Thinking books · Systems thinking · M. Mitchell Waldrop, 1992
Complexity — the big ideas
The story of the Santa Fe Institute and the science of emergent, adaptive systems.
Free — no account needed to read
The big ideas
Emergence: simple rules followed by many agents produce large-scale behaviour that is in none of the rules and cannot be read off from them.
Adaptive systems sit between rigid order and disorder, and that edge is where they can both persist and change.
It is an argument against expecting to control complex systems directly, and for influencing the rules the agents follow instead.
Practise it — no need to have read it
Take a group behaviour that frustrates you. Write the simple rule each individual might be following that would produce it.
A hint: Then ask which rule you could actually change.
Where it shows up in real life
- Culture change
- Market behaviour
- Communities and teams
Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.
The thinking it builds
- Systems Thinking — Understand connections and consequences