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to the context (investments withdrawn, key people leave). No system is
permanent though some can be very long-lived in a state of stable
energy input; a terrible warning against strategic complacency and an

inward focus that diminishes information flow from the context.

Where did the idea of 'dissipation' come from, that it was so accepted
as to be the primary descriptor of all systems?

Ilya Prigogine, a central figure in the
development of complexity theory, was

intrigued...as to why physics seemed to suggest
that situations either continue without change
(Newton’s laws) or decline into featureless dust
(thermodynamics).

His answer, in a nutshell, was that the physics of
the time (partly due to the pragmatic reason that
you otherwise could not tackle the maths) tended

to assume that situations of interest could be
considered as closed, and therefore independent of,
not interacting with, their environment. If we

recognize that situations of interest are generally
connected and engaged with their environment—
that they are open—then it can be shown that
structures and patterns can emerge.

How does this come about? ....briefly, it is the
second law of thermodynamics applied to closed

systems that give us the notion of the arrow of
time, associated with increasing decay, disorder,
and entropy. In open systems, interacting with
the environment, order and structure can develop

inside the system at the expense of energy or ‘stuff’
from the outside.

So locally the general running down and decay
over time that thermodynamics predicts for the

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