Complexity – A Guided Tour (by Melanie Mitchell
Since its publication in 2009, this book has emerged as the “go to” text for learning about complexity science. The author (Melanie Mitchell) is an external faculty member of the well-known Santa Fe Institute that has championed research on chaos and complexity topics. She is also a professor of computer science at Portland State University. I had the privilege of having lunch with Dr. Mitchell a few weeks ago and, therefore, my comments reflect both the book and my conversation with the author.
It is worth mentioning that this book is fundamentally about the physical “science” of complex systems and does not include an in-depth discussion about higher level social systems such as human interaction, creativity, and the like. But that doesn’t take away from the strong foundation on complexity that is offered throughout the book. That foundation begins with dynamical systems theory and an introduction to chaos theory. The point here is that the interaction of nonlinear variables can lead to unpredictable outcomes that are not easily predictable or commonly understood.
The patient reader will follow the detailed (slightly mathematical) example of the Logistic Map to understand how small changes in certain variables can cause a stable system output to bifurcate and become chaotic. While this is fundamental to chaotic systems theory, understanding this detailed explanation is not necessary to grasp many of the complexity topics introduced in the book.
On a broader scale, readers new to complexity science will appreciate the extensive background and history provided in Part I, which includes a mostly gentle introduction along with numerous examples of complexity from a variety of disciplines. However, a few topics such as the relationship between energy entropy and information (i.e. Maxwell’s demon) may be challenging for some.
Favorite quote 1: “Seemingly random behavior can emerge from deterministic systems, with no external source of randomness” (p. 38).
Perhaps one of the more challenging aspects to complexity science is defining complexity itself. So, the author takes a great deal of effort to provide her readers with an expansive definition of complexity in Chapter 7. This includes:
Complexity as size (p. 97)
Complexity as entropy (p. 97)
Complexity as algorithms (p. 98)
Complexity as logical depth (p. 100)
Complexity as thermodynamic depth (p. 101)
Statistical complexity (p. 102)
Complexity as fractal dimension (p. 103)
Complexity as degree of hierarchy (p. 109)
Chapter 8 and 9 cover the topic of genetic and evolutionary algorithms to demonstrate how self-organizing systems can improve over time and perform a type of “natural selection” consistent with biological systems. Readers should not overlook the profound implication of the relatively simple examples provided in this section. As with the other chapters, there are key insights here that may be missed by the casual reader, but worth revisiting to fully comprehend.
The final chapters introduce the concept of networks and their characteristics such as “small world” and clustering phenomena. Networks are an important topic in complexity because they represent a literal map of interactions and relationships among the individual components of a system. According to the author: “Network thinking means focusing on relationships between entities rather than the entities themselves” (p. 233). In essence, it is these relationships which are at the heart of complexity.
Favorite quote 2: A major discovery to date of network science is that high-clustering, skewed degree distributions, and hub structure seem to be characteristic of the vast majority of all the natural, social, and technological networks that network scientists have studied” (p. 237).
Thus, large networks have important similarities and are inherently descriptive of complex systems. This makes the section on networks a critical aspect of the “guided tour” offered in this book.
Overall, this is both an introductory and an advanced book at the same time. I would describe it as a well-grounded, reliable (but accessible) science book that will have a general interest for readers across many disciplines. This is a solid foundation for those studying complexity in all of its forms and across many applications. However, it does not deal with human learning and relationships or really address complexity in the organizational context. A chapter on those topics would be a great addition. But for those interested in any aspect of complexity science it is a “must have” for your library.
Dynamical Psychology: Complexity, Self-Organization and Mind Hardcover – March 16, 2009 by Jay Friedenberg
by Jay Friedenberg (Author)
I was intrigued by the topic of this book and pleased to see that it was published in 2009, so I expected a discussion of recent literature on the social psychology of complexity and dynamical systems. While this book has many strengths, I didn’t find what I was looking for. First, this is a book about cognitive psychology with references to clinical topics and does not really address social psychology. Therefore, the reader will not find much here about group dynamics, interaction processes, or social networks.
Second, it is a survey book at the undergraduate/master’s level which introduces many complexity topics but provides only a paragraph or page on each topic. In this way, it is an excellent first book on complexity and a good reference book for various complexity topics. It also reaches across domains to illustrate dynamical processes with examples including magnetism, genetics, ecology, and food webs.
Third, I am puzzled that there is such a light treatment of psychology topics when there is an entire chapter (Ch. 8) on “Statistical Mechanics and Noise”. However, the author’s numerous and diverse examples of psychological applications provide important and compelling hints for considering a dynamical systems perspective for investigating these topics.
