Complexity Books

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die (BK Life (Paperback))

This is a beautiful book that quietly dances around your soul causing you to reflect on your own life. Using the metaphor of her own lifelong journey hiking in the mountains, the author takes the experiences of those hikes and connects them to the choices which fill life with joy and wonder. The book is illustrated with wonderful art that is worth the price of the book on its own. Eileen is a great communicator in person and on paper through the written word. This book is a gift from the mountain to your soul. You will want to keep it my your bedside and read more than once.

John Izzo, Author of The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

The natural world has a knack for being able to cut all our complications and confusions down to size. And that's exactly what Eileen McDargh does with this lyrical book, showing us through observations on the backpacking trail that the path ahead is right in front of us--if we're really looking. She certainly is, finding lessons for use at home and work in the tenaciousness of a high-altitude flower, the unexpected whims of the elements, and the danger of false confidence on the downhill track. Books that shine the mirror of nature back on us often wind up stuck in the gates from triteness. Not this one. The writing is superb. I kept thinking, I wish I'd seen that on the trail. I wish I'd written that. If you love the outdoors, are a hiking fan, or just want to get some wise words from a pathfinder who can clarify decisions in work or life, check this little book out. It gets you off the bullet train and lets you see the forest AND the trees.

I stumbled across this book through a newspaper article that was forwarded to me by a dear friend. (Kathy M. Kristof, "Spend your cash on things that are truly valuable") I was inspired by the article so I ordered the book that the article mentioned: "Gifts From the Mountain: Simple Truths for Life's Complexities"

I can say that the book was not at all what I thought it was going to be. BUT...I am very, very happy with my purchase. I call my experience with this book my happy, little accident. It came to me at a time where I really needed to have simple and clear messages to help me interpret some situations in my life. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for some insight into themselves and the world around them.

Enhanced with full color illustrations by Roderick MacIver, "Gifts From The Mountain: Simple Truths For Life's Complexities" by Eileen McDargh is a remarkable 114-page compendium of advisory truths for daily living that would be applicable to every man and woman regardless of their situation or circumstance in life. MacIver writes with a kind of lyrical metaphor when dealing with life's demands. The result is a collection of individual wisdoms that are universally applicable and enthusiastically recommended. 'Every Ounce Counts': Hike enough and you trim the weight/of what you carry. You learn that pita bread/weighs less than squaw bread; dried apples weight less than/trail mix; ramen and dried vegetables weigh even less/than some freeze-dried entrees. you discover/you can share a tube of toothpaste. Ditto deodorant,/sunscreen, and bug repellent.//How often do we encumber our civilized life with things/we WANT instead of things we truly need?//Choose what you carry carefully./I never saw a hearse with a U-haul behind.

When your workaholic colleagues and friends do not let up on their all-enveloping "goal", give them a respite they may pick up and read one day - and feel different when done. Thank you Eileen for this sensory, elegantly-simple gift book of reminders for why we are helped by taking that pause and looking around. Sculling out on Richardson Bay here in Sausalito this morning, I reflected back on her wise insights.
- Kare, movingfrommetowe.com

I have to say that this is a true classic. It gives a very nice treatment of what is NP-completeness in a fashion that really defends the topic well. It gives nice illustrations to show different situations and how to deal with it. But after the first couple of chapters it does get a little out there with the proofs it does. It is still approachable, but it assumes that the reader is already familiar with the basics of combinatorial complexity, especially in reductions. I would only recommend this book to readers who has gone through such books as Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al. or Combinatorial Complexity by Papadimitriou and Steiglitz. Those two books are more for beginners and this book should be one to help anyone interested in NP-complete problems to get more practice and depth understanding. Overall a great book for anyone interested in the topic. The grand challenge is to reduce everything to at least something within the 150 problems listed on your own.

The book is excellent in explaining NP-completeness problem. Take it as a reference if you would like to do research in this field.

This is a rare example of a textbook where the authors actually go to the trouble of considering the fact that the intended reader is a non-expert. Published in 1979 and still the best.

The book arrived in time, in good condition, and adequate packing.

This is among the most eloquently written books that I have ever read in my life. Highly recommended.

I found this book well written, researched and presented. It is an academic work that reads easily and has application and relevance across many platforms including many that are not mentioned (e.g. health care). The examples are clearly presented. Like many books written along these topic lines, the examples are represented in iterative formats to draw out the specific issues. To many readers this may appear repetitive but it does enhance the understanding for those that wish to develop more depth.

Weick and Sutcliffe provide exceptional insights into high reliability organizations (HROs) and how lessons learned from HROs can be applied to other organizations that are not satisfied with just being good. The authors address the five hallmarks of mindfulness that distinguish HROs from all other organization types. The authors provide detailed checklists through which company leaders can audit and assess organizational readiness for dealing with unexpected events. The authors address the critical value of organizational culture in dealing with unexpected events and how organizational leaders can build the capacity to "manage mindfully". The text is well-documented and well-indexed. Each of the six chapters is summarized for rapid review; however, with ony 173 pages of substantive text, this "must read" can be completed in only a few hours. Knowledgeable leaders who are interested in creating resilient organizations should also read Ian Mitroff's "Crisis Leadership" (John Wiley & Sons) as an accompanying text.

This book is to be read by anyone really interested about how organizations work.

The main point could be explained in a single sentence: We can get valuable lessons if we pay attention to organizations who work in high risk and unpredictable environments.

