emergence of large-scale pattern

Frank SA 2009 The common patterns of nature. J Evol Biol 22:1563-1585.

• aggregation of processes that preserves information only about the mean and variance attracts to the Gaussian pattern
• aggregation that preserves information only about the mean attracts to the exponential pattern
• aggregation that preserves information only about the geometric mean attracts to the power law pattern

• we wish to understand how a large-scale pattern arises from the aggregation of small-scale processes

• a simple and consistent informational framework of the common patterns of nature based on the method of maximum entropy
• each neutral generative model is a special case that helps to discover a particular set of informational constraints
• those informational constraints define a much wider domain of non-neutral generative processes that attract to the same neutral pattern