Prigogine found out that a dissipative structure far from equilibrium does not follow any universal laws but is unique to the system. Near equilibrium we find repetitive phenomena and universal laws at work. Farther away from equilibrium, local phenomena and rules give rise to unpredictable yet ordered variety. Close to equilibrium processes are minimal, of low intensity. The system’s behavior is predictable and tends toward stasis. As a system moves away from equilibrium, instead of tending to go back to a state close to stillness, the processes intensify, the entropy increases, fluctuations reinforce their amplitudes, and the system no longer tends toward peace. Far from equilibrium a system may cross thresholds of stability that may lead to ever-increasing levels of complexity. Farther and farther, the self-organization ability increases and the ordering of the system moderates finer and more differentiated balance.

Across the threshold of stability the behavior of any system cannot be predicted for a few reasons. A high level of complexity is mathematically described in non-linear equations. These have typically more than one mathematical solution. Nonlinear behavior at bifurcation points means more than one possible bifurcating path.

This offers the adventurous thought of multiple virtual realities actualizing multiple bifurcation paths, or simultaneously actualizing all possible solutions of nonlinear mathematics.

The living system accumulates a number of probabilities or patterns of potential connectivity in its history in order to increase its complexity, flexibility and order, i.e. ability to survive. It has been noted that across the threshold of stability the system’s sensitivity to external influence is immense, so that the smallest input can decide which path the system will take. Together with the multiple solutions, this leads to the impossibility of determining or predicting the behavior of a system in transformational crisis.

As complexity increases, entropy increases too and so does the number of probabilities the system may actualize. Thus, non-equilibrium and unpredictable bifurcations can be surprisingly viewed as sources of order. The creation of novelty in order and behavior appears as an overall spontaneous life process.

Perhaps one of the most important realizations that we can conclude from Prigogine’s research is when a system starts behaving as a whole. Prigogine, speaking of chemical processes, claims that it is exactly at the points of transformational crisis or transition from equilibrium to non-equilibrium that supramolecular (or molar) correlations emerge, taking over the organization of the intramolecular organization and from that point on the system behaves as a whole.

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