Book Review
By Jean Mdlews l11e interaction of the components at the The "emergenists" (as t11e seekers of bottom of tl1e diagram give rise to properties tl1csc rules have been called) seem to lmve Complexity: Lifeat the Edge ofChaos, by thartould not have been predicted from what reached a tentative definition of' 'progress'' Roger Lewin (Macmillan, 1992) is a spell you know of the component parts. And the in the evolution of systems: the ability to bindingjoumey through ll1c fields and labo emergent properties then feed back, to influ process more and more information. What ratories oft hose who are pushing toward a set cncetllc behavioroftl1e individual interactors should interest readers ofPark Science is the of rules that some day may provide a grand that produced them. possible role of tl1 is new tllCOI)' as a push Wlification ofthe life sciences. Their various Le\\~n t11enjumpsback to tl1ebeginningof toward a holistic view of nature. The Sant.1 approaches to these elusive rules have landed the story-in the early 1960s when a bright Fe Institute people talk of" self-<>rganization them at the core of the current struggle to young scholar, Stuart Kauffman (now of the in complex systems, the emergence of pat redefine evolution-or at least to rewrite the University of Pennsylvania) began playing terns in evolutionary models that mimic Danvinian version of it. around very seriously witl1 random Boolean patterns in nature, and the idea that livi ng Lewin's story beg ins in Chaco Canyon. networks. KauiTma.n 's ignorance of matlle systems. as complex dynamical systems, arc NM, thecentcralmosta milleniumagoofthe matics scn'ed him well; he accomplished driven to these same patterns. They arc complex, sophisticated Anasazi culture. A) something no knowledgable mathematician saying tl1ere is a deep tl1eory to the order of though it disappeared like steam from a would have attempted. By incredible luck, nature." boiling kettle, theAnasazis' economic, polit early in rus computer runs, his modest net When they are accused of straying from ical, and religious web, which covered more work stumbled into an emergence oforder of mechanics and " looking for tl1e meaning of than a hundred thousand square miles, is a sort. His first thought was " Oh my God. li fe," they reply (in the words of Goodwin): referred to by today's archeologists as the J'vefoundsometl1ingprofound,'' and he told " We' re not looking for the meaning oflife. Chaco phenomenon. Le·win' ' I still tlUnk so. It'sthecrystaJiization more the meaning in life, the generation of From that bleak, arid terrain on the Colo oford er out of massively disordered systems. order. U1e generation ofpatt ern. the quality of rado Plateau, the story moves to consider It 's order for free." llus "accident," born t11c organism.' ' ation of how such complex systems as the of intuition and nurtured by diligence and Kauffman adds:' 'Pure Danvinismlcwcs Anasazi culture mjght have arisen from a luck, is one of the first building blocks in an you without an explanation of! he generation simple set oforga ni zational rules. For some edifice that hns arisen from similarly seren of biological form. In the Danvinian view. one who has read Jan1es Gleick's absorbing dipitous starting points in a scientific land organisms arejus t cobbled-! ogethcr products best-seller, Chaos, it maybe hard to imagine scape ranging from geology and biology to of random mutation and natural selection. a more entlm1llingjourney through the fron LocallnleractiOn Summer 1993 19 themselves to the edge ofchaos, and so too do may even be legitimate to think of them as In studies ofthe dynamics ofbi ological sys Stuart Pinm1's and Jim Drake's ecological behaving and evolvingasa whole, analogous tems, researchers face the dilemma ofde ter models. No one can say yet whether individ wit11 the superorganism concept that Ed mining from expetimental data whether ob ual ecosystems do the same thing. but the Wilson talked about in connection witl1 so served vmiations t ~presellf random flucflla data from mass extinctions at least suggest cial insect colonies. Coevolving conmmni tions or the chaotic state ofa detenninisl1ic system. Ifthey can demonstmte tlrat the sys that, globally, they do. 'That's a powerful ties act in concert as a result of the dynamics tem is chaotic rather than roiUlom, tlreyhave message ofa powerful instrinsic dynamic,'' of tl1e system; they do so as a result of a better chance ofdeveloping a strategy to said Chris. 'Systems poised at the edge of individua Is witl1in tl1ecommunity myopical understand and controltlris e/7-atic behavior. chaos achieve exquisite control, and I believe ly optimizing U1eir own ends and not as you sec that right the way up to Gaia.' collectiveagrccmenttowardacommon goal; Peterson quotes Leon M. Glass of McGill "If it's true that, for instance, ecological and the communities rc.1llydocome to know University in Montreal: "Complex aperiodic conmmnitics move toward tl1eedgeofchaos , tl1ei r world in a way that was quite unpredict rhytltms that arc observed in natural systems where novel properties emerge (such as able before the science of Complexity began might be due to detcrmi nist ic chaos, random foodwebs and tl1e ability of a long-estab to illuminate that world. " ' noise.' or some combination of the two lished conmmnity to resist invasion by alien • • • different mechanisms. Thus, the interpreta species), then it seems legitimate to talk tion of the dynamical basis of complex Troubling complexities is the title of an about such conmmnities as real systems. It aperiodic rhythms in natural systems is a article by I. Peterson in t11e Sept. i, 1992 issue difficult and hotly debated topic." of Science News (p. 157). In it, Peterson states: