Complex Adaptive System

From P2P Foundation

Definitions

• “A Complex Adaptive System (CAS) is a dynamic network of many agents (which may represent cells, species, individuals, teams, firms, nations) acting in parallel, constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing. The control of a CAS tends to be highly dispersed and decentralized. If there is to be any coherent behavior in the system, it has to arise from competition and cooperation among the agents themselves. The overall behavior of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment by many individual agents.” ^[1]

• "A CAS behaves/evolves according to three key principles: order is emergent as opposed to predetermined (c.f. Neural Networks), the system's history is irreversible, and the system's future is often unpredictable. The basic building blocks of the CAS are agents. Agents scan their environment and develop schema representing interpretive and action rules. These schema are subject to change and evolution."^[2]

References

1. ↑ Santa Fe Institute’s John H. Holland, http://www.businessprocesstrends.com/publicationfiles/01-09-COL-ExtremeCompetition-TheProcessMgdOrgChart-Fingar.doc--final.pdf
2. ↑ K. Dooley, AZ State University, http://www.eas.asu.edu/~kdooley/casopdef.html