This is my own view and, actually, I tried to show this using aviation as a kind of learning field. That is why I hope the authors will be lucky. My own experience was unsuccessful and that itself shows that the authors are right.

When I started to get conclusions from aviation to business management, I found that the more interested people came precisely from aviation. I'm afraid the authors could suffer the same experience and people interested in their concepts could come from air carriers, nuclear-powered plants and some other examples they use.

The authors could be three or four steps in advance of the present situation in business management. They try to extract the right lessons from other fields. However, they would not be surprised if their intent "bounces back" and it is picked-up precisely from the fields that they try to show as examples, not from business management.

In this well written, easy to read, analysis of organizations in highly complex and dangerous settings that persistently have less than their fair share of accidents - High Reliability Organizations - Professors Weick and Sutcliffe provide the recipe for a `learning organization'. Noting that HRO's share the hallmark of "mindfulness", the authors' define this characteristic as consisting of five key elements that every organization can use for dealing with the unexpected. The authors' call these five elements:
1. Preoccupation with failure - treating any failure (often small ones) as a symptom that something is wrong with the system, they are continually updating their understanding.
2. Reluctance to simplify interpretations - ensuring a more complete and nuanced picture, simplifying less and seeing more.
3. Sensitivity to operations - paying attention to relationships at the front line, where the work gets done.
4. Commitment to resilience - maintaining a deep knowledge of the technology, the system, one's coworkers, and one's self as avenues for improvising and keeping the system functioning.
5. Deference to expertise - cultivating diversity to do more with complexities, they push decisions down to the people with the most expertise, not the most rank. They also move issues around/across the system, migrating problems to someone with the knowledge and capabilities to address them.

Together, these elements give the organization `mindfulness', and this organizational mindset allows it to handle the unexpected with more responsibility and thus a higher probability of success in the face of change. Although the HRO's analyzed (aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, and others) operate in more dangerous environments than the average business, today's rapidity of change causes the unexpected to happen to every organization and it would seem that the five elements of mindfulness could benefit nearly every organization today.
Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"

I was please with the writing of this book. Not only is it a good easy read, but Weick presents the material in an intersting fashion. SO far, it has been most helpful in understanding the components of managing a situation that is completely unexpected.

This collection of papers and presentations, published posthumously, is a companion to Rosen's earlier books "Life Itself" and "Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical and Methodological Foundations". This is probably the most accessible of his work to those without a fairly solid mathematical background. Not that this should prevent people from reading the earlier work since there are many sections that will be quite clear; I just feel that unfortuntely the crucial points of "Life Itself" might be lost due to the seeming technical nature of the explanation.

This is truly paradigm-shifting, moreso than anything else you are likely to read about in science. The Sante Fe crowd such as Stuart Kauffman obviously did not even grasp what Rosen was talking about when they met back in 1994 and that is even more tragic. So much time has been wasted with such money-wasters like the genome mapping fiasco when it could have been going into exploring new axioms for science.

For you see, this is what Rosen so eloquently points out in his work: the present axioms of science are much too limiting to explain anything we really would like to know about the universe. It is very interesting to see that Rosen grasped the implications of what also caught Einstein and Schrodinger's attention: the problem of inertial and gravitational mass. Rosen also points out the myriad of other areas where science has been busy putting band-aid after band-aid on the present set of theories to try to make them predict real phenomena.

For this is the problem with the present-day paradigms: they are only useful for predicting the N+1 state for some dead (and therefore uninteresting) mechanistic universe. The evidence has been staring us in the face for quite a while and I am not sure why Rosen should have been the first to analyze where the problems lie; it is even more surprising why his work appears to be so little known.

I also like the fact that this book is much more polished than his previous work. The index is mostly complete and there is also a list of references. I didn't note very many editorial erros and the language is quite friendly. This is a very high-quality science book and I suspect the first editions will be going for large prices in about 20 years when the "establishment" finally figures out where they went wrong.

Buy this and read it. And read it again. Then wonder why we are rushing pell-mell to "engineer" the world when we don't understand it at all.

This collection of essays, along with Rosen's other book _Life Itself_, are mandatory reading for any scientist or any astute layperson interested in biology, physics or philosophy of science.

Rosen was a very insightful and technically capable theoretical biologist. His work - first as a student of physicist and theoretical biologist Nicholas Rashevsky, and later as professor emeritus at Dalhousie - is unquestionably of the level of importance of Einstein's Special/General Theory of Relativity, or Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. This is a grand claim to make, but once you read Rosen's work, you will see for yourself.

These are not the easiest books to read, despite Rosen's excellent writing skills. The difficulty is two-fold. First and foremost, the new concepts and paradigms presented are of such breadth and profundity that it can take several readings to begin to fully grasp them adequately. Secondly, Rosen is mathematically (and otherwise) quite astute. The reader will encounter to some degree: category theory, topology, catastrophe theory (Rosen dedicates a chapter on genericity in _Essays_ to Rene Thom), differential equations, dynamical systems, Godel, Church-Turing, as well as philosophical topics of epistemology, ontology, and foundations of biology, mathematics and physics.

This should not, however, deter even the non-professional. Particularly in _Life Itself_, Rosen progresses carefully and patiently, even including a short intro to Category Theory. One can gloss over some of the math and still garner most of the insights from the text alone. _Essays_ utilizes a wider range of math skills, since that book covers a broader range of topics, but it is still quite accessible to the careful and astute reader.

