John Holland
Author
Description
Complex adaptive systems (CAS)--including ecosystems, governments, biological cells, and markets--are characterized by intricate hierarchical arrangements of boundaries and signals. In ecosystems, for example, niches act as semi-permeable boundaries, and smells and visual patterns serve as signals; governments have departmental hierarchies with memoranda acting as signals; and so it is with other CAS. Despite a wealth of data and descriptions concerning...
Author
Description
Holland, "explores emergence--the surprisingly simple notion (the whole is more than the sum of its parts) with enormous inplications fro science, business, and the arts."
In this important book, John H. Holland dramatically shows us that the "emergence" of order from disorder has much to teach us about life, mind and organizations. Creative activities in both the arts and the sciences depend upon an ability to model the world. The most creative...
5) My fair lady
Description
Arrogant, irascible, and misogynistic professor of phonetics Henry Higgins believes that the accent and tone of one's voice determines a person's prospects in society. He boasts to a new acquaintance, Colonel Hugh Pickering--also an expert in phonetics--that he could teach any woman to speak so "properly" that he could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball. He chooses as an example a sassy, young working-class London flower seller from the...