The criteria of selective responsiveness of a system determine also the tolerance limits in which the system may respond to its environment. If an environmental fluctuation goes beyond these limits, the organizational patterns may need to change excessively, the ability to connect of the system may be overwhelmed, its flexibility outrun and the whole system may collapse, because its structure would not be able to embody the brisk organizational change. Implosion can also happen when a single component in the system enters a self-amplifying loop, which drains all other components’ ability to change and leads to stratification of all components except for the looping one.

The environment of a network is composed of an infinite number of larger and smaller networks. The system has a potential of structural coupling with each of them, in accord to its limits of coupling perception, i.e. responsiveness and cognitive ability.

In the information theory the environment passes external information units to the system, while in the Santiago theory the environment only triggers the structural changes, and it does not determine their kind. Structure is formed by a succession of autonomous changes of the system, and the behavior is determined by the organism’s own structure rather than by outside forces. In this way, behavior is both free (from external influence) and determined (by its history of structural changes).

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