A self-organizing system is one with the capability to adapt it's structure, or organization, to it's environment.  It adapts to circumstances.   Humanity, society, mammals, hip-hop, birthday parties, these are all self-organizing systems.

The maximum power principle basically states that superior self-organizing systems will be those that maximize power intake and the transformation of energy across their system such that it operates at superior efficiency with maximized production.  These are the systems that are most likely to survive and succeed.  Humanity has clearly abided the maximum power principle; the dissipation of heat given our upright nature is a specific example of such.

In terms of a restaurant, it's fairly easy (and intuitive) to understand.  A restaurant that quickly and efficiently produces quality food at minimum cost will beat a restaurant that can't.  Barring, of course, esoteric aesthetics and random chance.  The universe is not ordered after all.  It is not inherently just.

A guy that can eat a medium chimichanga then assemble five hundred chairs in a days work is superior to one that eats the same chimichanga but can only assemble four hundred chairs in the same amount of time.

The concept definitely has no understanding of empathy.  Empathy is not borne of logic; it is a tool of biological systems.  The argument I'd make in favor of empathy is that it facilitates the understanding of other's experiences and in so doing, more efficiently informs one of said experiences.  Empathy maximizes the production of experience and efficiently informs it's host of behavioral consequence to action.  It is the closest attempt to communicate qualia across like systems, humans.

Inquiry and intellect is driven by this very thing - empathy leads to learning.  Sociopaths are limited by their lack of empathy.

Empathy is the penultimate biological manifestation of maximum power.