Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Russ Abbott]

Nick,

When you suggested a hurricane as an example of a complex system I replied
that a hurricane is interesting because it's a non-biological system (and
not a human artifact) that uses energy that it extracts from outside itself
to maintain its structure. That's an interesting and important
characteristic. Biological systems do that also, Maturana & Varela, but I
don't see that as sufficient to grant it the quality of being a complex
system.

-- Russ

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 9:06 PM Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> Thanks, Glen,
>
>
>
> Larding below:
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 11:34 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?
>
>
>
> Although you're repeating what I'd said earlier about relying on a more
> vernacular sense of "complex", we have to admit something you've yet to
> acknowledge.
>
> *[NST==>I missed this, and going back through the thread, I have not found
> it.  Can you reproduce it for me without too much strain?  <==nst] *
>
>  (I realize that the things I've said in this thread have been mostly
> ignorable.  So, it's reasonable that they've been missed.)  First, circular
> reasoning is used all the time in math.
>
> *[NST==>I am not talking about tautology, here: x is x.  I am talking
> about circular explanation: x is the cause of x.  Surely you would agree
> that having defined X as whatever is caused by Y, I have not added much to
> our store of knowledge concerning what sorts of things Y causes.  But you
> are correct, not all circular explanations are entirely vicious/vacuous, of
> course. It depends on the assumptions the discussants bring to the table.
> See,
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychology_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations<==nst
> ]*
>
>  So, it is not the bug-a-boo logicians claim it to be.  Again, Maturana &
> Varela, Rosen, Kaufmann, et al have all used it to valid and sound effect.
>
> *[NST==>I would be grateful for a passage from any of these folks where
> strictly circular reasoning is used to good effect. <==nst] *
>
>
>
> Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with
> entities outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.
>
> *[NST==>Well, if that is how one defines closure, then I am bound to
> agree.  Then, it’s not clear to me what the function of “nothing but” is,
> in your sentence.  But reading through your earlier posts (petri dish)
> suggests that for you closure is absolute; for me, systematicity is a
> variable and we would have to have some sort of a mutual understanding of
> where along that dimension we start calling something a system. <==nst] *
>
> Or if I can infer from the lack of response to my broaching the term, we
> could use "coherence" or some other word.
>
> *[NST==>Yes, but coherence, for me, carries more richness than what I was
> grasping for.  For you, perhaps not.  I guess “coherence” is ok.  <==nst] *
>
>  And that means that your working definition is not naive.
>
> *[NST==>Huh?  You mean I don’t get to be in charge of whether I am naïve,
> or not?  Are you some kind of behaviorist?  <==nst] *
>
>  It does rely on an intuition that many of us share.
>
> *[NST==>Bollox!  It relies on the plain meaning of the word (he said
> grumpily).  <==nst] *
>
>   But in order for you to know what you're talking about, you have to
> apply a bit more formality to that concept.
>
> *[NST==>This thread isn’t coherent for me.  Somebody asks if natural
> systems can be complex.  This is a lot of intricate talk which I frankly
> didn’t follow but which seemed to suggest that only symbol systems could be
> complex.  But I could detect no definition of complexity to warrant that
> restriction.  So I offered a definition of complexity (which may have been
> the same as yours – forgive me), offered an example of a natural complex
> system, a hurricane, and came to the conclusion that indeed, some natural
> systems are complex.  To my knowledge, nobody has addressed that claim.
> But I have been traveling, my eye sight sucks, and I may have missed it.
> If anybody has addressed this claim, could somebody direct me to a copy of
> their post.  I would be grateful. <==nst] *
>
>
>
> *Perhaps Steve Smith, who has often rescued me when I have made these
> messes in the past, could gently point out to me my error.  *
>
>
>
> *Top temperature today 49 degrees.  90’s predicted for next week. I am
> ready. *
>
>
>
> *Best to you all, *
>
>
>
> *Nick *
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 06/06/2017 07:20 AM, Nick Thompson w

Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Nick Thompson]

Thanks, Glen,

 

Larding below: 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 11:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

 

Although you're repeating what I'd said earlier about relying on a more 
vernacular sense of "complex", we have to admit something you've yet to 
acknowledge. 

