Dear Russ S, I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that?
-- Russ A On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish <r.stand...@unsw.edu.au>wrote: > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now > :). Serves me right, I guess. > > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > something to somebody. > > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the > system arranged completely at random). > > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity > extended to others. > > Cheers > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Russ, > > > > I agree with > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Russ Abbott > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > > > > Owen, > > > > Here's how I would start. > > > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or > 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a > structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One > of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. > I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as > referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > > > That raises a few questions. > > > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create > structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: > static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce > emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much > more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent > phenomena like biological and social entities.) > > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work > according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more > difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the > entities being structured.) > > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is > that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities > exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is > continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from > equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My > answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about > the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the > energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the > mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming > language one is using.) > > > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net> > wrote: > > > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > field within chaos.] > > > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in > formalizing it. > > > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > "emergence". > > > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > for identifying chaotic systems. > > > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for > success. > > > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > > > -- Owen > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 >
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