Doing complexity science

This chapter asserts that the complexity frame of reference makes the actual doing of meaningful and useful science possible. We begin by developing our discussion of the limitations of micro-emergent accounts of complexity by engaging with the arguments of Sawyer and DeLanda. In particular, we focus on the contrast between complex realism’s conception of interwoven systems as ontology and flat ontologies as proposed by DeLanda. Next, we endorse Juarro’s assertion of the re-emergence of teleology as part of meta-theoretical understanding and show how she relates this to the complexity frame. Then we will compare and contrast the complexity frame of reference with other meta-theoretical positions of a ‘sort of’ materialist form which are current in contemporary discussion. These are interesting, but none of them are capable of forming the basis of a programme of social research, with the marginal exception of Actor Network Theory (ANT), where the research programme while often interesting in empirical demonstration has been subordinated to flat wrong set of epistemological assertions. Still less do any of them seem to have the potential for informing action directed at dealing with the fundamental social problems of 21st-century society and its intersection with the natural world – with inequalities of all kinds, with Gaia striking back in pandemic disease, and with the emerging crisis of climate catastrophe.

Complex Systems and Decision Making · Computer Science