Abstract
Traditional modes of system representation as dynamical systems, involving fixed sets of states together with imposed dynamical laws, pertain only to a meagre subclass of natural systems. This reductionistic paradigm leaves no room for final causes; constrained thus are the simple systems. Members of their complementary collection, natural systems having mathematical models that are not dynamical systems, are the complex systems. Complex systems, containing hierarchical cycles in their entailment networks, can only be approximated and simulated, locally and temporarily, by simple ones. Anticipatory systems are, in this specific sense, complex, hence this introductory chapter on Complex Systems in the Handbook of Anticipation.
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Acknowledgments
We dedicate this exposition on impredicativity to Robert Rosen (1934–1998), iconoclastic mathematical biologist, whose permeating presence in this Handbook of Anticipation is keenly felt. His next monograph would have been Complexity.
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Louie, A.H., Poli, R. (2019). Complex Systems. In: Poli, R. (eds) Handbook of Anticipation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91554-8_3
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