"Any pattern of activity in a network, regarded as consistent by some observer, is a system, Certain groups of observers, who share a common body of knowledge, and subscribe to a particular discipline, like 'physics' or 'biology' (in terms of which they pose hypotheses about the network), will pick out substantially the same systems. On the other hand, observers belonging to different groups will not agree about the activity which is a system." (Gordon Pask, "The Natural History of Networks", 1960)
"I am using the term 'network' in a general sense, to imply any set of interconnected and measurably active physical entities. Naturally occurring networks, of interest because they have a, self-organizing character, are, for example, a marsh, a colony of microorganisms, a research team, and a man." (Gordon Pask, "The Natural History of Networks", 1960)
"In a network, one can plot the figures on a plane which has no meaning, and then look for the arrangement which produces the minimum number of intersections, or the simplest figure. After this transformation, the graphic will yield maximum efficiency, based on the discovery of a meaningful order expressed by the plane." (Jacques Bertin, "Semiology of graphics", 1967)
"To analyse graphic representation precisely, it is helpful to distinguish it from musical, verbal and mathematical notations, all of which are perceived in a linear or temporal sequence. The graphic image also differs from figurative representation essentially polysemic, and from the animated image, governed by the laws of cinematographic time. Within the boundaries of graphics fall the fields of networks, diagrams and maps. The domain of graphic imagery ranges from the depiction of atomic structures to the representation of galaxies and extends into the spheres of topography and cartography." (Jacques Bertin, "Semiology of graphics", 1967)
"Nature is a network of happenings that do not unroll like a red carpet into time, but are intertwined between every part of the world; and we are among those parts. In this nexus, we cannot reach certainty because it is not there to be reached; it goes with the wrong model, and the certain answers ironically are the wrong answers. Certainty is a demand that is made by philosophers who contemplate the world from outside; and scientific knowledge is knowledge for action, not contemplation. There is no God’s eye view of nature, in relativity, or in any science: only a man’s eye view." (Jacob Bronowski, "The Identity of Man", 1972)
"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limit. […] In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits." (John C Lilly, "The Human Biocomputer", 1974)
"As with any graphic, networks are used in order to discover pertinent troups of to inform others of the groups and structures discovered. It is a good means of displaying structures, However, it ceases to be a means of discovery when the elements are numerous. The figure rapidly becomes complex, illegible and untransformable." (Jacques Bertin, "Graphics and graphic information processing", 1977)
"An autopoietic system is organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the components that: (a) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produce them and, (b) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network." (Francisco Varela, "Principles of Biological Autonomy", 1979)
"Information is recorded in vast interconnecting networks. Each idea or image has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of associations and is connected to numerous other points in the mental network." (Peter Russell, "The Brain Book: Know Your Own Mind and How to Use it", 1979)
"A schema, then is a data structure for representing the generic concepts stored in memory. There are schemata representing our knowledge about all concepts; those underlying objects, situations, events, sequences of events, actions and sequences of actions. A schema contains, as part of its specification, the network of interrelations that is believed to normally hold among the constituents of the concept in question. A schema theory embodies a prototype theory of meaning. That is, inasmuch as a schema underlying a concept stored in memory corresponds to the meaning of that concept, meanings are encoded in terms of the typical or normal situations or events that instantiate that concept." (David E Rumelhart, "Schemata: The building blocks of cognition", 1980)
"The traditional boundaries between various fields of science are rapidly disappearing and what is more important science does not know any national borders. The scientists of the world are forming an invisible network with a very free flow of scientific information - a freedom accepted by the countries of the world irrespective of political systems or religions. […] Great care must be taken that the scientific network is utilized only for scientific purposes - if it gets involved in political questions it loses its special status and utility as a nonpolitical force for development." (Sune K. Bergström, [speech] 1982)
"We define a semantic network as 'the collection of all the relationships that concepts have to other concepts, to percepts, to procedures, and to motor mechanisms' of the knowledge." (John F Sowa, "Conceptual Structures", 1984)
"Cybernetics, although not ignoring formal networks, suggests that an informal communications structure will also be present such that complex conversations at a number of levels between two or more individuals exist." (Robert L Flood, "Dealing with Complexity", 1988)
"When loops are present, the network is no longer singly connected and local propagation schemes will invariably run into trouble. [...] If we ignore the existence of loops and permit the nodes to continue communicating with each other as if the network were singly connected, messages may circulate indefinitely around the loops and process may not converges to a stable equilibrium. […] Such oscillations do not normally occur in probabilistic networks […] which tend to bring all messages to some stable equilibrium as time goes on. However, this asymptotic equilibrium is not coherent, in the sense that it does not represent the posterior probabilities of all nodes of the network." (Judea Pearl, "Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems: Networks of Plausible Inference", 1988)
"A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least." (Jacques Barzun, "The Culture We Deserve", 1989)
"Metaphor plays an essential role in establishing a link between scientific language and the world. Those links are not, however, given once and for all. Theory change, in particular, is accompanied by a change in some of the relevant metaphors and in the corresponding parts of the network of similarities through which terms attach to nature." (Thomas S Kuhn, "Metaphor in science", 1993)
