Techreport,
Methods and Techniques of Complex Systems Science: An Overview
(2003)
Abstract
In this chapter, I review the main methods and techniques of complex systems
science. As a first step, I distinguish among the broad patterns which recur
across complex systems, the topics complex systems science commonly studies,
the tools employed, and the foundational science of complex systems. The focus
of this chapter is overwhelmingly on the third heading, that of tools. These in
turn divide, roughly, into tools for analyzing data, tools for constructing and
evaluating models, and tools for measuring complexity. I discuss the principles
of statistical learning and model selection; time series analysis; cellular
automata; agent-based models; the evaluation of complex-systems models;
information theory; and ways of measuring complexity. Throughout, I give only
rough outlines of techniques, so that readers, confronted with new problems,
will have a sense of which ones might be suitable, and which ones definitely
are not.
