Tuesday, February 19, 2008

characteristics of complex systems

Mark C. Taylor, The Moment of Complexity (2001):

compiled by Taylor:
1. Complex systems are comprised of many different parts, which are connected in multiple ways.

2. diverse components can interact both serially and in parallel to generate sequential as well as simultaneous effects and events.

3. Complex systems display spontaneous self-organization, which complicates interiority and exteriority in such a way that the line that is supposed to separate them becomes undecidable.

4. The structures resulting from spontaneous self-organization emerge from but are not necessarily reducible to the interactivity of the components or elements in the system.

5. Though generated by local interactions, emergent properties tend to be global.

6. Inasmuch as self-organizing structures emerge spontaneously, complex systems are neither fixed nor static but develop or evolve. Such evolution presupposes that complex systems are both open and adaptive.

7. Emergence occurs in a narrow possibility space lying between conditions that are too ordered and too disordered. This boundary or margin is "the edge of chaos" which is always far from equilibrium.

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