Major Actors in the Innovation Diffusion Process

Abstract

This chapter provides an explanation of the quintessential role of innovation diffusion as a part of the process of complication, i.e. the deepening of complexity in evolving complex systems. The main feature of the evolution of a complex system is the emergence of new properties which did not exist previously and which add new information to the system. Here we should stress the difference between invention and innovation. While invention involves the appearance of new information, innovation implies the spread of information [new or old] within the system. Innovation diffusion is the mechanism of complication, i.e. of evolution of complexity. The evolution of complexity [complication] of the physical universe included in the past at least three quintessential events: the Big Bang, which flooded the universe with radiation and, a billion years later, the darkening of the fiirmament, because of the appearance of atoms and the creation of stars, black holes and galaxies. Since then the rate of complication of the physical universe has become very low, while the complication of biological, ecological and especially social reality has continued at an accelerated rate.