Complexity
"Complexity is another word for simplicity unfolding in time." On Simplicity, Complexity and Human Design
Complexity, Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), and Complexity Science explore the stuff of which life is made: Those inter-relationships that translate simple form to complex function. An emerging disipline with roots in chaos theory, fractals, nonlinear dynamics, emergence, artificial life, cognitive science and many other areas, leads us to see the similarities in disciplines otherwise thought of as different.
Plectics
"What is most exciting about our work is that it illuminates the chain of connections between,
on the one hand, the simple underlying laws that govern the behavior of all matter in the universe and,
on the other hand, the complex fabric that we see around us, exhibiting diversity, individuality, and evolution.
The interplay between simplicity and complexity is the heart of our subject."
Author Murray Gell-Mann
Consilience
"The fact of `jumping together' or agreeing; coincidence, concurrence; said of the
accordance of two or more inductions drawn from different groups of phenomena." Case
Studies in Complex Adaptive Systems. A beautful site arising from a seminar series. The
tone and tennor of this sight make for easy exploration while creating useful depth.
A Simple Complexity
Erno Rubik's cube like the stone arch, tensegrety structure, language and many other more complex systems exibits
an interdependence that is intregal to its design. While not a multiagent or an adaptive system it encapsulates
the idea of a system which is a whole.
The Santa Fe Institue
The place that has defined this disipline. "The Santa Fe Institute is a private,
non-profit, multidisciplinary research and education center, founded in 1984.
Since its founding SFI has devoted itself to creating a new kind of scientific
research community, pursuing emerging science.…
Operating as a small, visiting institution, SFI seeks to catalyze new collaborative,
multidisciplinary projects that break down the barriers between the traditional disciplines,
to spread its ideas and methodologies to other individuals and encourage the practical
applications of its results." Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
A New Kind Of Science
"Starting from a collection of simple computer experiments… Stephen Wolfram shows
how their unexpected results force a whole new way of looking at the operation of our universe."
Principle Stephen Wolfram, Based in Champaign, IL 61820-7237, USA
Viewpoints Research Institute
"Viewpoints Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving both general education and understanding
of complex systems, especially through the use of new inventions in interactive constructive computing."
Principle Alan Kay, Based in Glendale, CA 91201 USA
New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI)
"An independent educational and research institution dedicated to advancing the study of complex systems.
Complex systems have multiple interacting components whose collective behavior cannot be simply inferred
from the behavior of components. The recognition that understanding the parts cannot explain collective
behavior has led to various new concepts and methodologies that are affecting all fields of science and
engineering, and are being applied to technology, business and even social policy."
Based in Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Redfish Group
"We're interested in theories that deal with the emergence of organization.
More practically, we're interested in design heuristics for coordinating lightweight
semi-independent processes without the use of centralized controllers."
Principles Manoj Gambhir, Stephen Guerin, Daniel Kunkle, Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Complexity Digest
A wide ranging reference to news media stories that relate to complexity.
Principle Gottfried Mayer
BRINT Institute, Complexity References
An annotated set of related links. Principle Dr. Yogesh Malhotra, Based in Syracuse New York 13235-0140, USA
FireSim
"a non-profit R&D Organization in Santa Fe, NM focused on issues surrounding fire simulation."
Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
WildFireChallange
"A simulation, using StarLogo (a free agent modeling program from the MIT Media Lab) to
show how wildfires spread and affect different types of property based on varying construction, environmental
and topographical conditions. The simulation starts with an overview of a wildland area.
By varying conditions such as vegetation, temperature, humidity, wind, time of day, etc., we
intend to show how a wildfire is likely to spread. The simulation can be used to demonstrate fire-spread
for a specific preset area and how changing the variables is likely to affect the spread."