[NST==>I missed this, and going back through the thread, I have not found it.  
Can you reproduce it for me without too much strain?  <==nst] 

 (I realize that the things I've said in this thread have been mostly 
ignorable.  So, it's reasonable that they've been missed.)  First, circular 
reasoning is used all the time in math. 

[NST==>I am not talking about tautology, here: x is x.  I am talking about 
circular explanation: x is the cause of x.  Surely you would agree that having 
defined X as whatever is caused by Y, I have not added much to our store of 
knowledge concerning what sorts of things Y causes.  But you are correct, not 
all circular explanations are entirely vicious/vacuous, of course. It depends 
on the assumptions the discussants bring to the table.  See, 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychology_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations
 

 <==nst]

 So, it is not the bug-a-boo logicians claim it to be.  Again, Maturana & 
Varela, Rosen, Kaufmann, et al have all used it to valid and sound effect.

[NST==>I would be grateful for a passage from any of these folks where strictly 
circular reasoning is used to good effect. <==nst] 

 

Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with entities 
outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.  

[NST==>Well, if that is how one defines closure, then I am bound to agree.  
Then, it’s not clear to me what the function of “nothing but” is, in your 
sentence.  But reading through your earlier posts (petri dish) suggests that 
for you closure is absolute; for me, systematicity is a variable and we would 
have to have some sort of a mutual understanding of where along that dimension 
we start calling something a system. <==nst] 

Or if I can infer from the lack of response to my broaching the term, we could 
use "coherence" or some other word. 

[NST==>Yes, but coherence, for me, carries more richness than what I was 
grasping for.  For you, perhaps not.  I guess “coherence” is ok.  <==nst] 

 And that means that your working definition is not naive. 

[NST==>Huh?  You mean I don’t get to be in charge of whether I am naïve, or 
not?  Are you some kind of behaviorist?  <==nst] 

 It does rely on an intuition that many of us share.

[NST==>Bollox!  It relies on the plain meaning of the word (he said grumpily).  
<==nst] 

  But in order for you to know what you're talking about, you have to apply a 
bit more formality to that concept.

[NST==>This thread isn’t coherent for me.  Somebody asks if natural systems can 
be complex.  This is a lot of intricate talk which I frankly didn’t follow but 
which seemed to suggest that only symbol systems could be complex.  But I could 
detect no definition of complexity to warrant that restriction.  So I offered a 
definition of complexity (which may have been the same as yours – forgive me), 
offered an example of a natural complex system, a hurricane, and came to the 
conclusion that indeed, some natural systems are complex.  To my knowledge, 
nobody has addressed that claim.  But I have been traveling, my eye sight 
sucks, and I may have missed it.  If anybody has addressed this claim, could 
somebody direct me to a copy of their post.  I would be grateful. <==nst] 

 

Perhaps Steve Smith, who has often rescued me when I have made these messes in 
the past, could gently point out to me my error.  

 

Top temperature today 49 degrees.  90’s predicted for next week. I am ready. 

 

Best to you all, 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

 

On 06/06/2017 07:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> Dear Eric and Steve, and the gang,

> 

>  

> 

> When I first moved to Santa Fe on Sabbatical 12 years ago, I was merely 67, 
> and there was a chance, just a chance, that I might become expert enough in 
> complexity science and model programming  to deal with you guys on a somewhat 
> equal footing.  But that never happened, and, now, it is too late.  I am 
> amazed by the intricacy of your discussion and the broad reach of your 
> thought.  There is really little more than I can do then wish you all well, 
> and back out of the conversation with my head bowed and my hat clasped to my 
> chest.  

> 

>  

> 

> Before I leave this conversation, I would

Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Marcus Daniels]

To clarify, one could contrast a procedure that resulted in the most reliable 
predictions but was not built on any ontology vs. one that could be 
communicated in a compact way and generalized to make other kinds of 
predictions but all of its predictions were not as reliable.

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 4:16 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

If one had full genome sequences for a lot of people and used a supervised 
learning procedure to predict the intellectual disability, that would not be 
result in a coherent explanation? 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ep ropella
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 4:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

E.g. this seems like a coherent definition of coherence.  Is it lost in its 
technical detail?  Maybe.  Ontologies are rife with assumptions, like any other 
model.

