ABSTRACT / Schumpeterian creative destruction most naturally relates innovation and its complement obsolescence in a linear progression of realized possibilities from the past to the present. In contrast, biological innovations form a tree (phylogeny) and technological history is a "truss," where branches reconnect because there are many paths to a technological capability versus a set of contingent ones to a species. We propose a simple model for a population of agents innovating while outrunning obsolescence to contrast the impact of dynamical parameters with topological ones. We calculate its phase diagram to show that dynamics defines the phases, but topology shapes them.
BIO / Ernesto Ortega has been a Postdoc at the Complexity Science Hub since March 2023. He received his PhD degree in physics from Havana University, where he also got his master’s degree in physics and bachelor’s degree in physical engineering. Ernesto received a study grant for traineeship, given by the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization, and worked in the EPIcx Lab at the Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health in Paris, France. He also worked as an assistant teacher at Physics Faculty of Havana University. Ernesto is interested in the study of complex systems, collective behavior and network theory. At CSH, his primary work is focus on evolutionary systems driven by innovation and obsolescence processes.