Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World Through the Science of Surprise

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Why does time seem to fly on some occasions and drag on others? Why do some societies seem more prone to totalitarianism than others? Why does atonal music sound "worse" to most of us than traditional music? How can a butterfly in Brazil affect the weather in Alaska? The set of ingenious interdisciplinary approaches that are, together, called the science of complexity offers answers to these and dozens of other questions that beg the larger question of why our universe seems so paradoxical. John L. Casti, ...
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1994 Hard cover New in new dust jacket. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 320 p. Audience: General/trade; General/trade. From Publishers Weekly Most books on complexity theory ... promise to lead the epistemological thrill-seeker far out on the limb of theory. Not so Casti ( Searching for Certainty ). He admits early on to a major "surprise" about chaos and other formal systems: that even with artificial intelligence as a new tool, theory cannot capture nature. After an almost old-fashioned undergraduate review of basic concepts of dynamical systems, Casti shows how formal complexity models proceed from the basic "surprises. " Always more interested in instructing than in dazzling with sensational and obtuse ideas, Casti steers the reader toward an understanding of the field. He's a good teacher and this is the kind of grounding lay readers should have before they step farther out on a new paradigm. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Book Description A renowned mathematician shows how the "science Read more Show Less

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New Ships From Canada. New in new dust jacket. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 320 p. Audience: General/trade; General/trade. From Publishers Weekly Most books on complexity ... theory promise to lead the epistemological thrill-seeker far out on the limb of theory. Not so Casti ( Searching for Certainty ). He admits early on to a major "'"surprise"'" about chaos and other formal systems: that even with artificial intelligence as a new tool, theory cannot capture nature. After an almost old-fashioned undergraduate review of basic concepts of dynamical systems, Casti shows how formal complexity models proceed from the basic "'"surprises. "'" Always more interested in instructing than in dazzling with sensational and obtuse ideas, Casti steers the reader toward an understanding of the field. He's a good teacher and this is the kind of grounding lay readers should have before they step farther out on a new paradigm. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Book Description A renowned mathem. Read more Show Less

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More About This Book

Overview

Why does time seem to fly on some occasions and drag on others? Why do some societies seem more prone to totalitarianism than others? Why does atonal music sound "worse" to most of us than traditional music? How can a butterfly in Brazil affect the weather in Alaska? The set of ingenious interdisciplinary approaches that are, together, called the science of complexity offers answers to these and dozens of other questions that beg the larger question of why our universe seems so paradoxical. John L. Casti, renowned mathematician and science writer, argues that a complexity that defies human logic is only natural, and he shows directly, engagingly, and with a wealth of illustrations how complexity arises and how it works. Casti explores several types of phenomena that have, until now, consistently eluded science's attempts to understand them: the catastrophic, where a tiny change in a system produces a huge effect (as happens in earthquakes or political revolutions); the chaotic, which includes odd correlations like the ones that make predicting the weather or the stock market so difficult; paradox, in which you follow a commonsense rule and still something weird happens (the more lanes you add to the freeway, for example, the bigger the traffic jams); the irreducible, where, as in novels, symphonies and baseball games, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; the emergent, in which a pattern, like life itself, seems to arise from out of nowhere. These phenomena encompass many of the most fascinating and important events and processes in science, the arts, nature, the economy, and everyday life. With authority and wit, this myth-shattering book explains how science is at last shedding light on some of the most perennially mystifying phenomena. It also offers a groundbreaking primer in what Casti calls "the science of surprise," a revolutionary approach to solving a welter of mysteries great and small.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060168889
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 4/1/1994
  • Edition description: 1st ed
  • Pages: 352

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
1 The Simple and the Complex: Realities, Rules and Surprises 1
In the Beginning is the Wor(l)d 1
Rules of Reality 11
Patterns, Puzzles and Paradoxes 15
It's All in the Motion 25
2 The Catastrophic: Intuition: Small, gradual changes in causes give rise to small, gradual changes in effects 43
Continuity and Common Sense 43
The Fall of the Wall and the Collapse of a Beam 48
The Magnificent Seven 57
Physics and Metaphysics 65
The Theater of the Absurd 80
3 The Chaotic: Intuition: Deterministic rules of behavior give rise to completely predictable events 85
Expecting the Unexpected 85
Recipes for Randomness 88
Statistically Speaking 98
Bulls, Bears and Beer 102
Computing the Cosmos 113
4 The Lawless: Intuition: All real-world truths are the logical outcome of following a set of rules 115
The Power of Paradox 115
Reality Rules 120
Magic Machines and Busy Beavers 125
Truth Is Stranger Than Proof 138
Out-Godeling Godel 143
Real Brains, Artificial Minds 150
Minds, Machines and Evolution 166
5 The Irreducible: Intuition: Complicated systems can always be understood by breaking them down into simpler parts 171
Getting It Together 171
Making Connections 185
The Time of Your Life 198
Some Surprising Connections 205
6 The Emergent: Intuition: Surprising behavior results only from complicated, hard-to-understand interactions among a system's component parts 212
Checkerboard Computers 213
That's Life? 221
The Most Complicated Thing in the World 229
From Bach to Rock and Bach Again 242
Climbing the Devil's Staircase 249
7 The Simply Complex: On the Creation of a Science of Surprise 260
The Anatomy of Surprise 260
"Complexification" 269
The Science of Surprise 274
To Dig Deeper 279
Index 309
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