Life and simple systems

Abstract

This last decade has seen the publication of an extensive literature describing, cataloguing and analyzing the ‘emergence’ of complexity. This seems very strange. The creation of a complex assembly is comparatively easy—the difficult job is to generate simplicity from it. So much is this the case, that the only context within which it takes place is that of life itself. Although we naturally imagine life as a dynamic process rather than as a static structure, both of these are critical to its survival. Continuously expanding multi-element assemblies finally lose their cohesion, and split up into separate parts, or restructure themselves to redress their stability by generating a simplified umbrella level of operation. In large organisms this process may repeat itself, thus creating a multilevel self-correlating operational hierarchy. It is not obvious how the associated generation of simplicity is initiated, but it appears that such a self-correlating hierarchy is itself alive. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.