Customer Reviews

Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Although the order in "Hidden Order" may seem hidden before you read this book, it won't by the time you finish it.

Many books on fashionable current topics like complexity theory and complex adaptive systems are very lively in expressing the potentials of the field. This one isn't. Most books in these fields are either way over the heads of non-mathematicians, or just recount the story of the origin of the field.

This one is extremely modest and understated, but has the special merit of explaining the basic principles of complex adaptive systems in a way that any attentive reader can understand completely. It doesn't dwell on non-linearity, it just mentions it as one of the important principles that characterizes complex systems.

This stands out as not only an exceptionally clear description of the basic principles with simple understandable examples, but also a surprisingly dull read if you're used to popular accounts rather than texts. Going from the popular accounts of Chaos and Complexity Theory to this is a little like spending months reading Dr. Seuss' charmingly excessive rhymes, and then going back to "See Spot Run."

So it would be easy to miss what is so great about this book, that it actually makes the underlying principles of complex adaptive systems accessible to virtually anyone. Without the fanfare, without the hype, without the flashy graphics, Holland describes step by clear step how agents interacting with each other in certain ways that reflect 7 general principles end up organizing themselves into systems with their own properties.

Holland does not spend much time on thinking of applications for complex adaptive system models, he makes a brief, almost off-handed mention of the possibility of locating "lever points" where small strategic changes can make useful large changes to huge complex systems in real life, and the proceeds to describe his 7 principles. This is followed by a more detailed discussion of the agents themselves that compose adaptive systems, and finally some discussion of ECHO, a class of models that illustrates Holland's application of the principles.

There is no mystical reverence for emergence here, or any questionable speculations, this is a conceptual introduction you can can use to get a solid background, and then form your own opinions about the topic and its implications, and go on to read the more advanced books on complexity and systems thinking.

This is probably not a book that will inspire you about the importance of the potential implications of the field (which are great), unless you tend to get excited reading about rules and algorithms. It is a book that rather matter-of-factly describes what may well turn out to be the underlying structure of a myriad complex systems in nature, including ourselves and our social organizations.

"What enables cities to retain their coherence despite continual disruptions and a lack of central planning ?" he asks on the first page of the first chapter. That's one of the few hints of the amazing possibilities raised by a real-life model of complex adaptive systems in this book. But if you keep that possibility in mind, this simple straightforward though often uninspiring discussion of systems principles could be a very useful little hinge to open a very big door to a remarkable field.

Dr. Holland is a truly remarkable person. After creating the study of genetic algorithms he has gone on to further investigate concepts like complex adaptive systems. This book is an amazing look into his mind and an examination of some interesting theories on complexity science. He provides here a proposal for research and lays down a theoretical framework that can be used to examine questions like emergence and agent interaction. A must read for anyone interested in these questions. It is important to remember that this is an introductory text meant to be read by the general public. If you want more detailed looks into Dr. Holland's work I reccomend any number of his articles as well as his landmark treatise Adaption in Natural and Artificial Systems. The monograph that founded the study of genetic algorithms and was a major contribution to the study of evolutionary programming. Overall this book is rich with much insight and has many exciting ideas for possible research.

I think this is an excellent book for someone interested in constructing complex adaptive systems. It clearly lays out the technical guidelines that you would need. And of course, it was written by the man who originated genetic algorithms!

However, if you are new to the phenomena of complex adaptive systems (CAS) or agent-based models (ABM), this might not be the best intro book for you. This is particularly true if you are wondering what a genetic algorithm is right now. I think you will get the most out of the book if you are already somewhat familiar with CAS and ABM as Holland does not dwell on illustrative examples. (Yes there are examples, but they are very short compared to other authors on this topic.) Because of this, I think this book will be rather dry and technical and non-intuitive for a real newbie. If you have no idea where to begin, try _Growing Artificial Societies_ by Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell.

One final comment: for excellent in-depth look at the reiterated Prisoner's Dilemna model with genetic algorithms that Holland briefly discusses, read _The Complexity of Cooperation_ by Robert Axelrod. (Axelrod and Holland mention each other in their books.)

There are several reasons why you might be reading reviews of Hidden Order: (1) perhaps you're wondering whether to get a book on complexity; or (2) perhaps you've decided that you want such a book, and are wondering whether this is the one for you.

In either case, it's probably best to start by relating the way in which Holland introduces his subject. He does so by remarking on the coherence of systems such as immune systems, ecosystems, and cities, despite the diversity of the agents that inhabit them. He refers to such systems as complex adaptive systems, or cas.

Holland's primary objective is to present, to the general reader, theory to "separate fundamental characteristics [general principles of cas] from fascinating idiosyncrasies and incidental features [of particular cas]" (p. 5). This point is crucial if you're reading this review for reason (2) above, since it distinguishes Hidden Order from several other popular accounts of complexity.

