Language as a complex adaptive system

Abstract

This paper describes a computer program, called Copycat, that models how people make analogies. It might seem odd to include such a topic in a collection of papers mostly on the immune system. However, the immune system is one of many systems in nature in which a very large collection of relatively simple agents, operating with no central control and limited communication among themselves, collectively produce highly complex, coordinated, and adaptive behavior. Other such systems include the brain, colonies of social insects, economies, and ecologies. The general study of how such emergent adaptive behavior comes about has been called the study of “complex adaptive systems”