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Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos
Complexity, in Roger Lewin's view, will be the dominant scientific trend of the 1990s, as scientists from many disciplines come together and begin to discover the underlying similarities in their fields. Briefly, complexity theory - which encompasses chaos - holds that at the root of all complex systems lies a few simple rules. It takes the notion of chaos (which states that within seemingly chaotic systems are elements of order) a step further by actually identifying these rules. For example - the rules which govern the behaviour of molecules will parallel those which guide human behaviour. The goal of complexity theory is a grand unification of the life sciences.
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First published December 1, 1992
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About the author
Roger Lewin
59 books17 followersRoger Lewin (born 1944) is a British prize-winning science writer and author of 20 books.
Lewin was a staff member of New Scientist in London for nine years. He went to Washington, D.C. to write for Science for ten years as News Editor. An example article was "Evolutionary Theory Under Fire", 21, November 1980, vol. 210, pp 883–887. Lewin wrote three books with Richard Leakey. He became a full-time freelance writer in 1989 and concentrated on writing books. In 1989 Roger Lewin won the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books for Bones of Contention.
In 2000, Lewin formed Harvest Associates with wife Birute Regine for business consulting. Together they wrote, The Soul at Work: Unleashing the Power of Complexity Science for Business Success, Orion Business Books (1999), republished as Weaving Complexity & Business: Engaging the Soul at Work, Texere (2000). He is a member of the Complexity Research Group at the London School of Economics.
Lewin was a staff member of New Scientist in London for nine years. He went to Washington, D.C. to write for Science for ten years as News Editor. An example article was "Evolutionary Theory Under Fire", 21, November 1980, vol. 210, pp 883–887. Lewin wrote three books with Richard Leakey. He became a full-time freelance writer in 1989 and concentrated on writing books. In 1989 Roger Lewin won the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books for Bones of Contention.
In 2000, Lewin formed Harvest Associates with wife Birute Regine for business consulting. Together they wrote, The Soul at Work: Unleashing the Power of Complexity Science for Business Success, Orion Business Books (1999), republished as Weaving Complexity & Business: Engaging the Soul at Work, Texere (2000). He is a member of the Complexity Research Group at the London School of Economics.
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August 3, 2018 Think of the the first bicycles or cars...Lots of experimentation to begin with...As time goes on and the world gets full of cycles or cars...the extremes get weeded out, a few forms survive, and subsequent innovation focusses on improvement on the remaining themes. You go from generation of many themes to variation upon a few, just like the Cambrian[ explosion of life] (pp.70-71)
The basic argument is no more than the belief that there are fundamental rules that determine the qualities of systems so we have the Emergence of self- organizing dynamics (p.191), from cells to the planetary system (ie Gaia theory).
The Author towards the end says from my gut I respond positively (p.184) but what this stomach science produces is an excitable, overwrought, voluble book, chatty, the author may not describe the scientists he meets as shaggy haired demi-gods playing guitars on top of mountains which they crush beneath their feet, but my impression was that this was how he regarded them, and perhaps that he hoped something of the charisma he invested in them, would rub off on to himself through association (all of these scientists, he lets us know gently, he is on first name terms with. In the book, as in history, surnames gradually evolve as the text progresses).
Good chunks of the book consist of people appearing to be amazed at things which are self-evident ie that eco-systems are systems, that because the component parts are in relation to each other, that changing one part will impact on the system as a whole, and that they have the properties of stable systems, unless they don't, in which case they are not!
But then again I am not a scientist, just a civilian. I trust the judgement of my gut too, however that does not mean that I trust Lewin's gut, which is foreign to me, if we were ants we could exchange the contents of our stomachs and thus perhaps on a chemical level change each other's thinking. Earlier, like a mighty burp, another scientist points out that the data is lousy just after Lewin gets excited about all mass extinctions being caused by asteroid strikes. One part of the argument is about the collapse of complex societies which illustrates the same point. We live in complex societies and so are interested in their decline and fall, however the data, while suggestive, is inconclusive, for instance part of the argument in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is about Easter Island, shortly after publishing, dating data from Easter Island was reassessed and shifted by several hundred years, in a stroke rendering it unlikely that human activity had been the main cause of the collapse of the island's ecology. Elsewhere I have reviewed books discussing the end of the Roman empire which has been up for discussion since Saint Augustine, the data is like a dose of salts to any theory.
