Exploring Complexity: from Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence to Cyberphysical Systems

Abstract

The classical cybernetics in the Norbert Wiener’s tradition is nowadays a part of the mathematical theory of complex systems and nonlinear dynamics. Only in these frameworks, building of structures and patterns in nature and technics can be explained and in computer models simulated. Self-organization and emergence became well-defined concepts and can be transferred to technical systems. In the first part of the article, the foundations of complex systems and of nonlinear dynamics are under review. As an application, the building of structures and patterns in complex cell systems, which are subject of system biology, is considered. In the second part, the application of complex system dynamics to evolution of brain and cognition is explored. The research gives us a prerequisite for development of cognitive and social robots, what the topic of the third part is. Neural network structures are not at all limited to individual organisms and robots. In the fourth part, the cyberphysical systems, by means of which complex self-controlling sociotechnical systems are modeled, are studied. The mathematical theory of complex systems and nonlinear dynamics provides us with foundation for understanding of self-organization and emergence in this field. Finally, the question of ethical and social general conditions for technical constructing of complex self-organizing systems are stated and discussed.