In _Life Itself_, Rosen was investigating the question posed by Erwin Shrodinger originally in his 1943 lecture "What is Life?". Rosen's search led him to peel back in careful detail the foundations of Newtonian mechanics and reveal the underlying tacit assumptions of a state/phase-based physics and the repercussions for science in general, and biology in particular.

By setting aside state/phase-based physics, Rosen then proceeded to layout the groundwork for an atemporal relational biology based on functional organization and to methodically investigate the theoretical limits of mechanistic systems, including along the way: simulation, Turing machines, and the epistemology and ontology of such systems. The distinction eventually becomes clear that any such algorithmic mechanisms cannot embody the kinds of impredicative complexity that are characteristic of an organism. Because the syntax of Newtonian physics can express no such closed loops of entailment, "life" cannot even be described in that model of physics, much less modeled in any complete way. Thus it is that biological organisms are not a mere subset of current physics, but are representative of complexities that require physics to be enlarged.

In _Essays on Life Itself_, Rosen uses his considerable abilities across a broad spectrum of topics to continue the ideas from _Life Itself_. It is difficult to describe how topics as diverse as the assumptions of Pythagoras, the Turing test, universal unfoldings, morphogenesis, mind-brain problem, and more can be in the same book. Mostly, they all in one way or another accomplish one task: to look beyond the limits of how a problem is currently being viewed, and to see it from a larger perspective. Often, these perspectives take Rosen into terrain others would avoid, since they sometimes lead into the non-algorithmic / noncomputable, or the breakdown of the presumed subject-object division, or other kinds of "messy" scenarios.

Often they lead into "complex systems", where Rosen uses the word "complex" to define a certain class of systems - those systems have symptoms of being: impredicative, non-algorithmic, context-dependent, semantic, nonformalizable. This classification is not a desire for obfuscation or ineffability, but is as rigorous as the nonformalizability of Number Theory or the unsolvability in closed form of the n-body problem. It is a complexity akin to the size of a transfinite number: it is not simply a matter of merely being hugely complicated, it is rather an entirely different order of system structure.

However, guided by Rosen, one does not feel uneasy following his path. Rather one feels enriched both in knowledge and in paradigm. Distinguishing the broader generic case from the degenerate or special is a characteristic theme in Rosen. The unfamiliar terrain he argues to is thus not some void, but a grander scale that subsumes the orthodox view.

In that grander view, it may become more clear that some problems are based on incorrect assumptions, while some are more difficult or complex than in the more limited original view. However, it is apparent that Rosen is uninterested in making problems appear simpler by ignoring those difficulties - he is interested in where the science leads. It is an immensely richer, complex view of the physical world that one comes away with. As such, it presents some difficult challanges, but it also opens up vast opportunities - opportunities not visible in the neat and tidy fantasy model of science that generally prevails where it is assumed that with enough effort everything can be reduced or calculated.

Rosen writes deliberately and with precision, and is both a critical and a profound thinker. I hope that he one day receives the recognition and admiration he rightfully deserves.

This book is a powerfil critique of reductionist and/or simulation (modeling) approach to mind/body problem, and "what is life" question. Rosen builds his case against Church Thesis, arguing that contemporary mathematical and, more generally, scientific rigor, which bans impredicative loops from scientific discource, would not allow us to build what he calls "new science", which is needed to account for life and consciousness.

More than once he mentiones Goedel Theorem, as well as various paradoxes, encountered by science over the centuries, emphasizing the fact, that they all are directly related to the impossibility to draw definite border between an observer and her object (not just in quantum physics).

Although the book was very interesting for me, i felt that some essays essentially repeated the material, already covered in other parts of the same book. Also, this "new science", which Rosen thought is needed to deal with open systems, is never really described in any way, so we are left with critique only.

I am not sure i fully agree with Rosen's view of the Turing Test, which he only sees as a simulation approach to the mind (intelligence) problem. My understanding is that Turing Test should be rather understood in the "observer/object" context, meaning that the participant makes a judgement, being, at the same time, fully incorporated into the system.

In one of the essays Rosen says: "If somebody wants to call this 'vitalism' - then ... so be it." With no constructive theory in site it's a bit like this, to my understanding.

Dr. Rosen was a great man and this collection of essays follows on a number of foundational and classic works. The essays expand on, and clarify, a number of key issues that are present throughout Rosen's work. These include the Church-Pythagoras thesis, the mind-body problem, reductionism, syntatics and semantics, and biology and technology.

My main contribution to what has already been said in other reviews is to note that this work might be best viewed as a complement to Rosen's earlier work, Life Itself. Or, said differently, it might be best to read Life Itself first (if you haven't already). These are very complex topics that are explained from the standpoint of biology and mathematics and those without a previous foundation in Rosen's work--as I was when I bought this book--may find they have to establish that foundation first.

Robert Rosen died in December of 1998 after a long bout with diabetes and its complications. He left a significant quantity of unpublished notes and had this book in the publication process. His last "writings" were hand done on paper with great effort due to extensive peripheral neuropathy. It was a mixed blessing to be among the first to read his last works both this manuscript and the next, unfinished one. I am saddened by our loss even as I feel his presence through his writings.

Bob was an eloquent speaker and reading this set of essays is almost as good as hearing him in person. The essays were written to be published in a number of places, usually as invited talks, yet they may as well have been set down to be a book from the start. There is a thread of continuity that makes this the case. In addition, even though I had read many of the essays as they appeared earlier, their juxtaposition in this volume proves that "the whole is more than the sum of its parts"!

