous. Autonomy is usually a pre-requisite to separation or secession, however, autonomy does not necessarily lead to separation. Autonomy is not independence.
• In Eastern Christianity, autonomy is the status of a hierarchical church whose head bishop is appointed by a higher-ranking bishop, often a patriarch, who has no other authority over the autonomous church. This status is one step short of autocephaly.
• In computing, a peripheral that can be used with the computer turned off (for example, a multifunction printer/copier/fax machine that can still copy and fax without the computer being turned on), is autonomous.
• A company and its computer software package, which performs pattern recognition with a Bayesian algorithm, used by e.g. governments and intelligence agencies; see Autonomy Systems.
• Within the self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000) in psychology, autonomy refers to 'autonomy support versus control', "hypothesizing that autonomy-supportive social contexts tend to facilitate self-determined motivation, healthy development, and optimal functioning."
• In education but specifically when considering the learning process, autonomy has to do with the learner. Learner autonomy is viewed as an individual awareness of one's potentials and strategies to take better advantage of one's learning context.
• In mathematical analysis, an autonomous ordinary differential equation is one that is independent of time.
 
Autonomy: See also ►