"What is a system? A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system. The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment." (William E Deming, "The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education”, 1993)
"Mathematics says the sum value of a network increases as the square of the number of members. In other words, as the number of nodes in a network increases arithmetically, the value of the network increases exponentially. Adding a few more members can dramatically increase the value of the network." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)
"The basic principle of an autocatalytic network is that even though nothing can make itself, everything in the pot has at least one reaction that makes it, involving only other things in the pot. It's a symbiotic system in which everything cooperates to make the metabolism work - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts." (J Doyne Farmer, "The Second Law of Organization" [in The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution], 1995)
"The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All other topologies limit what can happen." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)
"The multiplier effect is a major feature of networks and flows. It arises regardless of the particular nature of the resource, be it goods, money, or messages." (John H Holland, "Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity", 1995)
"There are a variety of swarm topologies, but the only organization that holds a genuine plurality of shapes is the grand mesh. In fact, a plurality of truly divergent components can only remain coherent in a network. No other arrangement-chain, pyramid, tree, circle, hub-can contain true diversity working as a whole. This is why the network is nearly synonymous with democracy or the market." (Kevin Kelly, "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World", 1995)
"In the new systems thinking, the metaphor of knowledge as a building is being replaced by that of the network. As we perceive reality as a network of relationships, our descriptions, too, form an interconnected network of concepts and models in which there are no foundations. For most scientists such a view of knowledge as a network with no firm foundations is extremely unsettling, and today it is by no means generally accepted. But as the network approach expands throughout the scientific community, the idea of knowledge as a network will undoubtedly find increasing acceptance." (Fritjof Capra, "The Web of Life: A new scientific understanding of living systems", 1996)
"Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and culture. While the networking form of social organization has existed in other times and spaces, the new information technology paradigm provides the material basis for its pervasive expansion throughout the entire social structure." (Manuel Castells, "The Rise of the Network Society", 1996)
"The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be." (Fritjof Capra, "The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems", 1996)
"There is a multilayering of global networks in the key strategic activities that structure and destructure the planet. When these multilayered networks overlap in some node, when there is a node that belongs to different networks, two major consequences follow. First, economies of synergy between these different networks take place in that node: between financial markets and media businesses; or between academic research and technology development and innovation; between politics and media." (Manuel Castells, "The Rise of the Network Society", 1996)
"When the knowledge base of an industry is both complex and expanding and the sources of expertise are widely dispersed, the locus of innovation will be found in networks of learning, rather than in individual firms." (Walter W. Powell et al, "Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: Networks of learning in biotechnology", Administrative science quarterly, 1996)
"A standalone object, no matter how well designed, has limited potential for new weirdness. A connected object, one that is a node in a network that interacts in some way with other nodes, can give birth to a hundred unique relationships that it never could do while unconnected. Out of this tangle of possible links come myriad new niches for innovations and interactions."
"Any network has two ingredients: nodes and connections. In the grand network we are now assembling, the size of the nodes is collapsing while the quantity and quality of the connections are exploding." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)
"Mathematics says the sum value of a network increases as the square of the number of members. In other words, as the number of nodes in a network increases arithmetically, the value of the network increases exponentially. Adding a few more members can dramatically increase the value for all members." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)
"Networks have existed in every economy. What’s different now is that networks, enhanced and multiplied by technology, penetrate our lives so deeply that 'network' has become the central metaphor around which our thinking and our economy are organized. Unless we can understand the distinctive logic of networks, we can’t profit from the economic transformation now under way." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)
"The combinatorial mathematics of networks also boost the opportunities for intermediaries. By definition, every node on a network is a node between other nodes. The more connections there are between members in a net, the more intermediary nodes there can be. Everything in a network is intermediating something else." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)
"The distinguishing characteristic of networks is that they contain no clear center and no clear outside boundaries. Within a network everything is potentially equidistant from everything else." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)
"The notion of system we are interested in may be described generally as a complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a network of interrelationships of various kinds, such that it constitutes a dynamic whole with emergent properties." (Walter F. Buckley, "Society: A Complex Adaptive System - Essays in Social Theory", 1998)
"Remember a networked learning machine’s most basic rule: strengthen the connections to those who succeed, weaken them to those who fail." (Howard Bloom, "Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century", 2000)
"The ability of causal networks to predict the effects of actions requires of course a stronger set of assumptions in the construction of those networks, assumptions that rest on causal (not merely associational) knowledge and that ensure the system would respond to interventions in accordance with the principle of autonomy."