His stated purpose of this collection is to, in a sense, "flesh out" arguments in Life Itself (LI) that had to be short or even omitted for what might be called "logistic" reasons. In my opinion the essays do that at least. In LI he began with a caveat with which I am totally sympathetic. He warned the reader that he was weaving a very intricate cloth with a single linear thread and therefore much was being laid upon the reader's shoulders. My own experience is that it took numerous readings to begin to see how the weave was manifest. Once there, things fell into place more and more quickly, yet still a lot more was required because the design is so highly interconnected and rich in levels of meaning. I hope this book of essays will spare others that struggle. It will never be my place to evaluate that possibility since I can never go back.

The first part deals with the relationship of biology and physics within science, which can sound like an innocent enough topic until one understands that it is a revolutionary view.

Underlying it all is the common notion that physics is the source of all scientific laws and that chemistry and biology somehow must utilize physics to be scientific. Rosen rejects this notion and thereby opens a Pandora's Box. He uses the now more than fifty year old essay by Schrödinger, What is Life? as a springboard to the revealing argument about biology's more generic character in comparison to physics. As he does this he develops his notion of complexity as a description of this more generic view promoted by biology in contrast to the kind of "simple systems" which are the subject matter of physics. None of this should sound new to anyone who has read his earlier work, especially Life Itself, except for the new connections and new depths to which the arguments are taken. The result is a more solid whole than ever before

His introduction to this part of the book is worth having here to get a flavor for where he is going: "I claim that Gödelian noncomputability results are a symptom, arising within mathematics itself, indicating that we are trying to solve problems in too limited a universe of discourse." This is a nice capsule version of Rosen's message. If nothing else comes from his writings, this alone should change everyone who understands the message.

The book develops this theme along with the idea that science has limited itself unnecessarily. It created a surrogate world and then insisted that any observations about the real world not compatible with this model were "unscientific". The consequences are many and he explores them systematically. Whether you agree or disagree, an honest reading will require you to re-examine your beliefs.

The Origins Of Order is a fantastic book. Not only by it's thesis, also by it's methods.
Errors, time and competition (natural selection) is so easy in order to explain all the complexity we see.
I Spend much time in my work with complex problems in order to know all the details, collect the inputs, etc before I build a big spreadsheet and a power point presentation with my economic recommendations. Stuart Kauffman tells us other posibilities:
with a computer, some skills in programming, common sense and knolowedge of the problem build a random model of the problem, collect a lot of simulations, and analize the outcomes. Not more, not less. You don't need more.
And some times, change the computer by a pen and paper and build some equations. Not more, not less. You don't need more.

The Origins of Order will be viewed in the future as a milestone in shifting the existing Darwinian paradigm in biology from a "survival of the fittest" (natural selection) to a new paradigm focused on explaining the "arrival of the fittest" through self-organisation.
Using a boolean (NK) network model and a extensive amount of biological facts, Stuart Kauffman demonstrates in a powerful
way the central role of self-organisation in the creative process of life. His vision that biology seems to operate
as self-organised non-linear dynamical systems at the edge of chaos will have as much influence in biology that a similar vision offered by Nobel prize winner Prigogyne in the field of thermodynamcis. The book connects a web of fundamental ideas from the fields of biology, physics, mathematics and computer sciences and requires a strong background in biology that I unfortunately did not possess. The laborious style, the lack of clarity in the writing and the (unnecessary) length of the book should not stop anyone from reading this amazing book.
Stuart Kauffman combines an intellect and a vision that only very few scientists possess. This book is a must.

Kauffman believes that spontaneous self-ordering, which both simple and complex systems can exhibit, must be incorporated into evolutionary biology, along with traditional random variation and natural selection. Certain complex systems will be spontaneously self-ordering. Natural selection then tends to push such systems to the edge of chaos. In addition to advancing Kauffman's theories, this reference provides a good overview the Neo-Darwinian synthesis, a review of origin of life theories, a review of genetic regulatory theory, and a review of cell differentiation.

It took me a whole summer to read this book in 1993 and it is still the most amazing book I have ever read. If you are computer/mathematically inclined, have an interest in biology, and have enough time to digest it, this book will blow you away. It contains the most amazing hypotheses to come out since 1859. Unfortunately, it takes a huge investment in time to really read this book, but an epiphany awaits those who get through it.

Stuart Kauffman has an MD and is a generalist. The book deals primarily with theory and understanding of computer simulations of state driven systems of large numbers of connected nodes. It examines how such systems evolve through mutation and gives a clear understanding of the limited role of natural selection in comparison to the self-organizing forces at work within such systems. It examines the meta-interaction of sub-systems of interacting states (attractor basins) that occur within a system. In English: it gives the first theoretical framework for understanding just how it is that cells which all contain identical DNA express themselves as some number of stable cell types. Normally a cell will react to a perturbation in whatever way will return it to its base stable cycle (attractor loop). One type of cell turns into another type when just the right perturbation kicks the system from one attractor basin into a different attractor basin.

This is heavier reading than his popular science book, At Home in the Universe, but preferable for anyone with the necessary tiny amount of knowledge of genetics and logic operations. There are few equations of any kind. The results apply to more than just biological systems.

The book is long because instead of just presenting a few principles that you can try to remember abstractly, he leads you through all the important steps of his research and gives you a real feel for how complex systems actually evolve and operate. The book raises more questions than it answers, as it should be for a book of such originality and importance.

