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Complexity_ A Guided Tour - Melanie Mitchell [181]

By Root 603 0
in, 245–246

skepticism about, 253–255

scaling, 258–264. See also metabolic scaling theory

Schuster, Peter, 86

Scientific American, 291–292

scientific citation networks, 253

search engines, 10, 239–240

second law of thermodynamics, 40, 42–43

Boltzmann’s interpretation of, 50

and evolution, 71

Maxwell’s demon and, 43–47

selection. See natural selection

self-awareness, 184, 189

self-copying computer program, 119–121

deeper meaning of, 121–122

difference between self-replication of DNA and, 122

difference between von Neumann’s self-reproducing automaton and, 122–123

self-organization, 13. See also emergence

in definition of complex system, 13, 40

examples of, 10, 40

in Kauffman’s theories, 285–286

vagueness of definition of, xii, 293–294, 301

Self-Organized Criticality (SOC), 257, 269, 303

self-replication in DNA, 122

self-reproducing automata (also self-replicating automaton), 118, 122–124, 212, 297

as example of common principle for complex systems, 294

as example of idea model, 211

in extending notion of life, 300

self-copying program as illustration of, 118 (see also self-copying computer program)

as universal computers, 156

von Neumann’s design for, 122–124, 127

self-reproduction

in computers (see self-reproducing automata)

logic of, 149, 211

as requisite for life, 116

self-similarity

in fractals, 103–106, 265–266

as quantified by fractal dimension, 108

relation to hierarchy, 109

in scale-free (or power law) distributions, 242–243, 245, 265

sensitive dependence on initial conditions, 20

as defining chaotic systems, 20–22, 34, 38

in logistic map, 31–33

in random Boolean networks, 284–285

sexual recombination, 81, 83, 89, 101

in genetic algorithms, 129

Shakespeare, William, 71, 270–271

Shalizi, Cosma, 254

Shannon, Claude, 51–54, 296

Shannon entropy. See Shannon information

Shannon information (or entropy), 51–55, 57, 169

in explanation of Zipf’s law, 271

as measure of complexity, 96–98

relation to statistical complexity, 102

Shaw, George Bernard, 71

Shaw, Robert, 293

Sigmund, Karl, 220

Simon, Herbert, 109–110, 272

sine map, 36

six degrees of separation, 228

Slagle, James, 223

slippage, conceptual, 188, 191–193, 196–197, 202, 206

small-world networks, 236–239

examples of, 247–252

simplifying assumptions about, 254–255

See also small-world property

small-world property, 238, 245, 248, 251

formal definition of, 318

Smith, Adam, 10, 76

Smith, Eric, 94, 287

social networks, 227–230, 234–236, 238

social norms, 218–219, 220, 222

space-filling fractals, 266

spatial dimension, 107–108

statistical complexity, 102–103

statistical mechanics, 47–51

influence on Stuart Kauffman’s work, 286

Stein, Myron, 28, 35–36

Stein, Paul, 28, 35–36

stomata networks, 168

Stoppard, Tom, 15

strategy

for majority classification task, 165

for norms model, 218

for Prisoner’s dilemma, 216–217

for Robby the Robot, 131–132

string theory, 210, 293

Strogatz, Steven, 230, 232, 236–239, 301

surface hypothesis, 260, 266, 268

survival instinct

in Copycat, 208

as requisite for life, 116, 127

Sutton, Walter, 89

switches, genetic, 278–280

synchronization, 248

Synergetics, 298

Synthesis, Modern, 81–84

challenges to, 84–87

system science, 297–298

Szilard, Leo, 45–47, 125, 169


Tattersall, Ian, 83, 87

T cells, 9, 172, 174–175

regulatory, 176

teleology, 296

Teller, Edward, 125

thermodynamic depth, 101

thermodynamics, 41–42, 48, 51, 258, 298, 302

“fourth law” of, 286

as inspiration for information theory, 55

laws of, 42

second law of (see second law of thermodynamics)

Thoreau, Henry David, 188

three-body problem, 21–22

tipping points, 253, 257

TIT FOR TAT strategy, 217–218

topology, algebraic, 21

tragedy of the commons, 214

trajectory, 31–32, 36

of states in random Boolean network, 284

transcription (genetic), 90–93, 249

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