The Complexity of Social-Cultural Emergence


Book Description

Based on previous work that linked biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies, this book further explores a variety of factors that play a role in social-cultural emergence. The volume, which presents a selection of papers read at a conference in 2022 with the same title as the book, engages the systems of matter-energy, biology, and significance from which and in relation to which society-culture emerges. The volume entails an interdisciplinary complex of perspectives, drawing on quantum physics and informatics as well as new materialism and a number of perspectives from semiotics and ecosemiotics in its investigations. Researchers and postgraduate students from fields such as biology, biosemiotics, semiotics, translation studies, cultural studies, new materialist thought and others, who are interested in inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to issues of society-culture, will find this book compelling reading.




Complexity Science


Book Description

This introductory textbook provides detailed coverage of the rapidly growing field of complexity science and accommodates readers from a wide variety of backgrounds, and with varying levels of mathematical skill. The book contains a broad range of end of chapter problems and extended projects, with solutions available to instructors online.




Informal Coalitions


Book Description

This book places everyday talk and role-modelling interactions at the forefront of an alternative change-leadership agenda, and introduces a number of practical approaches to help line managers and organizational specialists deliver this agenda more successfully. It is essential reading for organizational practitioners at all levels.




Emergent Nested Systems


Book Description

This book presents a theory as well as methods to understand and to purposively influence complex systems. It suggests a theory of complex systems as nested systems, i. e. systems that enclose other systems and that are simultaneously enclosed by even other systems. According to the theory presented, each enclosing system emerges through time from the generative activities of the systems they enclose. Systems are nested and often emerge unplanned, and every system of high dynamics is enclosed by a system of slower dynamics. An understanding of systems with faster dynamics, which are always guided by systems of slower dynamics, opens up not only new ways to understanding systems, but also to effectively influence them. The aim and subject of this book is to lay out these thoughts and explain their relevance to the purposive development of complex systems, which are exemplified in case studies from an urban system. The interested reader, who is not required to be familiar with system-theoretical concepts or with theories of emergence, will be guided through the development of a theory of emergent nested systems. The reader will also learn about new ways to influence the course of events - even though the course of events is, in principle, unpredictable, due to the ever-new emergence of real novelty.




Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering


Book Description

A comprehensive text that reviews the methods and technologies that explore emergent behavior in complex systems engineering in multidisciplinary fields In Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering, the authors present the theoretical considerations and the tools required to enable the study of emergent behaviors in manmade systems. Information Technology is key to today’s modern world. Scientific theories introduced in the last five decades can now be realized with the latest computational infrastructure. Modeling and simulation, along with Big Data technologies are at the forefront of such exploration and investigation. The text offers a number of simulation-based methods, technologies, and approaches that are designed to encourage the reader to incorporate simulation technologies to further their understanding of emergent behavior in complex systems. The authors present a resource for those designing, developing, managing, operating, and maintaining systems, including system of systems. The guide is designed to help better detect, analyse, understand, and manage the emergent behaviour inherent in complex systems engineering in order to reap the benefits of innovations and avoid the dangers of unforeseen consequences. This vital resource: Presents coverage of a wide range of simulation technologies Explores the subject of emergence through the lens of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Offers contributions from authors at the forefront of various related disciplines such as philosophy, science, engineering, sociology, and economics Contains information on the next generation of complex systems engineering Written for researchers, lecturers, and students, Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering provides an overview of the current discussions on complexity and emergence, and shows how systems engineering methods in general and simulation methods in particular can help in gaining new insights in complex systems engineering.




The Emergence of Complexity


Book Description




Complexity and the Arrow of Time


Book Description

Written by a wide range of experts, this work presents cosmological, biological and philosophical perspectives on complexity in our universe.




Social Emergence


Book Description

This book argues that societies are complex dynamical systems that can be understood through the concept of emergence.




Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change


Book Description

Innovation is nowadays a question of life and death for many of the economies of the western world. Yet, due to our generally reductionist scientific paradigm, invention and innovation are rarely studied scientifically. Most work prefers to study its context and its consequences. As a result, we are as a society, lacking the scientific tools to understand, improve or otherwise impact on the processes of invention and innovation. This book delves deeply into that topic, taking the position that the complex systems approach, with its emphasis on ‘emergence’, is better suited than our traditional approach to the phenomenon. In a collection of very coherent papers, which are the result of an EU-funded four year international research team’s effort, it addresses various aspect of the topic from different disciplinary angles. One of the main emphases is the need, in the social sciences, to move away from neo-darwinist ‘population thinking’ to ‘organization thinking’ if we want to understand social evolution. Another main emphasis is on developing a generative approach to invention and innovation, looking in detail at the contexts within which invention and innovation occur, and how these contexts impact on the chances for success or failure. Throughout, the book is infused with interesting new insights, but also presents several well-elaborated case studies that connect the ideas with a substantive body of ‘real world’ information.