Demographics of co-aging complex systems: from sickly worms to chess engines

Abstract

Aging, as defined in terms of the slope of the probability of death versus time (hazard curve), is a generic phenomenon observed in nearly all complex systems. Theoretical models of aging predict hazard curves that monotonically increase in time, in discrepancy with the peculiar ups and downs observed in empirically. Here we introduce the concept of co-aging, where the demographic trajectories of multiple cohorts couple together, and show that co-aging dynamics can account for the anomalous hazard curves exhibited by some species. In our model, multiple interdependency networks inflict damage on one other proportional to their number of functional nodes. We then fit our model predictions to three datasets describing (1) co-aging worm-pathogen populations (2) competing tree species. Lastly, we gather the mortality statistics of (3) machine-against-machine chess games to demonstrate that co-aging dynamics is not exclusive to biological systems