Complexity science is the interdisciplinary study of complex adaptive systems composed of many interacting components whose collective behaviour cannot be reduced to that of the individual parts. It investigates emergence, self-organisation, networks, nonlinear dynamics, and adaptation across physical, biological, social, and economic systems. It matters because it provides a unifying lens and a set of computational and analytical tools for understanding phenomena such as markets, ecosystems, and epidemics that defy reductionist explanation.
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- Core constructs include emergence, self-organisation, feedback, path dependence, and scale-free network structure, often explored with agent-based modelling and network analysis. In economics it motivates complexity economics, which treats markets as evolving systems of interacting, boundedly rational agents rather than equilibrium-seeking machines.