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a National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 22230, USA
Key Words: conservation • indecision • configuration • interaction • variation • evolution • information • cognition
Address for reprints: William Sims Bainbridge, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA 22230. Voice: 703-292-7470. e-mail: wbainbri{at}nsf.gov
This article suggests eight high-level concepts that can promote convergence by identifying analogies across fields of science and engineering. Conservation: Many properties are conserved, through symmetries, parity laws, and feedback-regulated stabilities in complex adaptive systems. Indecision: Inconsistency, undecidability, uncertainty, chance, deterministic chaos, and similar concepts are fundamental principles in the dynamics of systems over time. Configuration: Detailed, dynamic structures of objects determine their properties, notably the unity of nature at the nanoscale. Interaction: Elements of a system influence each other, generating higher-level dynamics and other emergent phenomena. Variation: Statistical distributions of properties are caused by the combination of chance and divergent processes of interaction. Evolution: Marked by drift, natural selection, and a trend toward greater complexity, evolution exploits variation to develop new configurations that compete through interactions. Information: Scientific laws can be analyzed in terms of information content, and flow, while the doing of any science today relies heavily upon information technology. Cognition: Mental or computational process is the dynamic aspect of information, fundamental to the human practice of science.
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