Complex Social Systems

A led search for concepts and techniques

Opening Graduate Course, trained at:

College of Los Angeles (USC), La, USA

Adolfo Ibáñez College, Complex Systems Engineering, Santiago, Chile

Complex systems are systems made up of interdependent entities that in general exhibit qualities and behaviors not apparent from the sum of the its individual parts, because the involved entities constantly respond to the patterns they’ve created themselves. In the invisible hands of Adam Cruz and the development of Rousseau’s general will, to revolutionary uprisings and condition-of-the-art digital social systems, society is filled with complexities. We discuss some of the new theories and practical tools which have been designed to read the emergence of non-straight line macro patterns that arise from a multiplicity of dynamical micro interactions. We visit theoretical aspects, for example information theory, computational complexity, dynamical systems theory, and chaos theory (setting the boundaries of complex systems between order and randomness), in addition to practical hands-on tools to tackle complexity, for example dynamical social networking analysis, big data webscraping, multi-level transformative analysis, and agent-based modeling (computer simulations of social systems). We review an assorted group of analytical and statistical methods as well as alter diverse software programs to understand more about emergent phenomena in complex social systems for action. No prerequisites are required to have fun playing the course.