ABSTRACT
A complex adaptive system consists of a large number of agents, each of which behaves according to its own principles of local interaction. No individual agent, or group of agents, determines the patterns of behavior that the system as a whole displays, or how those patterns evolve, and neither does anything outside of the system. Here self-organization means agents interacting locally according to their own principles, or “intentions,” in the absence of an overall blueprint for the system. These adaptive systems, just as with the chaos and dissipative structure models discussed in the previous chapter, display broad categories of dynamics that include stable equilibrium, random chaos and a distinctive dynamic between them, at the edge of chaos.