Interestingly in the book Levin is told that English gentlemen don't like the idea of Emergence of self organizing dynamics but urban Jews do, or in other words this is about English empiricism versus German Idealistic philosophy or as Lewin has it Aristotle v Plato - the bout of the aeon to be fought out in uncountable rounds.
I suppose from this we can learn that in science it is not the case that one view always supersedes another, but that sometimes scientists orbit around the same ideas for centuries, not because of evidence but because of basic differences in outlook and world-understanding between people (eg here gradualism vs catastrophe).
As a book about systems thinking, this has very little to offer save a vision of scientists growing successively shaggier , as they proclaim ever grander theories off smaller and poorer data sets. As writing, this flows from the gut and is easily digested. Both times I read it, I chewed through it in a couple of days. As it is I feel this book is testimony to the value of eating yoghurt and having a good colony of bacteria in the intestine.
The basic argument is no more than the belief that there are fundamental rules that determine the qualities of systems so we have the Emergence of self- organizing dynamics (p.191), from cells to the planetary system (ie Gaia theory).
The Author towards the end says from my gut I respond positively (p.184) but what this stomach science produces is an excitable, overwrought, voluble book, chatty, the author may not describe the scientists he meets as shaggy haired demi-gods playing guitars on top of mountains which they crush beneath their feet, but my impression was that this was how he regarded them, and perhaps that he hoped something of the charisma he invested in them, would rub off on to himself through association (all of these scientists, he lets us know gently, he is on first name terms with. In the book, as in history, surnames gradually evolve as the text progresses).
Good chunks of the book consist of people appearing to be amazed at things which are self-evident ie that eco-systems are systems, that because the component parts are in relation to each other, that changing one part will impact on the system as a whole, and that they have the properties of stable systems, unless they don't, in which case they are not!
But then again I am not a scientist, just a civilian. I trust the judgement of my gut too, however that does not mean that I trust Lewin's gut, which is foreign to me, if we were ants we could exchange the contents of our stomachs and thus perhaps on a chemical level change each other's thinking. Earlier, like a mighty burp, another scientist points out that the data is lousy just after Lewin gets excited about all mass extinctions being caused by asteroid strikes. One part of the argument is about the collapse of complex societies which illustrates the same point. We live in complex societies and so are interested in their decline and fall, however the data, while suggestive, is inconclusive, for instance part of the argument in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is about Easter Island, shortly after publishing, dating data from Easter Island was reassessed and shifted by several hundred years, in a stroke rendering it unlikely that human activity had been the main cause of the collapse of the island's ecology. Elsewhere I have reviewed books discussing the end of the Roman empire which has been up for discussion since Saint Augustine, the data is like a dose of salts to any theory.
Interestingly in the book Levin is told that English gentlemen don't like the idea of Emergence of self organizing dynamics but urban Jews do, or in other words this is about English empiricism versus German Idealistic philosophy or as Lewin has it Aristotle v Plato - the bout of the aeon to be fought out in uncountable rounds.
I suppose from this we can learn that in science it is not the case that one view always supersedes another, but that sometimes scientists orbit around the same ideas for centuries, not because of evidence but because of basic differences in outlook and world-understanding between people (eg here gradualism vs catastrophe).
As a book about systems thinking, this has very little to offer save a vision of scientists growing successively shaggier , as they proclaim ever grander theories off smaller and poorer data sets. As writing, this flows from the gut and is easily digested. Both times I read it, I chewed through it in a couple of days. As it is I feel this book is testimony to the value of eating yoghurt and having a good colony of bacteria in the intestine.
November 20, 2014
I read this book as a followup to the excellent "Complexity: A Guided Tour," and I have to say it was a bit of a letdown. While it does dive more deeply into some of the ideas behind the field, a lot of the book's substance consists of scientists speaking off the cuff about their most grandiose visions for their work. Frankly, it ends up coming off a bit kooky in more than a few places where researchers are not being as circumspect as a good scientist ought to be. The pace also drags more than a bit in places. All in all, it's an okay read for someone with an interest in the field, but if you're looking for an engaging introduction, there's better out there.
