A common sight these days is to see the word "complexity" used to
represent one of the following four:
o Systems Dynamics
o Chaos Theory
o Adaptive Systems Theory
o Warfield's Budding Science of Complexity
Unfortunately for me, the distribution of references strongly emphasizes
the first three.
The last one is extremely close to the nature wishes of managers to find a
way out of the thicket. It is only when they become one of the following
that they are set up for the first three:
o A mathematician or engineer who is familiar with ordinary linear
differential equations (Systems Dynamics)
o A mathematician who is familiar with ordinary nonlinear differential
equations
o A mathematician or biologist who is familar with partial differential
equations, Einstein's diffusion theory, and the late twentieth-century
succedents to that
To be set up for the last one, you need to know that all human beings are
fallible, and that individuals can't manage complexity alone: a central
part of the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, and a direct inference
from Michael Polanyi.
-- John N. Warfield Johnwfield@aol.com