Complex Adaptive Systems

[last updated: 2025-04-25]
artificial intelligence

• This is a collection of study notes from the several books written by John H. Holland
  At this time it is not organized to any great extent...
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• fumbling here...
  Holland's main theses seem to be several:
  • When you put together certain systems, based on certain components and rules for their interaction and behavior,
    it can happen that phenomena "emerge" from the system that were not part of any of the components.
        The Whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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• In general, Holland is attempting to build a theory of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)
  which are large systems of many components, and each component is adaptive, that is, it changes its behavior
  based on the inputs it receives,
• Holland uses the term Agent to denote a component of a CAS.
  So for example a firm or corporation would be an agent in an economic system.
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• Refs/Links:
  • Holland, John H., Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems, 1992
  • Holland, John H., Hidden Order, 1995
  • Holland, John H., Emergence: From Chaos to Order, 1998
  • Holland, John H., Signals and Boundaries, 2012
  • Waldrop, M. Mitchell, Complexity, 1992

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eof