Dhruva Karkada

9/15
SOURCE A
A First Course In Chaotic Dynamical Systems: Theory And Experiment (Studies
in Nonlinearity)
Devaney, Robert L. A First Course In Chaotic Dynamical Systems: Theory And
Experiment (Studies in Nonlinearity). N.p.: Westview Incorporated, 1992. Print.
This source is an introductory undergraduate-level textbook, written by decorated
mathematician Dr. Robert Devaney, who teaches at Boston University and helped build
the foundations for nonlinear dynamical systems, which are the foundation for
emergence.

This source was suggested to me by my mentor, Dr. Kaden Hazzard.

The text is a textbook for undergraduate students, and presumes a knowledge of

basic calculus. Luckily, Ive taken calculus so I hope to be able to follow the technical
and mathematical aspects of the book.
The section of the book I read (first 7 chapters) deals with the concept of
dynamical systems and how they can be mathematically represented. Each state (or
phase) of an n-parameter system can be represented as a point in an n-dimensional
space. So, the evolution of the system from an initial state over time can be represented
as the path of that point through the n-dimensional space. One can solve the equation
exactly if the system is linear, but if the system is nonlinear then the system is said to
be chaotic and difficult to solve. Delaney emphasizes that chaotic systems are still
deterministic, so they are not truly random, despite the connotation of the word chaos.

Important quotes/paraphrases
One of the remarkable discoveries of twentieth-century
mathematics is that very simple systems, even systems depending on only one
variable, may behave just as unpredictably as the stock market
Virtually all of the analytic techniques for solving differential
equations worked mainly for linear differential equations. Nonlinear differential
equations proved much more difficult to solve. Unfortunately, many of the most
important processes in nature are inherently nonlinear.
Basic examples of linear dynamical systems: Compound interest in an investment, growing fish
population in a lake

My first 8 hours were spent reading the first 7 chapters of A first course in Chaotic
Dynamical Systems: Theory and Experiment, written by Dr. Robert L. Delaney. These
chapters constituted about 120 pages. While I understand that 120 pages in 8 hours is a
slow reading pace, there are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the mathematical
techniques used in this book are new to me, and it took me a little time to wrap my mind
around them. Secondly, although language is not overly technical, I do browse wikipedia
and read up when there's a concept Im less well-versed in. The 8 hours includes that
time as well.
The concept of nonlinear dynamical systems is fascinating to me because it
encapsulates almost all chaotic behavior, ranging from the stock market to weather
patterns. The concept of chaos theory was expounded in the late 20th century, famously
discussing the butterfly effect in which the flap of a butterflys wings in Brazil can cause
a tornado in Texas. Chaotic systems have this property, in which nearly negligible
changes now often result in very significant changes in behavior in the future. This
wildness in the systems behavior causes extreme unpredictability, which makes
solving the differential equations governing the system extremely difficult, or impossible.
Efforts since Newtons time have been made to solve nonlinear differential equations, to
no avail. Even Newtons motivation for developing calculus, to explain gravity between
many bodies, has no analytic solution; some initial configurations even confound
computers and their numerical methods of solving such problems.
The first two or three chapters discuss many real-world examples of dynamical
systems, many of which are nonlinear. I think a good next step would be to choose
some of these examples (which are not confined to any one field of study) and do
further exploration, perhaps looking for emergent properties. I want to be able to
understand the link between the dynamics of these chaotic system and the emergent
properties that arise. It seems that the elusive link between chaos and the order that
can emerge from it is a pressing issue for many researchers, so Im not expecting to get
a definitive answer, but Id like to be able to at least wrap my mind around it more.
The initial reading I have done with this book have laid the groundwork for
understanding emergent properties in systems. Emergence occurs in chaotic systems
such as these, when they are far from equilibrium, so understanding these introductory
concepts are crucial in understanding the framework of emergence. The later chapters
of this book are more technical, and if they become too much for me to handle, I will
probably begin to skim the technical parts and focus on the main ideas. One of my other
sources included a cool graphic flow chart which showed the conceptual links between
various fields and complexity theory. I want to use that flow chart to direct my further
study. I have already begun to read into condensed matter physics; maybe I can start
looking at neural network automata or something like that.