August 14, 2019
A fine introduction and an interesting read
The science of complexity, a discipline unique to the computer age, was born of chaos and a growing sense that there is something amenable to scientific inquiry about complex systems that we are missing. Before we had the number crunching power of computers, complexity could not be explored because the many variables resulted in astronomical calculations.
In this revision of his book originally published in 1992, Roger Lewin explains what the science of complexity is all about through interviews with some of its most important practitioners (and critics) organized around some of the central ideas. As such this is both a fine introduction to the subject and an interesting read. Lewin includes 16 pages of photos of the scientists he interviewed captioned with a significant quote from each. He has added an afterword on the application of complexity science to business, and an appendix about John Holland, whom he dubs, "Mr. Emergence."
"Everything works toward an ecology" is an old dictum of mine. I have the sense that I came up with that myself, but I probably read it somewhere years ago. At any rate, what is being said here is that complex systems work toward a state of equilibrium near a transition phase, near "the edge of chaos." This equilibrium can be an ecology (Darwin's "tangled web"); indeed it can be the entire planet, as in the concept of Gaia in which "the Earth's biological and physical systems are tightly coupled in a giant homeostatic system" (quoting Stuart Kauffman on page 109).
A central idea is that "...large, interactive systems–dynamical systems–naturally evolve toward a critical state" (physicist Per Bak, quoted on page 61). These systems include weather, financial markets, piles of sand, and most significantly, ecologies, so that evolution itself is seen as shaped by the dynamics of complexity. Complexity is the "interesting" middle ground between order and the purely random, between the crystalized structure of ice and the Brownian motion of molecules. I had a curious sense of understanding when I compared these three states with positions at chess. First there is the even, static position, perhaps with bishops of opposite color in which no progress can be made, a draw the inevitable result. Second there is the wildly chaotic position so complex that no one can completely calculate it, say the board after black takes white's queen knight pawn in the "poisoned pawn" variation of the Najdorf Sicilian. In between are the "interesting" positions in which one side might have a small advantage or there might be a dynamic balance of advantages, space versus material, for example, in which a startling combination might be hidden.
These states–"at the edge of chaos"–are seen here as analogous to the phrase transition states of matter, from liquid to gas, for example. The idea is that there is a naturally occurring property of the physical world that forces complex systems into stable, readiness states near the edge of transition. What is exciting is that these states, because they are so "ripe" for change can be influenced or manipulated into change with small resources. Out of complexity comes something that could not be predicted by an analysis of its individual components, an emergent property of the system. I would note that such a natural phenomenon would be attractive to those who believe in punctuated evolution (e.g., Steven Jay Gould) and to those who believe that social and political change typically comes suddenly and with great force.
Central to what complexity science is saying is that reductionism–which is the technique that has driven science to its present position of power and influence–is limited. "...[Y:]ou have to look at the interactions as well as the parts," John Holland is quoted as saying on page 220. In other words, you have to take a holistic approach. However, the use of the word "holistic," a New Age shibboleth, is the just sort of thing that makes traditional scientists wince.
Consequently, complexity science is not without its critics who argue that the fundamental mechanism of complexity exists only in a mystical sense and is therefore anathema to mainstream science. Even its practitioners, such as University of Michigan "complexologist" John Holland, admit they are still searching for the fundamental mechanism of this new science. He is quoted on page 214 as saying, "Our present understanding is not much better than the child saying that Jack Frost explains the wondrous colors of autumn."
However most complexity scientists would say that the mechanism isn't mystical at all. It's just not understood yet. I would add that much of what we think we know about the world is based on relationships and phenomenon that we assume we understand, but really we don't. For example physicists say that gravity curves spacetime, but they don't say how it curves spacetime. Presumably gravitons do the trick, but they haven't been discovered yet! So it could be said that gravity is mystical. I like to compare this lack of understanding to the task of watching grass grow. (This also works for evolution.) Every day I look but at no time do I ever see the grass growing, yet after a while I know it has grown. It seems that it always grows when I'm not looking! By the same token we see the results of complexity, but we do not yet see the inner workings of the process. We may never see the process, but through complexity science we may yet understand it.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
The science of complexity, a discipline unique to the computer age, was born of chaos and a growing sense that there is something amenable to scientific inquiry about complex systems that we are missing. Before we had the number crunching power of computers, complexity could not be explored because the many variables resulted in astronomical calculations.