When you fully grok the contents of this book you'll be so excited you'll want to rush and explain it to someone else, which will be utterly impossible, so you'll probably have to lend them your book, buy them the popular version, or face the fact that you are now relatively alone on a higher plane.

The theory of Kolmogorov complexity attempts to define randomness in terms of the complexity of the program used to compute it. The authors give an excellent overview of this theory, and even discuss some of its philosophical ramifications, but they are always careful to distinguish between mathematical rigor and philosophical speculation. And, interestingly, the authors choose to discuss information theory in physics and the somewhat radical idea of reversible computation. The theory of Kolmogorov complexity is slowly making its way into applications, these being coding theory and computational intelligence, and network performance optimization, and this book serves as a fine reference for those readers interested in these applications. Some of the main points of the book I found interesting include: 1. A very condensed but effective discussion of Turing machines and effective computability. 2. The historical motivation for defining randomness and its defintiion using Kolmogorov complexity. 3. The discussion of coding theory and its relation to information theory. The Shannon-Fano code is discussed, along with prefix codes, Kraft's inequality, the noiseless coding theorem, and universal codes for infinite source word sets. 4. The treatment of algorithmic complexity. The authors stress that the information content of an object must be intrinsic and independent of the means of description. 5. The discussion of the explicit universal randomness test. 6. The discussion (in an exercise) of whether a probabilistic machine can perform a task that is impossible on a deterministic machine. 7. The notion of incompressibility of strings. 8. The discussion of randomness in the Diophantine equations; it is shown that the set of indices of the Diophantine equations with infinitely many different solutions is not recursively enumerable; with the initial segment of length n in the characteristic sequence having Kolmogorov complexity n. 9. The discussion on algorithmic probability, especially the test for randomness by martingales. 10. The Solomonoff theory of prediction and its ability to solve the problem of induction. 11. The treatment of Pac-learning and the resultant formalization of Occam's razor. 12. The discussion of compact routing; the optimal space to represent routing schemes in communication networks on the average for all static networks. 13. Computational complexity and its connection to resource-bounded complexity. 14. The notion of logical depth, i.e. the time required by a universal computer to compute the object from its compressed original description. 15. The connection between algorithmic complexity and Shannon's entropy. 16. The discussion on reversible computation, i.e. logically reversible computers that do not dissipate heat. 17. The treatment of information distance, i.e. for two strings, the minimal quantity of information sufficient to translate from one to the other.

This was the second-hardest book I ever read. Honestly, it took me years and years to get through it. I even had to buy a 2nd copy, because I kept getting frustrated and throwing the first copy across the room until it was destroyed. So yes, this book requires a substantial effort to read.

But the payback!! I've gotten more return on investment from this book than from any other book I've ever read. If you dilligently read and master this book, you will be able to analyze and solve problems your collegues just can't.

The basic idea behind Kolmogorov complexity is straighforward: a good measure of the complexity of an object is the length of the shortest computer program which will construct that object. From this basic idea an amazing variety of insights and powerful techniques have been developed, and this book is quite comprehensive in cataloging and explaining them.

For computer scientists and working programmers, probably the most useful result of Kolmogorov complexity would be the "Incompressibility Method", which is a powerful technique for the analysis of the runtime of algorithms. Typically, it is relatively easy to figure out what the best case or the worst case runtime of an algorithm is. Until now, it was hard to calculate the average runtime of an algorithm, because it usually involved a tricky counting problem, to enumerate all possible runs of the the algorithm and summing over them. The incompressibility method eliminates the need for doing these complicated enumerations, by letting you perform the analysis on a single run of the algorithm which is guarunteed to be representative of the average runtime of the algorithm. If you program for a living like I do, this will give you an edge, because if you can accurately predict that the worst-case runtimes almost never happen, you can usually simplify and streamline your programs by optimizing it for the average case. If your competitors are wasting time optimizing for a worst case which almost never happens--at the expense of _not_ optimizing for the average case, you win bigtime.

For philosophers of science and AI/knowledge representation folks, the most useful results of Kolmogorov complexity are probably the contributions of Kolmogorov complexity to Baysianism. To be a Baysian is to follow a two step process: (STEP 1) for every possible sentence, assign to it a number between 0 and 1 which represents how certain you are that that sentence is true. This initial assignment should be a probability distribution over all possible sentences. It should be a "good" probability distrubution, but of course it won't be perfect, since you don't know everything. (STEP 2) when confronted with new evidence, e.g. an observation, update your current "good" degrees of belief by using Bayes' law, to yield a new "better" set of degrees of belief.

The Baysians always had a good story for Step 2--just use Bayes law. But until now, they were mostly hand-waving on Step 1--what would constitude a "good" initial probability distribution? There were many proposals (e.g. maximum entropy) but all proposals had benefits and drawbacks. What Kolmogorov complexity provides is the so-called "universal" distribution, which is guarunteed to be a "good" initial distirbution. This book devotes much time to explaining and exploring this, and shows how previous techniques, like maximum entropy, minimum description length, etc all can be seen as computable approximations to the (unfortunately uncomputable) universal distribution. This really gives a nice framework for evalutating and formulating good prior distributions.

After remarking on how hard this book was to read, I should emphasize that this is not due to bad writing on the part of the authors! Indeed, after throwing the book across the room, I was always drawn back by Li & Vitanyi's most engaging writing style to pick the book back up, dust it off, and have another go at it. If it were not for their wonderul ability to expain a very complicated subject matter, I never would have gotten through it.

