Maximum Power Principle

Description

From the Wikipedia:

"The maximum power principle or Lotka's principle has been proposed as the fourth principle of energetics in open system thermodynamics, where an example of an open system is a biological cell. According to Howard T. Odum, "The maximum power principle can be stated: During self-organization, system designs develop and prevail that maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_principle)

Discussion

Dave Mc Leod:

"The Maximum Power Principle does not inherently favor either competition or cooperation. Power is maximized in various ways, depending on context and circumstance. On the downside of a pulsing paradigm, cooperation is often a better strategy with which to maximize power.

Here are Odum's actual words:

- Societies compete for economic survival by Lotka's principle, which says that systems win and dominate that maximize their useful total power from all sources and flexibly distribute this power toward needs affecting survival. The programs of forests, seas, cities, and countries survive that maximize their system's power for useful purposes. The first requirement is that opportunities to gain inflowing power be maximized, and the second requirement is that energy utilization be effective and not wasteful as compared to competitors or alternatives.

Charles Hall is one of Odum's most notable students. Hall has stated, "An early problem with the maximum power hypothesis was that it seemed to be in competition with the standard view of evolution, based on fitness, put forth by population ecologists (Mayr, 1982). In this view, fitness is defined as those morphological, behavioral and physiological patterns that most lead to reproductive success, essentially the survival of grandchildren. A problem with this conventional view is the circularity of the argument that follows. Question: what is fit? Answer: that which survives and reproduces. What, then, will survive and reproduce? The answer: those organisms that are most fit. This is, of course, a tautology but it has been repeated many times in biology. Maximum power, or energetics in general, offers a resolution to this tautology: that which will be selected for is that which generates the most power, because the surplus energy that is thus generated can be diverted to whatever contingency requires it, and that energy that is left over can be diverted into reproduction." (C.A.S. Hall, "The Continuing Importance of Maximum Power" [1])

(Fb, February 2020)

Example

China

Thomas Abel:

"China is one of five locations in the world of “pristine state” formation. Five thousand years of Chinese history are commonly recounted as one dynasty following another, in a continuous, expanding trend to the present. However, pulsing in space and time is a better characterization. Theories of pulsing or cycling dynamics in human ecosystems have generated increasing interest in recent years (Odum et al. 1995; Holling et al. 2002) as a central component of the study of complex systems (Kauffman 1993; Salthe 1993; Gell-Mann 1994; Depew and Weber 1995; Prigogine and Stengers 1997; Levin 1998; Van de Vijver et al. 1998). Particularly, Holling’s “adaptive cycle” (Holling 1978) and Odum’s “pulsing” (Odum 1982) are two examples of specific studies of ecosystem dynamics, as related to human use of ecosystem resources. It is argued by Odum and others (Richardson 1988; Kang 1998) that pulsing is a result of ecosystem self-organization for maximum power (i.e., maximized power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency). The history of China is indeed a history of almost countless rises and falls. The growth of Chinese states “pulsed” in both space and time. Within one “dynasty,” a capital might move six or eight times. Dynasties expanded into great empires, only to dissolve into regional states or even city states. There have been many meticulously reconstructed historical explanations of this history of rise and fall. But a far simpler explanation has not been offered, one that could be called an environmental “null hypothesis.” That is, can this pulsing history be explained with a model that accounts for the pulsed usage of natural resources by ancient farmers as they cut and cleared and farmed the ancient forests of China? This paper proposes a general model of pulsing human-environmental dynamics that focuses on (1) the capture of renewable resources by humans and (2) the consumption of stores of slow-renewable resources. Examples of uses of slow-renewable resources in early agriculture-based states include topsoil (used and depleted in farming) and forest timber (depleted both by clearing for fields and harvesting for furnaces of bronze and then iron-making). Both of these resources are slow-renewable since, in relation to human time-scales, each requires a lifetime or more to fully recover after they have been consumed by human use." (https://www.academia.edu/3052637/Pulsing_and_Cultural_Evolution_in_China?)

Maya Civilization

Thomas Abel:

"Joyce Marcus has studied the growth and contraction or collapse of early states around the world (Marcus 1998). Looking at the Maya State or Civilization as a whole, she argues that its growth and collapse was not a smooth ascent and descent, but rather was “sawtooth,” with intermittent expansions and contractions (Figure 1). Of even greater interest, when she looked at the Maya State spatially, she found not a single rise and fall of the Maya State, but instead numerous spatially distinct rises and collapses (Figures 2 and 3). Therefore, in fact, there are two important dimensions to the dynamics of the Maya State. First, as a whole, the Maya State can be seen to pulse in time, with numerous periods of growth and contraction. Second, taken spatially, the Maya State moved about the landscape. It will be argued in this paper that this permitted the pulsed consumption of new areas of slow-renewables. Marcus used these insights to explore the dynamics of other early states. She found similar patterns in the Andes, in Mesopotamia, and Central America (Figure 4) (Marcus 1998). In other words, ancient states have often been found to ‘pulse’ spatially across a larger landscape area. This shared pattern of spatial and temporal pulsing suggests that a general explanation may be sought, one that exceeds particular political-historical accounts." (https://www.academia.edu/3052637/Pulsing_and_Cultural_Evolution_in_China?)

More information

• History of the theory via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_principle

* Article: The Continuing Importance of Maximum Power. By Charles A S Hall. Ecological Modelling 178 (1-2):107-113, October 2004

URL = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222399667_The_Continuing_Importance_of_Maximum_Power?

"Of the many extremely ingenious, powerful and, yes, frustrating concepts and approaches that Howard Odum left us, the one with the most power to change how we understand the Earth, was that of maximum power. This theoretical framework, has subverted how most of his students and colleagues think about systems in general, transformed the way we think about ecosystems, natural selection, and even our environmental and general politics. The concept has not always been a comfortable one, but it is an exceedingly exciting and commanding one … and therein lies its interest. For most of us who have been exposed to it in some detail, there is no doubt as to its veracity. What remains to be answered, however, is just how wide is its net?"

* Book: Maximum Power: The Ideas and Applications of H.T. Odum, University Press of Colorado, Niwot

* Book: Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy, by Howard T. Odum. Columbia University Press, 2007.