TY - JOUR
T1 - Perspectives on multi-level dynamics
AU - Atay, Fatihcan M.
AU - Banisch, Sven
AU - Blanchard, Philippe
AU - Cessac, Bruno
AU - Olbrich, Eckehard
AU - Volchenkov, Dima
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©2016 L&H Scientific Publishing.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - As Physics did in previous centuries, there is currently a common dream of extracting generic laws of nature in economics, sociology, neuroscience, by focalising the description of phenomena to a minimal set of variables and parameters, linked together by causal equations of evolution whose structure may reveal hidden principles. This requires a huge reduction of dimensionality (number of degrees of freedom) and a change in the level of description. Beyond the mere necessity of developing accurate tech niques affording this reduction, there is the question of the correspondence between the initial system and the reduced one. In this paper, we offer a perspective towards a common framework for discussing and understand ing multi-level systems exhibiting structures at various spatial and temporal levels. We propose a common foundation and illustrate it with examples from different fields. We also point out the difficulties in constructing such a general setting and its limitations.
AB - As Physics did in previous centuries, there is currently a common dream of extracting generic laws of nature in economics, sociology, neuroscience, by focalising the description of phenomena to a minimal set of variables and parameters, linked together by causal equations of evolution whose structure may reveal hidden principles. This requires a huge reduction of dimensionality (number of degrees of freedom) and a change in the level of description. Beyond the mere necessity of developing accurate tech niques affording this reduction, there is the question of the correspondence between the initial system and the reduced one. In this paper, we offer a perspective towards a common framework for discussing and understand ing multi-level systems exhibiting structures at various spatial and temporal levels. We propose a common foundation and illustrate it with examples from different fields. We also point out the difficulties in constructing such a general setting and its limitations.
KW - Hierarchy of levels
KW - Multi-level dynamical systems
KW - Reduction of dimensionality
KW - Scales and levels
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020314952&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5890/DNC.2016.09.009
DO - 10.5890/DNC.2016.09.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85020314952
SN - 2164-6376
VL - 5
SP - 313
EP - 339
JO - Discontinuity, Nonlinearity, and Complexity
JF - Discontinuity, Nonlinearity, and Complexity
IS - 3
ER -