Narrating Complexity

This book stages a dialogue between international researchers from the broad fields of complexity science and narrative studies. It presents an edited collection of chapters on aspects of how narrative theory from the humanities may be exploited to understand, explain, describe, and communicate aspects of complex systems, such as their emergent properties, feedbacks, and downwards causation; and how ideas from complexity science can inform narrative theory, and help explain, understand, and construct new, more complex models of narrative as a cognitive faculty and as a pervasive cultural form in new and old media. The book is suitable for academics, practitioners, and professionals, and postgraduates in complex systems, narrative theory, literary and film studies, new media and game studies, and science communication. Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Front Matter ....Pages 1-2 Introduction and Overview: Who, What, Why (Richard Walsh, Susan Stepney)....Pages 3-9 Narrative Theory for Complexity Scientists (Richard Walsh)....Pages 11-25 Complex Systems for Narrative Theorists (Susan Stepney)....Pages 27-36 Front Matter ....Pages 37-38 When Robots Tell Each Other Stories: The Emergence of Artificial Fiction (Alan F. T. Winfield)....Pages 39-47 Sense and Wonder: Complexity and the Limits of Narrative Understanding (Richard Walsh)....Pages 49-60 Discussion and Comment (Sense and Wonder) (Adam Lively, Richard Walsh)....Pages 61-63 A Simple Story of a Complex Mind? (Merja Polvinen)....Pages 65-79 Discussion and Comment (A Simple Story of a Complex Mind?) (Marco Bernini, Susan Stepney, Merja Polvinen)....Pages 81-83 Closure, Observation and Coupling: On Narrative and Autopoiesis (Adam Lively)....Pages 85-100 Looking at Narrative as a Complex System: The Proteus Principle (Federico Pianzola)....Pages 101-122 Narrative Experiences of History and Complex Systems (Romana Turina)....Pages 123-141 Three-Way Dialogue (Closure, Proteus, History) (Adam Lively, Federico Pianzola, Romana Turina)....Pages 143-148 (Gardening) Gardening: A Relational Framework for Complex Thinking About Complex Systems (Leo Caves, Ana Teixeira de Melo)....Pages 149-196 Discussion and Comment (Gardening Gardening) (Leo Caves, Ana Teixeira de Melo, Richard Walsh)....Pages 197-199 The Software Garden (Julian F. Miller)....Pages 201-212 Emergent Causality in Complex Films and Complex Systems (Maria Poulaki)....Pages 213-231 Narrative and Cognitive Modelling: Insights from Beckett Exploring Mind’s Complexity (Marco Bernini)....Pages 233-251 Narratives for Drug Design (James Bown, Alexey Goltsov)....Pages 253-268 Time Will Tell: Narrative Expressions of Time in a Complex World (Leo Caves, Ana Teixeira de Melo, Susan Stepney, Emma Uprichard)....Pages 269-284 Discussion and Comment (Time Will Tell) (Richard Walsh, Leo Caves, Ana Teixeira de Melo, Susan Stepney, Emma Uprichard)....Pages 285-287 Periodisation (Jason Edwards)....Pages 289-292 Front Matter ....Pages 293-294 Commentary on Contributions (Richard Walsh, Susan Stepney)....Pages 295-318 From Simplex to Complex Narrative? (Susan Stepney, Richard Walsh)....Pages 319-322