The Geometry of Novelty and Diversity

Given an exhaustive set of elementary building blocks, we should be able to conceive, in principle, a state space where all possible configurations exist (past, present and future; feasible as well as not feasible). In this space, novelty corresponds to locating specific configurations not yet actuated and diversity corresponds to maintaining a set of configurations geometrically far from one another. In this paper we discuss whether this representation vaguely resembles a processes which may generate novelty and diversity in Nature and whether this representation is useful, both conceptually and pragmatically. We suggest that a dynamical, rather than static, view of state space, not only encompassing self-organisation, but itself self-organising, is needed to capture our intuitive notion of novelty and diversity. The analysis raises the concern, already proposed by Kauffman, that computation in such space may not be possible, leading to question the use of computer modelling as a tool to understand the generation of novelty and diversity.