Related papers: Complexity: The bigger picture
The general concept of symmetry is realized in manifold ways in different realms of reality, such as plants, animals, minerals, mathematical objects or human artefacts in literature, fine arts and society. In order to arrive at a common…
FuturICT foundations are social science, complex systems science, and ICT. The main concerns and challenges in the science of complex systems in the context of FuturICT are laid out in this paper with special emphasis on the Complex Systems…
The increasing power of computer technology does not dispense with the need to extract meaningful in- formation out of data sets of ever growing size, and indeed typically exacerbates the complexity of this task. To tackle this general…
Complexity is often seen as a inherent negative in information design, with the job of the designer being to reduce or eliminate complexity, and with principles like Tufte's "data-ink ratio" or "chartjunk" to operationalize minimalism and…
Nature hosts a wealth of materials showcasing intricate structures intertwining order, disorder, and hierarchy, delivering resilient multifunctionality surpassing perfect crystals or simplistic disordered materials. The engineering of such…
The science of complex networks is a new interdisciplinary branch of science which has arisen recently on the interface of physics, biology, social and computer sciences, and others. Its main goal is to discover general laws governing the…
I discuss several aspects of information theory and its relationship to physics and neuroscience. The unifying thread of this somewhat chaotic essay is the concept of Kolmogorov or algorithmic complexity (Kolmogorov Complexity, for short).…
This chapter reviews the purpose and use of models from the field of complex systems and, in particular, the implications of trying to use models to understand or make decisions within complex situations, such as policy makers usually face.…
Basic problems in complex systems are surveyed in connection with Life. As a key issue for complex systems, complementarity between syntax/rule/parts and semantics/behavior/whole is stressed. To address the issue, a constructive approach…
As the diversity of people in higher education grows, Universities are struggling to provide inclusive environments that nurture the spirit of free inquiry in the presence of these differences. At the extreme, the value of diversity is…
The diversity of patterns that emerge from complex systems motivates their use for scientific or artistic purposes. When exploring these systems, the challenges faced are the size of the parameter space and the strongly non-linear mapping…
Complex network theory has been applied to solving practical problems from different domains. In this paper, we present a general framework for complex network applications. The keys of a successful application are a thorough understanding…
Corruption studies must evolve to match the complexity of the modern world. Here, we present three main problems in corruption analysis that need to be address: the complexity of the corruption phenomenon itself and its context, the…
The term emergence is increasingly used across scientific disciplines to describe phenomena that arise from interactions among a system's components but cannot be readily inferred by examining those components in isolation. While often…
We discuss views about whether the universe can be rationally comprehended, starting with Plato, then Leibniz, and then the views of some distinguished scientists of the previous century. Based on this, we defend the thesis that…
The study of complex systems through the lens of category theory consistently proves to be a powerful approach. We propose that cognition deserves the same category-theoretic treatment. We show that by considering a highly-compact cognitive…
Nature has found one method of organizing living matter, but maybe other options exist -- not yet discovered -- on how to create life. To study the life "as it could be" is the objective of an interdisciplinary field called Artificial Life…
Interdisciplinary collaborations now sweep most fields of the natural and life sciences, necessary to tackle the world's most challenging problems. Yet, the scientific enterprise continues to be dominated by old stereotypes:…
When a large number of similar entities interact among each other and with their environment at a low scale, unexpected outcomes at higher spatio-temporal scales might spontaneously arise. This nontrivial phenomenon, known as emergence,…
This is a very basic introduction to some notions related to logic and complexity.