Complex adaptive systems : an introduction to computational models of social life
"This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents. John Miller and Scott Page show how to combine ideas from economics, political science, biology, physics, and computer science to illuminate topics in organization, adaptation, decentralization, and robustness. They also demonstrate how the usual extremes used in modeling can be fruitfully transcended"--Publisher's website
Print Book, English, ©2007
Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., ©2007
Aufsatzsammlung
xix, 263 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
9780691127026, 9780691130965, 0691127026, 0691130965
122412139
Introduction
Complexity in social worlds
Preliminaries. Modeling
On emergence
Computational Modeling. Computation as theory
Why agent-based objects?
Models of Complex Adaptive Social Systems. A basic framework
Complex adaptive social systems in one dimension
Social dynamics
Evolving automata
Some fundamentals of organizational decision making
Conclusions. Social science in between
Epilogue
Appendices: An open agenda for complex adaptive social systems ; Practices for computational modeling