Holland's book is inter-disciplinary, and so contrasts with books such as Kauffman's At Home in the Universe, the main focus of which is on biology. If you're looking for an account of complexity located within a specific discipline, then, Hidden Order is not for you. Neither is for you if, at the same time as reading about complexity theory, you'd like to read about some of the people responsible for the theory. If you'd like biography mixed with your complexity, I'd advise you to try Waldrop's Complexity. Waldrop tells the story, not only of complexity theory, but also of the Sante Fe Institute and some of the people associated with it, including Holland and Kauffman.

Holland describes cas very clearly, making excellent use of examples and figures. He describes Echo, a model he developed to allow computer simulations of cas. Holland is a computer scientist, but he does not pelt the reader with the jargon of his discipline; rather, his description of Echo serves the objective of identifying the characteristics that generalize across cas.

I started by identifying reasons (1) and (2) why you might be reading this review. There are of course many other reasons, including: (3) perhaps you're a researcher pondering the applicability of complexity to your field. This is one of the reasons I read Hidden Order, and a few other books on complexity. If reason (3) describes you, then Hidden Order is the book I'd recommend starting with (but not finishing with), due to the clarity with which it presents the fundamentals of cas.

Finally, you might be reading this because: (4) you've read Hidden Order, and are wondering how others rated it. As you can see, I rate it very highly.

John Holland's work "Hidden Order" is a treatise from the creator of the genetic algorithm on "Complex Adaptive Systems" or CAS. Holland explains in easy to understand language the concept of CAS, how one goes about designing them, and how one can use them to make observations about the universe. Holland is not well known to the general public, but his work in this field is ground breaking and of great importance, and carries on the tradition of logicians such as John von Neumann and Alan Turing. I would advise reading this book before moving on to his later work, "Emergence," as this gives one a sound basis in Holland's thought, and "Emergence" is a slightly more difficult read. A wonderful book.

In the worlds of Complexity and Artificial Intelligence, the name of John Holland is revered, and for good reason. One of the most important contributions to both fields was Holland's invention of genetic algorithms, a class of optimization techniques that applies a survival-of-the-fittest heuristic to a broad range of otherwise intractable problems. He is certifiably a genius, and his words on the subject of complexity should be considered close to the gospel.

To the benefit of all mankind, this god of complexity has seen fit to lay down his word on the subject in a manner suitable to the masses. He posits seven basic properties of complex adaptive systems (worth reading and memorizing in their own right), then uses the rest of the book to demonstrate that adaptive systems possess these properties and shows us how a computer can capture such adaptive mechanisms. Pure gold and totally accessible.

This book excels as an exposition of complex adaptive systems for the masses, and as a tutorial for the technically inclined. If you are so technically inclined, follow this book with Holland's "Emergence" and "Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems." Then head on over to Goldberg's book on genetic algorithms and maybe some Koza (a quick Amazon search can find these for you).

The ideas treated here scarcely justify an article much less an entire book. It is as much work to plough through this tedious writing as it must have been for the author to pad it out to book length. There is nothing said that is new or compelling. Most of the ideas fall into one of the three categories of obvious, arbitrary, or completely glossed over. The author presents his previous work on genetic algorithms with a great deal of handwaving and mumbo jumbo. I suppose when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And as the only subject in the book treated in any detail, genetic algorithms certainly help to up the page count. I imagine that anyone who has thought about adaptive systems to any degree will find this book as tedious as I did. If this is your first encounter with abstracting the notion of a system or with genetic algorithms, you might be able to wade through the muck and learn something, but any book that treats its subject so shallowly should at least be well written, and this book isn't. The mostly ridiculous diagrams look like they were printed on a dot matrix printer. This is a five page grant proposal for graduate research stretched to 170 pages with a tutorial on genetic algorithms thrown in. Could the author not have waited for some of that research to actually be done before writing the other 165 pages? Ugh. If you want to read something intelligent about complex systems, try At Home In The Universe by Stuart Kauffman. A little bit of thought FOLLOWED BY SOME ACTUAL SCIENCE would qualify anyone to write a much, much better book than this.

The book begins with a bunch of statistical formulas, but don't let that throw you. This is an extremely readable book on the nature and structure of complex adaptive systems. It explains how complexity evolves from chaos, and it uses clear, precise language that anyone can understand. It takes a complex subject and makes it easily understandable. It can bring up up to speed on this topic quickly.

This book is a clear, succinct, and accessible primer on some of the basic premises of the science of "Complexity". On it's own, it's a worthwhile investment for anyone who is curious about the field; given Holland's status as one of the field's "pioneers", it is a "must-have" addition to any scientifically-literate person's library.

Simply stated, this is a primer...and an excellent one at that. If you need an easy reading overview before getting into the dry reading of technical literature, this is the place to start.