Emergence and complexity refer to the appearance of higher-level properties and behaviours of a system that obviously comes from the collective dynamics of that system's components. These properties are not directly deducible from the lower-level motion of that system. Emergent properties are properties of the "whole'' that are not possessed by any of the individual parts making up that whole. Such phenomena exist in various domains and can be described, using complexity concepts and thematic knowledges. This book highlights complexity modelling through dynamical or behavioral systems. The pluridisciplinary purposes, developed along the chapters, are able to design links between a wide-range of fundamental and applicative Sciences. Developing such links - instead of focusing on specific and narrow researches - is characteristic of the Science of Complexity that we try to promote by this contribution.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone... Impeccable.”—Wall Street Journal “A porthole into another world.”—Scientific American “Brings science dissemination to a new level.”—Science The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality. Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables. No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.

This book argues that societies are complex dynamical systems that can be understood through the concept of emergence.

This book centres on a broadened view of complexity that will enrich engagement with complexity in the social sciences. The key idea is to employ complexity theory to develop a holistic account of practice, agency and expertise. In doing so, the book acknowledges and builds upon the relational character of reductive accounts. It draws upon recent theoretical work on complexity, emergence and relationality to develop a novel account of practice, agency and expertise in and for workplaces. Biological, psychological and social aspects of these are integrated. This novel account overcomes problems in current views of practice, agency and expertise, which suffer from reductive, or fragmented, analyses, based upon individuals, groups, or networks. In retrieving the experiential richness of human activity – often esteemed as the basis of generative and creative life – this book shows how complexity both emerges from, and is, a non-reductive feature of, human experience, especially in daily work. “...an ambitiously wide-ranging volume, questioning the key tenets of respected approaches ..... and offering ..... ‘novel accounts’, which draw on features of complexity thinking.... ...But they go further than any of us in their argument that: ‘whatever reductive moves are made, they ‘flow’ from holistic accounts of relationality which have already affectively engaged the purposes of a co-present group.’ This is the intellectual contribution that is built consistently and persuasively across the chapters.” Professor Emerita Anne Edwards, Oxford University "Hager and Beckett have written a book that will challenge more commonly held notions of agency, practice, skills, and learning. Centering their argument on complexity theory or, as they prefer, complexity thinking, Hager and Beckett argue that it is through relations that we raise questions about, gather data from, and make working sense of the complexity that surrounds us. Groups then, particularly small groups, hold and implement agentive power. And what the authors call co-present groups—ones in which holistic relationality occurs socially, and affectively in distinctive places—“draw us closer to each other, and harness our normativity by enabling negotiability and reason-giving.” If your field of study involves anything remotely sociocultural in nature or if you are just interested in the complex ways we engage as humans with our worlds, you should find a place for this book in your library." Bob Fecho, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York NY, USA

Complexity has become a central topic in certain sectors of theoretical physics and chemistry (for example, in connection with nonlinearity and deterministic chaos). Also, mathematical measurements of complexity and formal characterizations of this notion have been proposed. The question of how complex systems can show properties that are different from those of their constituent parts has nurtured philosophical debates about emergence and reductionism, which are particularly important in the study of the relationship between physics, chemistry, biology and psychology. This book offers a good presentation of those topics through a truly interdisciplinary approach in which the philosophy of science and the specialized topics of certain sciences are put in a dialogue.

We are confronted with emergent systems everywhere and Holland shows how a theory of emergence can predict many complex behaviours in art and science. This book will appeal to scientists and anyone interested in scientific theory.

In this work, change specialist Holman reframes how we deal with chaos and change, and explains to leaders how to turn upheaval into opportunity and renewal.

When the whole is greater than the sum of the parts--indeed, so great that the sum far transcends the parts and represents something utterly new and different--we call that phenomenon emergence. When the chemicals diffusing in the primordial waters came together to form the first living cell, that was emergence. When the activities of the neurons in the brain result in mind, that too is emergence. In The Emergence of Everything, one of the leading scientists involved in the study of complexity, Harold J. Morowitz, takes us on a sweeping tour of the universe, a tour with 28 stops, each one highlighting a particularly important moment of emergence. For instance, Morowitz illuminates the emergence of the stars, the birth of the elements and of the periodic table, and the appearance of solar systems and planets. We look at the emergence of living cells, animals, vertebrates, reptiles, and mammals, leading to the great apes and the appearance of humanity. He also examines tool making, the evolution of language, the invention of agriculture and technology, and the birth of cities. And as he offers these insights into the evolutionary unfolding of our universe, our solar system, and life itself, Morowitz also seeks out the nature of God in the emergent universe, the God posited by Spinoza, Bruno, and Einstein, a God Morowitz argues we can know through a study of the laws of nature. Written by one of our wisest scientists, The Emergence of Everything offers a fascinating new way to look at the universe and the natural world, and it makes an important contribution to the dialogue between science and religion.

Taking a critical look at major perspectives on innovation, this book suggests that innovation is not a designed functional activity of a firm or an intentional process through which firms anticipate changes in conditions. Jose Fonseca proposes that the concepts behind the innovation experiences cannot be traced to any particular time, space or individual, even if one person has figured prominently. The innovative ideas in the examples considered did not occur as a direct product of a purposeful search triggered by the perception of some problem to solve, nor did they result from a sequential process that was laid out in advance. Instead, innovative ideas were a product of streams of conversations that extended over long periods of time and were characterized by critical degrees of misunderstanding and redundancy. Fonseca's book presents innovation as new meaning potentially emerging in ongoing, every-day conversations. Drawing on the theory of complex responsive process, developed in the first two volumes of this series, Fonseca presents a particular way of understanding innovation. The experiences of innovation studied in this book suggest that innovations do not start with a match between a need to be satisfied and a set of competencies and tools purposefully brought together to meet the need. On the contrary, identification of need is a consequence of success, rather than a pre-condition. The innovations studied in this book (a selection of innovation experiences from Portugal are considered) were subject to constant and never ending redefinition.