How to intervene? The curious case of form and function in complex systems

Interventions are one of the fundamental pillars of the scientific method. Through cause and effect, the behavior, dynamics, or properties of natural phenomena are understood, manipulated, and explored to the limits. For many complex systems, it is often difficult to determine where to intervene. This body of work explores the relationship between the structure (or form) and behavior (or function) of complex systems. By taking an interdisciplinary perspective consisting of theory, computation, and real-world data, it argues that structural connectedness is not sufficient for understanding what part of a complex system is dynamically most important.