Directly Mapping Interacting Components to Complex Systems' Emergent Properties

Emergent behavior in complex systems arises from nonlinear interactions among components, yet the intricate nature of self-organization often obscures the underlying causal relationships, long regarded as the "holy grail" of complexity research. To address this challenge, we adopted an inductive, mechanism-agnostic approach to characterize how diseased biological systems respond to therapeutic interventions, leading to the discovery of the Complex System Response (CSR) equation, a deterministic formulation that quantitatively connects component interactions with emergent behaviors, validated across 30 disease models. In this study, the main goal is to extend the CSR framework beyond biology to validate its applicability in engineering systems and urban social dynamics. Our results reveal that the CSR equation embodies the same systemic principles governing physical, chemical, biological, and social complex systems.