It's curious, what you describe sounds like one of my perennial key complaints, 'no appropriate reply', but I didn't notice your questions as they went bye. My recent comments have been more in the vein of mapping out errors in our structural assumptions about nature, and the important things computers imitate well (following rules...) and imitate poorly (asking questions...), to probe where the productive directions for inquiry are. I've been surprised by the absence of theoretical discussion of AI principles, though, too. Is it just that the creative edge of the field is just to esoteric to discuss??
It's all got to fit in with conversation, though, and it does seem quite mysterious why some things get picked up and some don't. Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore > Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 3:16 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dynamics of Complex Systems by Yaneer Bar-Yam > > > 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? > > Surely there is some interesting formalism we can use for > complexity. Robert Holmes suggested a great book to us a while back > which I had forgotten in my initial email: > David MacKay: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning > Algorithms > http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/ > > Do we all talk about complexity yet have no basis for it? > > -- Owen > > Owen Densmore > http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org > > > On Jul 19, 2006, at 1:01 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > > > I've been looking at/for complexity books that are textbooks or > > similarly technical/mathematical. The recent Newman, > Barabasi & Watts > > collection The Structure and Dynamics of Networks is pretty > good but I > > would like something broader, covering the "Complex Systems" world. > > > > Bar Yam's original book: > > http://tinyurl.com/mmxwp > > or > > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813341213/sr=1-1/qid=1153334623/ > > ref=sr_1_1/104-7070581-5619133?ie=UTF8 > > is the best I know of. Anyone know of another? > > > > -- Owen > > > > Owen Densmore > > http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > ============================================================ 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