"The Edge of Chaos"


	"The Edge of Chaos"

wildcat

1-8-2008 6:59 AM

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tags:

chaos, edge, evolution

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/fe5abc5a-6ce0-4863-9d67-541a6acc0707/4F662A8B-9EE7-4DBD-884E-9636B1A7183F/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://bactra.org/notebooks/edge-of-chaos.html" href="http://bactra.org/notebooks/edge-of-chaos.html" style="font-size: 11px;">bactra.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bactra.org/notebooks/edge-of-chaos.html"><P>The notion is that "<A href="http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/complexity.html">complex systems</A>"
(sometimes just "<A href="http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/complex-adaptive-systems.html">complex adaptive
systems</A>," both Names Which Must Be Destroyed) tend, in some ill-defined
sense, to be poised on the border between order (no change or periodic change)
and chaos (aperiodic change), because this is somehow the most flexible and
evolvable position; that things "evolve to evolve" to the edge of chaos. ---
The notion is that things at the edge-of-chaos are somehow optimized for
adaptation and information-processing, and so natural selection would favor
things near there, if indeed there isn't some inherent drive towards this edge.
(One runs across both versions.)
</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bactra.org/notebooks/edge-of-chaos.html">I think the evolutionary argument, as usually stated, rests of a big mistake
about what nervous systems, immune systems, genetic regulatory nets, etc.,
evolve to do</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bactra.org/notebooks/edge-of-chaos.html">E. coli doesn't
care about information flow in its regulatory network; it wants to be able to
eat lactose when nothing else is around.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bactra.org/notebooks/edge-of-chaos.html">is the
edge of chaos really that special?</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/4F662A8B-9EE7-4DBD-884E-9636B1A7183F/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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