I always thought that late Paul Ciliers' did a great summary on complexity (sorry no online link):
"Complexity in a Nutshell:
I will not provide a detailed description of complexity here, but only summarise the general characteristics of complex systems as I see them.
-Complex systems consist of a large number of elements that in themselves can be simple.
- The elements interact dynamically by exchanging energy or information. These interactions are rich. Even if specific elements only interact with a few others, the effects of these interactions are propagated throughout the system. The interactions are nonlinear.
- There are many direct and indirect feedback loops.
- Complex systems are open systems – they exchange energy or information with their environment – and operate at conditions far from equilibrium.
Complex systems have memory, not located at a specific place, but distributed throughout the system. Any complex system thus has a history, and the history is of cardinal importance to the behaviour of the system.
- The behaviour of the system is determined by the nature of the interactions, not by what is contained within the components. Since the interactions are rich, dynamic, fed back, and, above all, nonlinear, the behaviour of the system as a whole cannot be predicted from an inspection of its components. The notion of emergence is used to describe this aspect. The presence of emergent properties does not provide an argument against causality, only against deterministic forms of prediction.
- Complex systems are adaptive. They can (re)organise their internal structure without the intervention of an external agent.
Certain systems may display some of these characteristics more prominently than others. These characteristics are not offered as a definition of complexity, but rather as a general, low-level, qualitative description. If we accept this description (which from the literature on complexity theory appears to be reasonable), we can investigate the implications it would have for social or organisational systems."
Ciliers, P. (2016). Critical Complexity Collected Essays, Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 67
Also if you look up any Dave Snowden's video on YT you'll find plenty of useful info.
I always thought that late Paul Ciliers' did a great summary on complexity (sorry no online link):
"Complexity in a Nutshell:
I will not provide a detailed description of complexity here, but only summarise the general characteristics of complex systems as I see them.
-Complex systems consist of a large number of elements that in themselves can be simple.
- The elements interact dynamically by exchanging energy or information. These interactions are rich. Even if specific elements only interact with a few others, the effects of these interactions are propagated throughout the system. The interactions are nonlinear.
- There are many direct and indirect feedback loops.
- Complex systems are open systems – they exchange energy or information with their environment – and operate at conditions far from equilibrium. Complex systems have memory, not located at a specific place, but distributed throughout the system. Any complex system thus has a history, and the history is of cardinal importance to the behaviour of the system.
- The behaviour of the system is determined by the nature of the interactions, not by what is contained within the components. Since the interactions are rich, dynamic, fed back, and, above all, nonlinear, the behaviour of the system as a whole cannot be predicted from an inspection of its components. The notion of emergence is used to describe this aspect. The presence of emergent properties does not provide an argument against causality, only against deterministic forms of prediction.
- Complex systems are adaptive. They can (re)organise their internal structure without the intervention of an external agent.
Certain systems may display some of these characteristics more prominently than others. These characteristics are not offered as a definition of complexity, but rather as a general, low-level, qualitative description. If we accept this description (which from the literature on complexity theory appears to be reasonable), we can investigate the implications it would have for social or organisational systems."
Ciliers, P. (2016). Critical Complexity Collected Essays, Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 67
Also if you look up any Dave Snowden's video on YT you'll find plenty of useful info.