Synchronicity Cambray

chapter 3
Complexity, Emergence,
and Symmetry
The New Science of Complexity and Emergence
Several streams of research have converged over the past half century
to create a new way of looking at phenomena that had been too difficult
to assess with previous scientific models. With the advent of
high-speed computers readily accessible to researchers, problems that
had previously been unassailable began to yield to computer modeling.
Solutions were not based on single, unambiguous mathematical
“answers” but were approached by optimizing the fit between
models and observations on real systems. Additionally, it became
pos sible to analyze systems operating far from equilibrium, systems
that interacted with their environments and had spontaneous, adaptive
responses. The systems of interest display complexity, that is, they
have emergent properties, meaning that interactions among the parts
produce behaviors that are greater than the sum of the interactions
but also manifest new, unexpected higher levels of functioning and
order in the process of adapting to their surroundings. I have traced
some of these ideas in other publications with applications to Jungian
psychology. 1 In their macrobehaviors complex adaptive systems
(CAS) with emergent properties display holistic features. 2
The return of holism in the sciences through complexity theory
has cut across traditional academic disciplines. The emergentist paradigm
appears to have applicability at all levels of scale from the most
microscopic/subatomic descriptions of physics, on through aggregate