Now I'm going to say something about

the core disciplines, the goals,

and the research methodologies that underlie

the science of complex systems.

What's to come is my own list;

but these are the things

that I think you need to know something about

if you want to more deeply understand

the research coming out of this field.

The first core discipline is dynamics,

which is the study of continually changing structure

and behavior of systems.

Another core discipline is information,

which studies representation, symbols,

and communication.

The discipline of computation provides insight into

how systems process information

and act on the results.

And finally, you need to know

something about evolution,

which includes the study of how systems adapt

to environments that change over time.

All of these fields are independent research areas,

but they're brought together

in the science of complexity.

Complex systems science has, to my mind at least,

two different goals.

Or perhaps I should say that different researchers

have different goals.

One major goal is the development of

mathematical and computational tools

that lead to cross-disciplinary insights.

For example, by studying the behavior

of ant colonies

as an instance of information processing,

we can ask how similar or different

that information processing is

to that done in a city.

Or, to what extent is the flow of information

in a brain network

similar to that in an economic network.

These kinds of cross-disciplinary insights are,

to date,

the greatest success of complex systems science.

We'll cover many of these in this course.

However, some complex systems researchers

have an even loftier goal:

the development of a general theory of complexity,

one that unites the previously disparate disciplines

that make up complex systems research.

This school is somewhat controversial

in the research community.

Many people don't think it's realistic,

or even possible;

but it remains a holy grail for some.

Throughout this course,

we'll hear from a number of complexity experts

about the prospects for such a theory,

and you'll probably hear lots of different opinions.

Finally, what methodologies

do complex systems scientists use in their work?

Well, here's our complex systems scientist.

As scientists,

people in the field of complex systems

do a combination of experimental work,

theoretical work, and, increasingly,

what's coming to be known

as the third scientific methodology;

that is, computer simulation.

In this course, we'll look at

all these kinds of methods

but we'll focus in particular

on computer simulation of complex systems.