Outline of Course

Accessible at this Spring 2002 link is a pdf file of the course outline, showing the sequence of lectures, experiments, and discussions/seminars. This was our working outline, and through exploration of the basic concepts of complex systems, that is through Genetic Algorithms, we pretty much followed it. And, with minor changes we will follow it in Spring 2003.

Beyond Genetic Algorithms, however, there are so many fascinating explorations and applications that it is hard to know what to exclude and what to include. During Spring 2002 we left out some things in the outline, and introduced a variety of new models not in the outline, for example, the application of swarm behavior to study of Jane Jacobs "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"

And since the end of Spring 2002 we have found more interesting models, in particular the Bak-Sneppen evolutionary model, for which Steve wrote over the summer a computer simulation. We are studying this model in an Evolutionary Systems II seminar during Fall, 2002, and extending the discussion to Robert Wright's thesis in his book Nonzero that there exist trends in the evolution of human civilization, based on principles of game theory (which we explore through the Prisoner's Dilemma.) Both Jacob's and Wright's ideas will be studied in Spring 2003.

In addition, both Steve and I, because we are earth scientists, have wanted from the beginning to explore James Lovelock's Gaia theory as an application of complex systems theory to the entire Earth, and in particular his Daisyworld models. . . but in Spring 2002 we ran out of time. In Spring 2003 we plan to include Gaia.

But, you can see from this that there are many fascinating and stimulating subjects to explore, way more than can be done in one semester. During Spring 2003 we will be rearranging to more efficiently explore basic chaos/complexity theory, while looking for room to include some of the many extensions and applications. If there are subjects that particularly interest you in this realm come talk with Steve or Lynn. We know what we want to accomplish in this class, and realize that there are many ways to do it, leaving us very fluid in the specific ways we do it.