Of the self organizing behaviors, two are of particular interest to the study of evolution. One is adaptation. We see it everywhere. Corporations adapt to the marketplace, brain cells adapt to signal traffic, the immune system adapts to infection, animals adapt to their food supply. We have come to think that the ability to adapt is characteristic of complex systems – and may be one reason why evolution seems to lead toward more complex organisms.
But even more important is the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call ‘the edge of chaos’. We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the old and the new are constantly at war. Finding the balance point must be a delicate matter – if a living system drifts too close, it risks falling over into incoherence and dissolution; but if the system moves too far away from the edge, it becomes rigid, frozen, totalitarian. Both conditions lead to extinction. Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.
And, by implication, extinction is the inevitable result of one or the other strategy – too much change, or too little.
Wait a second! Science on a political blog? Yes, once again I intend to use science to make a point about politics, much as I did a couple of months ago with a more basic concept (pendulums).
Where am I going with this? Find out below the fold.
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