Simply Complexity Book Summary - Simply Complexity Book explained in key points

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Name: Simply Complexity
Rating: 3.9 (62 reviews)
Author: Neil F. Johnson

Neil F. Johnson

A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory

3.9 (62 ratings)

18 mins

Brief summary

Simply Complexity by Neil F. Johnson is a comprehensive guide to understanding the science of complexity. It offers insightful perspectives on how complex systems occur and interact in our world, using both historical and modern examples.

Topics

Mathematics

Table of Contents

Simply Complexity
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Discover how complexity science can help us understand our world.

Whereas classical science closely examines phenomena in order to explain things, complexity science attempts to understand phenomena as a whole and seeks universal patterns that exist between them.

These blinks will show you the ways in which seemingly unrelated disciplines can be brought together to uncover previously hidden connections between them.

You’ll also learn

why your complexity as an individual doesn’t matter in a group;
why studying networks can save lives; and
why there’s no need to worry about finding the right partner.

Complexity arises through collective interaction and studying this can help resolve challenging problems.

If you didn’t think about it too hard, you’d probably agree that traffic jams and financial markets are complex things. But ponder over it a little longer and you’ll discover that complexity is actually quite difficult to define. In fact, even the scientific community struggles to provide a clear definition of the term.

However, the author has come up with the following definition of complexity science: the study of phenomena which emerge from a collective of interacting objects. One real-world example of this could be a crowd, in that it emerges from a collection of interacting people.

As an ever-present part of life, complexity manifests in our everyday experience when objects or people compete for resources such as food, space or wealth.

For example, a crowd of financial traders who all want to sell are competing for buyers, and when people get stuck in traffic, they’re competing with other drivers for space on the road. Even a cancer tumor is a “war” in which two competitors – cancer cells and normal cells – fight for space.

As competition sometimes goes awry and leads to conflicts or market crashes, the resulting complexity creates a problem that complexity science can help unravel. The advantage of complexity science is that, drawing on ideas from other sciences such as biology, sociology and ecology, it can solve problems by forming otherwise hidden connections between complex systems.

If we can uncover universal patterns in a complex system in one area of science, this can expedite our understanding of complex systems in other disciplines, therefore enabling us to resolve the problems that stem from them.

So, although complexity science is still in its teething stages, it has a wide range of potential application to different fields, which may make it extremely important in our everyday lives.

A complex system spontaneously changes its own behavior through feedback information.

Complex systems are a curious thing in that the phenomena that arise from it, such as traffic jams or market crashes, can occur even without any governance or coordination. Rather, the collection of objects (or people) is actually self-organized, making phenomena seem to crop up as if by magic.

Complex systems are able to bring about changes in their own behavior, which can range from fairly random to rather extreme.

Complexity and chaos are not the same.

We often come across the terms “complexity” and “chaos” together, which gives off the impression that they are essentially the same. But that’s not true.

Chaos can actually be a result of complexity: it’s a specific example of a complex system’s output.

Although a crowd is complex, collections of people are likely to behave similarly.

As we have seen, a crowd is a complex phenomenon. It arises from a collection of people, and people are complicated in their preferences, thoughts and behavior.

But it turns out that the ways in which we are complicated as individuals might not be so important in group situations. Interestingly, when we are in a large enough group, our individual differences actually cancel out each other.

Understanding the complexity of network behavior can save lives.

We are social animals. We make private contacts and form alliances and coalitions. Simply put, we create networks. And in our networks, we know who is connected to whom, and therefore who is interacting with one another and what their interactions are.

We are surrounded by networks on a daily basis, for instance transportation, information, social and voting networks. What defines a network is a set of nodes that are connected by links. For example, in a social network, individual people form a set of nodes and their contact forms the link between them.

Complexity science better explains financial market behavior than the standard prediction model.

In a market, the traders, or “individual objects,” are each attempting to predict price movements in order to decide whether to buy or sell. But there is one significant problem: financial markets are complicated dynamic systems that are continually changing in ways that elude most experts.

That’s because the standard prediction model for financial markets is flawed.

Dating is complex, but complexity science shows us that we can still find the right partner.

Finding Mr. or Mrs. Right can be hard: first, our mate needs to actually exist in the world at the same time as we do. Second, the timing has to be right – we might desire a someone who wasn’t right for us in our past but would be now and the opportunity is gone. In other words, dating is complex!

But there’s another hurdle that we must overcome in our search for the ideal partner: we aren’t the only ones looking.

Wars are complex, but complexity science can help us understand them.

Aside from coming together to form complex systems that consist of just regular groups or crowds, we are, unfortunately, equally as capable of forming complex systems that are violent – the most striking example of which is war. War functions as a complex system because several groups of people are simultaneously fighting for some kind of gain, typically a limited resource, such as land, or political, social and economic power.

One way in which this struggle can become even more convoluted is when more than one side is fighting in the same war, which leads to rising asymmetry in warfare.

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What is Simply Complexity about?

In Simply Complexity, Neil F. Johnson presents an introduction to complexity theory, explaining what complex systems are, where we can spot them in everyday life and how we can benefit from understanding complexity. Although a young field, complexity science already offers us ways to help explain and potentially avoid complex phenomena, such as traffic jams, financial market crashes and modern warfare.

Simply Complexity Review

Simply Complexity (2009) by Neil F. Johnson offers profound insights into the underlying patterns and principles of complex systems. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Explores the fascinating interplay between simplicity and complexity, helping readers understand the world around them.
Combines real-world examples and cutting-edge research, making it informative and relevant for anyone interested in complex systems.
With its accessible and engaging approach, it makes the often intimidating topic of complexity theory easy to grasp and enjoyable to explore.

Best quote from Simply Complexity

Complexity is deeply ingrained in our everyday lives.

—Neil F. Johnson

Who should read Simply Complexity?

Anyone interested in new explorations in science
Anyone intrigued by the increasing complexity of today’s world
Anyone who wants to better understand complex phenomena such as dating and warfare

About the Author

Previously a professor of physics at Oxford University, Neil F. Johnson is currently head of the Complexity research group at the University of Miami in Florida. His work involves researching a wide range of real-world complex systems. He is the author of Two’s Company, Three is Complexity and Financial Market Complexity.

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