Simply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory

Even though it is encouraging to have shown that relatively simple rules can give such phenomena, it in no way explains how a Complex System comprising many interacting parts, manages to produce such phenomena.

to a traffic jam, which is the traffic equivalent of a market crash.

Even if a system has the same setup – in our case, the same systematic intern, the same rule for changing shelf, the same number of files and the same number of shelves – there can be a wide range of outputs, or in other words a wide range of dynamical behaviors. One such example is Chaos, but there are others.

Real-world Complex Systems contain collections of objects whose complicated overall interactions feature feedback and memory.

We have just uncovered a so-called fixed-point attractor of the system’s dynamics.

you have created a time-series which is chaotic.

But one thing is for sure: there is a natural tendency for something that is ordered to become disordered as time goes by. In contrast, something that is disordered is highly unlikely to order itself without any additional help.