Module:Emergence

Complex Systems Summer School 2011 Modules Home Schedule Concepts: Nonlinearity Networks Computation Robustness Evolution Complexity Emergence Machine Learning

Organized by Simon DeDeo and James O'Dwyer

Readings

Simon DeDeo

Some influential views on emergence:

• "More is Different"
• The Calculi of Emergence & Computation at the Onset of Chaos
• Weak Emergence (M. Bedau)

Background concepts, tools and techniques:

• Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics (E.T. Jaynes; technical paper that founded Maximum Entropy methods and that enabled thermodynamic analogies to non-physical systems.)
• Scaling, Universality, and Renormalization: Three pillars of modern critical phenomena (E. Stanley; physics-centric, but not too painful.)
• Effective Field Theories, Reductionism and Scientific Explanation (S. Hartmann; a philosopher of science looks in detail at the methods of Effective Field Theories, a case study for many of the concepts that will come up.)

Iain Couzin

(Content from the 2009/2010 Wikis)

• Complexity. An Informative Itinerary
• Collective Cognition in Animal Groups
• Collective Motion and Cannibalism in Locust Migratory Bands
• Collective Minds
• Effective Leadership and Decision-Making in Animal Groups on the Move