Complex Systems
My work on complex systems covers the following topics: Why do so many complex systems behave in relatively simple ways? Why is probability so useful for understanding complex systems (as in statistical physics, but also ecology, evolutionary biology, and other sciences)? What kinds of properties must ecosystems have to provide an arena suitable for natural selection? Can the techniques used to understand physical and biological systems be extended to some or all kinds of social systems? What kind of mathematical theory is best suited to understanding complex systems? These questions are asked, and to some extent answered, in my 2003 book Bigger Than Chaos.
Publications
- Why High-Level Explanations Exist. To appear in Levels of Explanation, OUP, edited by Katie Robertson and Alastair Wilson
- Complexity Theory. A handbook entry.
- Ontology, Complexity, and Compositionality (the importance of compositionality in theories of complex systems)
- Stochastic Independence and Causal Connection. Erkenntnis. 2015.
- How Are the Sciences of Complex Systems Possible? Philosophy of Science 72, 531–556, 2005.
- Bigger Than Chaos, Harvard University Press, 2003.