The History of Complexity P.2
This week I’m busy at a conference honing my understanding of personality as a complex system, so I’m just sharing a few additional resources related to the history of complexity.1
These thoughts come courtesy of Petter Holme, a professor of network science at Aalto University. Petter has been critical of the Sante Fe Institute’s recent project focused on collecting foundational papers in complexity science from the 20th and 21st centuries. He argues that many of the papers are not foundational, and that several important pieces were left out.2
Petter also wrote a blog post earlier this year describing various diverse “holistic tribes of academia” united solely by their belief that reductionism can’t provide them with all of the answers they are looking for. The list of tribes includes several that are well known to me (Systems Science, Complexity Science, General Systems Theory) along with others that I’m not as familiar with (Tektology, Synergetics, and Prigogian thermodynamics.)3
I’m glad that I stumbled across Peter’s work because it is helping me deepen my understanding of the incredibly complex history of the “anti-reductionist” trend in the sciences. My focus has been, and will continue to be primarily on Systems Science. But I know that my ability to contribute to the field can only be enhanced by learning more about the vast web of related disciplines and schools of thought which share similar objectives.
https://systemexplorers.substack.com/p/the-history-of-complexity
https://petterhol.me/2024/05/12/salon-des-refuses-foundational-papers-of-complexity/
https://petterhol.me/2024/02/13/the-holistic-tribes/