Complexities: Their Media and Their Messages

Dear Colleagues,

The title of this Special Issue rephrases Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase “the medium is the message.”  While McLuhan referred to communication media such as radio, television and – by extension – the web, this Special Issue broadens the term ‘medium’ to encompass the subject matter of entire domains such as physics (matter), biology (life), urbanism (cities), and so on. The claim here is that complexity theories vary depending on the medium through which they are expressed.

Rooted in thermodynamics and statistical physics, the founding complexity theories initially referred to material systems such as lasers and fluid dynamics. However, at a later stage, when an attempt was made to apply complexity to the medium of “life”, a new “message” was added to the parlance of complexity—adaptation, with a new kind of complex system—complex adaptive systems (CASs). Note that the notion of CASs came into being, on one hand, by looking at analogies, and on the other hand, by looking at dissimilarities or incongruities, namely at the distinctiveness of life. Unlike material complex systems, living systems are adaptive.

Due to their generality, the founding complexity theories, based as they were on material media, were applied not only to the medium of “life” but also to a variety of research domains, ranging from life sciences and cognitive and brain science to the various social sciences and humanities, engineering, urban studies, etc.

In this Special Issue, we suggest that each of these research domains brings with it distinct challenges, as well as distinct manifestations of complexity. We, thus, invite contributions to shed light on various complexities and the messages they convey to start building conceptual bridges between domains of complexity frequently studied in disciplinary silos. The message, thus, is not just complexity but the medium-specific complexity that emerges from matter, life, mind, culture, and society.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Complexities.

Prof. Dr. Juval Portugali
Dr. Egbert Stolk
Guest Editors

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