"[…] most earlier attempts to construct a theory of complexity have overlooked the deep link between it and networks. In most systems, complexity starts where networks turn nontrivial." (Albert-László Barabási, "Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life", 2002)
"[…] networks are the prerequisite for describing any complex system, indicating that complexity theory must inevitably stand on the shoulders of network theory. It is tempting to step in the footsteps of some of my predecessors and predict whether and when we will tame complexity. If nothing else, such a prediction could serve as a benchmark to be disproven. Looking back at the speed with which we disentangled the networks around us after the discovery of scale-free networks, one thing is sure: Once we stumble across the right vision of complexity, it will take little to bring it to fruition. When that will happen is one of the mysteries that keeps many of us going." (Albert-László Barabási, "Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life", 2002)
"Networks do not offer a miracle drug, a strategy that makes you invincible in any business environment. The truly important role networks play is in helping existing organizations adapt to rapidly changing market conditions. The very concept of network implies a multidimensional approach." (Albert-László Barabási, "Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life", 2002)
"One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks." (Fritjof Capra, "The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living", 2002)
"The diversity of networks in business and the economy is mindboggling. There are policy networks, ownership networks, collaboration networks, organizational networks, network marketing-you name it. It would be impossible to integrate these diverse interactions into a single all-encompassing web. Yet no matter what organizational level we look at, the same robust and universal laws that govern nature's webs seem to greet us. The challenge is for economic and network research alike to put these laws into practice." (Albert-László Barabási, "Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life", 2002)
"At an anatomical level - the level of pure, abstract connectivity - we seem to have stumbled upon a universal pattern of complexity. Disparate networks show the same three tendencies: short chains, high clustering, and scale-free link distributions. The coincidences are eerie, and baffling to interpret."
"Average path length reflects the global structure; it depends on the way the entire network is connected, and cannot be inferred from any local measurement. Clustering reflects the local structure; it depends only on the interconnectedness of a typical neighborhood, the inbreeding among nodes tied to a common center. Roughly speaking, path length measures how big the network is. Clustering measures how incestuous it is."
"The networked world continuously refines, reinvents, and reinterprets knowledge, often in an autonomic manner." (Donald M Morris et al, "A revolution in knowledge sharing", 2003)
"The inner mysteries of quantum mechanics require a willingness to extend one’s mental processes into a strange world of phantom possibilities, endlessly branching into more and more abstruse chains of coupled logical networks, endlessly extending themselves forward and even backwards in time." (John C Ward, "Memoirs of a Theoretical Physicist", 2004)
"Powerfully positioned middlemen extract value by interrupting or distorting information." (Jason Owen-Smith & Walter W Powell,"Knowledge networks as channels and conduits: The effects of spillovers in the Boston biotechnology community", Organization Science 15.1, 2004)
"If a network is solely composed of neighborhood connections, information must traverse a large number of connections to get from place to place. In a small-world network, however, information can be transmitted between any two nodes using, typically, only a small number of connections. In fact, just a small percentage of random, long-distance connections is required to induce such connectivity. This type of network behavior allows the generation of 'six degrees of separation' type results, whereby any agent can connect to any other agent in the system via a path consisting of only a few intermediate nodes." (John H Miller & Scott E Page, "Complex Adaptive Systems", 2007)
"Networks may also be important in terms of view. Many models assume that agents are bunched together on the head of a pin, whereas the reality is that most agents exist within a topology of connections to other agents, and such connections may have an important influence on behavior. […] Models that ignore networks, that is, that assume all activity takes place on the head of a pin, can easily suppress some of the most interesting aspects of the world around us. In a pinhead world, there is no segregation, and majority rule leads to complete conformity - outcomes that, while easy to derive, are of little use." (John H Miller & Scott E Page, "Complex Adaptive Systems", 2007)
"The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world - the hardware - plays the role of a gigantic computer." (Paul C W Davies, "Laying Down the Laws", New Scientist, 2007)
"Society is not just the product of its individual members; it is also the product of its constituent groups. The aggregate relations among individuals and groups, among individuals within groups, and among groups forms a network of astonishing complexity." (Clay Shirky, "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations", 2008)
"In the network society, the space of flows dissolves time by disordering the sequence of events and making them simultaneous in the communication networks, thus installing society in structural ephemerality: being cancels becoming." (Manuel Castells, "Communication Power", 2009)
