Two dimensions and beyond

Salient points:

• 2D systems are pretty much like the 1D ones
• networks - examples are given where each node has 2 outgoing links. One can define rules for re-routing connections, and thus generate 'dynamics' in the space of network topologies. We can also make rules for adding and deleting nodes. Some of these give network size fluctuations that are random looking.
• multiway systems - what's the message here?
• constraints - any system that can be formulated in terms of rules can also be formulated in terms of constraints ( how so?? - marcus ).
  • traditional science is dominated by the constraints route
  • but it's very hard to find constraints that enforce complexity, so trad. sci. misses the boat

Comments:

* In the discussion I noted that there seemed to be a network missing from the '2-node' ones given on page 194, namely one with node A has a link to itself and to node B, and node B sends both its links to itself. But in the caption it says that networks are excluded if they have nodes in them that are unreachable from other nodes, and I guess node A counts as 'unreachable' in that case.

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