Thread by @cesifoti

What are complex systems? And what does it mean to study complexity? The recent Physics Nobel Prize has brought complexity back into the limelight, but also, it is pushing those of us who have dedicated our lives to the of study complex systems to reflect on its history. 🧵 /1

My journey into complex systems began in the late 90s, as an undergraduate in Chile, when I discovered fractals, chaos, pattern formation, & iterated functions. I devoured books on these topics. But late in my degree I learned that Networks was were the field was moving.

One book, and one particular message that strongly resonated with me, was @barabasi’s Linked. Throughout the book, Laszlo repeated one idea over and over.

This was the idea that traditional science analyzed systems by decomposing them into parts. The analytical philosophy of Descartes. “Linked” insisted that there should be a science that had to go on the other direction: understanding by putting puzzle pieces together.

I never forgot that lesson. My career as a researcher has been built on that idea. The idea that knowledge gained only by decomposing systems into parts is incomplete.

I did my PhD with @barabasi on networks. Networks represent a powerful way to put a system back together. Then, I applied these ideas to the understanding of the economy. The product space, or the economic complexity index, are clear applications of complex systems thinking.

But as a complex system researcher, I’ve also experienced this field to be one that is somehow scattered. Orphan. With researchers appointed in small groups in all kinds of departments. From physics to business schools to AI.

Unlike fields with explosive growth and recognition, which quickly become university departments, complex system has always been coming, but it has never been next. We find complexity in Poincare’s 3 body problem, in Bachelier’s random walk models, …

in Lorenz’s weather models, and in Mandelbrot fractals. The dawn of complexity has been always coming. Will we see it crack into the light of day?

As of now the institutional support for complex systems is still limited. While there are self-organized institutions (conferences, associations), there are few departments or graduate programs in the topic.

In fact, when submitting complexity work to multidisciplinary journals, complexity scholars need to select categories such applied math, condensed matter physics, statistics, etc. because complex systems is rarely a choice.

This invisibilizes the discipline. So you now probably understand what the recognition of the Nobel committee, and the explicit use of “complex systems” as a phrase in the award, means for this global community.

Hope this heralds a new era for complex systems. An era of more acceptance across multiple institutional departments, funding agencies, and journals. The need to understand the world by putting pieces together will not disappear. We just need to make better room for it.