LOGISTIC ESCALATION AS THE MECHANISM OF EMERGENCE

Ordinary logistics describes growth that is initially exponential but eventually saturates. After reaching saturation, if the evolving, logi stic variable changes ifs nature in some slight way, or if a different component becomes significant, a new cycle, or several, of logistic g rowth appears beyond the first This is not uncommon with multidimensio nal parameters in complex systems. The resulting behavior is just that of sequential emergence, but now with a simply understood mechanism. The mathematical description of logistic growth is extended to quantit atively characterize these escalations and its application to a variet y of evolving systems is considered.