Systematic Phenomics Analysis Deconvolutes Genes Mutated in Intellectual 
Disability into Biologically Coherent Modules
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929715004954

> Cluster biological coherence was calculated as follows. First, we retrieved 
> the GO terms associated with the disease genes under- lying cluster 
> syndromes. These GO terms were then pooled across all genes causing the same 
> syndrome, resulting in a set of GO terms annotated to the syndrome. To 
> incorporate ontological relation- ships between GO terms into the comparison, 
> we added all term ancestors to the GO term set, excluding the root terms for 
> the three GO categories. This approach has been shown to work as well as more 
> complicated approaches.31 For each syndrome pair, we deter- mined the GO term 
> overlap between the two syndromes:
> 
>   S_p(i,j) = n(G_i ∩ G_j)/n(G_i ∪ G_j)  (1)
> 
> where S_p(i,j) is the pairwise GO term overlap score for diseases i and j, n 
> is the number of GO terms meeting the specified criteria, and G_i and G_j are 
> the sets of GO terms associated with diseases i and j, respectively. For each 
> cluster, the mean pairwise overlap was used as the biological coherence score 
> for that cluster:
> 
>   n
>S_c =  Σ S_p(i,j)/n
>  i,j
> 
> where S_c is the genetic cohesiveness score for cluster c, S_p(i,j) is the GO 
> overlap score for diseases i and j, and n is the number of disease pairs in 
> the cluster. The mean biological coherence score across all clusters was used 
> as the overall cluster biological coherence score for the database:
> 
>n
>S = Σ S_c/n
>c
> 
> where S is the overall genetic cohesiveness score for the phenotype data set, 
> S_c is the genetic cohesiveness score for cluster c, and n is the number of 
> clusters in the phenotype data set.

On 06/06/2017 08:33 AM, ┣glen┫ wrote:
> Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with 
> entities outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.  Or if I can infer from 
> the lack of response to my broaching the term, we could use "coherence" or 
> some other word.  And that means that your working definition is not naive.  
> It does rely on an intuition that many of us share.  But in order for you to 
> know what you're talking about, you have to apply a bit more formality to 
> that concept.

--
glen ep ropella ⊥ 971-280-5699


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Marcus Daniels]

If one had full genome sequences for a lot of people and used a supervised 
learning procedure to predict the intellectual disability, that would not be 
result in a coherent explanation? 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ep ropella
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 4:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

E.g. this seems like a coherent definition of coherence.  Is it lost in its 
technical detail?  Maybe.  Ontologies are rife with assumptions, like any other 
model.

Systematic Phenomics Analysis Deconvolutes Genes Mutated in Intellectual 
Disability into Biologically Coherent Modules
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929715004954

> Cluster biological coherence was calculated as follows. First, we retrieved 
> the GO terms associated with the disease genes under- lying cluster 
> syndromes. These GO terms were then pooled across all genes causing the same 
> syndrome, resulting in a set of GO terms annotated to the syndrome. To 
> incorporate ontological relation- ships between GO terms into the comparison, 
> we added all term ancestors to the GO term set, excluding the root terms for 
> the three GO categories. This approach has been shown to work as well as more 
> complicated approaches.31 For each syndrome pair, we deter- mined the GO term 
> overlap between the two syndromes:
> 
>   S_p(i,j) = n(G_i ∩ G_j)/n(G_i ∪ G_j)  (1)
> 
> where S_p(i,j) is the pairwise GO term overlap score for diseases i and j, n 
> is the number of GO terms meeting the specified criteria, and G_i and G_j are 
> the sets of GO terms associated with diseases i and j, respectively. For each 
> cluster, the mean pairwise overlap was used as the biological coherence score 
> for that cluster:
> 
>   n
>S_c =  Σ S_p(i,j)/n
>  i,j
> 
> where S_c is the genetic cohesiveness score for cluster c, S_p(i,j) is the GO 
> overlap score for diseases i and j, and n is the number of disease pairs in 
> the cluster. The mean biological coherence score across all clusters was used 
> as the overall cluster biological coherence score for the database:
> 
>n
>S = Σ S_c/n
>c
> 
> where S is the overall genetic cohesiveness score for the phenotype data set, 
> S_c is the genetic cohesiveness score for cluster c, and n is the number of 
> clusters in the phenotype data set.

