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In sociology, social complexity is a conceptual framework used in the analysis of society. In the sciences, contemporary definitions of complexity are found in systems theory , wherein the phenomenon being studied has many parts and many possible arrangements of the parts; simultaneously, what is complex and what is simple are relative and ...
The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." [1] The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge.
Thorngate's postulate of commensurate complexity, [1] also referred to as Thorngate's impostulate of theoretical simplicity [2] is the description of a phenomenon in social science theorizing. Karl E. Weick maintains that research in the field of social psychology can – at any one time – achieve only two of the three meta-theoretical ...
The term "critical mass" is borrowed from nuclear physics, where it refers to the amount of a substance needed to sustain a chain reaction. Within social sciences, critical mass has its roots in sociology and is often used to explain the conditions under which reciprocal behavior is started within collective groups, and how reciprocal behavior ...
Bifurcation theory has been applied to connect quantum systems to the dynamics of their classical analogues in atomic systems, [6] [7] [8] molecular systems, [9] and resonant tunneling diodes. [10] Bifurcation theory has also been applied to the study of laser dynamics [ 11 ] and a number of theoretical examples which are difficult to access ...
In social theory, the concept of self-referentiality has been introduced as a sociological application of self-organization theory by Niklas Luhmann (1984). For Luhmann the elements of a social system are self-producing communications, i.e. a communication produces further communications and hence a social system can reproduce itself as long as ...
In algorithmic information theory, the Kolmogorov complexity (also called descriptive complexity, algorithmic complexity or algorithmic entropy) of a string is the length of the shortest binary program that outputs that string. Minimum message length is a practical application of this approach. Different kinds of Kolmogorov complexity are ...
Parsons develops a theory where he tries to reveal the complexity of the processes which take form between two points of necessity, the first being the cultural "necessity," which is given through the values-system of each evolving community; the other is the environmental necessities, which most directly is reflected in the material realities ...