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What are complex adaptive systems?

The term 'complex adaptive systems' signals an approach which examines adaptive systems as non-linear, many-body, distributed, dissipative and self-organising, internally organised, dynamical systems. According to this approach, adaptiveness is the capacity to self-modify in the face of environmental change so as to preserve some set of features (typically functions) intact and adaptedness is the condition of sustaining those features. Acquiring either often involves many kinds of processes, including developmental and behavioural modification in response to the environment as well as Darwinian evolution.

 

To get a sense of the nature of complex adaptive systems, some examples are useful. Living organisms are paradigm complex adaptive systems, with fantastically intricate metabolisms, the ability to repair themselves, specialised organs (in the case of multicellular organisms), diverse behaviour repertoires (especially in animals), and the ability to evolve. At a lesser degree of complexity, some kinds of biochemical systems show forms of self-organization with properties that appear highly relevant to the emergence of life, and might be considered to be proto-adaptive systems. Moving up in scale, animal societies, and of course human economic and socio-political systems like businesses, cities and nations, can be complex adaptive systems. It is possible that some ecological systems should be counted as well, but that is whether the requisite internal organisation is present is often a difficult matter to determine. What is of importance is that a very rich and precise conceptual and principled account of complex adaptive systems is slowly being elaborated that will in future permit many more useful distinctions among, and understandings of, them than we can grasp today.