"In the telephone system a century ago, messages dispersed across the network in a pattern that mathematicians associate with randomness. But in the last decade, the flow of bits has become statistically more similar to the patterns found in self-organized systems. For one thing, the global network exhibits self-similarity, also known as a fractal pattern. We see this kind of fractal pattern in the way the jagged outline of tree branches look similar no matter whether we look at them up close or far away. Today messages disperse through the global telecommunications system in the fractal pattern of self-organization." (Kevin Kelly, "What Technology Wants", 2010)
"We are beginning to see the entire universe as a holographically interlinked network of energy and information, organically whole and self-referential at all scales of its existence. We, and all things in the universe, are non-locally connected with each other and with all other things in ways that are unfettered by the hitherto known limitations of space and time." (Ervin László,"Cosmos: A Co-creator's Guide to the Whole-World", 2010)
"The people we get along with, trust, feel simpatico with, are the strongest links in our networks." (Daniel Goleman, "Working With Emotional Intelligence", 2011)
"Cybernetics is the study of systems which can be mapped using loops (or more complicated looping structures) in the network defining the flow of information. Systems of automatic control will of necessity use at least one loop of information flow providing feedback." (Alan Scrivener, "A Curriculum for Cybernetics and Systems Theory", 2012)
"If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won't succeed. We can't pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships." (Adam Grant, "Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success", 2013)
"Information is recorded in vast interconnecting networks. Each idea or image has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of associations and is connected to numerous other points in the mental network." (Peter Russell, "The Brain Book: Know Your Own Mind and How to Use it", 2013)
"All living systems are networks of smaller components, and the web of life as a whole is a multilayered structure of living systems nesting within other living systems - networks within networks." (Fritjof Capra, "The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision", 2014)
"All the variables we can observe in an ecosystem-population densities, availability of nutrients, weather patterns, and so forth-always fluctuate. This is how ecosystems maintain themselves in a flexible state, ready to adapt to changing conditions. The web of life is a flexible, ever-fluctuating network. The more variables are kept fluctuating, the more dynamic is the system; the greater is its flexibility; and the greater is its ability to adapt to changing conditions." (Fritjof Capra, "The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision", 2014)
"Deep ecology does not separate humans - or anything else-from the natural environment. It sees the world not as a collection of isolated objects, but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views humans as just one particular strand in the web of life." (Fritjof Capra, "The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision", 2014)
"In other words, the web of life consists of networks within networks. At each scale, under closer scrutiny, the nodes of the network reveal themselves as smaller networks. We tend to arange these systems, all nesting within larger systems, in a hierarchical scheme by placing the larger systems above the smaller ones in pyramid fashion. But this is a human projection. In nature there is no 'above' or 'below', and there are no hierarchies. There are only networks nesting within other networks." (Fritjof Capra, "The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision", 2014)
"A worldview consists of observations of the individual and other people with respect to the self, time and space, the natural and the supernatural and the sacred and profane. […] Beliefs about the world do not reside in the human mind in chaotic disorder; rather they form a latent system. A worldview cannot, however, be viewed as a well-organised network of cognitive models or a static collection of values; instead it should be regarded as the product of a process shaped by historical, cultural and social perspectives and contexts." (Helena Helve, "A longitudinal perspective on worldviews, values and identities", 2016)
"Although cascading failures may appear random and unpredictable, they follow reproducible laws that can be quantified and even predicted using the tools of network science. First, to avoid damaging cascades, we must understand the structure of the network on which the cascade propagates. Second, we must be able to model the dynamical processes taking place on these networks, like the flow of electricity. Finally, we need to uncover how the interplay between the network structure and dynamics affects the robustness of the whole system." (Albert-László Barabási, "Network Science", 2016)
"The exploding interest in network science during the first decade of the 21st century is rooted in the discovery that despite the obvious diversity of complex systems, the structure and the evolution of the networks behind each system is driven by a common set of fundamental laws and principles. Therefore, notwithstanding the amazing differences in form, size, nature, age, and scope of real networks, most networks are driven by common organizing principles. Once we disregard the nature of the components and the precise nature of the interactions between them, the obtained networks are more similar than different from each other." (Albert-László Barabási, "Network Science", 2016)
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