Abstract
This essay presents a reflection on the main implications of Complexity Theory for science in general, redefining and dispelling myths of traditional science, and Sociology in particular, suggesting a redefinition of Parsons’ classic concept of Social System, articulated around the property of self-maintenance of order rather than on its possible discontinuity and instability. It argues that Complexity Theory has established the limits of Classic Science, leading to a more realistic awareness of working and evolution mechanisms of Natural and Social Systems and showing the limits of our capacity to predict and control events. Dissipative structures have shown the creative role of time. Instability, emergence, surprise, unpredictability are the rule rather than the exception when systems move away from equilibrium (entropy), even if these processes are generated from a system’s deterministic working mechanisms. Therefore, we have come to realize how constructive the contribution of Complexity is, in regards to the long lasting problem of the relationship between order and disorder. Today, the terms of this relationship have been re-specified in its new configuration of inter-relationship link, according to a unicum which finds its synthesis in self-organization and deterministic chaos concepts. From this perspective, as Prigogine suggested, studies on Complex Systems are heading toward a historical, biological conception of Physics, and a new alliance between natural systems and living, social systems. Non-linearity, far from equilibrium self-organization, emergence and surprise meet at all levels, as this paper attempts to highlight. In Sociology, insights of Complexity Theory have contributed to a new way of thinking about social systems, by re-addressing some fundamental issues starting to social system, emergence and change concepts. The current social system conception as complex dynamical systems is supported by a profitable use of non-liner models (in particular, the Logistic map) in the study of social processes.
Highlights
Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He does not want to sign His name. (Anatole France, The Garden of Epicurus, 1895)Is Complexity merely a fashion, a whim or a mania of the moment? Or is it a new theoretical and methodological paradigm to better understand our world? What happened to the end of science as Stephen Hawkin proclaimed over 30 years ago? Ilya Prigogine’s answer to these questions is shared by most scientists
The terms of the redefinition of relationships between order and disorder are the basis of contemporary scientific thought, in its new configuration of linking inter-relationships, according to a unicum which finds its synthesis in weak determinism, in self-organization and in deterministic chaos concepts
Complexity Theory has contributed in re-addressing fundamental issues for Sociology as well, starting to social system concept
Summary
Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He does not want to sign His name. (Anatole France, The Garden of Epicurus, 1895). The system’s ability to adapt to continuous environmental disturbances by acquiring ordered, coherent, spatial and temporal structures without an external controller but on the basis of the pattern of interactions among its constituent elements, and the ability to evolve in time producing emergent, surprising, outcomes due to non linearity are acknowledged as the fundamental properties of Complex Systems by all approaches which on the whole constitute Complexity Theory: Dissipative Structures Theory [6], Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (the Santa Fè School) and Autopoietic Systems Theory [7] It was, above all, research on dissipative systems (strange mixtures of chemical substances kept in a state of agitation which Prigogine studied in his laboratories, never reaching entropy, fluctuating continuously between various states and acquiring surprising configurations in their continuing process of self-organization) that showed that increase of entropy, imposed by the second law of thermodynamics does not necessarily create disorder in open systems. We shall see how Complex System Theory has led to redefining Parsons classic conception of social system which is articulated on the property of systemic stability (self-maintenance of order) rather than on its possible discontinuity and instability
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