Fourth, and perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this book is that most of the academic references were from the 1980s and 1990s so they were at least 10 years old or more at time of this book’s publication. While this makes sense for the introductory concepts that were first published in that era, there has been tremendous progress in complexity science in the last few years and it would be inspiring to learn about some of the current developments in the field, especially relating to mental processes.
The bottom line:
This is a very good first book on dynamical systems for non-mathematicians and a book that many readers will want to make a part of their permanent collection. It includes an extensive list of definitions and clear explanations for many complexity terms that are sometimes obscurely defined in other books. But since no single topic covers more than about two pages, it should be seen as a springboard to deeper study elsewhere.
Rethinking the Fifth Discipline: Learning Within the Unknowable by Robert Louis Flood
“Rethinking” is a book about enhancing “systems thinking” with perspectives from complexity science. It is both a respectful challenge and an enhancement to Senge’s book: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization which advocates that the complex interactions and outcomes of organizations can be understood from a systems dynamics perspective. According to Flood, systems dynamics provides for emergent outcomes but falls short in appreciating the “process of” emergence and, therefore, fails to account for many potential sources of emergence.
“Rethinking” is divided into two parts. Part I covers the history and basic tenants of systems thinking while exposing gaps in the systems dynamics model of organizational functioning. Part II is focused on complexity concepts and an approach to “learning within the unknowable”. The latter is Flood’s tutorial on organizational interventions to provide leaders with techniques to better manage organizations.
It may be best to read Senge’s book first, if the potential reader is not familiar with Senge’s approach to management. The Fifth Discipline is a more typical business book with emphasis on reformulating organizations to become holistic learning organizations and providing fairly detailed prescriptions for the transformation. Through the extensive use of case studies, Senge establishes the framework of the “learning organization” based on five “disciplines” that is said to have worked well in his exemplar organizations. These five are personal mastery, mental models, systems thinking, shared vision, and team learning. The first three are applicable to individuals while the last two are oriented toward organizations. Senge indicates that “these might just as well be called the leadership disciplines as the learning disciplines” (Senge, p. 359). He refers to systems thinking as the fifth and most important because it binds and strengthens the other disciplines.
For those who wish to start with “Rethinking”, Flood begins with a sufficiently detailed review of Senge’s book and includes a thorough discussion of the major contributors of systemic theory including Bertalanffy, Beer, Ackoff, Checkland, and Churchman. Don’t expect a quick read here. Each of these scholars offer uniquely subtle contributions to systems thinking which may take some time to absorb. Yet, it is portrayed at an accessible level and is not overly philosophical.
Flood completes Part I of his book with two primary criticisms of the Fifth Discipline which are both related to the systems metaphor of organizations:
1. Senge’s holistic approach is unbounded and, therefore, impossible to identify all of the “system” influences or know when important influences are unaccounted for. Flood describes this as requiring an ever expanding analysis to understand such a system.
2. Senge identifies certain problem types as “convergent problems” – ones which are bounded and solvable. Yet, Flood argues that the boundary setting process is one consumed with ethical choices driven by powerful individuals. According to Flood “a so-called convergent problem is a phantom of an uncritical choice of boundary and a lack of awareness of the ethical nature of boundary judgments” (p. 71).
Readers will find the uniqueness of Flood’s book in Part II, which introduces complexity science into systemic thinking. But there are no simple answers or singular prescriptions in this book because “complexity theory questions whether long term intended action is possible. It points out that the way things unfold is inherently unknowable to the human mind… (p. 90). Consequently, the next 100 pages or so cover a myriad of stories and metaphors that are intended to help facilitators focus on local actions and discover improvements in meaningfulness and effectiveness along with establishing better systems of learning.
This wayward and sometimes unsatisfying journey through the remainder of the book could be more consistent with earlier guidance and more clearly synthesized into a discrete number of principles for action. For example, some concepts like Flood’s discussion of boundaries in Chapter 18 seems sometimes inconsistent with his earlier criticisms of boundary construction in the systems dynamics literature. Also, there are numerous single paragraph and half-page topics in the last four chapters that seem disconnected and too brief to fully appreciate their value in formulating facilitated action.
The extended ethnography on policing (Chapter 21) which Flood refers to as a “practical animation” highlights some of the systemic principles he previously illustrated, but it quickly becomes tedious and not particularly contributory to the other chapters. Yet, the short three pages of Chapter 22 provides a summary of the book which is precise and to the point.
Overall, there are many good reasons for liking this book. Most importantly it clearly identifies important limitations in the systems dynamics literature and specifically in The Fifth Discipline, while articulating a new direction for managers who identify with a systems perspective. As a resource, “Rethinking” offers a solid framework for exploring how to blend systems theory with complexity science. While there is actually very little discussion of complexity in this book, it provides a necessary bridge that connects well established organizational thinking to the relatively new paradigm of complexity management.