Complexity Science
What is complexity science? Complexity science, or complex systems science, is the study of highly interconnected systems that exhibit emergent properties. An emergent property is a property of a system which only exists at the macroscopic level, a property that is more than the mere sum of its parts. In other words, its a property of the larger system created by interactions between the system's consituent parts. The example I usually give is states of matter. The quality of some substance being solid is a property that exists because of the chemical interactions between the molecules, and there is no equivalent property in only one molecule; One molecule all by itself cannot be solid, only a collection of molecules, having chemical interactions, could. Complex systems could also be described as gestalt, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
One particularly intriguing emergent property is consciousness. For a long time, this was the focus of my interest and curiousity. I still love and am endlessly fascinated by consciousness, but my interest has broadened to encompass a more general drive to understand emergence itself. Complex systems have been my special interest for quite a few years now, though for most of that I did not know the study of this phenomenon had a general name. Even though I've always had a life-long interest in people and how they worked (as many other autistic people do), I'd say the interest that got me figuring things out was biology. In particular, I was interested in ecology. I used to explain to people that what fascinated me about ecology was the way an ecosystem was an extremely intricate, fragile yet unyielding, network of relationships filled with checks, balances, (co)evolution, and adaptation. I was fascinated by biology as a whole because of the way living things interact with other living things and their environment to create something bigger than themselves. I was interested in living things because of the way they themselves were ecosystems too. I realized at some point it wasn't biology itself which held my interest, it was the living nature of the adaptable system, and I began to say my passion was self-organizing systems (a word I stumbled onto on wikipedia while trying to do research). Still, it took me probably more than a year from that point to discover complex systems science, or realize I could be a complexity scientist.
Because complexity science is my special interest, I engage with almost all of my interests using complexity thinking (or "process thinking"). It's the lens I adopted with which to view the world. Complexity thinking plays a large role in my study and practice of anarchism, it fuels my curiousity about consciousness and the human condition, forms a basis for my critical media analysis, and drives my passion for mathematics. I am interested in studying and building on theories of complexity, but I am also interested in applying complexity to many different disciplines, from the social sciences and literature to biology and computation.
stuff I want to add to my rant: emphasize "whole is more than the sum of its parts,"
Sections I want to write
Why choose math as my path to complexity science? / Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and complexity / What led me to complexity? / Vague thoughts on complexity and literature / Some laments about how I'm not an engineer / Compl
Activity (little micro-blog)
2026.01.30 V 23:12
I know I'm reading too many things at once, I just kept finding new books that felt like they could give me a valuable perspective as someone trying to understand the basics. They all feel a bit out of my league, though I hate to admit it. The self-organizing universe by Eric Jantsch is absolutely amazing, but still references a lot of things I can't quite understand. I'm really liking Complexity: a very short introduction, it's really readable and gives a lot of context. There are still some things I don't fully understand, but its much better than some other texts I've tried. Trying to understand complexity science always makes me hyper-aware of just how little I know, especially about physics or chemistry. It makes me wish I wasn't just doing math, and I never wanted to do just math, but I'm not that good at school. I think I like math the most out of the many paths I could have taken, so I don't regret my choice, I just wish I could do more. Often I'm jealous to hear what courses my engineer friends are taking...
I am currently reading (or at least... I've started):
COMPLEXITY: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION by John H. Holland / THE SELF-ORGANIZING UNIVERSE by Eric Jantsch / THE COMPLEX WORLD: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FOUNDATIONS OF COMPLEXITY SCIENCE by David Krakauer / AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPLEX SYSTEMS: MAKING SENSE OF A CHANGING WORLD by Joe Tranquillo
I TRIED to read but couldn't parse:
COMPLEXITY SCIENCE: THE STUDY OF EMERGENCE by Henrik Jeldtoft Jensen
I've successfully read
DEEP SIMPLICITY by John Gribbin
Journal articles I've read
ANARCHY AND COMPLEXITY by Carlos Maldonado & Nathalie Mezza Garcia (E:CO 2016 18(1): 52-73
Stuff on my queue
Books: COMPLEXITY THEORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES by David Byrne / EXPLORING COMPLEXITY: AN INTRODUCTION by Grégoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine / COMPLEXITY: A GUIDED TOUR by Melanie Mitchell
Online stuff: DIALECTICS, COMPLEXITY AND THE CRISIS by Michael Brand / COMPLEXITY EXPLORER COURSES: like, most of 'em