Re: [FRIAM] John Catherino's Blog: Simple Inter-JVM communication... The Grail!

[Douglas Roberts]

Looks promising.  I'd like to see a real distributed memory application
successfully running using his 'Grail' communication methods before
declaring success, however.  Benchmarked against a C++ implementation of the
same distributed memory application, of course.

--Doug

-- 
Doug Roberts, RTI International
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell

On 9/4/07, Owen Densmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Well, I know this will be flamed, but its an interesting article.
> 
>
> I definitely like what I see in the link he includes to "Eight
> Fallacies of Distributed Computing", which Peter Deutsch first
> published at Sun in '94 and inspired a serious re-thinking of some of
> the core frameworks within Solaris.
>
>  -- 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
>

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[FRIAM] TouchGraph | Products: Google Browser

[Owen Densmore]

 -- Owen




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[FRIAM] ** today ** Lecture Wed Sep 5, 12:30p: Jim Hayes - Hedging Complex and Chaotic Private Health Insurance Markets and the Uninsured

[Stephen Guerin]

** reminder today **

Jim Hayes
Albuquerque, NM
 
TITLE: Hedging Complex and Chaotic Private Health Insurance Markets and the
Uninsured
 
TIME:  Wednesday, September 5, 12:30p
 
LOCATION: Redfish Conference Room, 624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe NM
 
Lunch will be available for $5 purchase
 
ABSTRACT:  Jim was seduced by the dark side of economics to study how to hedge
complex and chaotic cash flows for private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid,
Social Security, and the uninsured. He has submitted for publication
consideration the first of two book manuscripts on what he found out about
hedging these cash flows. His presentation mostly covers financing and hedging
complex and chaotic private health insurance markets and the uninsured.



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Re: [FRIAM] TouchGraph | Products: Google Browser

[Owen Densmore]

Put in: complex adaptive systems ... sorta interesting.

On Sep 5, 2007, at 8:00 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> 
>
>
>  -- 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

 -- Owen




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Re: [FRIAM] wet artificial life in 3-10 years

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Roger Crichlow wrote:
> The AP has an article about the imminence of wet artificial life, as in
> synthetically constructed cells.
>
> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ARTIFICIAL_LIFE
>   
Related work as well as an article on climate change...

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/nb.story/story_id/11319





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[FRIAM] Microsoft/Novell collaboration on Silverlight

[Marcus G. Daniels]

http://tirania.org/blog/index.html
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQW07105092007-1.htm



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Re: [FRIAM] politics and cliques

[Glen E. P. Ropella]

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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> I may not be speaking directly to your actual phrase, describing what
>  you've gathered from complexity theory: "the extent versus the 
> objectives of control structures should show something like an
> inverse power law to maintain a balance between diversity and
> efficacy." I read that as meaning that you'd design an inverse square
> relation into your control systems.  I don't know what actual kind of
> controls you may be thinking of, or how you'd measure their diversity
> or efficacy, of course.

The actual controls I'm talking about are simple positive and negative
reinforcement of behavior.  For example, if someone breaks a law, we try
to apply negative reinforcement through punishment.  If someone does a
good job, we try to apply positive reinforcement through compensation.
But, I think the principle would also hold in engineering control systems.

When I say that a graph of extent versus number of objectives _shows_ an
inverse power law, I am not saying that I would design an inverse square
law into a control system.  I don't know why you insist on replacing
"power" with "square".  And I don't know how one would mistake "design"
for "show".  I simply mean that if you measured the panoply of existing
control structures using two measures: extent of the control structure
in space and time and number of objectives for that control structure,
you would see an inverse power relationship between the two measures.
I.e. the larger the extent of the control structure, the fewer its
objectives.  The smaller the extent, the higher its number of
objectives.  I have no idea if the power of the relation would turn out
to be 2 or not.

> Well, it's not half well enough studied, but inside and outside 
> perspectives of organization in systems are so very different it
> takes special care to keep them straight it seems to me.  I'm not
> even sure if one can discuss a system as having an inside (network
> cell of relations) since I haven't heard the 'news' in the journals
> yet and it seems to require a radical exception to the traditional
> view of determinism. Isn't the traditional view that all causation
> comes from the outside still the most widespread?

