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Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Criticality in Systems with Many Components
Vudtiwat Ngampruetikorn1, Ilya Nemenman2, David J Schwab1
1Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, New York 10016, USA.
Biological systems exhibit criticality through intrinsic (fine-tuned) or extrinsic (un-tuned) mechanisms. Extrinsic criticality, driven by inference from unobserved variables, offers a more likely explanation for widespread critical behaviors in nature.
Area of Science:
- Complex Systems
- Statistical Physics
- Information Theory
Background:
- Biological systems with many components often display critical behaviors, marked by large correlated fluctuations.
- The precise causes of this widespread criticality remain incompletely understood.
Conclusions:
- Fine-tuning is not the sole explanation for biological criticality; extrinsic criticality provides an alternative.
- Extrinsic criticality arises from collective behavior adapting to external stimuli.
- Observable Zipf's law can emerge without fine-tuning or external fluctuations in systems with global dynamics.
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