My knowledge about complex, open, self-organizing systems comes from a number of sources, the most accessible one probably James Gleick's book Chaos: https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0143113453/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490270791&sr=1-3&keywords=chaos
Another good source is Thomas Homer Dixon's The Ingenuity Gap: https://www.amazon.com/Ingenuity-Gap-Environmental-Increasingly-Unpredictable/dp/037571328X/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490270928&sr=1-6&keywords=thomas+homer+dixon
If you would like to read more about complex-systems theory, I suggest the chapters that my colleague, Tomas, and I have written for The Nordic Secret and which we have shared elsewhere on this site:
https://www.nordicsecret.org/the-mind-as-a-self-organizing-open-system/
https://www.nordicsecret.org/evolving-self-organizing-complex-open-systems/
https://www.nordicsecret.org/the-evolving-self-organizing-complex-open-mind/

More Quotes & Sources
Instead of providing sources in the book, you can find quotes from the book and links to my sources by clicking on the respective chapters below.