Santa Fe Institute

Complexity and Emergence/Adaptive Systems

• Instructor(s): Holland
• Institution: University of Michigan
• Category: Computer Science
• Description: Meeting Schedule: T-Th: 9AM-11AM, G437 Mason Hall
  Enrollment limit: 20
  
  Prerequisites: Either familiarity with programming (no particular language required), or a course in finite mathematics. All technical topics will be defined in class.
  
  Course Organization: This is a highly interactive class with students from all over campus. You will be expected to contribute to the class discussion and will be graded accordingly. There will be a final paper which you will present to the class.
  
  Topics: Much of our investigation will center on complex adaptive systems (cas). A cas consists of adaptive (learning) agents with conditional interactions. Typical examples are the central nervous system, a market, the immune system, and the internet. Because of evolution and adaptation, cas exhibit perpetual novelty in their structure and behavior.
  
  "Complexity" and "emergence" are difficult topics with different meanings in different areas. Rather than trying to provide precise definitions of these terms, we will develop a range of ideas, examples, and intuitions that provide a deeper understanding.
  
  The order of topics will depend partly upon particular interests of the class, but the following topics, at least, will be covered:
  
  1) Performance systems [sets of condition/action rules].
  2) Signal-passing systems -- their pervasiveness from cell biology to language.
  3) Parallelism -- systems with many rules active simultaneously
  4) Agent-based models (models with multiple interacting agents).
  5) Credit assignment -- strengthening stage-setting and predictive rules.
  6) Rule discovery -- genetic algorithms.
  7) Building blocks -- their role in everything from perception to invention.
  
  Texts: Hidden Order (paperback) and Emergence (paperback).
  Both published by Perseus Press; author J.H. Holland