In this revision of his book originally published in 1992, Roger Lewin explains what the science of complexity is all about through interviews with some of its most important practitioners (and critics) organized around some of the central ideas. As such this is both a fine introduction to the subject and an interesting read. Lewin includes 16 pages of photos of the scientists he interviewed captioned with a significant quote from each. He has added an afterword on the application of complexity science to business, and an appendix about John Holland, whom he dubs, "Mr. Emergence."
"Everything works toward an ecology" is an old dictum of mine. I have the sense that I came up with that myself, but I probably read it somewhere years ago. At any rate, what is being said here is that complex systems work toward a state of equilibrium near a transition phase, near "the edge of chaos." This equilibrium can be an ecology (Darwin's "tangled web"); indeed it can be the entire planet, as in the concept of Gaia in which "the Earth's biological and physical systems are tightly coupled in a giant homeostatic system" (quoting Stuart Kauffman on page 109).
A central idea is that "...large, interactive systems–dynamical systems–naturally evolve toward a critical state" (physicist Per Bak, quoted on page 61). These systems include weather, financial markets, piles of sand, and most significantly, ecologies, so that evolution itself is seen as shaped by the dynamics of complexity. Complexity is the "interesting" middle ground between order and the purely random, between the crystalized structure of ice and the Brownian motion of molecules. I had a curious sense of understanding when I compared these three states with positions at chess. First there is the even, static position, perhaps with bishops of opposite color in which no progress can be made, a draw the inevitable result. Second there is the wildly chaotic position so complex that no one can completely calculate it, say the board after black takes white's queen knight pawn in the "poisoned pawn" variation of the Najdorf Sicilian. In between are the "interesting" positions in which one side might have a small advantage or there might be a dynamic balance of advantages, space versus material, for example, in which a startling combination might be hidden.
These states–"at the edge of chaos"–are seen here as analogous to the phrase transition states of matter, from liquid to gas, for example. The idea is that there is a naturally occurring property of the physical world that forces complex systems into stable, readiness states near the edge of transition. What is exciting is that these states, because they are so "ripe" for change can be influenced or manipulated into change with small resources. Out of complexity comes something that could not be predicted by an analysis of its individual components, an emergent property of the system. I would note that such a natural phenomenon would be attractive to those who believe in punctuated evolution (e.g., Steven Jay Gould) and to those who believe that social and political change typically comes suddenly and with great force.
Central to what complexity science is saying is that reductionism–which is the technique that has driven science to its present position of power and influence–is limited. "...[Y:]ou have to look at the interactions as well as the parts," John Holland is quoted as saying on page 220. In other words, you have to take a holistic approach. However, the use of the word "holistic," a New Age shibboleth, is the just sort of thing that makes traditional scientists wince.
Consequently, complexity science is not without its critics who argue that the fundamental mechanism of complexity exists only in a mystical sense and is therefore anathema to mainstream science. Even its practitioners, such as University of Michigan "complexologist" John Holland, admit they are still searching for the fundamental mechanism of this new science. He is quoted on page 214 as saying, "Our present understanding is not much better than the child saying that Jack Frost explains the wondrous colors of autumn."
However most complexity scientists would say that the mechanism isn't mystical at all. It's just not understood yet. I would add that much of what we think we know about the world is based on relationships and phenomenon that we assume we understand, but really we don't. For example physicists say that gravity curves spacetime, but they don't say how it curves spacetime. Presumably gravitons do the trick, but they haven't been discovered yet! So it could be said that gravity is mystical. I like to compare this lack of understanding to the task of watching grass grow. (This also works for evolution.) Every day I look but at no time do I ever see the grass growing, yet after a while I know it has grown. It seems that it always grows when I'm not looking! By the same token we see the results of complexity, but we do not yet see the inner workings of the process. We may never see the process, but through complexity science we may yet understand it.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
February 20, 2011
I had higher expectations of this book. Lewin seemed more interested in talking about the scientists than their ideas, or at least he used individuals as the organizing principle of this book, which made it difficult for me to end up with a solid, holistic grasp of the science of complexity. That does not mean the book was without some very fascinating ideas. I'd never come across the Gaia Theory before, and I loved reading about artificial life. Unfortunately, I've forgotten most everything else. Maybe that's more my fault rather than the book's? Hard to say.
