Related papers: Complexity and Philosophy
Classic economic science is reaching the limits of its explanatory powers. Complexity science uses an increasingly larger set of different methods to analyze physical, biological, cultural, social, and economic factors, providing a broader…
We investigate the structure common to causal theories that attempt to explain a (part of) the world. Causality implies conservation of identity, itself a far from simple notion. It imposes strong demands on the universalizing power of the…
One might think that, once we know something is computable, how efficiently it can be computed is a practical question with little further philosophical importance. In this essay, I offer a detailed case that one would be wrong. In…
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…
Various research initiatives try to utilize the operational principles of organisms and brains to develop alternative, biologically inspired computing paradigms and artificial cognitive systems. This paper reviews key features of the…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
The basic laws of physics are simple, so why is the world complex? The theory of self-organized criticality posits that complex behavior in nature emerges from the dynamics of extended, dissipative systems that evolve through a sequence of…
It is a widespread belief that results like G\"odel's incompleteness theorems or the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics represent fundamental limitations to humanity's strive for scientific knowledge. As the argument goes, there are…
The quantum-mechanical description of the world, including human observers, makes substantial use of entanglement. In order to understand this, we need to adopt concepts of truth, probability and time which are unfamiliar in modern…
This is a philosophical paper. It claims that there is a gap to be filled in the relationship between complexity theory (CT) and quantum theory (QT). This gap concerns two very distinct understandings of time. The paper provides the ground…
The study of Complex Systems is considered by many to be a new scientific field, and is distinguished by being a discipline that has applications within many separate areas of scientific study. The study of Neural Networks, Traffic…
Complexity science offers a wide range of measures for quantifying unpredictability, structure, and information. Yet, a systematic conceptual organization of these measures is still missing. We present a unified framework that locates…
In contemporary theoretical physics, the powerful notion of symmetry stands for a web of intricate meanings among which I identify four clusters associated with the notion of transformation, comprehension, invariance and projection. While…
This paper discusses serious drawbacks of existing knowledge in macroeconomics and finance in explaining and predicting economic and financial phenomena. Complexity science is proposed as an alternative approach to be used in order to…
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…
Scientists often think of the world (or some part of it) as a dynamical system, a stochastic process, or a generalization of such a system. Prominent examples of systems are (i) the system of planets orbiting the sun or any other classical…
Una de las presuposiciones de la ciencia desde los tiempos de Galileo, Newton y Laplace ha sido la previsibilidad del mundo. Esta idea ha influido en los modelos cientificos y tecnologicos. Sin embargo, en las ultimas decadas, el caos y la…
In this essay, I attempt to provide supporting evidence as well as some balance for the thesis on `Transforming socio-economics with a new epistemology' presented by Hollingworth and Mueller (2008). First, I review a personal highlight of…
The qualitatively new concept of dynamic complexity in quantum mechanics is based on a new paradigm appearing within a nonperturbational analysis of the Schroedinger equation for a generic Hamiltonian system. The unreduced analysis…
A system's apparent simplicity depends on whether it is represented classically or quantally. This is not so surprising, as classical and quantum physics are descriptive frameworks built on different assumptions that capture, emphasize, and…