Julio, I have been progressing slowly with the book since Monday, being back at work and meetings every night! Started reading again (c. p300) and suddenly it's like I'm not reading the same book! Particularly the stuff about a pile of sand which is at its critical height/slope. This dynamic equilibrium (adding more sand to the top leads to cascades which continuously restore the same conical shape) is at the "critical slope"; true. So it is then equated with all "criticality" and thus "the edge of chaos"; it is then hypothesised that all dynamic equilibrium states are "the edge of chaos" and we are thoroughly carried away with ourselves! By equating the exciting new concept (NON-equilibrium, unpredictable "attractor states", etc.) with "everything", it is reduced to a nothing! "Being is Nothing" as Hegel would say! I'm still reading, so maybe I speak too soon (a problem of mine!) But it's interesting to see how it is still assumed that the world market, the Stock Exchange etc., are systems in a dynamic equilibrium; the "cascades", the periodic crises are now all part of the grand design of the "best of all possible worlds", restoring equilibrium with a healthy correction from time to time! One suspects that we are starting to see the ideological head rear itself. Anyway, it's comforting to know that the "meaning of life" hasn't already been discovered. Andy, 12/12/97