Emergence from simple local rules
Complex global patterns arise from many agents following simple local interaction rules with no central controller. The macro-behavior cannot be read off any single component in isolation.
Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight
4 ideas
Complexity as a science of adaptation
SFI treats economies, ecosystems, cities, and immune systems with one shared toolkit of networks, nonlinearity, and computation. The unifying question is how adaptive systems acquire and process information.
Scaling laws recur across systems
Metabolic rate, city infrastructure, and firm size follow power-law scaling relationships with consistent exponents. Size alone predicts many properties of a system.
Shared math over disciplinary silos
Complexity science looks for common mathematical structure across fields rather than deepening one discipline. A pattern discovered in biology becomes a tool for economics or urban planning.