September 21, 2023
Chaos at the Edge of Life
[This review is under construction. Just wanted to write my more pressing, rambling thoughts/ideas as I think of them!]
The scientific concept of complexity is a very interesting topic of which I had not previously known from an academic perspective. I bought this book a few years ago along with another book, Complexification by John Casti (which I suspect will be more illustrative), thinking they would help me understand "complex systems" better. Turns out this one did, although not in the way I thought it would.
I never actually had a firm understanding of what makes a "complex system." In my mind, complex systems were things like economics, politics, and society, i.e., systems built out of seemingly simple concepts, yet whose landscapes often feel very difficult to view the whole of (at least for me); yet, from which the simplest elements, such as feedback loops, could be teased out if given due consideration. These are, in fact, complex systems, but their type is not the type featured anywhere in this book. Civilizational rise and fall is discussed, but that is necessarily from a purely historical perspective.
After having finished this book, I can't help but to recall Asimov's Foundation series. I could easily envision attempts at integrating this science of complexity into calculating probabilities and forecasting events that affect humans in the real world in real time. For instance, can it truly be said that the current political situation in the US of such a pitched battle between entrenched liberals and conservatives was never predictable? And, if true, would that not cast a completely different color over our perceptions of our own interactions with politics? There is a feeling of inevitability to it for me, but perhaps I'm exhibiting hindsight bias and/or seeking a fatalistic excuse for granting me the convenience of not grappling with the brutish, clumsy hands that seem to dominate politics. At any rate, if anyone ever actually reads this, please humor me and let's assume these complexities could actually be predicted.
Speaking of predictability...
Speaking of universal rules...
From simple rules, emergent properties and from emergent properties, global rules, seemingly unrelated to the simple rules...
Tautology...
[This review is under construction. Just wanted to write my more pressing, rambling thoughts/ideas as I think of them!]
The scientific concept of complexity is a very interesting topic of which I had not previously known from an academic perspective. I bought this book a few years ago along with another book, Complexification by John Casti (which I suspect will be more illustrative), thinking they would help me understand "complex systems" better. Turns out this one did, although not in the way I thought it would.
I never actually had a firm understanding of what makes a "complex system." In my mind, complex systems were things like economics, politics, and society, i.e., systems built out of seemingly simple concepts, yet whose landscapes often feel very difficult to view the whole of (at least for me); yet, from which the simplest elements, such as feedback loops, could be teased out if given due consideration. These are, in fact, complex systems, but their type is not the type featured anywhere in this book. Civilizational rise and fall is discussed, but that is necessarily from a purely historical perspective.
After having finished this book, I can't help but to recall Asimov's Foundation series. I could easily envision attempts at integrating this science of complexity into calculating probabilities and forecasting events that affect humans in the real world in real time. For instance, can it truly be said that the current political situation in the US of such a pitched battle between entrenched liberals and conservatives was never predictable? And, if true, would that not cast a completely different color over our perceptions of our own interactions with politics? There is a feeling of inevitability to it for me, but perhaps I'm exhibiting hindsight bias and/or seeking a fatalistic excuse for granting me the convenience of not grappling with the brutish, clumsy hands that seem to dominate politics. At any rate, if anyone ever actually reads this, please humor me and let's assume these complexities could actually be predicted.
Speaking of predictability...
Speaking of universal rules...
From simple rules, emergent properties and from emergent properties, global rules, seemingly unrelated to the simple rules...
Tautology...
June 11, 2020
Some might say that this is one of the best scientific writings of all time as it covers, albeit implicitly, some of the immortal questions from a purely scientific perspective. What is life? Check out the Game of Life. Beautifully explained and written about in this book. What is complexity? Well, that's even in the title! What is chaos? It's simpler, much simpler than you might think. How are biology, physics, econ, social sciences (inner city decay anyone?) connected in fundamental ways? What is a genetic algorithm? Did someone discover that, or is it an invention? Yes and yes! John Holland, an electrical engineer stumbled upon this general tool for global optimization of challenging problem which is used in chip design automation, logistics and decision automation and so on and so forth, along with biological life!
If you like science and wonder the fundamental questions of science and life, look no further. This book was written in 1992, I read it during my studies for phd. And, I still enjoy thinking and talking about what it got me started on.
