Intro Books for Bright People

[Michael Agar]

Yeah, same deal, I give intro complexity talks and keep experimenting
with what to use.

Few years back when Rob Axtell spoke to a group in DC he asked them to
read an Atlantic Monthly article, Seeing Around Corners,
http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/rauch/20020401.pdf. Worked
pretty well.

I use that and will add the Sci American article, July 2005, by Kohler,
Gummerman and Reynolds, Simulating Ancient Societies, on the Anasazi
work, readable and interesting.

I still like Waldrop's book, dated (but then so is Gleick and, at this
point, so is complexity), because he's a good writer, weaves together
ideas, people and institutions, shows what well known problems motivated
complexity, and he leans towards the biosocial rather than the physics.

Then there's many things available depending on the audience. For
instance, for an ethno crowd Elizabeth Woods' book on the insurgency in
El Salvador is good as is Steve Lansing's review article in the Annual
Reviews of Anthro. For a health care crowd writings by people like
Reuben McDaniels and Ben Crabtree are interesting.

My next gig is an education crowd, so one thing I found are two chapters
on that topic in Yaneer Bar-Yam's book Making Things Work.

Lot of material out there to suit the background knowledge of a
newcomer. Trick is to figure out why your audience is interested (or why
you want to get them interested), then figure out where they are to
locate their zone of proximal development, as Vygotsky called it, and
then find the right material or right words to stretch their horizon and
yours as well. Cross between teaching and intercultural communication.

Mike



>>> [hidden email] 09/10/05 10:07 PM >>>
Once again I've been asked by a very lively and bright person to  
suggest readings on Complexity.  And I find it pretty hard to do.

If the topic were Chaos instead, it'd be a snap: James Gleick's book  
and one or another of the really great math books showing how to  
quantify and manage chaos would be pretty clear choices.

But complexity is all over the place.  Holland's books are not all  
that gripping.  The Waldrop history of SFI is probably reasonable  
although dated.  Stu's "At Home in the Universe" is wonderful for us  
but a bit hard going for beginners, and not particularly general.  I  
mean, how do you shove modern graph theory, local knowledge systems,  
ABM, emergence, adaption, equilibrium, and so on into a couple of  
books!?

Stephen pointed out a great site of Cosma Shalizi's reviews:
   http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/
.. and particular on Complexity etc:
   http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/subjects/self- 
organization.html
.. while discussing Philip Ball's The Self-Made Tapestry.  Cosma  
would consider it a good starting point apparently.  And if you've  
met him, that is great praise indeed!

Any and all suggestions appreciated!

     -- Owen

Owen Densmore - http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://
friam.org



============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org

[Roger Critchlow]

Irene gave Phillip Ball's Critical Mass to the Summer Intern high school
students at SFI this summer. The Amazon average review stands at 4.5 stars.
>From the editorial review:

First, he exhaustively details the development of key concepts in
contemporary physics, such as self-organization, phase transitions, flocking
behavior, chaos, bifurcation points, preferential attachment networks and
evolutionary game theory. Next, he shows how social scientists apply these
concepts to the study of human organization. Ball's primary assertion is
that we must attend to the relationship between global phenomena and local
actions. In other words, noticing the impact of individual decisions on laws
and institutions is more worthwhile than trying to predict the behavior of
individuals (as Ball's discussion of the logic of voting habits makes all
too clear). Ball's carefully argued disagreements with conventional economic
theory make for particularly engaging reading. Nonspecialist readers who
enjoy a steep learning curve will relish the thought-provoking discussions
Ball provides.

What I like especially is the serendipity of scientific progress portrayed,
that social scientists taught physicists to do statistics, and a century or
two later the physicists get around to returning the favor.

Open source rulez.

-- rec --
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20050911/3ea0a3f1/attachment.htm