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A beautiful cooperative passport to understanding complexity unifying everything together at the centre of gravity

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Great introduction to field & a sense of humor!

Thoroughly enjoyable, accessible and engaging - highly recommend. I just wish it was longer!

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Fascinating introduction, really enjoyed it

I loved this course. It's not too long, very interesting and easy to understand!!! thank you!

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Actual details about complexity

So often people use complexity as a buzzword, but really get into the weeds of what they mean by it. This lecture series actually dives into the specifics, it draws lines about what is and isn't complex in a way that is mathematically useful.

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Best book on complexity (and I teach this topic and use Page’s book with my students who love it)

I set this audiobook to my students when they take my subject on this topic — it is a sensationally helpful intro to complexity. Don’t go for the more recent books as mist of them are poor quality, fluffy and low on actual details, often simply do not make sense, or else often just impenetrably written. By comparison, Scott Page’s intro is superb, it stands the test of time despite having been written a while ago, it is still my #1 choice and urge all of my students to read / hear, and Scott Page covers an amazing breadth of topics in an enjoyable and pedagogically helpful way that will leave you with a sound grasp of what complexity is, how it arises, what it does, why it matters, and how to flourish within our increasingly networked, dynamic, open, and constantly-changing societies.

About other books… So, an increasing number of books on this topic have recently started appearing, but sadly most are either written by people who don’t seem to understand the basics let alone how to apply the ideas to practice. Other books are ok, but they still show signs of the authors missing fundamental points on certain topics. And the remaining small portion of the recently-released books that I’ve either read or browsed fall into the category of unfortunately being written in such impenetrably technical or academic language that they could scare away even the most enthusiastic person; they make this incredibly rich, interesting, important – and really quite straight-forward topic, if it is taught the right way – seem way too difficult to understand by mere mortals. (Which it isn’t, but as with every field or topic, if the way it is taught id unsatisfactory, then it will make it appear to students as if the topic were difficult.)

By comparison, not only does Scott Page have a rare talent for teaching – an ability to convey key ideas with surprisingly simple examples, and then to connect them to each other and show you why they matter and what makes them si interesting as well as useful – but the content of this book is technically superb.

You will also enjoy listening to Page’s discussion of the various topics. I certainly find him very entertaining to listen to, and my students often comment that they too enjoy listening to Scott Page’s book.

Chapter three (on the topic of “dancing landscapes”) is still my personal favorite. It is the most memorable chapter, and also when everything else fails to convey to my students what complexity is, where it arises from, what it does to our world, and why it matters to understand complexity properly, this chapter always does the trick. I love the idea of “dancing landscapes” as a rich metaphor for complexity.

You will finish with an incredibly sound and deep understanding of the topic after listening to this audioboon.

I periodically re-listen to the entire book precisely because I find it so rich and helpful, and I sincerely hope that my review – because it comes from another teacher, who sees what works for her students and what doesn’t – will help you to choose this book over the noise created by all the other poor quality material out there.

At least listen to the free excerpt, see how it lands on your ears, and if it resonates with you then don’t hesitate about purchasing this most-excellent book / audiobook on complexity.

Lastly, thank you, Scott, for writing this book. My students and I love it. Hope you might return to the topic at some stage and bring your new learnings to bear on creating a second edition. Not because there are flaws with this first edition, but because I’m sure you’ve found new things over the years and it would be great if you shared them with readers like you do in this edition.

Dr Nicole Vincent, TD School
University of Technology Sydney
Australia

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1 person found this helpful

very good

slow start for the first 20 mins but i think that's a good thing as to ensure all readers are on the same page

the only thing i thing i would change is for the recommended reading to be read aloud at the end of each chapter or even at the end of the book

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frustrating

3 as it's a underrepresented subject.

if you're social science / Econ background go right ahead.

if you want to take the examples seriously, perhaps pick another text.

It's clear in each science example given, the author doesn't really understand the science, using the examples simply for illustrative purposes. subjects include genetics, chemistry, population biology. In one egregious error an interesting point is made regarding a specific bird, with no indication that the same point is true of every species alive.

I'm 3 lectures in. it's very frustrating business.

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Maybe interesting for a 5th grader

The whole setup is that of a vocabulary training CD from 15 years ago for children of the age of 12. The example are not well chosen and he over simplifies and over complicates most of them too.
Very tiring and boring to listen to.

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1 person found this helpful