Maximization principles and daisyworld

We investigate whether the equilibrium time-averaged state of a self-organizing system with many internal degrees of freedom, 2D-daisyworld, can be described by optimizing a single quantity. Unlike physical systems where a principle of maximum energy production has been observed, daisyworld follows evolutionary dynamics rather than Hamiltonian dynamics. We find that this is sufficient to invalidate the maximum entropy production principle, finding instead a different principle, that the system self-organizes to a state which maximizes the amount of life. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.