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A Crude Look at the Whole
Book

A Crude Look at the Whole

The Science of Complex Systems in Business, Life, and Society

Basic Books, 2016 más...


Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Well Structured
  • Overview

Recommendation

As you might expect from a book on complex systems, John H. Miller’s explanations can often be complicated. Yet, he is also lucid, instructive and entertaining. Complex systems surround you. You take part in them all the time. In his examples of such systems, Miller moves smoothly from honeybees to financial crashes, and from cellular automata to game theory. This is an approachable introduction to complexity, with useful examples, drawings, metaphors and humor. getAbstract recommends this examination of the bigger picture to anyone interested in a better of understanding complex systems and how the world works.

Take-Aways

  • “Reductionist” science wrongly assumes that if you understand each thing in isolation, you’ll eventually understand the entire universe.
  • The study of complex systems examines how individual agents interact and generate complex results through interaction.
  • “Feedback loops” govern complex interacting systems.

About the Author

John H. Miller, professor of economics and social science at Carnegie Mellon University, has written numerous works on complexity and complex systems.


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