An unsung hero of this book is Peter Gacs, who wrote a set of lecture notes which really could be considered to be an Urtext for this book. If you tackle this book, I highly recommend that you also get ahold of these notes, because it is sometimes very useful, when trying to puzzle out a difficult argument, to get another description/explaination of it from a different point of view. These notes are available on the web, just google for "Lecture note on descriptional complexity and randomness" by Peter Gacs.

If you're up to the challange, then buy this book, dilligently read it, swear at it--then swear by it.

This is one of the best-written mathematical texts I've read. It builds up the theory from basic principles, and illustrates it with numerous examples and applications. A definitive work.

The book provides all the tools needed for a productive use of the theory. Written by leading experts in the field, the book is both a fascinating introduction as well as a comprehensive reference for experts.

The authors are careful to place the development of the theory in its historical context, give a face to the main players in the field and explore frictions with other lines of thought. But the main storyline is the mathematical world of Kolmogorov complexity. Neccessary background knowledge is provided, most proofs are given and the open problems are presented. Most chapters are more or less self sufficient, making it possible to skip those that are of less relevance to you. In the later chapters much thought is given to the different fields of application.

A third edition is in the making which will include recent advances. But since the authors make new discoveries available on the web, the present edition will continue for a long time to hold a prominent place in the book shelves of many computer scientist.

to understand it. This book is intended for serious students of computer science or those who have some similar training - it is definitely set up as a textbook. However, that being said, if you have the background the authors' delivery is fist-class and very clear.

The reviews below give more than enough information so I won't belabour the Kolmogorov complexity here. Suffice it to say you won't find the subject detailed more fully in any other reference work in existence today.

However, this book does need to be revised and updated. There has been a lot of development in the field and the sections overviewing Solomonoff's work, in particular, could be expanded. Also, I found it hard to believe that nothing about the 'philosophical' importance of the whole induction question - this is at the core of many very important questions and should not be treated trivially.

There should also be some overview of two other areas that, in combination with the theory outlined in this text, are starting to form the nexus of a "new kind of science" (definitely not Wolfram's pathetic attempt). I refer to some information regarding non-classical logical systems as well as anticipatory computing systems. Both will, I predict, become core areas in addition to extensions to Kolmogorov/Chaitin complexity in the future.

All textbooks should be as clear and concise as this example.

The content of this book is indeed insightful and thought provoking but Bateson's writing style is frustratingly difficult to follow. I found myself again and again marveling equally at the profundity of his messages and the unnecessarily roundabout and rambling manner in which those messages are presented. The text needed three more revisions and then it would have been perfect. Regardless, I highly recommend it.

Sit in on a lecture by an engaging and knowledgable prof and you can expect to pick up a few tidbits. You certainly don't expect to come away knowing everything the prof knows. The subtitle of this book is about what Bateson knows, but you don't need to know any of that (or be particularly interested in it) to read this unusual book. My subtitle would be: You're Smarter Than You Think You Are."

I read this book in a Bantam mass market edition after sampling a piece of it in some science magazine (maybe Discover). Gregory Bateson was a renaissance man (which is one of the delights in reading him), the former husband of anthropologist Margaret Mead, and best known for the double bind theory of schitzophrenia, included as an essay in The Ecology of Mind. That theory may not sound well-known at all, but it's the basis of family counseling and why we talk about dysfunctional families (instead of just individuals). And we've all been in situations that are double binds, or as these no-win situations are known in everyday jargon: "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Bateson wrote this book as metafiction, which is to say he talks about the book in the book, and he includes a handful or metalogues with his daughter, Catherine Bateson, herself now a writer for such magazines as Smithsonian, although he made them up. These metalogues reflect on ideas in the book and widen the feedback loop, as it were, to include the reader. They are relaxed and leisurely and not meant to be persuasive.

My experience reading this book was that it changed the way I saw everything. That sounds like an over-reaching claim or a self-help book gone wild, but the reason is, as Bateson points out, that many of our educations are simply based on gathering information, like Number Five in the film Short Circuit, with no help at all on how to think about it.

I certainly didn't understand everything in this book. But then, if you already understand and agree with everything in a book, why read it? What I did glean was a few tidbits from an engaging and knowledgeable prof who gave me not just more to think about but ways to think about it, and the happy realization that we're all smarter than we think we are.

Gregory Bateson is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. This is one of his last books and it deals with matters of epistemology. The thinking preserved within its pages is profound yet most of the time down to earth. There Bateson parts company with most formal epistemologists, the majority of whom are utterly confused, at least in their way of exposition. You do not need to be an expert logician to understand Bateson's thinking; he is the expert and tutors you through the straights of Scylla and Charybdis with the outmost comfort and safety. From this fantastic journey you will definitively be enriched.

This book is one of his most important. It is a testament of his view of science and coming from a person who helped revolutionize more scientific fields than the average person has even heard of it should be taken seriously. In its pages Bateson tells us what science is and how it should be properly exercised. Given the confusion and nihilism that have followed on the pseudoscientific revolutions of postmodernism and decostructivism (read Focault, Derida or Judith Butler for instance) such readings are necessary if at times disturbing. Not all ways of doing science are equal and many of them are based on logical confusion. Bateson is clear on that point. On page 24 he tells us "Some tools of thought are so blunt that they are almost useless". Self-evident to most people this maxim needs to be restated and taken seriously, especially within the social sciences that have only succeeded in making minor steps since the time of Aristotle. In this book we learn the why of this unfortunate situation. The question is if anybody wants to listen...

