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TOWARD A THEORY OF SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS
Citation:
Cabezas*, H C. AND B. D. Fath**. TOWARD A THEORY OF SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS. Presented at 9th International Conference on Properties and Phase Equilibria for Product and Process Design, Kurashiki, Japan, 05/20-25/2001.
Description:
While there is tremendous interest in sustainability, a fundamental theory of sustainability does not exist. We present our efforts at constructing such a theory using Physics, Information Theory, Economics and Ecology. We discuss the state of complex sustainable systems that incorporate economic, ecological, and other components in terms of dynamic behavior in a phase space defined by the system state variables. From sampling the trajectory of the system, a probability density function for observing the states is constructed, and an expression for the Fisher Information is constructed. Fisher Information is the maximum amount of information that is available from a set of observations, in this case state of the system. Fisher Information is a function of the variabilityof the observations suchthat low variability leads to high Fisher Information and high variability leads to low Fisher Information. Systems existing in fixed dynamic states have constant Fisher Information and high variability leads to low Fisher Information. Systems existing in fixed dynamic states have constant Fisher Information. Systems losing organization migrate toward higher variability and lose Fisher Information. Self-organizing systems decrease their variability and acquire Fisher Information. A planet evoloving from a primordial dead state to a biologically living planet increases its Fisher Information. Fisher Information increases as new biological species appear and decreases as biological species disappear. These considerations lead us to propose a Sustainability Hypothesis which states that "Sustainable Systems do not lose Fisher Information over time". We illustrate these concepts using simulated economic-ecologicsl model systems in generally stable system, unstable, economically unstable, and ecologically unstable states, and we discuss the underlying dynamics of the stabilty and instability.