Extracting Metasystem: A Novel Paradigm to Perceive Complex Systems

Abundant evidence shows that there is a core component within a complex system, referred to as the metasystem, that fundamentally shapes the structural and dynamical characteristics of a complex system. The limitations of existing techniques for analyzing complex systems have made it increasingly desirable to extract metasystems for modeling, measuring, and analyzing complex phenomena. However, the methods of extracting metasystems are still in their infancy with various shortcomings. Here, we propose a universal framework based on divide and conquer to extract fine-grained metasystems. The method comprises three stages performed in sequence: partitioning, sampling, and optimizing. It can decompose a complex system into interconnected metasystem and non-metasystem components, providing a lightweight perspective for studying complex systems: essential insights can be gained by merely examining the internal mechanisms of each component and their interaction patterns.