Introduction to Complexity: What are Complex Systems?

These are videos from the Introduction to Complexity course hosted on Complexity Explorer. You will learn about the tools used by scientists to understand complex systems. The topics you'll learn about include dynamics, chaos, fractals, information theory, self-organization, agent-based modeling, and networks. You’ll also get a sense of how these topics fit together to help explain how complexity arises and evolves in nature, society, and technology.

This course was developed by professor Melanie Mitchell, and is based on her book Complexity: A Guided Tour.

[Andrew.baltazar]

Thank for you this. Getting multiple snapshots of a complex object is how we start to understand it. So thanks for posting all these different definitions.

The very structure of the video applies it's understanding of complexity for effective pedagogy.

[kokoloism]

Beautifully answered from different perspectives. Thank you.

[lukkuuu]

This is amazing.
We should have versions of this video for all other abstract concepts (combining many different views in one place).

[wizardOfRobots]

I was hoping to meet Douglas Hofstadter as well... ah well...it was interesting anyways. Thanks Dr. Mitchell

[joaocarvalho]

THIS IS GREAT. Is a new way to look at things. I think that this is very important for those that are interested by the "Seventh sense" the term cretaed by Jushua Cooper Ramo

[WindupTravels-bdxb]

Should do these videos - of where they have to explain complexity to a 5 year old, then an elementary of high school student, a college student, a pdh student, then a professor

[kennethgarcia]

a spontaneous or self-organized network of a diversity of interactive parts qualifying as a system as it can be recognized to "function in a cohesive manner under certain parameteric envirionmental conditions towards a particular synergistic outcome/output" which is not considered possible within the rules or expectations within the hierarchical scale of material organization from which those parts are considered to exist within.... due to feedback and feedforward loops of influence within the network where modular interactions are non-linear in nature.

[subukandaswamy]

Most of the answers could very well be taken as a general definition of "System". The most interesting question is when is a 'System' considered as a 'Complex' system as opposed to a 'Simple' one. is it non linearity? is it no central control component? is it diversity