If you like science and wonder the fundamental questions of science and life, look no further. This book was written in 1992, I read it during my studies for phd. And, I still enjoy thinking and talking about what it got me started on.
June 7, 2022
This book is written from the author's perspective and reads like a compilation of many informal interviews. I found the text hard to read because much of it is in direct speech with randomly placed discussions. I was surprised to find grammar mistakes and typos (at least in the paperback edition published in 1993 by Phoenix).
In terms of content, I had hoped to find a more nuanced, critical presentation of complexity. Instead, this book delivers a lot of speculation and hype. Also, I would have preferred the focus to be on the research rather than on the researcher.
Nevertheless, the topic of complexity is presented from many angles in an awe-inspiring way. I have come out of this book with a basic understanding of complexity and a list of further readings.
In terms of content, I had hoped to find a more nuanced, critical presentation of complexity. Instead, this book delivers a lot of speculation and hype. Also, I would have preferred the focus to be on the research rather than on the researcher.
Nevertheless, the topic of complexity is presented from many angles in an awe-inspiring way. I have come out of this book with a basic understanding of complexity and a list of further readings.
January 16, 2018
I dare not pretend that I understood Lewin's far-ranging discussion of the multitudinous aspects of Complexity. But I was fascinated, intrigued, and thoroughly captured by the premise.
July 21, 2020
A really great introduction to the scientific ideas of Complexity Theory.
February 7, 2022
Challenging concepts well explored through interview.
November 24, 2025
The joy of science meeting reality
June 19, 2012
In my high school psychology course there was a brief overview of the history of psychology, beginning with the German "Gestalt" theorists in the 19th century. I couldn't tell you any of their names, nor could I cite a single book or article by any of them, but their underlying concept has stuck with me since then. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
That has, in many ways, been my approach to a wide variety of aspects of life - I think it applies to literary theory, philosophy, sociology, much of the hard sciences... possibly everything. And it seems as though the scientific community is beginning to see that this might be the case, and not simply for mystical reasons. There's evidence that eating whole foods is better for you than consuming each of the separate nutrients contained in a food on their own. A whole carrot will nourish you in ways that an equivalent stack of vitamins will not.
This is not, however, because of some sort of magical property that comes from outside of the carrot - rather, the carrot, as an organism, is a complex system. And, according to the theories described in Roger Lewin's book, complex systems have emergent properties - properties that make the wholes greater than the sums of their parts.
In many ways, then, "Complexity" - admittedly a 20-year-old and fairly famous book - was something of a revelation. I'd first heart of complex systems theory from a short biography of Cormac McCarthy, who spends a great deal of his time at the Santa Fe Institute (which is the central institution of Lewin's book). I didn't know what complex systems were, but as I read a little more about it, it seemed to be right up my alley. I sought out Lewin's book - and bingo. This is pretty cool.
The book isn't perfect, of course. It clearly feels itself to be in the shadow of James Gleick's "Chaos," (which came out 4 years prior, and which I read just before this one), and is trying in some ways to comment on Gleick without giving him too much credit (since Chaos theory is, according to this book, a part of Complexity). It's also told in a sort of Platonic dialogue model, with Lewin's narrator-self posing questions to scientists that he would obviously already know the answer to as a way of explicating to the non-technical reader some sort of highly technical point. It was actually quite helpful, but the artifice wasn't always transparent, and could get a little old.
Lewin isn't entirely convinced by the Complexity folks he talks to, and despite my leanings neither am I - some of the Santa Fe folks are convinced they've not only found order within chaos, but THE order of the world, and that seems farfetched. The Gaia Hypothesis, as the chapter on James Lovelock shows, can easily be taken too far, as can some of the analogies from Boolean networks and simulated ecosystems to actual evolution and species development.
However, the main point - that complex systems have emergent properties, that the interaction of the parts of a system give rise to separate phenomena that therefore also interact with the parts of the system and cause further changes and greater wholes, is an essential point that I'm glad I could finally begin to understand scientifically. Very exciting stuff, now I just need to catch up on the past 20 years of the science.
