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| View Larger Image | The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex
by Murray Gell-Mann
| | List Price: | $18.00 | | Price: | $14.04 | | You Save: | $3.96 (22%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 130039 | | Studio: | Holt Paperbacks | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 392 | | Publication Date: | September 15, 1995 | | Publisher: | Holt Paperbacks |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
From one of the architects of the new science of simplicity and complexity comes an explanation of the connections between nature at its most basic level and natural selection, archaeology, linguistics, child development, computers, and other complex adaptive systems. Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann offers a uniquely personal and unifying vision of the relationship between the fundamental laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world.
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 29 reviews)
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The basics of information theory as relating to the science of emergent order is clearly presented 
This book gives valuable information on how complex systems arise out of a simple, natural ground. Gell-Mann's theories are useful in understanding chaos theory as well as many branches of quantum physics. A description of Gell-Mann's ecological explorations and efforts to maintain the biosphere is also given. The magician and student of physics will be well rewarded for reading Gell-Mann's work. The processes of consciousness and so magical phenomena may be understood in this light.
December 01, 2006 | |
Too tedious to finish 
Mr. Gell-Mann won a Nobel Prize for his work in physics, but he will never will a Pulitzer for his writing. It's too tedious to endure.
I love reading books about physics. I tried to read this book -- twice. I wanted to like it. But both times, I got no more than a third of the way through, and couldn't force myself to read another word.
Mr. Gell-Mann's writing is too convoluted and dry, his theories so superficially presented. Unless you're a speed reader, I'd imagine there are very few people who would ever waste the time required to force themselves through this very disappointing book.
September 02, 2006 | |
Complexity theme is contrived; superficial coverage of many subjects 
Gell-Mann went to much effort to weave the diverse topics of this book together under the theme of complex adaptive systems. I found this to be a pointless endeavor. A good theme should provide cohesion or make the subject more approachable. Conceiving of both a single-celled organism and a culture as complex adaptive systems, however, provides little insight into the functioning of either and serves mostly to drive home the point that the notion of a complex adaptive system is so broad that nearly anything worth discussing falls under that heading.
Quantum physics is discussed at length. Unfortunately this section reads more like a catalog of concepts and discoveries than like a good introduction conveying key concepts. Other subjects (biology, evolution, ecosystems, computer learning, economics, public policy) are covered too superficially to yield anything of interest.
The major arguments of _The Quark and the Jaguar_ are as follows:
1) Effective complexity is not the same as algorithmic complexity. Algorithmic complexity is 0 for uniform data and highest for completely random data. (Potential) effective complexity is highest in the middle, where patterns and rules (schema) can be derived and minimal for both uniform data and random data.
2) Classical physics implies a deterministic world. How can anything interesting happen? Because quantum physics offers randomness.
3) Complex adaptive systems create schemas to model the data. This is true for the formation of life, to children learning to speak, to scientific progress, etc. Successful complex adaptive systems are solutions to problems. So the biological and cultural diversity on the planet represents a huge amount of valuable information.
4) We should preserve biological and cultural diversity so we don't lose valuable information.
October 13, 2005 | |
What a disappointment
I might also have entitled my review, "See Carlos Camara's review of April 11, 2002." Camara captures my own thoughts to a tee. Where Gell-Mann is strongest, namely, on particle physics, his strengths shine through. Though hardly a rigorous survey of the field, the second section of Q&J is a compelling introduction to it -- and certainly whets one's appetite for further reading. The book's first section (an overview of the notion of complexity) is decent (though far better popular treatments can be found elsewhere). The book's third and fourth sections, however, are pretty much a total wash. I could tolerate them only insofar as they reflected the obvious integrity of the author. He is a political kindred spirit. That said, having purchased Q&J and had high expectations of it, I was surprised and not a little frustrated at how bereft of substance it was on matters "Jaguarian". More than a little disconnected, I found the second half of Q&J rambling, pedestrian, and even sophomoric. Certainly not what one expects of a Nobel prize winning physicist and of one of the founders of the Santa Fe institute. My respect for Gell-Mann, as a scientist and a humanist, is in no way diminished by Q&J, but I cannot help but feel that he (and his publisher) faltered with this effort. My advice: read the first half of Q&J for a cursory -- but well-written -- survey of complexity and particle physics. Skip the second half altogether.
January 05, 2005 | |
trying very hard to make progress in "complexity" theory
The "reductionistic" scientific method, which seeks to reduce phonomena to simpler and more general underlying bludprints, has dominated the last three centuries. It works great in physics, as Newton domonstrated, but less well in other disciplines such as biology and psychology. For example, molecular biologists have isolated DNA, but have yet to adequately explain embroyonic development, protein folding and other riddles. To overcome these shortcomings, many are calling for a theory of complexity, which should focus on systems and the dynamics of development where order appears to organize itself from a bewildering number of interacting factors.
Gell-Mann argues that rather than replacing reductionist methods, complexity theory complements that approach. The quark is the simple and universal, the jaguar the complex. He suggests that between these two exists an unbroken chain.
Gell-Mann attempts to make his contribution with teh "complex adaptive system" that "acquires information about its environment" and indentifies "regularities in that information", which are then condensed into a "schema" or "model"; these latter are "non-static," and unlike a quark can evolve. Each complex adaptive system contains three strands: 1) basic rules; 2) frozen accidents; 3) a selection process. For example, language has genetically inherited cognitive capabilites with certain quirky attributes that persist and yet can change as the individual must describe new phenomena. A lot of the book is devoted to finding and explaining similar examples. It is a panoramic and entertaining excursion through human knowledge, if a bit cursory.
Gell-Mann also hopes to guide scientists into a more holistic and cross-disciplinary approaches. With its focus on historical development and links between the simple and complex, the study of complex adaptive systems, he argues, may be the spur required to stimulate such approaches, briging physics, chemistry, biology and even the social sciences. This is what he is doing at the Santa Fe Institute.
At its best, the book is a window into a great scientific mind, with fascinating mini-essays on state of the art science. Unfortunately, Gell-Mann is an uneven writer. Many passages are impenetrable to lay readers like myself. At a deeper level, he fails to critique the vague research agendas of the complexologists, who have been ridiculously popularised in such enues as Wired. Even the complex adaptive system may say too little about too much. Through it all, Gell-Mann maintains his pose as a total pedant.
REcommended. It is uneven, but this is one of the greatest thinks of the 20C.
October 12, 2004 | |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
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