Ken,
Phil, I disagree re: ignoring the complexities of the system. All extant complexities are manifest in synthesis and appear in realization. [ph] what, you hypothesize that because nature somehow takes care of every individual thing by her exceedingly complicated and unobserved way, that somehow any impression we have will incorporate everything about it? I some how sense a little 'reaching' in that.. Consider what actual complexities are manifest in a closed system at absolute zero or Bose-Einstein Condensate state. The only energy left is potential energy in the mass. I don't know what happens to the binding energy - gluons - but there is nothing that could perturb the particles out of their state, or am I wrong? So the energy left at thermodynamic equilibrium seems to be that of the residual strong force, which would look a lot like either gravity, or "closeness by habitually being close" [ph] well, simpler case, what about what's going on in the back of your own fridge? What perturbs it 'out of state' always seems to be a surprise at the time when I discover it, and it's not from my not knowing the formula. In either case - modeled as an LPS (large Poincare system) wouldn't the mesoscopic resonance (heat & motion - zitterbegwegung) approach zero except for possibly the gluon resonance - and maybe even that, too? [ph] If you're imagining that theories are their own environments, so they fit perfectly in their worlds and never develop interactions that alter their own design in fundamental ways bye themselves, then you have a self-consistent model. Environments aren't self-consistent though. They overflow with processes that reinvent the discards of one thing into key ingredients for others. What the math says about that is hard to tease out of it, as Robert Rosen who spent much of his effort attempting to do that found out. The trick is math has no environment, so it's hard to make it say anything about what happens in environments. I made a nice clean revision of my attempt to do so, restating my principle of continuity & divergence, nick naming it a theory of "little bangs". http://www.synapse9.com/drafts/ContPrinciple08_09.09.pdf The simplicity of the solutions to complex problems is that it is an ensemble - a bundle of entangled solution trajectories. It doesn't matter which particular path it takes, so long as it resolves. This holds for n-body problems or shocking a heartbeat back into a sinus pattern. They are not solved analytically, one problem at a time - they are solved all at once. [ph] Yes, So long as the whole problem is inside the formula then there's no problem. As soon as you put a formula inside an environment, though, there's a curious formal gap of disconnection all around it, it seems to me. phil Ken _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 1:15 PM To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Reductionism - was: Young but distant gallaxies You guys all seem to be missing the difference between the value of reducing your solution and the error of ignoring the complexities of your problem. I find it's often going out of my way to trace the complexities of the problem to see where they lead that leads me out of my blinders and gives me the simpler solution in the end. I mean, like if you can't hear the radio a solution is to keep absent mindedly turning up the volume, but if the complication is someone else with another radio in the room and you're both turning up the volume. it would be simpler to solve the problem some very different way. Phil From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 11:17 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Reductionism - was: Young but distant gallaxies Ken - Reductionism has its place in the analytical phase at equilibrium. Analysis is normally a study of integrable, often linear systems, but it can be accomplished on non-linear, feed-forward systems as well. Well said... The synthesis phase puts information re: complex behavior and emergence back into the integrated mix and may be "analyzed" in non-linear, recurrent networks. It is the synthesis/analysis duality that always (often) gets lost in arguments about Reductionism. There are very many useful things (e.g. linear and near-equilibrium systems) to be studied analytically, but there are many *more* interesting and often useful things (non linear, far-from-equilibrium, complex systems with emergent behaviour) which also beg for synthesis. This is actually a probabilistic inversion of analysis as described in Inverse Theory. I'll have to look this up. Bayesian refinement cycles (forward <-> inverse) are applied to new information as one progresses through the DANSR cycle. This refines the effect of new information on prior information - which I hope folks see is not simply additive - and which may be entirely disruptive (see evolution of science itself) . Do find this applies as well in non-probabalistic models? The fact this seems to work for complex systems is philosophically uninteresting, and may ignored - so the discussion can continue. "seems to work" sends up red flags, as does "philosophically uninteresting". I could use some refinement on what you mean here. Final point: Descartes ultimately rejected the concept of zero because of historical religious orthodoxy - so he personally never applied it to the continuum extension of negative numbers. All his original Cartesian coordinates started with 1 on a finite bottom, left-hand boundary - according to Zero, The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by Charles Seife. And didn't Shakespeare dramatize this in his famous work "Much Ado about Nothing"? (bad literary pun, sorry). _____ ============================================================ 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
