Michael Foley, in his Life Lessons from Bergson, gives an excellent, concise description of the complex adaptive system model (even though he doesn’t actually use that term)
There is also the intellectual problem that, in a complex organism, the whole is never merely the sum of the parts and the parts are never entirely independent of the whole.
A whole person can never be understood from even the most comprehensive set of measurements from a laboratory and an imaging centre (where X-Rays and scans are carried out).
The whole person has to be encountered as the unique individual that they are.
As Mary Midgely, the philosopher, put it –
One cannot claim to know somebody merely because one has collected a pile of printed information about them
In complex systems, simple arithmetic doesn’t work, not least because the bonds between parts are so often integral parts of feedback loops, so a small change in one part can induce much greater change in another, and together the changes within the whole organism are way beyond what can be understood from analyses of single parts.
Also, there isn’t a single organ within us which acts by itself. In fact, there isn’t a single cell which acts in isolation. At all levels, from the molecular within the cell, to the whole person within a physical, social and cultural environment, nothing is “entirely independent of the whole”
An organism is a hectic, almost frenetic, process, operating far from equilibrium in a ceaseless metabolism that seeks out and draws in nutrients, converts them to energy, expels waste, and uses the energy to reproduce, and to regulate and renew its parts, so that its make-up is constantly changing though its structure is relatively stable.
We have such a sense of solidity, don’t we? We have such a clear sense of a unified identity which exists throughout the whole of a life. But our physical make up is really not so solid. As a living organism we are dynamic, always in motion, always processing energy, molecules and information from the environment and within us. We make ourselves anew every single day, our cells in a constant process of creation and destruction. I found that idea quite startling and exciting when I first encountered it. It means that life is a process of constant change and unceasing creation.
But there’s something else in that paragraph which I first read when studying the concept of complex adaptive systems – “operating far from equilibrium” – when I first studied biology I was taught about “homeostasis” – the processes which maintain the inner environment of the body is a state of equilibrium. I learned about many feedback mechanisms which sought to maintain a number of balances – blood pressure, muscle tension, the levels of various salts in the blood and so on. So learning that complex adaptive systems function “far from equilibrium” was a bit surprising. But then that’s how we change. That’s how we grow. It’s only by operating at the edge of the balance that we meet what is termed “bifurcation points” and undergo “phase changes” and “emergence”. I didn’t learn about those phenomena when I first studies biology or Medicine, but they are fundamental characteristics of all living organisms.
Shifting from a focus on checks and balances, to living complexity, can move us from seeing homeostasis as an end in itself, to seeing that it is only one element in the over all process of creativity and development.
As long as we live, we are never finished with these creative, developmental processes. As Michael Foley says –
there are no independent, isolated, finished organisms.
Heroes Not Zombies 
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