Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 18 views

    Hierarchical Organization - Information Processing - Dynamics (Space and Time) - Evolution and Learning

    Uploaded by

    Toh Qin Kane
    This document summarizes key points from several lectures on complexity. Some of the main ideas discussed include: complex systems are made up of many simple interacting parts that generate emergent behaviors through non-linear interactions; they often self-organize and adapt without centralized control; examples include ant colonies, the brain, immune system, cities; understanding complex systems involves studying dynamics, information processing, computation, and evolution over time through experimental, theoretical and computational methods.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Hierarchical Organization - Information Processing - Dynamics (Space and Time) - Evolution and Learning

    Uploaded by

    Toh Qin Kane
    18 views3 pages
    This document summarizes key points from several lectures on complexity. Some of the main ideas discussed include: complex systems are made up of many simple interacting parts that generate emergent behaviors through non-linear interactions; they often self-organize and adapt without centralized control; examples include ant colonies, the brain, immune system, cities; understanding complex systems involves studying dynamics, information processing, computation, and evolution over time through experimental, theoretical and computational methods.

    Original Title

    IntroductionToComplexity.docx

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document summarizes key points from several lectures on complexity. Some of the main ideas discussed include: complex systems are made up of many simple interacting parts that generate emergent behaviors through non-linear interactions; they often self-organize and adapt without centralized control; examples include ant colonies, the brain, immune system, cities; understanding complex systems involves studying dynamics, information processing, computation, and evolution over time through experimental, theoretical and computational methods.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    18 views3 pages

    Hierarchical Organization - Information Processing - Dynamics (Space and Time) - Evolution and Learning

    Uploaded by

    Toh Qin Kane
    This document summarizes key points from several lectures on complexity. Some of the main ideas discussed include: complex systems are made up of many simple interacting parts that generate emergent behaviors through non-linear interactions; they often self-organize and adapt without centralized control; examples include ant colonies, the brain, immune system, cities; understanding complex systems involves studying dynamics, information processing, computation, and evolution over time through experimental, theoretical and computational methods.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 3

    Lecture 2: What is complexity

    1. Ant colonies self-organize e.g. bridge building / chaining.


    2. Neurons in brain. Ensemble of simple units = cognition.
    3. Immune system.
    4. Human genome: gene regulatory networks
    5. Networks e.g. food web/ GRNs/ financial institutions. Network science.
    6. Science of cities: cities as ‘living organisms’.

    Aim of complex systems studies: How can simple agents produce complex behavior without
    centralized control? Decentralized, self-organizing system.

    Lecture 3: Properties of complex systems

    1. Simple components / agents


    2. Non-linear interactions (more than sum of parts)
    3. Decentralized control
    4. Emergent behavior
    - Hierarchical organization
    - Information processing
    - Dynamics (space and time)
    - Evolution and learning

    Lecture 4: Core disciplines, goals of complex system

    1. Dynamics
    2. Information
    3. Computation (how systems process information)
    4. Evolution (adaptation)

    Goals:

    1. Cross-disciplinary insights into complex systems


    2. General theory of complexity that unites disparate fields (realistic?? Possible??)

    Methodologies:

    1. Experimental work
    2. Theoretical work
    3. Computer simulations

    Lecture 5: Definitions of complexity.

    Too many definitions..

    Seth Lloyd 2001: measures of complexity: a nonexhaustive list

    1. Shannon information
    2. Fractal dimension
    3. Etc. etc.

    Science and complexity by Warren Weaver (1948): Weaver divides the problems in science into 3
    categories:

    1. Problems of simplicity (few variables)


    - Pressure and temperature
    - Current, resistance, voltage
    - Popuation vs time
    2. Problems of disorganized complexity
    - Laws of Temp and pressure arising from trillions of disorganized air molecules (Statistical
    mechanics- science of averages) Assume very little interaction among variables: the
    whole = average of the parts
    3. Problems of organized complexity
    - Strong, nonlinear interactions among variables = variables cannot be meaningfully
    averaged.
    - Problems which involve dealing simultaneously with a sizable number of factors which
    are inter-related into an organic whole.

    Examples of problems of organized complexity:

    - What is the description of aging in biochemical terms?


    - What is a gene, and how does the original genetic constitution of a living organism
    express itself in the developed characteristics of the adult?
    - On what does the price of wheat depend?
    - How can one explain the behavior pattern of an organized group of persons?

    “These new problems, moreover, cannot be handled with the statistical techniques so effective in
    describing the average behavior in problems of disorganized complexity”

    “These new problems, and the future of the world depends on many of them, requires science to
    make a third great advance, an advance that must be even greater than the nineteeth-century
    conquest of problems of simplicity or the twentieth-century victory over problems of disorganized
    complexity. Science must, over the next 50 years, learn to deal with these problems of organized
    complexity.”

    Lecture 6: What are complex systems?

    Definition: Systems that don’t yield to compact forms of representation. E.g. physics: Maxwell field
    equations for electromagnetism. Why difficult? History matters: adaptation to environment so
    requires different modelling approach.

    Definition: Give me a yes or no question about this system, and then we answer how easy or difficult
    it is to answer the question computationally.

    Definition: very sophisticated internal causal architecture that stores and processes information.

    Definition: A system that interacts non-linearly. Have power-laws / fractal laws

    Definition: entities that are connected. Interdependent. Adapt (but isn’t adaptation just another
    rule? So perhaps meta-rule). Non-linear.

    Definition: interacting active components, non-linear, ‘unpreedicable’, all components are learning /
    modifying behavior in some way as system is evolving in time (adaptation).

    Definition: Many interacting parts, emergent phenomena

    Definition: Heterogeneous.
    Definition: simple agents interacting in non-linear fashion, generating emergent behavior. Cannot
    encapsulate.

    Summary:

    1. Information
    2. Simple parts interacting non-linearly in interdependent fashion = emergent behavior.
    3. Adapt to environment

    Lecture 7: Using netlego.

    Lecture 8:

    You might also like