I continued reading the book A first course in Chaotic Dynamical Systems: Theory
and Experiment, written by Dr. Robert L. Delaney. This constituted over 200 pages of
technical material. I skimmed sections that were heavy in abstract math, but was sure to
pay close attention to the more conceptual sections. I did try to keep up with the
technical sections; the math was definitely within my reach, but I just didnt have the
patience to work through it. This book is intended for college students studying
nonlinear dynamics as a physics or statistics course, who would have no choice but to
work through the math; I have the freedom of skimming those parts, so I did that. Even
still, reading these 200 pages was time consuming due to the amount of cross
referencing I did.
The mathematics behind chaos theory is laid out in the initial chapters of this
section, which is based mostly in statistical mechanics which is a field of physics
dedicated to how groups of objects in a system interact under different conditions. The
book continues to explain how the dynamics of some systems are described by
differential equations that are linear - that is, they have exact solutions that can be
worked out precisely. Differential equations are equations that describe change over
time (related to the concept of the derivative in calculus). In the case of dynamical
systems, these differential equations describe how certain properties, parameters, or
attributes of the system (for example, pressure, thermal energy, radial density, etc)
change as a function of time or as a function of another parameter. A solution to the
differential equations would be an equation that exactly describes the system at any
time in the future. The underlying assumption is that these systems evolve
deterministically, meaning that nothing is inherently probabilistic in nature. Even though
these systems are deterministic, if their differential equations are nonlinear, then they
become exceedingly difficult or even impossible to solve. These nonlinear systems are
called chaotic systems, not because they are fundamentally impossible to predict, but
because they are so complex and sensitive that they are very very difficult to predict. It
is in these chaotic systems, under very finely tuned conditions, that we see emergent
behaviors often arise. The graphs of the differential equations can sometimes have
sharp cusps or discontinuities, deviating from the expectation of a smooth and gradual
change. These so-called sharp phase transitions are the prime breeding grounds for
emergent properties - its where everything sort of clicks together and a system of small
particles can interact to form some sort of coherent behavior.
This book has not yet delved into other applications for dynamical systems,
although it has touched on them as examples in all the chapters. I think the final few
chapters will have a lot of cross-disciplinary information that could be helpful. This is the
information that I think could be most useful for creating presentations. The
mathematical aspect of it is crucial to scientists, but Id think that a non-professional
audience would be more interested in seeing how the concepts of emergence and
chaos theory are applicable to everyday life, like the weather or to economics.

Dhruva Karkada
10/15
SOURCE B
Complexity Theory in Organization Science: Seizing the Promise or Becoming a
Fad?
McKelvey, Bill. "Complexity Theory in Organization Science: Seizing the Promise
or Becoming a Fad?" Emergence 1.1 (1999): n. pag. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
This source is an article written by an expert in organizational science in a journal
about emergence and its related fields.
I found this on Google Scholar
This text is not too technical, although it is definitely not intended for the general
public. The audience is probably other organizational scientists, especially those who
have been exposed to complexity theory in their field.
This source touches on a topic that none of my other sources have, which in a
sense, is the downside of applying the properties of complexity theory to various
scientific fields. While the concept of emergence has proved to be vitally important in
understanding certain aspects of some fields of science (namely physics, computer
science, and biology), there is a rising concern that the conceptual tool may be
overhyped and overused. The author suggests that the idea may be being stretched too
far, and those who are fans of the concept may be forcing it to be applicable in fields
where emergence is not really relevant. In this sense, the school of thought is almost like
a scientific fad, which will eventually die out and remain prominent only in select topics
of study.
Important quotes/paraphrases
Management practice is especially susceptible to fads because of
the pressure from managers for new approaches and the enthusiasm with which
management consultants put untested organization science ideas into immediate
practice.
The problem is exacerbated because complexity theorys already
strong showing in the physical and life sciences could be emasculated as it is
translated into an organizational context.
Mackenzie recognizes that in an organization there are multiple
events, chains of events, parallel events, exogenous events, and chains of
process laws. In fact, an event is itself a special process.

(Source 8) I read the introductory first section to this 34-page paper for my Source
Analysis. I found the paper so intriguing that I decided to read the remainder of it as part
of my track work. There are 9 sections in total, discluding the sources cited, of which 2
are dedicated to the advanced mathematics behind the paper, so I skipped them.
Reading the rest of the paper took about 4 hours.
The paper is about the conformational changes the DNA undergoes even in
thermal equilibrium. A conformational change is a biological term that refers to changes
in molecular structure (such as the separation of several weak bonds, the bending and
twisting of a molecule, etc) as a result of changes in the molecular environment. The
paper goes into detail about several of these behaviors that are inexplicable without
using models that reflect nonlinear dynamics. For example, researchers used a more
complex version of the Ising model to explain base pair separation; they explained how
and why DNA denatures (decomposes) under extreme conditions; and they even
explained the underlying reason for the stability of the helical shape of DNA. I think this
article is significant for two main reasons. Primarily, the relevance of nonlinear dynamics
and emergence is made evident, since DNA editing is a crucial component of modern
medical research, and its complex behavior must be deeply understood. In addition, this
shows that emergence is quantitatively (not qualitatively) applicable in scientific fields
outside of physics.
Source B was about 46 pages long and took 4 hours to read. This source touches
on a topic that none of my other sources have, which in a sense, is the downside of
applying the properties of complexity theory to various scientific fields. While the
concept of emergence has proved to be vitally important in understanding certain
aspects of some fields of science (namely physics, computer science, and biology),
there is a rising concern that the conceptual tool may be overhyped and overused. The
author suggests that the idea may be being stretched too far, and those who are fans of
the concept may be forcing it to be applicable in fields where emergence is not really
relevant. In this sense, the school of thought is almost like a scientific fad, which will
eventually die out and remain prominent only in select topics of study.
The major criticism that McKelvey makes is against organization scientists, who
study and research human interactions and large-scale organization in companies and
businesses. Of course, these companies are highly interested in streamlining the
structure of their management, both in the micro and macro levels, so they invest many
resources in these organization experts. It is among these experts that complexity
theory is deemed an overall unhelpful fad. After all, emergence is fundamentally based
in the idea of a nonlinear stochastic system, and management structures often bear no
resemblance to these. Its just that the side-effects of emergence theory are highly
appealing to companies and management scientists, so they try to incorporate
complexity theory in any way they can. McKelvey goes on past management scientists
to point out that even natural scientists are often satisfied with theories that model

reality without explaining the full complexity of reality (point masses, ideal gas laws,
etc).
I think this is an interesting take on emergence, and when I start to consider the
advocacy aspect, this may provide a valid opposition to the idea that emergence is a
highly useful scientific tool. As with any idea, its dangerous to take emergence too far
and stretch it past its realm of applicability. This is strong evidence that would push me
to qualify my claim, rather than proclaim complexity theory to be some sort of all-cure to
the unknowns of science.

For my previous set of track hours, I shifted away from the heavy topic that my
book discussed, and went in a different direction; Im glad I did, because those sources
lent me an interesting new perspective of the topic, and the second source actually led
me to explore the validity of emergence in other fields - an idea that Im fleshing out in
my next capstone timed writing.
This time, though, Im going back to my book to finally finish it off. I had stopped at
a point where the technical details of the book were becoming a little overwhelming,
and I wondered whether or not it was even helpful to try to read through the remainder
of the book. However, I finally decided that any knowledge on this subject could
potentially be useful someday - even if not immediately applicable in this class. Plus, I
didnt like to leave the book unfinished, especially after I already finished 2/3 of the
book.
The last parts of the book started to delve a little into methods for numerically
solving nonlinear differential equations. As mentioned prior, these types of differential
equations often describe chaotic systems and are thus very difficult to solve analytically
(with pen and paper). As a result, various computer algorithms are used to try to
estimate the solutions to these differential equations. Thankfully, I have some prior
knowledge of programming, so following the pseudocode was not too much of a big
deal. I kind of skimmed the parts that were flying over my head, but I made sure to pay
attention to the parts that seemed most crucial - that is, the techniques to solving these
problems. Some of the ones that I could peripherally understand seemed very ingenious
and creative.
Im starting to think that chaos theory is a little more easy to grasp and
demonstrate than emergence/complexity theory. The problem with emergence is that it
hasnt really given us many answers - it has only clarified the questions. Its more of a
tool that helps us to observe and vaguely understand the mechanism of complexity, but
it doesnt really lend any insight into why the complexity arises at all - until you delve
into chaos theory. Chaos theory seems to be a far more well-understood and widelyaccepted model of reality, and I think it is easier to demonstrate in a Spring Action type
setting because it doesnt require complexity. The double pendulum is the ideal example
of a very simple system that exhibits chaotic behavior. Im still formulating ideas for
Spring Action, but there is a possibility of a slight shift in focus, just because of the ease
in dealing with the topic.
Im still in the process of sorting all the information I have learned through my
readings and organizing them in a way that explains their interconnectedness. Ideally,
my big timed writing coming up will address all the facets of the topic that I have
explored, and most importantly, will expound on their interrelatedness. Knowledge and
understanding never builds like a tree, branching off in distinct paths - it always builds
itself like a net, connecting new ideas to as much existing knowledge as possible. I want
my Spring Action and my final essay to be like this as well.

Dhruva Karkada
11/10
SOURCE C
Human knowing and perceived complexity: Implications for systems practice
Schlindwein, Sandro Luis and Ison, Ray. Human knowing and perceived
complexity: implications for systems practice. Emergence: Complexity and
Organization, 6(3) : n. pag. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
This source is an article written by an expert in complexity theory in a journal
about emergence and its related fields.
I found this on Google Scholar
This text is not technical, but it delves deeply into the philosophy of science,
which is uncharted territory for my research. It is probably intended for those who study
the nature of inquiry and the efficacy of scientific methodologies.
This source discusses the philosophical nature of scientific inquiry, and how our
perception of complexity is intrinsic to the way we understand science. Although we as
humans consider ourselves to be observers looking in and studying the world, we are in
fact part of the world we are studying, which casts a doubt on the validity of the reality
we perceive. It is possible that through biological imperfections in our sensory systems,
we incorrectly perceive some systems to be complex while other systems are not. Our
differentiation between linear and nonlinear systems is merely a result of math, which
the authors consider to be a human construct meant to model the reality which we
observe. The central issue that the author is trying to highlight is that the high complexity
that we observe in our world may not actually exist in the objective reality if such a
thing even exists; instead, complexity might be a side-effect of our imperfect biological
observation and analytical skills - our brain and sense organs.
Important quotes/paraphrases
Broadly we can say that in some explanations complexity has
been understood as an intrinsic property of a certain kind of system, or as
occurring in a certain kind of natural and social phenomena.
Therefore, and following the explanations coming from the
biology of cognition, we assume that the way human beings know about the
complexity of the world is a biological phenomena. Human beings make
distinctions about their world according to their biological cognitive structure, and
not according to the structure of the world around them.
To admit human experience as key to our understanding of complexity does not mean that
everything said or done is valid or even that we will find as many distinctions of complexity as
living human beings.