I don't know what the general view of causation is.  But, the general
categories for observation from the inside versus the outside are:
constructivism versus formalism.  When one observes a system
objectively, from the outside, it seems the tendency is to formalize
everything (a.k.a. remove the semantic grounding of the tokens that
represent constituents of the system).  When one observes a system
subjectively, from the inside, it seems the tendency is to retain the
semantics and construct explanations directly from the constituents of
the system.

My point was that, ultimately, there's no fundamental difference between
the two because even a subjective account of a phenomenon will involve
objectively defined sub-elements and an objective account of a
phenomenon will involve subjectively interpreted sub-elements.

The difference is one of _method_ not of substance.

> One of the differences between the two perspectives is the huge 
> difference inside and outside views is in the information content of 
> your observations.   If your view of the world is based on an
> insider's perspective of some self-organized 'hive' of activity, say
> a religious or social movement, it may be extremely hard to make
> sense of an outsider's view of exactly the same thing.  The insider's
> view is of all the internalized connections, and the outsider's view
> of essentially all the loose ends.  Getting them to connect can be
> very difficult.

But, as eluded to above, the reasons for this is that the inside view
retains the semantics and the outside view tries to reduce the relations
to pure syntax.  Pure syntax is best for prediction but piss-poor for
heuristic value.  Pure semantics is best for understanding but near
useless for prediction.

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by
using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions.
- -- Milton Friedman

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Re: [FRIAM] politics and cliques

[Glen E. P. Ropella]

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Your use of English confuses me at some points; but, I think I've gotten
your gist.  I agree that a scientist is not (indeed _cannot_) be neutral
or amoral.  Scientists are humans first and foremost.  And humans cannot
be neutral.  They are indocrinated throughout their life and learn
things IN context.  ("Neutrality", to some extent, implies a large
percentage of invariants through context changes.)  So, it is false to
claim that a scientist should be neutral.

However, it is not false to claim that science (in contrast to the
humans who engage in it) can be mostly neutral.  It can't be completely
neutral because every product of science assumes some sub-set of all the
other products of science.  But, it can at least be somewhat spatially
and temporally context independent.  In fact, that's part of the
definition of science, that it contain invariants through time and space.

The point you bring up about individuals (or sub-groups) and their
posited models is a good one.  But, a model is NOT scientific if it is
only posited, held, or tested once (by one individual or one execution).
 A model can only be scientific if it's been posited, held, and/or
tested by multiple people, in multiple contexts, and executed multiple
times.  Science is a social phenomenon, external to any single
individual and (hopefully) external to any single sub-group.

The interesting part of science, to me, lies in applying its results.
And in that sense, science definitely has a social role to play.  In
fact, there's little point in engaging in science if all you want is to
understand the universe, by yourself in your closet.  You can understand
the universe in purely metaphysical or metaphorical terms if you like.
The point of science is to collectively pursue not just understanding
but meaning and engineering.

Alfredo CV wrote:
> Many years ago when I was working on my undergraduate thesis in the
> jungle of Amazonas in Colombia, I knew a North American Anthropologist
> whom had been working there for a long time studying the way how an
> indigenous culture disappeared. I horrified with it and thought It was
> inmoral. Older members of the team of researchers where I was working
> told me that she was making science and that a scientific must be
> neutral. I think it's totally false. A scientific has an emotional and
> political charge, deep inside feels himself like a demiurge and for
> these reasons can't be completely impartial. What is science for?
> Science have a social function, must help us to understand and resolve
> problems but of course is an instruments of politics because finally we
> are in a world of gangs.
> 
> I have an hypothesis: biotechnology, robotics, informatics, smart
> software and internationalization of economy will increase poverty in
> the underdeveloped world. I'm not a scientific but suppose I am,  I take
> data and develop a sophisticated model. Maybe, be sure,  I'll conclude
> that my hypothesis is true and I'll say for first time something
> brilliant like "Poverty is a emergent process"...  wow, what a
> conclusion!!!.  If a guy which dream is to be high executive of the
> World Bank, IMF or WTO takes data and develops a sophisticated model
> will conclude that my hypothesis is false and will say "Richness is an
> emergent process". Maybe neither of us will be telling lies, of course
> I'll be right but I'll pray for his conclusion to be right because at
> the end he will be a high executive and will have the last word.

