Thus spake Steve Smith circa 01/04/2009 03:27 PM: > Taxonomies are most useful (IMO) to those who are (as you point out with Doug > as > teacher of ABM 101) entering a field "naive", or who are trying to understand > something "forest-ey" rather than "tree-ey".
I suppose I disagree slightly with both this statement and Doug's general position that a classification system is only relatively useful. Classification systems are critical for delegation. The software engineering methods Doug introduced into the conversation are a classic example. We classify things and behaviors not only to understand and teach, but to put the free cycles of those around us to work on our problems. Without such classification methods, e.g. OOP, we can't build large complicated structures. But for the academics on the list, any such classification that obtains after being used for awhile is NOT "true". Useful, yes. True, no. And the usefulness of it is context dependent. That's why we end up settling on more abstract methods that allow us to create a classification "on the fly". Systems engineering is a set of methods for doing just that. It's a set of methods for classifying a domain (and problem in that domain) whenever we want to. (It also includes changing the classification when we learn that our original class structure - of objects and behaviors - is broken.) Once we have the temporary, context dependent classification, we can delegate work to the drones we have at our disposal. (BTW, "drone" is a role, not type. Brilliant people can act as drones just by acting outside their field of expertise.) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ 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
