- Nature evolves through processes consisting of stable states separated by relatively fast transitions brought about by instabilities;
- During the stable phase, processes evolve merely quantitatively and continuously;
- Instabilities bring about discontinuous, qualitative changes which often give rise to emergent properties;
- Instabilities may be brought about by omnipresent disturbances or by slow change of the context;
- All these processes are nested on a vast range of spatio-temporal scales;