Principles Jerry Marino, Susan Connell and Matt McNerney, Based in San Diego State University, San Diego, USA
RePast
"An Open Source Agent Based Modelling Toolkit for Java "
Breve
"Breve is a free software package which makes it easy to build 3D
simulations of decentralized systems and artificial life. Users define
the behaviors of agents in a 3D world and observe how they interact.
breve includes physical simulation and collision detection so you can
simulate realistic creatures, and an OpenGL display engine so you can
visualize your simulated worlds." available for Mac, Linux & Windows.
see Capture the Flag to motovate students.
Principle Jon Klein, Based in Gothenburg, Sweden
StarLogo
"StarLogo is a programmable modeling environment for exploring the workings
of decentralized systems -- systems that are organized without an organizer,
coordinated without a coordinator. With StarLogo, you can model (and gain insights into)
many real-life phenomena, such as bird flocks, traffic jams, ant colonies, and market economies."
NetLogo
"NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment
from CCL (the people who brought you StarLogoT). NetLogo also powers the HubNet
participatory simulation system. NetLogo is free of charge"
Croquet
"Croquet is a combination of computer software and network architecture that supports
deep collaboration and resource sharing among large numbers of users within the context of
a large-scale distributed information system. Along with its ability to deliver compelling
3D visualization and simulations, the Croquet system's components are designed with a focus
on enabling massively multi-user peer-to-peer collaboration and communication.
Croquet software is totally open and totally free." Croquet is built on top of
Squeak.
"
"It is ultimately about
collaboration and communcation and there are many different ways of doing
this, some of which imply a 3D space (having the vast advantage of providing
context for the collaboration and a natural model for navigating large
spaces) and some of which don't. *All* of them, however will require a
distributed, loosely coupled, secure messaging model of replicated
computation between (mutually distrusting) objects and peers. Which is what
we internally understand as "Croquet"; a much broader, much wider ranging
collaboration architecture that includes many different areas of
communication, many different classes of devices, many different user
interfaces."Andreas Raab
Principle architects, Based in USA
Swarm
"Swarm is intended to be a useful tool for researchers in a variety of disciplines.
The basic architecture of Swarm is the simulation of collections of concurrently
interacting agents: with this architecture, we can implement a large variety of agent based models."
Swarm is open source GNU licensing. SwarmWiki
Based in Finance: Seattle, WA, 98101, USA :: Development: Santa Fe, New Mexico 87594-1278 USA
Complexity Workshop
First Steps for NetLogo
and RePast.
"Lets take a few first steps with our modeling frameworks. We will be fairly brief,
limiting ourselves to simple "kicking the tires" and writing a hello world in each ABM system.
Our goal is to gain a feel for what each system is capable of so that we can make intelligent
decisions on which one to use for a given task." Principle Owen Densmore, Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Wolfram Research: Mathematica
"fully integrated technical computing software"
Principle Stephen Wolfram, Based in Champaign, IL 61820-7237, USA
Celestia: A 3D Space Simulator
" Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in
three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface
of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. "
While this software does not model the complexity out of which the universe arises it takes the resulting
behaviour, in terms of orbital dynamics, and models the resulting free space inter-relationships in a
way that enables simple mortals to begin to explore the complex system in which we live. The software
is open source ( GNU licence ) developed with an open architecture which has encouraged contributions in
code, models, terrains and much more by a host of contributors.
Principle Chris Laurel, Based in Northfield, MN, USA
Complexity
Complexity is a bi-monthly, cross-disciplinary journal focusing on the rapidly expanding science of complex adaptive systems.
The purpose of the journal is to advance the science of complexity.
Editorial Board
Complex Systems Journal
Founded in 1987 to provide a publication forum for the new field of complex systems research.
Principle Stephen Wolfram, Based in Champaign, IL 61820-7237, USA
Complexity International Journal
A refereed journal for scientific papers dealing with any area of complex systems research.
Based in Australia
Nonlinear Phenomena in Complex Systems
"A quarterly journal, which publishes original research papers and reviews."
Principles Prof. Victor A. GAISYONOK and Prof. Viatcheslav I. KUVSHINOV Based in Minsk 220072 Belarus ISSN 1561 - 4085
