基本説明
Gives a concise primer on how diversity happens, how it is maintained, and how it affects complex systems.
Full Description
This book provides an introduction to the role of diversity in complex adaptive systems. A complex system--such as an economy or a tropical ecosystem--consists of interacting adaptive entities that produce dynamic patterns and structures. Diversity plays a different role in a complex system than it does in an equilibrium system, where it often merely produces variation around the mean for performance measures. In complex adaptive systems, diversity makes fundamental contributions to system performance. Scott Page gives a concise primer on how diversity happens, how it is maintained, and how it affects complex systems. He explains how diversity underpins system level robustness, allowing for multiple responses to external shocks and internal adaptations; how it provides the seeds for large events by creating outliers that fuel tipping points; and how it drives novelty and innovation. Page looks at the different kinds of diversity--variations within and across types, and distinct community compositions and interaction structures--and covers the evolution of diversity within complex systems and the factors that determine the amount of maintained diversity within a system.
* Provides a concise and accessible introduction * Shows how diversity underpins robustness and fuels tipping points * Covers all types of diversity * The essential primer on diversity in complex adaptive systems
Contents
Acknowledgments ix Prelude: The Meaning of Diversity 1 Chapter 1: On Diversity and Complexity 16 Chapter 2: Measuring Diversity 54 Chapter 3: The Creation and Evolution of Diversity 79 Chapter 4: Constraints on Diversity 127 Chapter 5: Variation in Complex Systems 148 Chapter 6: Diversity's Inescapable Benefits I: Averaging 167 Chapter 7: Diversity's Inescapable Benefits II: Diminishing Returns to Types 183 Chapter 8: Diversity's Impact in Complex Systems 196 Chapter 9: Parting Thoughts 249 Bibliography 257 Notes 271 Index 281
