Signals and Boundaries: Building Blocks for Complex Adaptive Systems - Rilegato

Holland, John H.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0262017830 ISBN 13: 9780262017831

Casa editrice: Mit Pr, 2012

Riassunto

Complex adaptive systems (cas), including ecosystems, governments, biological cells,and markets, are characterized by intricate hierarchical arrangements of boundaries and signals. Inecosystems, for example, niches act as semi-permeable boundaries, and smells and visual patternsserve as signals; governments have departmental hierarchies with memoranda acting as signals; and soit is with other cas. Despite a wealth of data and descriptions concerning different cas, thereremain many unanswered questions about "steering" these systems. In Signals andBoundaries, John Holland argues that understanding the origin of the intricatesignal/border hierarchies of these systems is the key to answering such questions. He develops anoverarching framework for comparing and steering cas through the mechanisms that generate theirsignal/boundary hierarchies.

Holland lays out a path for developing the frameworkthat emphasizes agents, niches, theory, and mathematical models. He discusses, among other topics,theory construction; signal-processing agents; networks as representations of signal/boundaryinteraction; adaptation; recombination and reproduction; the use of tagged urn models (adapted fromelementary probability theory) to represent boundary hierarchies; finitely generated systems as away to tie the models examined into a single framework; the framework itself, illustrated by asimple finitely generated version of the development of a multi-celled organism; and Markovprocesses.

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Recensione

What is common to cells, rainforests, markets, and language? John Holland demonstrates that each of these complex systems can be analyzed by studying the signals between their evolving parts, the changing boundaries that define these parts, and the coevolution of the signals and the boundaries. The result is a deeper understanding of all complex systems as each application enlightens the others. A remarkable achievement.
Robert Axelrod, author of The Evolution of Cooperation

Complex adaptive systems assume definition as agents arise and organize themselves into specialized units with boundaries and signals that sustain those boundaries, becoming agents themselves in ever-more-complex hierarchies. In his characteristic engaging style, John Holland elucidates the universal organizational principles that characterize hierarchical pattern formation across the spectrum of science.

--Simon Levin, Moffett Professor of Biology, Princeton University

L'autore

John H. Holland is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan; he is also Trustee and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is the author of Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity and other books.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Mit Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0262017830
• ISBN 13: 9780262017831
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 308
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile