Models and Simulations in the Historical Emergence of the Science of Complexity

Abstract

As brightly shown by Mainzer [24], the science of complexity has manydistinct origins in many disciplines. Those various origins has ledto “an interdisciplinary methodology to explain the emergence ofcertain macroscopic phenomena via the nonlinear interactions of microscopicelements” (ibid.). This paper suggests that the parallel and strongexpansion of modeling and simulation - especially after the SecondWorld War and the subsequent development of computers - is a rationalewhich also can be counted as an explanation of this emergence. Withthe benefit of hindsight, one can find three periods in the methodologiesof modeling in the empirical sciences: 1st the simple modeling ofthe simple, 2nd the simple modeling of the complex, 3rd the complexmodeling and simulation of the complex. Our main thesis is that thecurrent spreading (since the 90’s) of complex computer simulationsof systems of models (where a simulation is no more a step by stepcalculus of a unique logico-mathematical model) is another promisingdimension of the science of complexity. Following this claim, wepropose to distinguish three different types of computer simulationsin the context of complex systems’ modeling. Finally, we show thatthese types of simulations lead to three different types of weakemergence, too.