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The cover of The Sciences of the Artificial

The Sciences of the Artificial

Herbert A. Simon

Can there be a real science of things people design, from businesses and economies to machines and plans, and how would it differ from natural science?

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At a glance

Author
Herbert A. Simon

Why read it

  • You will understand why, in a complex system, the properties of the whole are not trivial to infer from the parts
  • You will learn why scarcity makes rationality a matter of allocating scarce things such as time and attention
  • You will see why a person's behaviour can look complex mainly because the world around them is, like an ant crossing a beach

Who it is for

  • A designer curious about a science of design
  • A student of AI, economics or organisations
  • Anyone puzzled by how complex systems behave

Contents

  1. Introduction by John E. Laird
  2. Preface to Third Edition
  3. Preface to Second Edition
  4. 1 Understanding the Natural and Artificial Worlds
  5. 2 Economic Rationality: Adaptive Artifice
  6. 3 The Psychology of Thinking: Embedding Artifice in Nature
  7. 4 Remembering and Learning: Memory as Environment for Thought
  8. 5 The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial
  9. 6 Social Planning: Designing the Evolving Artifact
  10. 7 Alternative Views of Complexity
  11. 8 The Architecture of Complexity: Hierarchic Systems

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