Growth and development: Variational principles reconsidered

Abstract Variational descriptions of macroscopic systems have gradually fallen into disuse. However, networks of ecosystem transfers are seen to grow and develop in a fashion best described as the optimization of a whole-system attribute called the ‘ascendency’. This variational principle appears to synthesize and reconcile the observations of Lotka, Jaynes, Prigogine and Odum on how self-organizing systems evolve. It enhances the theory of dissipative structures by providing a framework for order in the universe that can accomodate the features of uniqueness, history, freedom and irreversibility.