In this week’s symposium, Adrian’s discussion of the following excerpt was particularly noteworthy:

How is it that assembling a large collection of components into a system results in something altogether different from just a disassociated collection of components? (p. 24.)

Similar to the workings of an ecosystem, individual components function differently than they do as a collective. There is no hierarchy, no centre and instead a networked space of relationships (links) between species (nodes). These relationships result in dependencies between species that can determine the efficiency of the ecosystems overall functionality. For example, if one species were to go extinct, the entire ecosystem may fall apart. It is like deleting a single node from any networked space – links to that node are consequently broken, causing interruptions to the flow of the system.

Furthermore, the point that networks such as these have ‘no centre’ was also something that was stressed in the symposium. Whilst you could argue that a node with the most links could form a central point, this is not necessarily true. This is where Kevin Bacon comes in. The ‘Oracle of Bacon’ ‘rests on the assumption that any individual involved in the Hollywood, California, film industry can be linked through his or her film roles to Kevin Bacon within six steps.’ Despite how this phenomenon may portray him, Kevin Bacon is by no means the centre of Hollywood, but is instead simply a dense connector.