Self-organized criticality (SOC) is a new way of viewing nature - perpetually out of balance but in a poised state, a critical state, where anything can happen within well-defined statistical laws. The aim of the science of SOC is to yield insight into the fundamental question of why nature is complex, not simple, as the laws of physics imply. ### Manifestations 1. Catastrophism - majority of changes take place mostly from catastrophic events, also known as [[punctuated equilibrium]] 2. [[Fractal]] - nature is generally fractal, scale free 3. [[Pink Noise]] - features at all time scales, found all over nature 4. [[Zipf's Law]] - straight line plot between rank and frequency > Complex systems have can large variability. **Complexity is a consequence of criticality** The process of self-organization takes place over a very long transient period. Complex behavior, whether in geophysics or biology, is always created by a long process of evolution. It cannot be understood by studying the systems within a time frame that is short compared with this evolutionary process > Chaos is not complexity. [[Concepts MOC]]