Owen Densmore wrote: > Frankly, I'm disappointed. > > The FRIAM list has been through several very philosophical > conversations over 3-4 weeks, all purporting to be "complex". Yet > when I ask for a formal treatment, I get no answer. > > Does this mean, for complexity, there's no There There? > Calculus went for over 100 years without a formal definition of either function or derivative, talking about infinitesimal changes without a formal definition of infinitesimal. Worse, at some point in a proof it would be a mistake to discard infinitesimals as "essentially zero," yet you always did at the end of the proof. There were no real rules as to when you should and when you shouldn't.
Formalization often happens only after a field is well understood and used, usually not before. - Martin ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
