PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

EPILOGUE
It all came out of me in one shot and sounded right, so I
carried it further. “What you could have asked is why are there
more Chopin fans than Bartok fans. Well, natural evolution
follows S-curves, and that is what classical music did. It was
born, let’s say, sometime in the fifteenth century and then grew
in complexity, importance, innovation, and appreciation. In the
twentieth century, it started approaching its ceiling. In between,
the eighteenth century, the rate of growth went over a
maximum. Around that time composers’ efforts were rewarded
more handsomely than today. Gifted composers today
are given limited space. If they innovate, they find themselves
quickly above the public’s acceptance curve, which has flattened
out; if they don’t, they are not saying anything new. In
neither case will they be credited with an achievement.”
• • •
S-curves have transcended the space of professional and academic
interest for me; they have become a way of life. The same thing happened
to other “tools” that I received in my training. The oldest one is
the scientific method summarized as observation, prediction, verification.
This sequence of actions permits the use of the stamp “scientific”
on a statement, which enjoys widespread respect, but most important
helps the one who makes the statement become convinced of its validity.
Another “tool” is evolution through natural selection, which can
also be reduced to three words: mutation, selection, diffusion. Mutations
owe their existence to the law which says that when something
can happen, it will happen. Mutations serve as emergency reserves; the
larger their number, the higher the chances for survival. (Conglomerates
stay in business longer than specialized companies.) The selection
phase is governed by competition, which plays a supreme role and deserves
to be called the “father of everything.” After selection, the
diffusion of the chosen mutant proceeds along natural-growth curves,
smoothly filling the niche to capacity. Irregular oscillations toward the
end of a growth curve may be heralds of a new growth phase that will
follow.
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