Related papers: What Makes a System Complex? an Approach to Self-O…
To analyze the evolutionary emergence of structural complexity in physical processes we introduce a general, but tractable, model of objects that interact to produce new objects. Since the objects--\emph{$epsilon$-machines}--have well…
Physicists study a wide variety of phenomena creating new interdisciplinary research fields by applying theories and methods originally developed in physics in order to solve problems in economics, social science, biology, medicine,…
Many complex systems can be described in terms of networks of interacting units. Recent studies have shown that a wide class of both natural and artificial nets display a surprisingly widespread feature: the presence of highly heterogeneous…
Complex macroscopic behaviour can arise in many-body systems with only very simple elements as a consequence of the combination of competition and inhomogeneity. This paper attempts to illustrate how statistical physics has driven this…
Complex networks have become the main paradigm for modelling the dynamics of interacting systems. However, networks are intrinsically limited to describing pairwise interactions, whereas real-world systems are often characterized by…
Many systems involve numerous interacting parts and the whole system can have properties that the individual parts do not. I take this novelty as the defining characteristic of an emergent property. Other characteristics associated with…
The question how complex systems become more organized and efficient with time is open. Examples are, the formation of elementary particles from pure energy, the formation of atoms from particles, the formation of stars and galaxies, the…
Contemporary complexity theory has been instrumental in providing novel rigorous definitions for some classic philosophical concepts, including emergence. In an attempt to provide an account of emergence that is consistent with complexity…
Many living and non-living complex systems can be modeled and understood as collective systems made of heterogeneous components that self-organize and generate nontrivial morphological structures and behaviors. This chapter presents a brief…
The spatial character of territorial systems plays a crucial role in the emergence of their complexities. This contribution aims at illustrating to what extent different types of complexities can be exhibited in models of such systems. We…
Complex systems are characterized by many interacting units that give rise to emergent behavior. A particularly advantageous way to study these systems is through the analysis of the networks that encode the interactions among the system's…
The global availability of communication services makes it possible to interconnect independently developed systems, called constituent systems, to provide new synergistic services and more efficient economic processes. The characteristics…
This paper will introduce a theory of emergent animal social complexity using various results from computational models and empirical results. These results will be organized into a vertical model of social complexity. This will support the…
Over the last two decades, network science has greatly advanced our understanding of how the collective behaviors of a complex system emerge from the interactions among its basic units. Multiplex networks, i.e. networks with many layers,…
Our technologies complexify our environments. Thus, new technologies need to deal with more and more complexity. Several efforts have been made to deal with this complexity using the concept of self-organization. However, in order to…
We argue that the coordination of the activities of individual complex agents enables a system to develop and sustain complexity at a higher level. We exemplify relevant mechanisms through computer simulations of a toy system, a coupled map…
Can we quantify the change of complexity throughout evolutionary processes? We attempt to address this question through an empirical approach. In very general terms, we simulate two simple organisms on a computer that compete over limited…
Through extensive studies of dynamical system modeling cellular growth and reproduction, we find evidence that complexity arises in multicellular organisms naturally through evolution. Without any elaborate control mechanism, these systems…
The term complexity derives etymologically from the Latin plexus, which means interwoven. Intuitively, this implies that something complex is composed by elements that are difficult to separate. This difficulty arises from the relevant…
The standard assumptions that underlie many conceptual and quantitative frameworks do not hold for many complex physical, biological, and social systems. Complex systems science clarifies when and why such assumptions fail and provides…