On Networks and Monsters: The Possible and the Actual in Complex Systems

Complex systems pervade our real world, from social systems to genome dynamics. All these systems are characterized by the presence of emergent phenomena: New properties emerge from the interactions of simpler units and are not reducible to the properties of the latter. The natural description of complex systems involves a network view, where each system is represented by means of a web. Such graphs have been shown to share surprisingly universal patterns of organization, indicating that fundamental laws of organization also pervade complexity at multiple scales.