Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen
Ok, 'find a function' assumes there is one to find, but the problem set is running into behavior which has already had major consequences (like starvation for 100million people because of an unexpected world food price level shift) and the question is what 'function' would you use to not be caught flat footed like that. Is there some general function to use in cases where you have no function and don't even know what the problem definition will be? I actually have a very good one, but you won't like it because it means using the models to understand what they fail to describe rather than the usual method of using them to represent other things. Phil Henshaw .·´ ¯ `·. ~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: www.synapse9.com in the last 200 years the amount of change that once needed a century of thought now takes just five weeks -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 12:36 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen phil henshaw wrote: Glen wrote: I believe so. At least 1/2 of the solution to any problem lies in a good formulation of the problem. And in that sense, being able to state (as precisely as possible) which closures are maintained in which context and which closures are broken in which context, therefore, contributes immensely to the solution. [ph] the requirement is that your model describe new behavior of independent organisms or communities things you have no information about because they never occurred before. What's the modeling strategy for that? Find a function that well describes a state of a thing or aggregate measurement of interest at t - 2 that gives the state at t - 1 that gives a state at t. Then prediction is a matter of applying the function more times. Add more functions to describe more individual things or aggregates and note when there are shared functions in those definitions (e.g. food web fundamentally depends photosynthesis). If you want to define all things to be independent, then there is no point in talking about interactions -- you've already defined away the possibility of that!Covariance is zero. Marcus 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
Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen
phil henshaw wrote: Ok, 'find a function' assumes there is one to find, but the problem set is running into behavior which has already had major consequences (like starvation for 100million people because of an unexpected world food price level shift) and the question is what 'function' would you use to not be caught flat footed like that. The caloric requirements of a person are autocorrelated, but probably for a lot of models a constant will suffice -- a certain amount of body weight decrease, and then the probability of death goes up. As for price fluctuations, that's a matter of modeling the natural resources that go in to food, the costs and benefits to motivate farmers, the commodity markets, and so on. Certainly we can try to understand how each of these work, and then do what-if scenarios when one or more components are perturbed (or destroyed). It's still a matter of finding stories (functions) to fit observables. The availability and accuracy of those observables may be poor, and sometimes all that is possible to imagine worst and best cases, run the numbers, and see how the result changes. Is there some general function to use in cases where you have no function and don't even know what the problem definition will be? I think you do know what the problem could look like, but most details remain unspecified. If you can construct an example that has catastrophes of the kind you often talk about, and spell out all of the details of your work of fiction (that even may happen to resemble reality), such that the what-if scenarios can be reproduced in simulations, then others can study the sensitivities. If there is a `forcing structure' that will occur in many, many variant forms, then you can demonstrate that. I actually have a very good one, but you won't like it because it means using the models to understand what they fail to describe rather than the usual method of using them to represent other things. Right. Model predicts something, it turns out to have some error structure and that structure suggests ways to improve the model or make a new one. Paper published. Meanwhile another guy makes a different model on the same phenomena and publishes a paper. Third person reads the two papers and has idea that accounts for problems in both. So she makes a new model! Marcus 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
Re: [FRIAM] office stuff/computers for sale cheap in Santa Fe
I'll take one of the Linux boxes -- the dual cpu one. I can pick it up this afternoon... --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 11:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry if this is off-topic. I'm closing my santa fe office, in the Sanbusco Center. Have some stuff I don't really feel like moving. Let me know if you are interested. Gotta be out by Wednesday evening. please email me directly: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] cheers, Jim Linux Computer 2.1Ghz, 2Gig mem $50 Linux Computer dual 2.1 Ghz, 2Gig mem $70 6' desk, light colored wood $25 Small dark wood kitchen style table $10 office table, 6'. non folding $20 office table, folding $10 full size bookcase $20 GE 1/2 size fridge $40 various framed AnselAdams and sailing pix $5 each office chairs $5 each other stuff as I come across it 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
