Mark Waser:
> I don't know what is going to be more complex than a variable-geometry-wing > aircraft like a F-14 Tomcat. Literally nothing can predict it's aerodynamic > behavior. > The avionics are purely reactive because it's future behavior cannot be > predicted > to any certainty even at computer speeds -- yet it's behavior envelope is > small > enough to be safe, provided you do have computer speeds (though no human > can fly it unaided). I agree that this is a very sensible way to think about being "complex" and it is certainly similar to the way I think about it myself. My embryonic understanding of Richard's argument suggests to me that he means something else, though. If not, traditional engineering methods are often pretty good at taming complexity as long as they take the range of possible system states into account (which is what you have been saying all along). Since I'm trying (with limited success) to understand his point of view, I might suggest that (from the point of view of his argument), the global regularities of the aircraft (its flight characteristics) DO have a sufficiently-efficacious small theory in terms of the components (the aircraft body, including the moveable bits). In fact, it is exactly that small theory which is embedded in the control program. Since the global regularities (straight-line flight, turns, and so on) are sufficiently predictable from the local interactions of the control surfaces with the air, the aircraft is not complex *in the sense that Richard is talking about*. Now I suppose I've pissed everybody off, but I'm really just trying to understand Richard's definitions so I can follow his argument. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
