Sublime

not vary.

We know that life’s remarkable robustness, in large part, is dependent on variation; systems that suppress or lose their diversity are prone to collapse.

Perhaps the greatest “phase transition” in our thinking that such an approach could engender is the maturation in our willingness to live with relatively high levels of uncertainty in the domains of complex phenomena—and thus give up on ideas like complete “cures,” the elimination of “risk,” the design of perfect “stability,” and achieving total “s

The science of complex systems is the study of how local interactions can lead to global consequences.

There are, however, on this planet phenomena that are hidden in plain sight. These are the phenomena that we study as complex systems: the convoluted exhibitions of the adaptive world—from cells to societies.

Each of the systems interacts with its environment in a game-like way: sequences of action (“moves”) occasionally produce payoff, special inputs that provide the system with the wherewithal for continued existence and adaptation.

The environment typically exhibits a range of regularities or niches, that can be exploited by different action sequences or strategies.

What’s really happening within each city is a massive exchange of information across social and economic networks of people and organizations, all taking place on a complex infrastructural landscape of buildings, roads, pipes, and wires. For the most part there is no maestro; the properties of cities emerge from countless interactions of millions o