How complex can a system be? "Very" is the answer! Consider the human body and trying to ensure its health.



Wednesday 13th May, Professor Nicos Karcanias of City University gave London Central a fascinating lecture that tackled a much higher level of complexity than we are used to! And I believe his assertion that this was a "non-technical" skim over the subject! Of the 100 plus appreciative attendees, there were some who'd wanted more depth - that would have fried my brain...

Who would have guessed that the Ancient Greeks were working on the same problems, defining terminology that has stood the test of time? Look up Kallicratides if you really want to confirm that...


Systems come in all shapes and sizes: some harmonious and others less so. Think of a family household or of dance in a singing society. A System must have a purpose, and its behaviour is more than the sum of its parts (or is different). This produces "Emergent properties", not present in the components alone. Typically, these are not easy to quantify or control.

 

Why stop there? Usually, a system is made of a number of other systems, leading us on to a "System of Systems", a meta system of complex, intelligent systems. Those subsystems can be thought of as actors in a play: A director sets the rules; through cooperative play and dialogue, we end up with a performance.



A great example is configuring a large number of small helicopters to work together to ensure the whole area of a mountain is covered to check for any fire.



Another example is the railway system. Typically, this will have grown up organically over many years. The concept of HoIonic organisation can help to reduce the overall complexity.

This taster left me enthused to delve deeper into this ubiquitous problem solving challenge.


For the lecture slides, visit: https://communities.theiet.org/communities/files/197/8603