A Crude Look at the Whole: The Science of Complex Systems in Business, Life, and Society

by John H. Miller

Overview

A top expert explains why a social and economic understanding of complex systems will help society to anticipate and confront our biggest challenges

Imagine trying to understand a stained glass window by breaking it into pieces and examining it one shard at a time. While you could probably learn a lot about each piece, you would have no idea about what the entire picture looks like. This is reductionism -- the idea that to understand the world we only need to study its pieces -- and it is how most social scientists approach their work.

In A Crude Look at the Whole, social scientist and economist John H. Miller shows why we need to start looking at whole pictures. For one thing, whether we are talking about stock markets, computer networks, or biological organisms, individual parts only make sense when we remember that they are part of larger wholes. And perhaps more importantly, those wholes can take on behaviors that are strikingly different from that of their pieces.

Miller, a leading expert in the computational study of complex adaptive systems, reveals astounding global patterns linking the organization of otherwise radically different structures: It might seem crude, but a beehive's temperature control system can help predict market fluctuations and a mammal's heartbeat can help us understand the "heartbeat" of a city and adapt urban planning accordingly. From enduring racial segregation to sudden stock market disasters, once we start drawing links between complex systems, we can start solving what otherwise might be totally intractable problems.

Thanks to this revolutionary perspective, we can finally transcend the limits of reductionism and discover crucial new ideas. Scientifically founded and beautifully written, A Crude Look at the Whole is a powerful exploration of the challenges that we face as a society. As it reveals, taking the crude look might be the only way to truly see.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465055692
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	01/05/2016
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

John H. Miller is a professor of economics and social science at Carnegie Mellon University and the head of the university's Department of Social and Decision Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, and serves on the faculty of the Santa Fe Institute.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: True Places
2. From So Simple a Beginning: Interactions
3. From Flash Crashes to Economic Meltdowns: Feedback
4. From One to Many: Heterogeneity
5. From Six Sigma to Novel Cocktails: Noise
6. From Scarecrows to Slime Molds: Molecular Intelligence
7. From Bees to Brains: Group Intelligence
8. From Lawn Care to Racial Segregation: Networks
9. From Heart Beats to City Size: Scaling
10. From Water Temples to Evolving Machines: Cooperation
11. From Stones to Sand: Self-Organized Criticality
12. From Neutrons to Life: A Complex Trinity

Epilogue: The Learn'd Astronomer

Editorial Reviews

11/16/2015
Economist Miller (Complex Adaptive Systems) lucidly explains his academic specialty, which seeks to identify the general principles by which the individual elements of systems, behaving independently, interact to achieve complex adaptive solutions to various environmental challenges. Miller contrasts this approach with traditional disciplines that reductively examine only individual elements, such as studying single neurons instead of the entire brain. Using examples of systems as different as beehives and economic markets, the book demonstrates how the repeated, decentralized application of simple algorithms can produce sophisticated solutions for organisms or groups. Miller shows how concepts such as data feedback loops, population heterogeneity, and social networks are relevant to his theories and describes how game theory, computer modeling, and modern statistical methods reveal the elegance and power of complex adaptive systems. He concludes that their appearance in widely varying contexts suggests an underlying “deeper unification among systems”—for example, that “a honeybee swarm may just be a more easily observed instance of a brain.” Not every reader will be convinced by these broader assertions, but Miller does provide a thought-provoking introduction to the study of complexity. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"[A Crude Look at the Whole is a] succinct, elegant study of systems thinking, the newish science examining basic principles, such as emergence, that govern physics, biology and economics."—Nature

"A Crude Look at the Whole presents most of the starter-level examples of complexity. Social insects are an illustration crucial to Miller's economic focus. He gives an engaging account of how the simple behaviour of individual ants produces something that looks a bit like intelligence in the nest as a whole."—New Scientist

"Miller's whirlwind tour is...well-grounded; he stresses complexity theory as an approach and a complementary way of thinking, not as a cure-all."—Slate

"Miller...provide[s] a thought-provoking introduction to the study of complexity."—Publishers Weekly

"Miller offers a vigorous survey of the tools, techniques, and ideas underlying complex systems and their study."—Kirkus Reviews

"A Crude Look at the Whole is a delightful tour of the core principles of complex systems. You will see the world differently, and more clearly, after reading this erudite and wondrous romp."—Michael J. Mauboussin, Head of Global Financial Strategies, Credit Suisse

"Miller offers a vigorous survey of the tools, techniques, and ideas underlying complex systems and their study."—Kirkus Reviews

"Miller's book is a fine introduction to complex systems thinking in the context of social systems."—Jim Rutt, past Chairman of the Santa Fe Institute and Director of the Proteus Foundation

"Well-written, interesting, and stimulating. This book shows us how individual elements--bees, traders, neurons--interact to produce 'endless forms most beautiful.' John Miller makes complexity seem simple."—W. Brian Arthur, author of Complexity and the Economy and recipient of the Lagrange Prize in Complexity Science

"The 'sciences of complexity' crystallized about thirty years ago, partially at the Santa Fe Institute. John Miller was the first postdoctoral fellow at SFI. His A Crude Look at the Whole is a superb "look." Miller's range is synoptic. More, the topics are essential for the world of today. Read this book."—Stuart Kauffman, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, emeritus professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and author of At Home In the Universe

From the Publisher

2015-09-15
The world is complicated and getting more so. Or, as Miller (Economics and Social Sciences/Carnegie Mellon Univ.; co-author: Complex Adaptive Systems, 2007) puts it, more cheerfully, "complexity abounds." Yes, complexity does abound, for which reason scientists have given a great deal of attention to chaos, complex systems, networking, unintended consequences, and all the other pursuits that come into play when looking at things that have many moving parts. Take the stock market, for instance: even though the market is set to react at the merest hint of a trigger, investors hate uncertainty, which means that panicky behavior is almost built into the system, with "unfortunate feedback loops that [destine it] to fail." The author considers mere randomness as a central factor in complex systems, contending with which he memorably calls "discovery on rugged landscapes." Every mountaineer knows that a clear view ahead does not mean an easy path, and that's just so in the case of complex systems, be the task at hand planning airline schedules or evaluating investment possibilities. On that note, Miller praises the supply and demand diagram as "one of those rare and remarkable scientific illustrations that take a complex reality and summarize it in a simple, valuable way." Competitive equilibrium, quorum levels that satisfice, decentralized decision-making: Miller offers a vigorous survey of the tools, techniques, and ideas underlying complex systems and their study. As he optimistically observes, though earlier generations of scholars despaired of finding order in all the chaos, "complexity is an aspect of nature that is amenable to scientific analysis, understanding, and perhaps even control." Miller's explication throughout is clear, though he's dealing with some pretty arcane stuff, and it helps to have some background in economics, probability, and especially game theory—in short, to have prepared your own mental complex system to handle this thoroughly engaging variable. A valuable companion to confusion, though it's not without a few tangles of its own.

Kirkus Reviews