Chaos as a Source of Complexity and Diversity in Evolution

The relevance of chaos to evolution is discussed in the context of the origin and maintenance of diversity and complexity. Evolution to the edge of chaos is demonstrated in an imitation game. As an origin of diversity, dynamic clustering of identical chaotic elements, globally coupled each to the other, is briefly reviewed. The clustering is extended to nonlinear dynamics on hypercubic lattices, which enables us to construct a self-organizing genetic algorithm. A mechanism of maintenance of diversity, “homeochaos,” is given in an ecological system with interaction among many species. Homeochaos provides a dynamic stability sustained by high-dimensional weak chaos. A novel mechanism of cell differentiation is presented, based on dynamic clustering. Here, a new concept—“open chaos”—is proposed for the instability in a dynamical system with growing degrees of freedom. It is suggested that studies based on interacting chaotic elements can replace both top-down and bottom-up approaches.