Complexity Drives Complexity

Complex environments result in the evolution of complex organisms. Of course, one should also point out that the presence of complex organisms results in a more complex environment. And heterogeneity results in a more complex environment as well.

Thus, once life emerged and began evolving, the living environment became more heterogeneous, and thus more complex. And this drove the evolution of greater complexity. Which drove the emergence of more complex environments. Which drove the evolution of greater complexity. Etc.

Which eventually get us to us. We also create more complex environments, within which we evolve more complexity. This is the argument of Gravesean psychology. Complexity drives complexity.

Costs Create Small World Architecture in Networks

Where do small-world architecture in networks come from? According to Jeff Clune, "Once you add a cost for network connections, modules immediately appear. Without a cost, modules never form." This issue of a cost would also explain why market economies are self-organizing scale-free networks with small-world architecture. And not just market economies, but all large-scale social networks. Social interactions all have costs, which means the most efficient network architectures will evolve. The existence of costs is most obvious in economics, but you will find costs in any network -- whether social, neural, or molecular.