Synergy and increasing complexity

Abstract

In this paper, I will try to show to what extent complexity can be an advantage for the functionality of organic structures and, therefore, favored by natural selection. I believe that the arguments that I will present could explain a general evolutionary trend, towards the progressive increase of this magnitude. I sum them up as follows. Firstly, greater the number of elements constitute a system, greater are the ways in which they can interact. Second, greater is the number of possible interactions, the more likely there will be synergistic interactions favoring the functional efficiency of the whole; and thirdly, since functional efficiency is a factor favored by natural selection, complexity will increase, indirectly privileged by selection pressure. Before dealing with these simple arguments, I will endeavor to expose, in the most elementary way possible and adjusting them to the framework of this question, the notions of each of the fundamental concepts: complexity, emergence, functionality and synergy, whose imprecise interpretation or appropriation to other contexts, seems to me the greatest threat to the understanding of this proposal.