RE: [xml-dev] Complex Systems [was: Ontologies vs Schemas vs Tra nsformations]

Sensititivity to initial conditions.  Anywhere there is a feedback 
control and a cascading broadcast, the system can become unpredictable 
in just a few hops.  Look at Markov predictability.

len

From: Ian Graham [mailto:]

My understanding is that complex systems have underlying deterministic
dynamics, just like a chaotic system, but that only certain aspects of a
complex system can be predicted in a reliable way (also just like chaotic
systems). Also, there are parameters that, when changed only slightly, may
make a complex system's properties change dramatically, so that
predictability is difficult to impossible.

For example, some have argued that the power grid is a complex system -
but small changes to it (as recently observed) led to highly unpredictable
consequences.