Quotes from John H. Holland

Current studies of networks (Newman, Barabasi, and Watts 2006) using notions of community and synchrony within subgroups help to make the niche concept more precise. However, it is noteworthy that few network studies concentrate on the formation of boundaries within a network. And there is even less study of mechanisms for the formation of hierarchies—mechanisms that would explain the pervasiveness of hierarchies in natural systems.

Perpetual novelty is the hallmark of 'cas'.

Tags [distinctive agent features observable by other agents] almost always define the network by delimiting the critical interactions, the major connections. Tags acquire this role because the adaptive processes that modify cas [complex adaptive systems] select for tags that mediate useful interactions and against tags that cause malfunctions. That is, agents with useful tags spread, while agents with malfunctioning tags cease to exist.

Analysing complexity Analysis of complex systems almost always turns on finding recurring patterns in the system's ever-changing configurations. The game of chess provides a useful analogy: a dozen rules determine