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
The poet, the artist, the sleuth - whoever sharpens our perception tends
to be antisocial... he cannot go along with currents and trends. --
Alfred North Whitehead

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Re: [FRIAM] politics and cliques

[Glen E. P. Ropella]

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Robert Cordingley wrote:
> re: important point 1.  It is easier for me to see/say that it is
> _unethical_ to _not_ lend some assistance to deprived segments in order
> to improve their lot.  Reduce the segment to one deprived human being
> that you pass in the street.  There are may variables in the encounter:
> one's schedule, feeling of well-being, attire of the unfortunate being
> and the urge to extend a helping hand.  Where does that come from if not
> from one's ethical background.

Exactly!  For problems with many variables, _local_ controls are
adequate (or even common).  An example of a local control would be an
individual's ability to regulate how much "spare change" they hand to a
transient based on the measurements they take in context.

An example of a non-local control would be, e.g., banning all transients
from the city of Santa Cruz.

In the first case, the individual gets to handle it all, including how
much money (resources) is doled out, whether the subject is a
"transient", the attire of the subject, how much spare change is
available in the individual's pocket or in the subject's can, etc.

In the second case, some generic definition of "transient" must be
found, some definition of "ban" must be found, some definition of "Santa
Cruz" must be found.  And these definitions would provide umbrellas for
many finer-grained variables.

> Where does that come from if not from one's ethical background.

This is where the trick lies.  Ethical indocrination is sub-group
dependent.  Let's say I was reared in New York where it is ethically
acceptable to ignore transients.  Then there are zero problems when I
translate to Santa Cruz and ignore transients there (except for the
aggressive ones, of course ;-).  But, if I were reared in Santa Cruz,
where it used to be considered "good" to help homeless people, and I
translated to New York, I'd soon be broke from handing out all my cash!

This is handled in a non-local way, however.  In Santa Cruz and New
York, the collective gets together and hammers out policy that somehow
embodies the generalized individual ethics of many of the people.  But
when an individual translates from one context to the other, the
non-local control structure changes (the individual's ethics don't... or
not as fast, anyway).  And the result is dissonance between the
individual ethic (local control) and the non-local control structure.

Hence, how much money I give to a beggar does NOT merely come from my
ethical background; but, it also comes from whatever non-local control
structure in which I sit.  In places where the homeless are partially
taken care of through government sponsored programs, I may choose not to
give anything to a transient even though my ethical background would
suggest otherwise.

> re: important point 2  It wasn't my point to say the labels were
> ethically justified but to point out that labels e.g. one being
> "libertarian", were not clear cut definitions.  One can hold x political
> view in some issues and y on others when pedants might object to say
> that x and y were incompatible.  There may be no ethical dilemma for one
> to believe in x and y, though other's may debate it.

Right.  I did not intend to suggest that you were providing ethical
justifications for any given label.  But, your list of causal relations
between the label and some context points out that justification is
important.  Not necessarily "ethical justification"... plain old rhetoric.

If the justification for a label is not accepted by others, then the
justification is _questionable_.  This covers your point that the labels
are not clear cut.  But it also includes situations where the definition
is fine but the grammar that leads from one statement to another can be
called into question.

Sorry for my poor choice of words before.

> I thought the "extent of a control structure" and "the number of
> objectives" were two attributes of government that your studies, or at
> least your thinking, had connected as related through an inverse power
> law.  Neither needs justifying.  I'm probably missing the point or not
> familiar with your definition of 'justified'.

It's mostly just my _thinking_, not my studies.  I don't work in
sociology, politics, or any of that.  But both measures need
justification.  A measure of the extent of a control structure could be
manipulated to give any sort of answer.  So, a concrete measure of
extent needs justifying.  For example, is it enough to define "extent"
in terms of space and time?  Can a politician in DC actually write,
enforce, or judge actions based on laws governing people in Washington
state?  Is a law written in 1878 (Posse Comitatus) applicable in 2006?
Or is it also necessary to consider some sort of cultural extent as well
as spatial and temporal extent?