Still Bateson is not in any way preaching like some untouchable headmaster, unlike many other philosophers of his rank (read Jerry Fodor for instance). He is aware of the difficulties and obstacles involved and most of the time keeps his voice low. He also is not a techno-freak like many of the newest cognitive scientists, modern rationalists or evolutionary psychologists though he is one of their intellectual fathers. Instead he often talks of the need of a holistic approach, of looking out for the pattern which connects mind to nature and nature to the universe, and warns against the dangers of degrading the ecosystem and turning our backs to the fellow living creatures of this, still wonderful, planet.

If you only read one book on the history of science or on epistemology make this one your choice. You wont regret it. It is a cybernetically quided misile which will hit you on the head, and change you forever. To the better that is.

This is a work of an exceptional and original genius.
"Mind and Nature" is both Gregory Bateson's most accessible and most difficult book. It is a deeply personal exploration of what has come to be called cognitive science from a brilliant man and great scientist who pioneered a deep synthesis of anthropology, language and communications, and biology over the course of a remarkable life. Be advised that it is more of a progress report on a lifelong quest than a coherent whole. If you have an enduring interest in cognitive science and you haven't read Bateson, you don't know what you are missing.
Bateson's starting point is, "How is it possible for the same evolutionary forces that shaped our survival as a species failed to shape our minds?" The answer, of course, is that it is not. It ought to be self-evident that the phenomenon that we call the "mind" is shaped by natural selection. Bateson does not claim to understand all the implications of this empiricist stance, his focus instead is on how to start asking the right questions about the mind and cognition. For instance: What is learning? What is play? (Is it true that only mammals play? Why is that?) If you think about it, these are phenomenon central to the human experience and there is no one that discussed them more insightfully than Bateson does here (and in "Steps...".
I find myself returning to this book again and again over the years. Its effect on me has been profound. I am sure I will never understand more than a small part of what Bateson is trying to tell me here, but the feeble fraction that I do understand is remarkable. The wisdom that animates this book has shaped many of the foundational notions of my life. It is full of life lessons.
And that reminds me of a story about the time I incorporated one of Bateson's teaching parables from this book into a speech I had to give not too long ago....

Gregory Bateson, one of the greatest minds in Anthropology and husband to Margaret Mead, has given us an incredible perspective through which to grow individually as well as collectively. At a time when our world suffers, "Mind and Nature" provides the reader with new perspectives on a balanced co-existence with our Planet and all Her species! Having contributed to visionary thinking about how we perceive our world, Bateson has added to the brilliant body of work which includes new looks at schizophrenia, dolphin communications and Nature Herself! A must read for those who wish to find ways to contribute to the desperate change of perspectives that facilitate a harmonious co-existence with Mother Earth, and more importantly, new ways to view the Self!

Even if you don't agree with the conclusions of the authors, this book is a 'must-read'! The authors lay out a very convincing argument for the validity of their 'Simplicity' approach to marketing, and the recommendations they make to encorporate the simplicity message in your own marketing, (or otherwise) plans are straightforward and well thought out. I have found the material to be compelling and easy to read, with just enough graphics to add value without clutter. (It seems that even while writing the book, the authors to care to embody the message through the medium!) The materials in the book can be applied to a number of areas in both business and personal life to increase your 'value', and I highly recommend this!

"Simplicity Marketing" rings particularly true in the most developed economies around the world. Businesses and consumers are often overwhelmed with the complexity of choosing goods and services available to them, many products are full of functions and features that only a small minority of users will ever utilize. To end the prevalent brand complexity, clutter, and confusion denounced above, Steven M. Cristol and Peter Sealey offer their audience four strategies called the 4 R's: Replace, Repackage, Reposition, and Replenish. Cristol and Sealey apply each of the 4R's to a multitude of situations in which the life of businesses and consumers can be made it easier at the profit of marketers cognizant of the importance of stress reduction, simplicity, and convenience. Cristol and Sealey correctly point out that only few companies are ultimately insulated from the 4 R's imperative. Cristol and Sealey also rightly draw the attention of their readers to the fact that the 4R's must be integrated into the brand and product strategy so that the product offered is perceived as part of the solution to the growing complexity of people's lives.

Even if you don't agree with the conclusions of the authors, this book is a 'must-read'! The authors lay out a very convincing argument for the validity of their 'Simplicity' approach to marketing, and the recommendations they make to encorporate the simplicity message in your own marketing, (or otherwise) plans are straightforward and well thought out. I have found the material to be compelling and easy to read, with just enough graphics to add value without clutter. (It seems that even while writing the book, the authors to care to embody the message through the medium!) The materials in the book can be applied to a number of areas in both business and personal life to increase your 'value', and I highly recommend this!

There have been a lot of bad books written about marketing especially for technologists. This is the one shinning light in the category.

It is as much a thesis for life as it is for the way you run your marketing and sales worlds. Having read the book twice, once for practical and once for pleasure the book is an excellent combination of examples, ripe for metaphor and theory.

As a head of strategy for a leading e services company this book was well worth my time and the time of all our senior managers. The four "R's" are the best way to simplify a horribly complicated world.

