Noncooperatively Optimized Tolerance: Decentralized Strategic Optimization in Complex Systems

We introduce noncooperatively optimized tolerance (NOT), a game theoretic generalization of highly optimized tolerance (HOT), which we illustrate in the forest fire framework. As the number of players increases, NOT retains features of HOT, such as robustness and self-dissimilar landscapes, but also develops features of self-organized criticality. The system retains considerable robustness even as it becomes fractured, due in part to emergent cooperation between players, and at the same time exhibits increasing resilience against changes in the environment, giving rise to intermediate regimes where the system is robust to a particular distribution of adverse events, yet not very fragile to changes.