Essays and speculations about Complex Systems, Adaptation, Learning, Evolution, and Artificial Intelligence, inspired by the book Complexity by M. Mitchell Waldrop

Several of the projects on this website were inspired by the book Complexity: The Emerging Science At The Edge Of Order And Chaos, by M. Mitchell Waldrop.

The book is an understandable and exciting account of how a group of scientists discovered that some of the most difficult problems in their chosen fields -- ranging from economics to physics to biology -- seemed to have deep similarities. Their shared belief that a collaborative investigation into the nature of the similarities might be productive led to the founding of the Santa Fe Institute.

Their field of research came to be known as the study of "complex adaptive systems".

What is a Complex Adaptive System?

What the book refers to as "complexity" is the study of complex adaptive systems. Such systems are not necessarily complex in the sense of being complicated (as the unfortunate use of the word "complexity" would seem to imply). Instead, complex refers to their being composite, compound, comprised of multiple components (agents) acting independently. Complex adaptive systems are composite adaptive systems or compound adaptive systems, but they are not necessarily "complicated adaptive systems".

A population of these independent agents exhibits a collective group behavior. Over time, the individual component agents do not adapt or evolve. They merely survive or they don't. However, as a result of some of them surviving and others not, the composition of their population changes over time, which causes their collective group behavior to change.

This change in the collective group behavior, in the behavior of the system, is called 1) adaptation, 2) learning, or 3) evolution, depending on the context and depending on what type of entity the group is, but the underlying process for all of them is the same, and the process is a universal one, operating within compound systems living and nonliving, physical and even nonphysical (such as in thought and culture).

While thinking about the topics discussed in the book and creating the programming projects inspired by it, I gradually built a long document, presented here on a series of web pages, containing thoughts, commentary, speculations, project notes, plans, and facts from various sources. Browsing through the document's sections often triggered new ideas and brought inspiration, but it isn't very organized. 

Some of the sections have a readable flow, but many don't. An attempt to make it a better organized presentation is underway but unlikely to be completed anytime soon, so here it is, as a work in progress, in the form it's always had.

The series of essays continues on the next page, or click on the link bars to browse it.

Download

Note: This document is too long to rebuild into multiple formats after every revision. The web pages referenced in the navigation bars above contain the most recent version of the text. This download file contains the original source file in a variety of formats, but it is not being kept up to date.

Complex.zip (Complex.doc in multiple formats)

765 KB. This zip file contains the original source document from which this series of web pages was created, in the following formats:

• complex.doc (Microsoft Word 2003). Its Normal font of Times New Roman 14-point might be easier on the eyes. This original has some formatting that didn't translate perfectly to HTML in the various web page translation versions.
• complex60.doc (Microsoft Word 6.0). One small diagram was removed for 6.0 compatibility, but otherwise it's the same as the 2003 version.
• complex.mht (single-file web page to view with browser)
• complex.rtf (for WordPad)
• complex.xml
• There are several other formats I can try to prepare on request.

Partial bibliography

I found these books interesting, useful, inspiring, educational, or all of the above.

• Complexity: The Emerging Science At The Edge Of Order And Chaos, by M. Mitchell Waldrop. Referred to herein as "Complexity".
   
• Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Referred to herein as "GEB".
   
• Chaos: Making A New Science, by James Gleick
   
• Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics Of Chaos, by Ian Stewart.
   
• Chaos Under Control: The Art And Science Of Complexity, by David Peak and Michael Frame. Referred to herein as "CUC".
   
• Artificial Intelligence Using C: The C Programmer's Guide To AI Techniques, by Herbert Schildt.

My To Do list

• There are some long speculations that may be obsolete or unlikely to lead anywhere. Locate and delete them.
• Search "DNA", and move the various miscellaneous notes to biology.doc, and make coherent and organized. Add links here where appropriate.
• For each of the subdocuments, move text that deals generally with the topic back here to complex.doc, leaving behind the technical notes specific to that program.