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dc.contributor.authorVoorhees, Burt
dc.date.accessioned2010-06-23T16:08:53Z
dc.date.available2010-06-23T16:08:53Z
dc.date.issued2010-06-23T16:08:53Z
dc.identifier.other7th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium at the University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign in Chicago, IL, May 14-17, 2007
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2149/2555
dc.descriptionI presented this paper in a 30 minute talk on May 14. Several people showed interest in the material. Over the course of the conference I had several interesting private talks with other participants and forwarded copies of the paper the presentation was drawn from, as well as several other papers to several people who requested them.en
dc.description.abstractAfter a discussion of the importance of stability and instability for complex systems theory we define the concept of virtual stability as a state in which a system employs self-monitoring and adaptive control to maintain itself in a configuration that would otherwise be unstable. The energy expended in this gains the system a major increase in its flexibility of behavioral response to environmental change. Virtual stability is proposed as a general principle of complex adaptive systems. A toy model designed to illustrate virtual stability in a population context is presented, followed by a brief discussion of the evolutionary advantage this capacity provides. This leads to the suggestion that such advantage gives an argument both for the directionality of evolution and for the emergence of self-consciousness.en
dc.description.sponsorshipAcademic & Professional Development Fund (A&PDF)en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.relation.ispartofseries92.927.G973;
dc.subjectcomplex systems theoryen
dc.subjectvirtual stabilityen
dc.titleVirtual Stability: Constructing a Simulation Model”en
dc.typePresentationen


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