Chaos and Complexity

James P. Crutchfield
Physics Department
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Abstract

A concise commentary on observing and modeling complexity within the framework of dynamical systems, information, and computation theories. Deterministic chaos, randomness, order, predictability, uncertainty, and complexity are contrasted. The descriptive abstraction of state is seen to be a natural extension of the symbolization necessary for language and of the number concept. Philosophical consequences of deterministic chaos are noted.

Citation

J. P. Crutchfield, Chaos and Complexity, in Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology, Philosophia Verlag, München (1990).

To transfer a PDF version of the paper
click on its title or use one of the links below.

Compressed: size = 27 kb.
Uncompressed: size = 85 kb.
PDF: size = 32 kb.
File stored as PostScript, gzip compressed PostScript, and PDF.
Above, kb = kilobytes.
For FTP access to these files use ftp.santafe.edu:/pub/CompMech/papers.