Dhruva Karkada
11/10
SOURCE D
Emergence and computability
Boschetti, Fabio and Gray, Randal. "Emergence and computability." E:CO 9.1
(2007): n. pag. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
This source is an article written by an expert in mathematical computation in a
journal about emergence and its related fields.
I found this on Google Scholar
This text is not extremely technical, but it does go into the computational aspects
of chaotic systems. It is probably intended for other mathematicians, but is accessible to
anyone who is decently informed about the topic
This source discusses the flipside to a topic that my other sources often touched
on - the use of computation to calculate the time evolution of complex, chaotic, and
emergent systems. However, Source D goes in a different direction, because it suggests
that our classical computation techniques (what we use today) may not be sufficient for
highly emergent systems. The source goes on to classify certain systems for which our
current mathematics may not be strong enough to describe even with the help of modern
computing. This is an interesting take because most of my other sources only discuss
how the rise of computing and chaos theory led to the development of a rigorous and
mathematical model for complexity, which we can definitively calculate. However, the
reality is that although these new advances have revealed many new insights, not all
has been revealed. There are still many complex problems that escape the abilities of
modern math - we either need to invent new math or new computation methods to tackle
these issues. Concerning the latter, the paper briefly discusses the potential for quantum
computing - which is still a nascent field in research stages - to solve these otherwise
unsolvable systems.
Important quotes/paraphrases
We suggest that what we intuitively define as (strongly) emergent
systems may include processes which are not computable in a classical sense.
Here we focus on systems which are incomplete, that is, systems
which can contain statements which are true, but not provable.
There may be emergent behavior which cannot be studied via classical computer simulation,
since it is not accessible to classic computation tools; this contradicts a large portion of literature
on emergence


My first source, which is Source C, discusses the philosophical nature of scientific
inquiry, and how our perception of complexity is intrinsic to the way we understand science.
Although we as humans consider ourselves to be observers looking in and studying the world,
we are in fact part of the world we are studying, which casts a doubt on the validity of the reality
we perceive. It is possible that through biological imperfections in our sensory systems, we
incorrectly perceive some systems to be complex while other systems are not. Our
differentiation between linear and nonlinear systems is merely a result of math, which the
authors consider to be a human construct meant to model the reality which we observe. The
central issue that the author is trying to highlight is that the high complexity that we observe in
our world may not actually exist in the objective reality if such a thing even exists; instead,
complexity might be a side-effect of our imperfect biological observation and analytical skills out brain and sense organs. While this perspective doesnt do us much good (it raises far more
questions than it answers), it serves as an interesting thought exercise that adds an extra
dimension to my research.
. My second source, Source D, discusses the flipside to a topic that my other sources
often touched on - the use of computation to calculate the time evolution of complex, chaotic,
and emergent systems. However, Source D goes in a different direction, because it suggests
that our classical computation techniques (what we use today) may not be sufficient for highly
emergent systems. The source goes on to classify certain systems for which our current
mathematics may not be strong enough to describe even with the help of modern computing.
This is an interesting take because most of my other sources only discuss how the rise of
computing and chaos theory led to the development of a rigorous and mathematical model for
complexity, which we can definitively calculate. However, the reality is that although these new
advances have revealed many new insights, not all has been revealed. There are still many
complex problems that escape the abilities of modern math - we either need to invent new math
or new computation methods to tackle these issues. Concerning the latter, the paper briefly
discusses the potential for quantum computing - which is still a nascent field in research stages
- to solve these otherwise unsolvable systems.
To complete my track hours, I also attended a conference seminar thing in which many
people in my research group at Rice University presented various topics relating to emergence
in quantum systems, specifically the Rydberg optical lattice experiments. Dr. Kaden Hazzard,
who is my mentor, also helped guide discussions for the small conference. Many of the topics
discussed were familiar to me because of my research, and they helped provide a solid backing
to the theoretical and general information I have been researching. The experiments are based
in atomic physics, which can be considered the birthplace of modern emergentism, so the
concept of chaotic complex systems is highly prevalent throughout the discussions. I learned
and reinforced a lot of my knowledge through attending this seminar.