Complex Systems
Recently, scientists realized that complex system behaviour of many natural or artificial phenomena can be understood and explained by the following simple idea. It is evident that such systems are composed from several simple processes, operating simultaneously, existing in large numbers of locally interacting identical copies, and producing behaviour of great complexity.
-- S. Wolfram, 1985
Complex systems are simple. Their constitution is of many smaller parts. The parts are simple with simple functions.
We have, for example, an ant colony. There is no leader in an ant colony. Evey ant has a set of instructions that it carries out. In large numbers, the colony as a whole exhibits complex behavior.
In this example we can say that the ants are automata or/and "orderly ensemble properties"
Some Qualities of "Orderly Ensemble Properties"
The whole is made of parts
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
There is a relationship between the whole and the parts
Wholes can arise from the interaction of the parts
Change may occur or not
If change does occur it is not necessarily due to an external force
Change may be caused by the relationship between the parts and the whole
Cellular Automata
Conway's Game of Life wherein fom a random seed, the number of cells evolve within a context or what are known as boundary conditions(ie. the size of the playing field, the number of cells)
Conway's Game Of Life
Per Baks' Pile of Sand/Self Organized Criticality
How does sand sprinkled from
your hand pile up?
Per Baks' Pile of Sand
Some Complex Systems
Natalie Jeremijenko
Feral Robot Dogs
video
Jonah Bruckner Cohen
Police State
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