Terren Suydam wrote:
Hi Richard,
I'll de-lurk here to say that I find this email to be utterly reasonable, and
that's with my crackpot detectors going off a lot lately, no offense to you of
course.
I do disagree that complexity is not its own science. I'm not wedded to the idea, like the folks you profile in your email, but I think its contribution has been small because it's in its infancy. We've been developing reductionist tools for hundreds of years now. I think we're in the equivalent of the pre-calculus days when it comes to complexity science.
And we haven't made much progress because the traditional scientific method depends on direct causal linkages. On the contrary, complex systems exhibit behavior at a global level that is not predictable from the local level... so there's a causal relationship only in the weakest sense. It's much more straightforward, I think, to say that the two levels, the global and the local, are "causally orthogonal" to one another. Both levels can be described by completely independent causal dynamics.
It's a new science because it's a new method. Isolating variables to determine relationships doesn't lend itself well to massively parallel networks that are just lousy with feedback, because it's impossible to hold the other values still, and worse, the behavior is sensitive to experimental noise. You could write a book on the difference between the traditional scientific method and the methods for studying complexity. I'm sure it's been done, actually.
The study of complexity will eventually fulfill its potential as a new science,
because if we are ever to understand the brain and the mind and model them with
any real precision, it will be due to complexity science *as much as*
traditional reductionist science. We need the benefit of both to gain real
understanding where traditional science has failed.
Our human minds are simply too limited to grasp the enormity of the scale of
complexity within a single cell, much less a collection of a few trillion of
them, also arranged in an unfathomably complex arrangement.
The idea that complexity science will *not* figure prominently into the study
of the body, the brain, and the mind, is an absurd proposition to me. We will
be going in the right direction when more and more of us are simulating
something without any clue what the result will be.
That's all for now... thanks for your post Richard.
Thanks Terren
Yes, in my more optimistic moments I believe that a full science of
complexity will come about. It may redefine the meaning of 'science'
though.
My scepticism comes mostly from my personal observation that each
complex systems scientist I come across tends to know about one breed of
complex system, and have a great deal to say about that breed, but when
I come to think about my preferred breed (AGI, cognitive systems) I
cannot seem to relate their generalizations to my case.
That is not to say that things will not converge, though. I should be
careful not to prejudge something so young.
Richard Loosemore
--- On Sun, 6/29/08, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [agi] Approximations of Knowledge
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Date: Sunday, June 29, 2008, 9:23 PM
Brad Paulsen wrote:
Richard,
I think I'll get the older Waldrop book now
because I want to learn more
about the ideas surrounding complexity (and, in
particular, its
association with, and differentiation from, chaos
theory) as soon as
possible. But, I will definitely put an entry in my
Google calendar to
keep a lookout for the new book in 2009.
Thanks very much for the information!
Cheers,
Brad
You're welcome. I hope it is not a disappointment:
the subject is a
peculiar one, so I believe that it is better to start off
with the kind
of journalistic overview that Waldrop gives. Let me know
what your
reaction is.
Here is the bottom line. At the core of the complex
systems idea there
is something very significant and very powerful, but a lot
of people
have wanted it to lead to a new science just like some of
the old
science. In other words, they have wanted there to be a
new, fabulously
powerful 'general theory of complexity' coming down
the road.
However, no such theory is in sight, and there is one view
of complexity
(mine, for example) that says that there will probably
never be such a
theory. If this were one of the traditional sciences, the
absence of
that kind of progress toward unification would be a sign of
trouble - a
sign that this was not really a new science after all. Or,
even worse,
a sign that the original idea was bogus. But I believe
that is the
wrong interpretation to put on it. The complexity idea is
very
significant, but it is not a science by itself.
Having said all of that, there are many people who so much
want there to
be a science of complexity (enough of a science that there
could be an
institute dedicated to it, where people have real jobs
working on
'complex systems'), that they are prepared to do a
lot of work that
makes it look like something is happening. So, you can
find many
abstract papers about complex dynamical systems, with
plenty of
mathematics in them. But as far as I can see, most of that
stuff is
kind of peripheral ... it is something to do to justify a
research program.
At the end of the day, I think that the *core* complex
systems idea will
outlast all this other stuff, but it will become famous for
its impact
on oter sciences, rather than for the specific theories of
'complexity'
that it generates.
We will see.
Richard Loosemore
Richard Loosemore wrote:
Brad Paulsen wrote:
Or, maybe...
"Complexity: Life at the Edge of
Chaos"
Roger Lewin, 2000 $10.88 (new, paperback) from
Amazon (no used copies)
Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos by Roger
Lewin (Paperback - Feb
15, 2000)
Nope, not that one either!
Darn.
I think it may have been Simplexity (Kluger), but
I am not sure.
Interestingly enough, Melanie Mitchell has a book
due out in 2009
called "The Core Ideas of the Sciences of
Complexity". Interesting
title, given my thoughts in the last post.
Richard Loosemore
-------------------------------------------
agi
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