Re: [FRIAM] office stuff/computers for sale cheap in Santa Fe
OK. it's not quite ready to go as I need to wipe our stuff off of it, but I'll set it aside for you. cheers, -jim Original Message Subject: Re: [FRIAM] office stuff/computers for sale cheap in Santa FeFrom: "Douglas Roberts" [EMAIL PROTECTED]Date: Sat, April 26, 2008 11:35 amTo: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"friam@redfish.comI'll take one of the Linux boxes -- the dual cpu one. I can pick it up this afternoon...--Doug-- Doug Roberts, RTI International[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED]505-455-7333 - Office505-670-8195 - Cell On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 11:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry if this is off-topic. I'm closing my santa fe office, in the Sanbusco Center. Have some stuff I don't really feel like moving. Let me know if you are interested. Gotta be out by Wednesday evening. please email me directly: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cheers, Jim Linux Computer 2.1Ghz, 2Gig mem $50 Linux Computer dual 2.1 Ghz, 2Gig mem $70 6' desk, light colored wood $25 Small dark wood kitchen style table $10 office table, 6'. non folding $20 office table, folding $10 full size bookcase $20 GE 1/2 size fridge $40 various framed AnselAdams and sailing pix $5 each office chairs $5 each other stuff as I come across it FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, 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
Re: [FRIAM] Rosen
I havent been able to follow the conversation but the following caught my eye Machines are the produce of a self-consistent model in the mind of the inventor, cities and technologies are complex learning processes that grow out of their own environments like all other natural systems..etc. Please dont forget the whip sockets on the early model A's. NIck [Original Message] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: friam@redfish.com Date: 4/26/2008 10:00:38 AM Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 58, Issue 25 Send Friam mailing list submissions to friam@redfish.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Friam digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: recap on Rosen (glen e. p. ropella) 2. Re: recap on Rosen (glen e. p. ropella) 3. Re: recap on Rosen (phil henshaw) 4. Re: recap on Rosen (Russell Standish) 5. Re: recap on Rosen (phil henshaw) 6. Re: recap on Rosen (Marcus G. Daniels) 7. Re: recap on Rosen (phil henshaw) 8. Re: recap on Rosen (Marcus G. Daniels) -- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:13:08 -0700 From: glen e. p. ropella [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 phil henshaw wrote: Self-consistent models represent environments very well, just omitting their living parts, mind without matter. Would any of the things you guys suggested fix that? I believe so. At least 1/2 of the solution to any problem lies in a good formulation of the problem. And in that sense, being able to state (as precisely as possible) which closures are maintained in which context and which closures are broken in which context, therefore, contributes immensely to the solution. I.e. if the problem is that our modeling methods only capture isolable (separable, linear, analytic, etc.) systems _well_, then we need other modeling methods to capture holistic (nonlinear, non-analytic) systems. As I understand it, this is the basic conception behind the sustainability movement, somehow capturing or understanding externalities and engineering organizations so that their waste is more useful to other organizations. What Rosen tried to do (in my _opinion_) is help us specify what parts of our modeling methods are inadequate to the task of capturing certain broken closures. I.e. I think he tried to explain _why_ so many of our models are so fragile, namely, because they cannot capture the closure of efficient cause (agency). That concept requires no mathematics (ala category theory). But he tried to communicate the concept using mathematics and logic via the discussions of Poincare's impredicativity and rhetorical vs. causal loops. So, yes, I think these things can help with our understanding of the fragility of _simple_ models (mechanism in Rosen's peculiar terminology). Even if Rosen's MR-systems or his closure to efficient cause are inadequate to the task (which I think they _are_), at least considering those attempts and how/where they may fail facilitates our progress toward other, hopefully more successful, solutions. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. -- Omar N. Bradley -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIEjtUpVJZMHoGoM8RAt6gAJkB0y2YDBB3/LsFr8i561UrfEPvsgCggAKu I8mcbIbWrFljoixYiONhrCg= =CxBC -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Message: 2 Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:25:46 -0700 From: glen e. p. ropella [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl wrote: OK. So RR makes a prohibitive claim ... something like living systems cannot be accurately modeled with a UTM because MR systems cannot be realized. And you are refuting that claim by a counter-claim that MR systems _can_ be realized, emphasizing that the recursion theorem is crucial to such a realization. Do I have it right? Yes that's basically my claim - RR also mentions his closed efficient cause, that's where the rec. theorem comes in: you can code whatever behaviour you like and then replicate it
Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen
No, that does not work at all. Patching together a model to suite a symptom in retrospect does not help you with being ready for unexpected eventfulness in nature that you previously had no idea that you should be looking for. Phil Henshaw .·´ ¯ `·. ~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: www.synapse9.com in the last 200 years the amount of change that once needed a century of thought now takes just five weeks -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 10:45 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen phil henshaw wrote: Ok, 'find a function' assumes there is one to find, but the problem set is running into behavior which has already had major consequences (like starvation for 100million people because of an unexpected world food price level shift) and the question is what 'function' would you use to not be caught flat footed like that. The caloric requirements of a person are autocorrelated, but probably for a lot of models a constant will suffice -- a certain amount of body weight decrease, and then the probability of death goes up. As for price fluctuations, that's a matter of modeling the natural resources that go in to food, the costs and benefits to motivate farmers, the commodity markets, and so on. Certainly we can try to understand how each of these work, and then do what-if scenarios when one or more components are perturbed (or destroyed). It's still a matter of finding stories (functions) to fit observables. The availability and accuracy of those observables may be poor, and sometimes all that is possible to imagine worst and best cases, run the numbers, and see how the result changes. Is there some general function to use in cases where you have no function and don't even know what the problem definition will be? I think you do know what the problem could look like, but most details remain unspecified. If you can construct an example that has catastrophes of the kind you often talk about, and spell out all of the details of your work of fiction (that even may happen to resemble reality), such that the what-if scenarios can be reproduced in simulations, then others can study the sensitivities. If there is a `forcing structure' that will occur in many, many variant forms, then you can demonstrate that. I actually have a very good one, but you won't like it because it means using the models to understand what they fail to describe rather than the usual method of using them to represent other things. Right. Model predicts something, it turns out to have some error structure and that structure suggests ways to improve the model or make a new one. Paper published. Meanwhile another guy makes a different model on the same phenomena and publishes a paper. Third person reads the two papers and has idea that accounts for problems in both. So she makes a new model! Marcus 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
Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen
phil henshaw wrote: No, that does not work at all. Patching together a model to suite a symptom in retrospect does not help you with being ready for unexpected eventfulness in nature that you previously had no idea that you should be looking for. Never said anything about symptoms. I did suggest maybe you ought to plan on measuring something in particular to see if models (whether your own or those you are interpreting) are consistent with reality in a statistically meaningful way. You can posit whatever driving events or processes you want in-silco. A comet striking the earth, people selling their organs to increase the profit margins of the companies, the importance of prophets in collective decision making, or whatever.. 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
Re: [FRIAM] office stuff/computers for sale cheap in Santa Fe
Any time when I could drop by to check the things out? I'll take the other linux computer if it hasn't gone yet. --joshua --- Joshua Thorp Redfish Group 624 Agua Fria, Santa Fe, NM On Apr 26, 2008, at 11:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry if this is off-topic. I'm closing my santa fe office, in the Sanbusco Center. Have some stuff I don't really feel like moving. Let me know if you are interested. Gotta be out by Wednesday evening. please email me directly: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cheers, Jim Linux Computer 2.1Ghz, 2Gig mem $50 Linux Computer dual 2.1 Ghz, 2Gig mem $70 6' desk, light colored wood $25 Small dark wood kitchen style table $10 office table, 6'. non folding $20 office table, folding $10 full size bookcase $20 GE 1/2 size fridge $40 various framed AnselAdams and sailing pix $5 each office chairs $5 each other stuff as I come across it 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
