Non-Equilibrium Steady-State Transitions
Description
Robert Aunger:
"In summary, from the perspective of steady-state thermodynamics, transitions which result insignificantly new levels of disequilibrium should commence with a novel source of energy being acquired , followed by a new kind or level of organisation which hierarchically encapsulates the prior level of organisation of the system, together with new forms of management for the control of structural relations within the new organisation, constituting a means for controlling energy flow through the new organisation, and thus ‘steadying’ the transition to the new steady-state. In this model, the first step, a novelty, invokes several consequences, suggesting that these groups of events are linked together and so should be treated as inter-independent. These related, regularly recurring events are components of major transitions. Such transitions can be called ‘NESSTs’ (non-equilibrium steady-state transitions) .With new structures and control systems in place, successful steady-state transitions to higher rates of energy throughput become irreversible, giving an ‘arrow of time’ to the systems experiencing these transitions."
(https://www.academia.edu/3007922/Major_transitions_in_big_history)
Characteristics
Robert Aunger:
"When applied to historical phenomena, the NESST-based major transition model has some additional implications.
First, each phase of the adjustment process to an energy innovation is contingent: only some novelties lead to the maintenance of structure, much less new structures, and only some structures result in new control features. Hence, only a small proportion of transitions result in increased complexity, and only those with the biggest impact on organisation leave evidence of their passing in the historical record. But overall, big history exhibits a trend of advances in power, through the production of organisations capable of acquiring and managing even higher amounts of energy flow.
Second, once the transition processes have settled down, a new historical ‘regime’ has effectively been instituted. A regime is the set of principles or rules which govern how a historical system operates. A period of transition, composed of the stages of novelty and adjustment in organisation and control, is thus followed by a preservation period, during which the energy flow established by the transition is maintained over time. During periods of regime preservation, energy use remains relatively stable through the repetition of work cycles. A regime tends to persist until a new transition is initiated by a new energy - extraction novelty, resulting in cycles of ‘punctuated disequilibrium’ between NESSTs and regimes."
(https://www.academia.edu/3007922/Major_transitions_in_big_history)