The evolution of Interoperability

Interoperation is the core of complex systems evolution: the science of complexity can provide useful hints for relevant characteristics of Enterprise Interoperability. An isolated system, according to the second law of thermodynamics, inevitably gets to state of maximum entropy, maximum homogeneity and minimum potential energy: it cannot evolve any more. Taking the universe as a system, cosmologists generally agree that as a whole it is running down this course. But there are “islands of complexity”, systems that instead of getting simpler and simpler find a way of interoperate and organize structures that decrease internal entropy, at the expense of their context. Living organisms are the best example of these interoperating systems. Their evolution is a story of competition for resources and of cooperation for the best exploitation of the context. Knowledge is the opposite of entropy, in the sense that to maintain or increase its internal order a system must “know” how to structure its components. Every organism operates on its environment by building and using models, so that modelling is the main tool for interoperation (each organism is part of the environment of all other ones). In this sense knowledge is this capability of building effective models. Some aspects of the way organisms use modelling to compete and to interoperate can be translated to systems interoperability process and tools.