Such rhetoric is "justification".  And both measures (extent and number
of objectives) require such justification.

> re: Q1) "Do non-loc

Re: [FRIAM] politics and cliques

[Phil Henshaw]

Glen,

> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > I may not be speaking directly to your actual phrase, 
> describing what  
> > you've gathered from complexity theory: "the extent versus the 
> > objectives of control structures should show something like 
> an inverse 
> > power law to maintain a balance between diversity and efficacy." I 
> > read that as meaning that you'd design an inverse square 
> relation into 
> > your control systems.  I don't know what actual kind of 
> controls you 
> > may be thinking of, or how you'd measure their diversity or 
> efficacy, 
> > of course.
> 
> The actual controls I'm talking about are simple positive and 
> negative reinforcement of behavior.  For example, if someone 
> breaks a law, we try to apply negative reinforcement through 
> punishment.  If someone does a good job, we try to apply 
> positive reinforcement through compensation. But, I think the 
> principle would also hold in engineering control systems.

OK, pushes and pulls, in directions chosen by a 'controller'.  Does that
include looking at the subjects of control to see how they find it
easiest and hardest to respond?   In other words is the thing you call
'control' just as easily a complex system learning process? 


> When I say that a graph of extent versus number of objectives 
> _shows_ an inverse power law, I am not saying that I would 
> design an inverse square law into a control system.  I don't 
> know why you insist on replacing "power" with "square".  And 
> I don't know how one would mistake "design" for "show".  I 
> simply mean that if you measured the panoply of existing 
> control structures using two measures: extent of the control 
> structure in space and time and number of objectives for that 
> control structure, you would see an inverse power 
> relationship between the two measures. I.e. the larger the 
> extent of the control structure, the fewer its objectives.  
> The smaller the extent, the higher its number of objectives.  
> I have no idea if the power of the relation would turn out to 
> be 2 or not.

I guess bending my mind to directly think about the distributed 'process
ecologies' of complex systems, leaves me to make occasional odd errors
in math...   No, I do mean to be talking about Pareto distributions and
the inverse power law family or relationships.  I also should not
dismiss the usefulness of designing a control strategy to fit the
statistically probable shape of the problem you're dealing with.
Whether statistics ignore individual characteristics or not they still
do save a lot of time!   I suppose there are lots of good examples of
exceptions to my notion that designing systems to follow inverse power
laws is an error.

> 
> > Well, it's not half well enough studied, but inside and outside
> > perspectives of organization in systems are so very different it
> > takes special care to keep them straight it seems to me.  I'm not
> > even sure if one can discuss a system as having an inside (network
> > cell of relations) since I haven't heard the 'news' in the journals
> > yet and it seems to require a radical exception to the traditional
> > view of determinism. Isn't the traditional view that all causation
> > comes from the outside still the most widespread?
> 
> I don't know what the general view of causation is.  But, the 
> general categories for observation from the inside versus the 
> outside are: constructivism versus formalism.  When one 
> observes a system objectively, from the outside, it seems the 
> tendency is to formalize everything (a.k.a. remove the 
> semantic grounding of the tokens that represent constituents 
> of the system).  When one observes a system subjectively, 
> from the inside, it seems the tendency is to retain the 
> semantics and construct explanations directly from the 
> constituents of the system.
> 
> My point was that, ultimately, there's no fundamental 
> difference between the two because even a subjective account 
> of a phenomenon will involve objectively defined sub-elements 
> and an objective account of a phenomenon will involve 
> subjectively interpreted sub-elements.

I think my point would be that outside perspectives are highly naturally
subjective in a hidden way, causing there to be a big difference between
inside and outside views.  Your premise seems to be that your observer
is all seeing.  For a real outside observer of any independent cell of
relationships, the relationships are not participated in and the
existence of the system they are part of is thus completely invisible.
It's only when the observer steps inside the system, getting into the
loop, that they suddenly become aware of the whole other world of
relationships it represents.   We see this over and over, that systems
develop in secret from us and then our awareness of them bursts into our
attention.  I think that's a direct effect of systems developing as
truly independent cells of relationships.

> 
> The difference is one of _method_ not of substanc