Related papers: On Complexity and Emergence
Unexpectedness is a central concept in Simplicity Theory, a theory of cognition relating various inferential processes to the computation of Kolmogorov complexities, rather than probabilities. Its predictive power has been confirmed by…
In contrast to entropy, which increases monotonically, the "complexity" or "interestingness" of closed systems seems intuitively to increase at first and then decrease as equilibrium is approached. For example, our universe lacked complex…
We respond to the comment by Crutchfield, Feldman and Shalizi and that by Binder and Perry, pointing out that there may be many maximum entropies, and therefore ``disorders'' and ``simple complexities''. Which ones are appropriate depend on…
Societal complexity may be at a historical peak. Distinct from entropy, complexity tends to rise as systems move away from order, crest at an intermediate state, and decline as entropy continues increasing. The use of a thermodynamic…
This study investigates entropy's potential for analyzing scientific research patterns across disciplines. Originating from thermodynamics, entropy now measures uncertainty and diversity in information systems. We examine Shannon Entropy,…
We define the notion of localizable property for a dynamical system. Then we survey three properties of complexity and relate how they are known to be typical among differentiable dynamical systems. These notions are the fast growth of the…
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…
Entropy is arguably one of the most powerful concepts to understand the world, from the behavior of molecules to the expansion of the universe, from how life emerges to how hybrid complex systems like cities come into being and continue…
The best way to model, understand, and quantify the information contained in complex systems is an open question in physics, mathematics, and computer science. The uncertain relationship between entropy and complexity further complicates…
Complexity is an important metric for appropriate characterization of different classes of irregular signals, observed in the laboratory or in nature. The literature is already rich in the description of such measures using a variety of…
We study the build up of complexity on the example of 1 kg matter in different forms. We start on the simplest example of ideal gases, and then continue with more complex chemical, biological, life and social and technical structures. We…
We compare the elementary theories of Shannon information and Kolmogorov complexity, the extent to which they have a common purpose, and where they are fundamentally different. We discuss and relate the basic notions of both theories:…
We develop a complexity measure for large-scale economic systems based on Shannon's concept of entropy. By adopting Leontief's perspective of the production process as a circular flow, we formulate the process as a Markov chain. Then we…
Complex systems have become a popular lens for analyzing cities and complexity theory has many implications for urban performance and resilience. This paper develops a typology of measures and indicators for assessing the physical…
We critique the measure of complexity introduced by Shiner, Davison, and Landsberg in Ref. [1]. In particular, we point out that it is over-universal, in the sense that it has the same dependence on disorder for structurally distinct…
Economic transformation -- change in what an economy produces -- is foundational to development and rising standards of living. Our understanding of this process has been propelled recently by two branches of work in the field of economic…
Complexity measures are essential to understand complex systems and there are numerous definitions to analyze one-dimensional data. However, extensions of these approaches to two or higher-dimensional data, such as images, are much less…
Context dependence is central to the description of complexity. Keying on the pairwise definition of "set complexity" we use an information theory approach to formulate general measures of systems complexity. We examine the properties of…
This article summarises a Web-book on "Complexity" that was developed to introduce undergraduate students to interesting complex systems in the biological, physical and social sciences, and the common tools, principles and concepts used for…
We introduce a class of information measures based on group entropies, allowing us to describe the information-theoretical properties of complex systems. These entropic measures are nonadditive, and are mathematically deduced from a series…