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Loading... Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier (edition 2001)by Robert Axelrod, Michael D. CohenThis could be 4 stars, but as it wasn't what I was looking for, 3 it is. First of all, what this is not: this is not a quantitative description or investigation of complex systems, a book about agent-based modeling, etc. That is more what I was looking for and -for me- earned a -1 on the stars. As far as what the book is: a qualitative description and partial categorization of complex systems and related ideas (e.g. the 4 to alter behaviors/agent choice/rewards in a complex system.) In this way, it is still a good book (and deserving of maybe 3.5 stars, but Goodreads.) If you wanted to start out building quantitative descriptions yourself, these are the qualitative descriptions you would start with. I stumbled onto this book many years ago while browsing the bookshelves of an independent bookstore in Monterrey CA. Its concepts were so general but struck me as universal. I knew the information was important for me but didn't know why. This started me on a ten year odyssey to extend its general concepts to a standardized methodology. The process lead me into diverse research areas of mathematics, theoretical physics, complexity theory, etc. I've read the book more than ten times over. I was somewhat disappointed with this book because The Evolution of Cooperation was so great. I think this is a decent introduction to complex social systems providing the reader with a basic vocabulary and some some moderately insightful discussion of social systems. There doesn't seem to be any unique contributions here. I thought the discussion about variation was the best part of the book. |
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