Systems can be understood by looking for patterns within their complexity, patterns that describe potential evolutions of the system.
Descriptions are indeterminate and complimentary, and observer dependent.
Example of CAS would include economies, ecologies, weather, traffic, social organizations, and cultures, to name but a few. While many writers and researchers have studied CAS, a concise nominal definition does not exist. The essential principles of CAS have been taken from each of these works and synthesized into a single description. The description is purposefully concise. The basic building blocks of the CAS are agents.