What is complexity, and what is complexity science, asks SFI's Melanie Mitchell in an essay in the John Templeton Foundation publication Big Questions Online.
Her surprisingly accessible answers touch on nonlinear behavior, self-organization, information processing, evolution, equilibrium, simple rules and unpredictable behavior, network thinking, long-tailed distribution, and more.
Mitchell is a professor of computer science at Portland State University, an SFI External Professor and Science Board member, and instructor of SFI's Massive Open Online Course "Introduction to Complexity."
Read her essay, "How Can the Study of Complexity Transform Our Understanding of the World?", in Big Questions Online (January 20, 2014)
A lively online discussion between Mitchell and her readers is open until Tuesday, January 28.