Complexity Explained

1 COMPLEX SYSTEMS: THE INTELLECTUAL LANDSCAPE 1.1 The century of complexity?1.2 Characteristics of simple and complex systems1.2.1 System and its environment 1.2.2 Simple systems 1.2.3 Complex systems 1.3 Connecting the dots 2 HISTORY of COMPLEX SYSTEMS RESEARCH2.1 Reductionist success stories versus the importance oforganization principles2.1.1 Reductionism and holism in quantum physics2.1.2 Reductionism and complexity in molecular biology2.2 Ancestors of present day complex system research2.2.1 Systems theory2.2.2 Cybernetics2.2.3 Nonlinear science in action: Theory of dissipativestructures, synergetics and catastrophe theory 3 FROM THE CLOCKWORK WORLD VIEW to IRREVERSIBILITY (and BACK?)3.1 Cyclic universe versus linear time concept: the metaphysicalperspective 3.1.1 Cyclic Universe3.1.2 Linear time concepts3.2 The Newtonian Clockwork Universe3.2.1 The mechanical clock3.2.2 Kepler’s integral laws 3.2.3 Newton’s differential laws, Hamilton equations,conservative oscillation, dissipation3.3 Mechanics versus Thermodynamics3.3.1 Heat conduction and irreversibility3.3.2 Steam engine, feedback control, irreversibility3.3.3 The first and second laws of thermodynamics3.4 The birth of the modern theory of dynamical systems3.5 Oscillations3.5.1 The Lotka -Volterra Model3.5.2 Stable oscillation: limit cycles3.5.3 Quasiperiodic motions: A few words about the moderntheory of dynamical systems3.6 The chaos paradigm: then and now3.6.1 Defining and detecting chaos 3.6.2 Structural and geometrical conditions of chaos: whatis important and what is not? 3.6.3 The necessity of being chaotic3.6.4 Controlling chaos: why and how?3.6.5 Traveling to High-dimension land: Chaotic itinerancy3.7 Direction of evolution3.7.1 Dollo’s law in retrospective 3.7.2 Is something never-decreasing during evolution?3.8 Cyclic universe: revisited. . . and criticized 4 THE DYNAMIC WORLD VIEW in ACTION 4.1 Causality, teleology and about the scope and limits of thedynamical paradigm 4.1.1 Causal versus teleological description4.1.2 Causality, networks, emergent novelty4.2 Chemical kinetics: a prototype of nonlinear science4.2.1 On the structure - dynamics relationship for chemicalreactions 4.2.2 Chemical kinetics as a metalanguage 4.2.3 Spatiotemporal patterns in chemistry and biology4.3 Systems biology: the half admitted renaissance of cyberneticsand systems theory 4.3.1 Life itself 4.3.2 Cells as self-referential systems 4.3.3 The old-new systems biology 4.3.4 Random Boolean networks: model framework andapplications for genetic networks4.4 Population dynamic and epidemic models: biological and social 4.4.1 Connectivity, stability, diversity4.4.2 The epidemic propagation of infections and ideas4.4.3 Modeling social epidemics4.5 Evolutionary dynamics4.6 Dynamic models of war and love4.6.1 Lanchaster’s combat model and its variations4.6.2 Is love different from war?4.7 Social dynamics: some examples 4.7.1 Segregation dynamics4.7.2 Opinion dynamics4.8 Nonlinear dynamics in economics: some examples4.8.1 Business cycles4.8.2 Controlling chaos in economic models4.9 Drug market: controlling chaos 5 THE SEARCH FOR LAWS: DEDUCTIVE VERSUSINDUCTIVE5.