If I could give six stars I would

An excellent resource for anyone deeply interested in marketing, considering a new business model, or developing a new product.

Finally, marketing professionals who will intelligently embrace and (with ease) outline "repackaging" and "replenishing" strategies. These sections made the book worth the price for me.

The only drawback(s) with the book (though I gave it a full 5 stars), are the case studies. Too many of the online grocers are performing poorly in the marketplace to rely on them as standards, whether or not their marketing strategies are exciting and workable.

There are few, if any, easy straightforward answers/solutions to the issues and problems present in our complex healthcare system and nursing's work within in it. On the Edge: Nursing in the Age of Complexity offers the experienced nurse and the beginning nursing student alike a valuable look inside the concepts of complexity science and complex adaptative system and challenges our traditional logical, linear way of thinking which limits our perspective, as well as, the choices we think we can make in any situation. The authors ground the reader in the concept and language of complex adaptative systems (CAS) with clear, understandable descriptions followed by chapters filled with thought provoking and useful examples about how CAS thinking radically broadens one's perspective and, in turn, influences nursing in the areas of clinical reasoning, theory and practice, complexity-informed research methods, underlying dynamics of human health and illness, promotion of health and healing in families, nursing management and policy making processes, and the ability of nursing leadership to further the profession's contributions in healthcare.
Due to the lack of nursing-based texts about complexity science and CAS in the past, I have turned to non-nursing authors for course reading materials. So, it is with great excitement that I can offer this text to both my undergraduate and graduate nursing students to assist them in developing this new world-view.

I teach graduate student nurses and was unable to locate useful resources on complexity science and nursing for use in my courses. This book provides a comprehensive overview of Complexity Science and it's relationship to nursing practice, research and leadership. The book includes basic information on Complexity Science principles along with many examples that illustrate the utility of this new science for 21st century nurses. Prior to the publication of this book, no single reference on Complexity Science existed that was suitable for use in undergraduate and graduate nursing courses. This book fills a critical need for nurse educators, nurse leaders, and nurse clinicians.

This innovative and thoughtful text provides nursing educators, leaders, practicing nurses, and researchers with foundational knowledge and key resources on complexity science. This text is recommended for creating co-learning experiences with nursing students and professional nurses in a variety of roles. This book written by nursing scholars and complexity scientists who have played central roles in introducing complexity science into nursing and healthcare! Chapters, using a complexity perspective, address nursing theory, nursing research and methods, human physiology, health policy, nursing management and accountability, family nursing, and clinical reasoning and decision-making. It ends with a comprehensive glossary, a wonderful resource for anyone interested in complexity science and its implications for healthcare. This text has the potential to be used across a variety of nursing programs as it furthers our understanding of the self-organizing processes that underpin the health of patients, communities, and points to new strategies nurses can employ to foster health, address pressing quality and policy issues, approach research, and bring a greater relational orientation into healthcare.

In adopting On the Edge: Nursing in the Age of Complexity as a core textbook across the curriculum, I anticipate it will stimulate rich dialogue among our RN to BSN faculty and students, who were initially introduced to complexity science in 2004. For nurses, nursing scholars, managers, as well as other healthcare professionals this text has the potential to shift one's thinking about the way in which we respond to each other and approach the work of creating healthy patients, families, organizations, and communities. A recommended read!

This is a must book for nurse leaders, edcuators, researchers, and staff nurses who have a great desire to influence our present healthcare system using the lens of complexity science. Reading the stories enlightens the reader that there is a different way to view, understand and embrace unpredictable systems and relationships. The book creates a hopeful context where as nurses who are committed to creating healthy environments can be inspired by the reading. Linda Rusch MS,APNC, NJ NJ

This is a great book for anyone interested in the application of complexity science principles to patient care. Chapters range from introductory to advanced topics. The authors are on the cutting edge and present information that will intuitively make sense to nurses and other providers at the bedside and in management positions as they strive to provide quality patient care in the current health care environment.

The book is written very clearly and it explains difficult concepts in a comprehensible way. I enjoyed exploring and learning from it.

a good guide book to the literature in this subject, lots of facts and readable. I have learned plenty.

The book gives the essential details of such areas as bifurcation theory, strange attractors, fractals, and Hamiltonian systems, filling a gap in existing astrophysical literature. Comprehensive descriptions of those topics in astrophysics to which chaos theory has made significant contributions (e.g., the theory of stellar pulsations; dynamics of the solar system) are also included. The fact that the text is essentially self-contained makes it attractive for both graduate students and researchers to use.

"Very readable, engaging and understandable. Regev offers insights into and explanations of complex concepts and methods by using frameworks familiar to students (particularly of astronomy) on the graduate level. I found that there are a number of typos and misprints. However, the author offers a useful, detailed and up-to-date errata that can be accessed on his site (http://physics.technion.ac.il/~regev/erratum.pdf)."
-Timothy Purcell

I considered adapting it for a graduate class I taught on stability and non-normality. It didn't happened, because eventually I decided to write my own notes in the hope it will prompt me to write my own book on non-linear dynamics (has not happened yet...)

However, I was deeply impressed by this book. It is very clearly written, very thorough yet tractable, and at times witty. Most importantly, some issues I consider subtle, tricky or often overlooked or addressed head-on here, meticulously , scientifically soundly and, astonishingly, in a manner I think is suitable for even first or second year graduate students.

In short, I STRONGLY recommend this book to anybody interested in nonlinear dynamics, in the heavens or on earth...