Spiritual Naturalists001
COMPLEXITY
A Complex System is any system which involves a number of elements, arranged in structure(s) which can exist on many scales.
These go through processes of change that are not describable by a single rule nor are reducible to only one level of explanation, these levels often include features whose emergence cannot be predicted from their current specifications. Complex Systems Theory also includes the study of the interactions of the many parts of the system.
• They undergo spontaneous self organization.
• They are adaptive to the environment around them.
• They are dynamic, unlike snowflakes and computer chips, which are merely complicated but static.
• They result in emergent properties.
• Once they reach sufficient complexity, there is no way to mathematically deduce their behavior from the base rules by which the individual agents operate, even using every particle of the universe as a bit in a computer that runs for the lifetime of the universe. The quickest and only way to see how they will perform is to simply run and observe the system. They are effectively "indeterminate".
• The smallest of changes in initial starting conditions can lead to enormous differences in behavior of the system.
• They tend to bifurcate into layers of organization, where module-like systems work as single agents in larger, more complex structures.
Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are special cases of complex systems. They are complex in that they are diverse and made up of multiple interconnected elements and adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience. Examples of complex adaptive systems include the stock market, social insect and ant colonies, the biosphere and the ecosystem, the brain and the immune system, the cell and the developing embryo, manufacturing businesses and any human social group-based endeavor in a cultural and social system such as political parties or communities. This includes some large-scale online systems, such as collaborative tagging or social bookmarking systems.
Self Organizing
This is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.The most robust and unambiguous examples of self-organizing systems are from physics. Self-organization is also relevant in chemistry, where it has often been taken as being synonymous with self-assembly. The concept of self-organization is central to the description of biological systems, from the subcellular to the ecosystem level. There are also cited examples of "self-organizing" behavior found in the literature of many other disciplines, both in the natural sciences and the social sciences such as economics or anthropology. Self-organization has also been observed in mathematical systems such as cellular automata. Change occurs naturally and automatically in systems in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness, as long as the systems are complex enough... Such responsiveness occurs even when the elements and system are non-organic, unintelligent, and unconscious as long as the system is complex as described above.
Cycles
Many complex systems typically go through cycles of growth, equilibrium, dissolution, reorganization, and back to growth again. Like the repetitive patterns of fractals, cycles are repetitions in time. These cycles exist not only in nature, but in social systems, populations, organisms, politics, and more. These are not mere analogies - they happen for the same root reasons that cycles happen in all complex systems, and speak to an underlying principle of organization in Nature.
Fractals
Some complex systems have a tendency to form repeating patterns at different scales. These patterns can seem extremely complex, but be based on an underlying mechanism that is actually much simpler, but which unfolds in spiraling levels of intricacy. Below is a computer representation of a fractal, but these phenomena appear many places in nature, such as seashells, snowflakes, and much more. Pictured below is romanesco broccoli, which grows as a fractal.
Chaos/Order
Thus even though there is logical development from stage to stage, there is an increasing inability to predict what will actually be the next development. This uncertainty of predictability is called "chaos". Complexity theory is rooted in Chaos theory. Chaos is sometimes viewed as extremely complicated information, rather than as an absence of order. The emergence of complexity theory shows a domain between deterministic order and randomness which is complex. This is referred as the 'edge of chaos'.
Autopoiesis
This is the process whereby a system is continuously rebuilding itself, replacing its components, while it's overall function and form remain. Eventually, such a system can be composed of completely different material than it started out from, even though its overall structure remains. Living organism are, of course, examples of this. However, the same can be said of other structures, such as the red spot on Mars, which is essentially a great storm system. Other processes such as the petrifaction of wood are very similar. The same could also be said for populations in a species or corporations whose employees, buildings, and assets change over time, but whose function remains constant.
Adaptive/Dynamic
Through positive and negative feedback, homeostasis allows for systems to adapt to their environments. These adaptations can regulate them internally, or produce changes in response to external conditions.
Butterfly Effect
Thus, one can then see how a tiny change in a condition can eventually lead to a huge number of different possible results.The classic illustration for this is the idea of how the flapping of butterfly wings in one part of the world can contribute to the evolution of a hurricane in another part of the world.
Indeterminate
The study of complexity is the opposite of the study of chaos. Complexity is about how a huge number of extremely complicated and dynamic set of relationships can generate some simple behavioral patterns, whereas chaotic behavior, in the sense of deterministic chaos, is the result of a relatively small number of non-linear interactions. Therefore, the main difference between Chaotic systems and complex systems is their history. Chaotic systems don’t rely on their history as complex ones do.The point is that chaos remains deterministic. With perfect knowledge of the initial conditions and of the context of an action, the course of this action can be predicted in chaos theory. Complexity is non-deterministic, and gives no way whatsoever to predict the future.
Non-Linear
Linear change is where there is a sequence of events that affect each other in order as they appear one after the other. In contrast, in non-linear change, one sees elements being changed by previous elements, but then in turn these changed elements affect the elements that are before it in the sequence. A nonlinear system is one whose behavior can't be expressed as a sum of the behaviors of its parts (or of their multiples).
Emergent Properties
The unpredictability that is thus inherent in the natural evolution of complex systems then can yield results that are totally unpredictable based on knowledge of the original conditions. Such unpredictable results are called emergent properties. Emergent properties thus show how complex systems are inherently creative ones. So what is this emergence exactly? Generally it is defined by saying 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts'.
In other words we cannot predict the outcome from studying only the fine details. Examples include cellular metabolism, ant colonies, and organism development. Things like air pressure are simple emergent properties. Our minds and consciousness itself may be an emergent property subsisting from the complex interaction of components in our brains, although this is not known for certain.
Creative 'force' of the Universe
Consider the following, from Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by Mitchell M. Waldrop...
“I’m of the school of thought that life and organization are inexorable,” he says, “just as inexorable as the increase in entropy. They just seem more fluky because they proceed in fits and starts, and they build on themselves. Life is a reflection of a more general phenomenon that I’d like to believe is described by some counterpart to the second law of thermodynamics – some law that would describe the tendency of matter to organize itself, and that would predict the general properties of organization we’d expect to see in the universe.”