Name: Complexity
ISBN: 9780671872342

Complexity

"In a rented convent in Santa Fe, a revolution has been brewing. The activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics such as Murray Gell-Mann and Kenneth Arrow, and pony-tailed graduate students, mathematicians, and computer scientists down from Los Alamos. They've formed an iconoclastic think tank called the Santa Fe Institute, and their radical idea is to create a new science called complexity." "These mavericks from academe share a deep impatience with the kind of linear, reductionist thinking that has dominated science since the time of Newton. Instead, they are gathering novel ideas about interconnectedness, coevolution, chaos, structure, and order - and they're forging them into an entirely new, unified way of thinking about nature, human social behavior, life, and the universe itself." "They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell - and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today. They want to know why ancient ecosystems often remained stable for millions of years, only to vanish in a geological instant - and what such events have to do with the sudden collapse of Soviet communism in the late 1980s.

What Hacker News says

sergiusJun 2024

I would recommend reading:

Complexity by M. Waldrop https://commoncog.com/learning-from-waldrop-complexity/

The Systems Bible by J. Gall (This one is an odd one but it is good for developing a sense of humor) https://novelinvestor.com/notes/systemantics-how-systems-wor...

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arztFeb 2019

Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop. An exploration of complex adaptive systems and emergence and how they relate to everything around us changed my worldview permanently.

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GeorgeHahnFeb 2016

Anyone who enjoys this sort of work may also like the book Complexity by Waldrop, which covers the history of Complexity theory through the eyes of the people who created it. It's a really fun story that's inspirational and intellectually satisfying.

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wglbMay 2013

I recommend http://www.amazon.com/COMPLEXITY-EMERGING-SCIENCE-ORDER-CHAO... which addresses this question in fascinating detail, and of course http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Un...

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slickrickApr 2012

Going by your assumptions, you will be far ahead of the curve. the principles of physics and the mathematics that underpin it are skills you can take anywhere. Computer science students are generally not math illiterate, but a BS in physics will arm you with that ability to out gun any CS student.

I don't know what you want to do in life, but if you know physics, a few languages, and have rock solid higher level math skills then the sky is the limit. David Pines spoke at my sister's graduation and he changed my outlook on life, hence my praise for the field.

I reccomend reading "Forunte's Formula" by poundstone, Complexity The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos by waldrop. My life as a quant by dermann. Oh and And Ploya's "How to solve it". If that doesn't give you an idea of how valuable a legitimate BS in physics is then I'm afraid you cannot be helped.

CS degree or not what matters at the end of the day are your own abilities.

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johnwatson11218May 2011

I am reading 'Complexity' by Mitchell Waldrop and it mentioned boids a few chapters back. It is a pretty interesting book if you like this sort of stuff, lots of background on the game of life, artificial life, and emergent behavior of all kinds. quote: "To them that hath shall be given", meaning that positive feedback loops exist in the world of economics.

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