Good Books on Complexity Theory?? (Summary)

[Darren Schreiber]

Below I have summarized the responses I received on my search for a good
book on complexity.

The reactions I received to Sunny Auyang's "Foundations of Complex-System
Theories : In Economics, Evolutionary Biology, and Statistical Physics"
were strong and positive.  I have attached Steve Upton's review below.

At the very bottom of the list you can read the details of Swarm-modelling
list member Richard Morris' own book on complexity.

Thanks to all for their help and insights:  (My next request will be for
good complexity webpages).

-----------------------------------------------------------

Steve Railsback:
John Holland's _Emergence_ and Hidden Order

Robert Bell
Dept. of Geography
University of California, Los Angeles:
Individual-based models and approaches in ecology
Donald L. DeAngelis, Louis j. Gross, Editors

Matthew M Murphy:
Epstein and Axtell's "Growing Artificial
Societies"

Richard Morris
Artificial Worlds: Computers, Complexity, and the Riddle
 of Life.  By Richard Morris.

Pietro Terna:
Complexity. (You can find news about it at
<http://journals.wiley.com/complexity>).
[I also have looked through Complexity International at
http://www.csu.edu.au/ci/ (D.S.)]
EPSTEIN J.M. e AXTELL R. (1996), Growing Artificial Societies - Social
Science from the Bottom Up, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

Gary Polhill:
Byrne, D. (1998) COMPLEXITY THEORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: AN INTRODUCTION
Routledge

Julie Dugdale:
Complexity and Postmodernism
Paul Cilliers
pub: Routledge
1998

Stephen C. Upton:
Bar-Yam's "Dynamics of Complex Systems"
Gell-Mann's "The Quark and the Jaguar"
Epstein and Axtel's "Growing Artificial Societies"

I have read a number of complexity books, and so far (I've just begin
reading selected portions of this book), I think the book will be a *MUST*
read.  Auyang takes the philosophical road, in that, he discusses
complexity issues from a broad categorical perspective, rather than rely on
numerical equations, and applying specific mathematical techniques to
address a problem (I think these books, such as Bar-Yam's "Dynamics of
Complex Systems" are good in that they do bring *current* mathematical
techniques to bear, but I believe the mathematics has some catching up to
do).  He adresses the *ideas* associated with complexity, and that to me,
is why this book is signficant for me.  I particular like his discussion on
uniting deterministic and stochastic concepts (pg 248).  Just to give you
perspective, my background is in statistical mechanics, military operations
research, and natural algorithms for global optimization. I'm currently
doing some agent based modeling for the military.





Artificial Worlds: Computers, Complexity, and the Riddle
 of Life

 By Richard Morris.

 Plenum Trade, 1999, 200 pp.
 ISBN: 0-306-46002-5
 Price: $25.95 (US and Canada) / $31.14 (elsewhere)


 "An eminently readable account of the profound ideas that
 inspire research today; must reading for those following
 complexity, cosmology and biological and chemical
 evolution."
 -- Julius Rebek, Jr., Director, Skaggs Institute for Chemical
 Biology, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California

Publisher's blurb:

 At the cutting edge of discovery, an exciting, new branch of
 research, called the "sciences of complexity," offers novel
 ways to explore such provocative questions.

 This fascinating book shows that complexity scientists have
 been experimenting with complex chemicals displaying some
 of the characteristics of life, and have created electronic
 computer virus-like life forms that are born, die, reproduce,
 mutate and evolve. Through these artificial worlds they have
 actually been able to monitor evolution as it happens, since it
 takes place at a much more rapid pace within a computer.
 Among the phenomena that these scientists hope to observe
 are the evolution of multicellular life forms, and possibly
 even the evolution of electronic intelligence. Could it be that
 life itself is an emergent property that arises spontaneously
 when a chemical system attains a certain degree of
 complexity?

 Richard Morris makes this major field of inquiry accessible to
 a popular readership as never before, while he reveals its
 potential to solve the greatest of all questions to puzzle
 humankind: what is life?

 Contents
 1. What Is Life?
 2. Creating Life in the Laboratory
 3. The Evolution of Complexity
 4. Fitness Landscapes
 5. Artificial Life
 6. Is Natural Selection the Whole Story?
 7. Artificial Life on the Internet
 8. Swarm
 9. The Promise of Complexity
 Annotated Bibliography
 World Wide Web Resources
 Index

_____________________________________________

                 Darren Schreiber
                  Attorney at Law
                 Graduate Student
             Political Science, UCLA
                address@hidden


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