This book describes the urgent need of modern humanity to renew and reinforce an open attitude to the complexity of life, above all by embracing its intrinsic indeterminacy, rather than attempting futilely to control its evolution. Oblivious to this ever-more urgent necessity, seduced by the speed and virality of digital pattern recognition, computing, and artificial simulation of human thought, society has reverted to a linear, deterministic concept of reality, under the belief that everything can be measured and managed, and that error and unpredictability will soon be eliminated from our lives and organizations. Consequently, choices and responsibilities have been delegated to technology, artificial intelligence and algorithms, even in educational institutions, which are now preoccupied with teaching mere skills and know-how, thus committing the fatal error of confusing artificial, mechanical, complicated systems with living, complex, adaptive systems.

This volume is intended not only for complexity/social scientists, philosophers and students, but to the curious from all walks of life. It calls for learning to inhabit complexity, while recognizing and participating in its interdependent, interconnected, interactive systems of relationships. Dominici reveals the futility of endeavoring to control the uncontrollable or observe the unobservable, showing how self-organization and emergence, triggered from the smallest and most modest elements, impact the entire system.

Autorentext

Prof. Piero Dominici is a sociologist, philosopher, educator and systems thinker. He is founder and scientific director of the International Research and Education Programme CHAOS: Complex Human Adaptive Organizations & Systems. He collaborates as an expert with the European Commission JRC Group and is Fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science and Executive President of the Board of Directors of the International Engineering and Technology Institute (IETI). He is a member of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), Vice President of the World Complexity Science Academy LatAm, and UNESCO IPL & UN Expert and invited speaker, as well as an Official UNESCO Delegate.

He holds a PhD in "Social Theory and Research" from Sapienza University of Rome, and is Associate Professor at the University of Perugia, where he teaches Education Towards Complexity and Unpredictability, Sociology of Social Complexity, Public Communication, Sociology of Culture and Communication and Intelligence, Networks, and Complex Systems. He has been accredited as Full Professor from the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research.

As scientific researcher, educator, author and international speaker, his main areas of expertise and interest encompass (Hyper)complexity, Transforming Education, Transdisciplinarity, Complex Systems and Knowledge Sharing. For almost thirty years, in addition to teaching and striving to rethink and reinvent education, he has been conducting scientific research in the fields of Education, Systems Theory, Technology, Innovation, Intelligence, Human Security, Citizenship and Communication.

To date, he has written eight monographs, including the 2014 work: Dentro la Società Interconnessa. Prospettive etiche per un nuovo ecosistema della comunicazione [Inside the Interconnected Society. Ethical prospects for a new ecosystem of communication], winner of the 2018 Elisa Frauenfelder International Scientific Award, section "Culture and Innovation", and the original Italian version of this volume: Oltre I Cigni Neri. L'urgenza di aprirsi all'indeterminato, Franco Angeli, Milan 2023, with a foreword by Edgar Morin. His latest book, Emergent Properties. Qualitative Social Dimensions and New Epistemological Challenges in the AI Era, was published in Italy in 2024.