That has, in many ways, been my approach to a wide variety of aspects of life - I think it applies to literary theory, philosophy, sociology, much of the hard sciences... possibly everything. And it seems as though the scientific community is beginning to see that this might be the case, and not simply for mystical reasons. There's evidence that eating whole foods is better for you than consuming each of the separate nutrients contained in a food on their own. A whole carrot will nourish you in ways that an equivalent stack of vitamins will not.
This is not, however, because of some sort of magical property that comes from outside of the carrot - rather, the carrot, as an organism, is a complex system. And, according to the theories described in Roger Lewin's book, complex systems have emergent properties - properties that make the wholes greater than the sums of their parts.
In many ways, then, "Complexity" - admittedly a 20-year-old and fairly famous book - was something of a revelation. I'd first heart of complex systems theory from a short biography of Cormac McCarthy, who spends a great deal of his time at the Santa Fe Institute (which is the central institution of Lewin's book). I didn't know what complex systems were, but as I read a little more about it, it seemed to be right up my alley. I sought out Lewin's book - and bingo. This is pretty cool.
The book isn't perfect, of course. It clearly feels itself to be in the shadow of James Gleick's "Chaos," (which came out 4 years prior, and which I read just before this one), and is trying in some ways to comment on Gleick without giving him too much credit (since Chaos theory is, according to this book, a part of Complexity). It's also told in a sort of Platonic dialogue model, with Lewin's narrator-self posing questions to scientists that he would obviously already know the answer to as a way of explicating to the non-technical reader some sort of highly technical point. It was actually quite helpful, but the artifice wasn't always transparent, and could get a little old.
Lewin isn't entirely convinced by the Complexity folks he talks to, and despite my leanings neither am I - some of the Santa Fe folks are convinced they've not only found order within chaos, but THE order of the world, and that seems farfetched. The Gaia Hypothesis, as the chapter on James Lovelock shows, can easily be taken too far, as can some of the analogies from Boolean networks and simulated ecosystems to actual evolution and species development.
However, the main point - that complex systems have emergent properties, that the interaction of the parts of a system give rise to separate phenomena that therefore also interact with the parts of the system and cause further changes and greater wholes, is an essential point that I'm glad I could finally begin to understand scientifically. Very exciting stuff, now I just need to catch up on the past 20 years of the science.
December 20, 2012
I bought this at Alias Books at the same time I also bought books by Richard Rorty, John Cage, Stephen Hawking and Tyler Volk. It was a good introduction to complexity, written by PhD science writer.
It was through Lewin that I was introduced to Stuart Kauffman, The Santa Fe Institute, John von Neumann, Chris Langton, Steven Wolfram, Norman Packard, James Valentine, Brian Goodwin, Doyne Farmer, Tom Ray, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (Gaia hypothesis), Murray Gell-Mann, Stuart Pimm, Dan McShea, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Danny Hillis, Pat Churchland, Roger Penrose and E.O. Wilson.
(There were others, but I didn't list them).
It was through Lewin that I was introduced to Stuart Kauffman, The Santa Fe Institute, John von Neumann, Chris Langton, Steven Wolfram, Norman Packard, James Valentine, Brian Goodwin, Doyne Farmer, Tom Ray, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (Gaia hypothesis), Murray Gell-Mann, Stuart Pimm, Dan McShea, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Danny Hillis, Pat Churchland, Roger Penrose and E.O. Wilson.
(There were others, but I didn't list them).
July 17, 2012
This book tells the story of the new science of complexity. Roger is a decent storyteller who interviews all the subject's big wigs around the world with concentration at the Santa Fe Institute. Complexity is argued as something that is as influential as Darwinian evolution. Biologically, it challenges evolution's linear processes with a larger system view. It is interesting and I'm sure there is something to it.
July 22, 2008
Excellent introduction to the science of complexity.
September 27, 2008
I have been exploring the nature of Chaos theory for some time. Perhaps the whole idea about randomness may be an illusion.
August 16, 2009
A good introduction to complexity science, but written in a first-person perspective, which I tended to find annoying at times.
August 22, 2014
Ha! Feeling elated... have finally understood the meaning of life: it's just the advent of structure out of the sea of complexity. Got it? No? Great, then read the book... :)
June 17, 2015
Great scientific, mathematical, and philosophical journey of chaos, order, and complexity!
July 29, 2010
Opened a whole new view of the world. Love the concepts.
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