Measuring complexity
Abstract
Complexity is a multi-faceted phenomenon, involving a variety of features including disorder, nonlinearity, and self-organisation. We use a recently developed rigorous framework for complexity to understand measures of complexity. We illustrate, by example, how features of complexity can be quantified, and we analyse a selection of purported measures of complexity that have found wide application and explain whether and how they measure complexity. We also discuss some of the classic information-theoretic measures from the 1980s and 1990s. This work gives the reader a tool kit for quantifying features of complexity across the sciences.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1909.13243,
title = {Measuring complexity},
author = {Karoline Wiesner and James Ladyman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.13243},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
20 pages, substantially revised and extended version, now published as Chapter in book 'What Is a Complex System?' with Yale University Press (2020)