Abstract
Contemporary systems ecology has long been occupied with mechanical explanations of behavior; however, the physical theory that undergirds such explanations has certain limits. It’s not that the physical force laws are ever violated, but with heterogeneous, irreversible relationships subject to aleatoric influences, physical laws can only constrain, but not determine, outcomes. Such complex systems are better treated in the framework of quantified networks of interrelations. The application of simple information theory to networks reveals that ecosystems cannot achieve maximal efficiency without growing vulnerable to novel disturbances. A degree of inefficient redundancies is always necessary to sustain ecological and social functioning; and, if they are to function reliably, such non-optimal features become requisite in the design of infrastructures like power grids, water distribution networks, traffic patterns, and supply chains. In particular, the postulate that economic market efficiency should never be compromised must be re-examined if society is to remain sustainable. Furthermore, the capability of networks to represent distributed causalities allows one to rationalize behaviors like endogenous selection, centripetal acquisition of resources, and the precedence of indirect mutualism over competition in living systems–all phenomena that challenge conventional evolutionary dogma.
Highlights
Over 55 years ago, the late media sage, Marshall McLuhan (1964), observed how, whenever a new tool emerged within an endeavor, practitioners tended to use it in the context of previous habits and remained blind for a while to its full potential
Relationships are implicitly assigned a secondary status, so that connections among objects are assumed to be caused by the objects and not vice-versa. Both assumptions limit the application of conventional physics toward understanding ecological or social ensembles
As the heterogeneity of a system increases, the number of possible combinations among the categories grows exponentially, eventually defeating any effort to formulate the closed set of boundary constraints necessary to apply the laws of physics (Kauffman, 2019)
Summary
Over 55 years ago, the late media sage, Marshall McLuhan (1964), observed how, whenever a new tool emerged within an endeavor, practitioners tended to use it in the context of previous habits and remained blind for a while to its full potential. His example was IBM, which saw its purpose as the manufacture of business machines. Everyone was enamored with the new tool, but the preponderance of research was devoted to interpreting networks in mechanical terms. “What are the mechanisms that give rise to small-world or scalefree networks?,” etc. This essay is an attempt to encourage network investigators to step out of the mechanical mindset and entertain an “out-of-the-box” perspective on ecological and social dynamics
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