On 06/06/2017 08:33 AM, ┣glen┫ wrote:
> Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with 
> entities outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.  Or if I can infer from 
> the lack of response to my broaching the term, we could use "coherence" or 
> some other word.  And that means that your working definition is not naive.  
> It does rely on an intuition that many of us share.  But in order for you to 
> know what you're talking about, you have to apply a bit more formality to 
> that concept.

--
glen ep ropella ⊥ 971-280-5699


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[glen ep ropella]

E.g. this seems like a coherent definition of coherence.  Is it lost in its 
technical detail?  Maybe.  Ontologies are rife with assumptions, like any other 
model.

Systematic Phenomics Analysis Deconvolutes Genes Mutated in Intellectual 
Disability into Biologically Coherent Modules
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929715004954

> Cluster biological coherence was calculated as follows. First, we retrieved 
> the GO terms associated with the disease genes under- lying cluster 
> syndromes. These GO terms were then pooled across all genes causing the same 
> syndrome, resulting in a set of GO terms annotated to the syndrome. To 
> incorporate ontological relation- ships between GO terms into the comparison, 
> we added all term ancestors to the GO term set, excluding the root terms for 
> the three GO categories. This approach has been shown to work as well as more 
> complicated approaches.31 For each syndrome pair, we deter- mined the GO term 
> overlap between the two syndromes:
> 
>   S_p(i,j) = n(G_i ∩ G_j)/n(G_i ∪ G_j)  (1)
> 
> where S_p(i,j) is the pairwise GO term overlap score for diseases i and j, n 
> is the number of GO terms meeting the specified criteria, and G_i and G_j are 
> the sets of GO terms associated with diseases i and j, respectively. For each 
> cluster, the mean pairwise overlap was used as the biological coherence score 
> for that cluster:
> 
>   n
>S_c =  Σ S_p(i,j)/n
>  i,j
> 
> where S_c is the genetic cohesiveness score for cluster c, S_p(i,j) is the GO 
> overlap score for diseases i and j, and n is the number of disease pairs in 
> the cluster. The mean biological coherence score across all clusters was used 
> as the overall cluster biological coherence score for the database:
> 
>n
>S = Σ S_c/n
>c
> 
> where S is the overall genetic cohesiveness score for the phenotype data set, 
> S_c is the genetic cohesiveness score for cluster c, and n is the number of 
> clusters in the phenotype data set.

On 06/06/2017 08:33 AM, ┣glen┫ wrote:
> Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with 
> entities outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.  Or if I can infer from 
> the lack of response to my broaching the term, we could use "coherence" or 
> some other word.  And that means that your working definition is not naive.  
> It does rely on an intuition that many of us share.  But in order for you to 
> know what you're talking about, you have to apply a bit more formality to 
> that concept.

-- 
glen ep ropella ⊥ 971-280-5699


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] the woman behind the woman

[Steven A Smith]

SLC Utah!



On 6/6/17 9:32 AM, Barry MacKichan wrote:
“He stayed with DEC until retirement, taking a few years sabbatical to 
work at a startup which sold out big enough to give him room to then 
singlehandedly build a PASCAL compiler and P-Code interpreter for the 
pre-DOS IBM PC”


Was his startup in Vancouver or Burnaby, BC?

--Barry




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Re: [FRIAM] the woman behind the woman

[Owen Densmore]

Hey, thanks! I had Cosma's old page .. umich .. what a great site and blog.

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 9:32 AM, Barry MacKichan <
barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> wrote:

> “He stayed with DEC until retirement, taking a few years sabbatical to
> work at a startup which sold out big enough to give him room to then
> singlehandedly build a PASCAL compiler and P-Code interpreter for the
> pre-DOS IBM PC”
>
> Was his startup in Vancouver or Burnaby, BC?
>
> --Barry
>
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[┣glen┫]

Although you're repeating what I'd said earlier about relying on a more 
vernacular sense of "complex", we have to admit something you've yet to 
acknowledge.  (I realize that the things I've said in this thread have been 
mostly ignorable.  So, it's reasonable that they've been missed.)  First, 
circular reasoning is used all the time in math.  So, it is not the bug-a-boo 
logicians claim it to be.  Again, Maturana & Varela, Rosen, Kaufmann, et al 
have all used it to valid and sound effect.

Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with entities 
outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.  Or if I can infer from the lack of 
response to my broaching the term, we could use "coherence" or some other word. 
 And that means that your working definition is not naive.  It does rely on an 
intuition that many of us share.  But in order for you to know what you're 
talking about, you have to apply a bit more formality to that concept.



On 06/06/2017 07:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Dear Eric and Steve, and the gang, 
> 
>  
> 
> When I first moved to Santa Fe on Sabbatical 12 years ago, I was merely 67, 
> and there was a chance, just a chance, that I might become expert enough in 
> complexity science and model programming  to deal with you guys on a somewhat 
> equal footing.  But that never happened, and, now, it is too late.  I am 
> amazed by the intricacy of your discussion and the broad reach of your 
> thought.  There is really little more than I can do then wish you all well, 
> and back out of the conversation with my head bowed and my hat clasped to my 
> chest.  
> 
>  
> 
> Before I leave this conversation, I would like to offer the dubious benefits 
> of what expertise I do have, which concerns the perils of circular reasoning. 
>  I come by that expertise honestly, through years of struggling with the odd 
> paradox of evolutionary biology and psychology, that neither field seems 
> every to quite get on with the business of explaining the design of things.  
> When George Williams famously defined adaptation as whatever natural 
> selection produces he forever foreclosed to himself and his legions of 
> followers, the possibility of saying what sort of a world an adapted world 
> is, what the products of natural selection are like.  One of you has pointed 
> out that this is an old hobby horse with me, and suggested, perhaps, that 
> it's time to drag the old nag to the glue factory.  But I intend to give it 
> one last outing. 
> 
>  
> 
> So, I have a question for you all:  Do you guys know what you are talking 
> about?!  Now I DON’T mean that how it sounds.  I don’t mean to question your 
> deep knowledge of the technology and theory of complexity.  Hardly.  What I 
> do mean to ask is if,  perhaps, you may sometimes lose sight of the 
> phenomenon you are trying to explain, the mystery you hope to solve.  Natural 
> selection theory became so sophisticated, well-developed and intricate that 
> its practitioners lost track of the phenomenon they were trying to account 
> for, the mystery they were trying to solve.  We never developed a descriptive 
> mathematics of design to complement our elaborate explanatory mathematics of 
> natural selection.  Until we have such a descriptive system, natural 
> selection theory is just a series of ad hoc inventions, not a theory subject 
> to falsification but  “a metaphysical research program” as Popper once 
> famously said, which can always be rejiggered to be correct.   Is there a 
> risk of an analogous problem in complexity science?  You will have to say.
> 
>  
> 
> So, I will ask the question again:  Do you guys know what you are talking 
> about?!  What is complexity??  If the answer you give is in terms of the 
> deeply technical, causal language of your field, there is a danger that you 
> have lost sight of what it is you are trying to account for.  And here a 
> little bit of naivety could be very helpful. Naivety is all I have to offer, 
> I will offer it.  Whatever complexity might be, it is the opposite of 
> simplicity, no?  It is in that spirit that I propose a working definition of 
> complexity with which to explore this thread’s question:  “Are any 
> non-biological systems complex?”
> 
>   
> 
> An object is any collection or entity designated for the purposes of 
> conversation. 
> 
>  
> 
> A system is a set of objects that interact more closely with one another than 
> they do with entities outside the set.  
> 
>  
> 
> A system is complex if the objects that compose it are themselves systems. 
> 
>  
> 
> Only when complex systems have been clearly defined, is it rational to ask 
> the question, “Are any natural systems complex?”  Now you may not like my 
> definition, but I think you will agree that once it is accepted, the answer 
> to the question is clearly, “Yes!”
> 
>  
> 
> Take hurricanes.  Is a hurricane composed of thunderstorms?  
> Clearly, Yes.  Are thunderstorms t

Re: [FRIAM] the woman behind the woman

[Barry MacKichan]

“He stayed with DEC until retirement, taking a few years sabbatical to 
work at a startup which sold out big enough to give him room to then 
singlehandedly build a PASCAL compiler and P-Code interpreter for the 
pre-DOS IBM PC”


Was his startup in Vancouver or Burnaby, BC?

--Barry




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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Nick Thompson]

Dear Eric and Steve, and the gang, 

 

When I first moved to Santa Fe on Sabbatical 12 years ago, I was merely 67, and 
there was a chance, just a chance, that I might become expert enough in 
complexity science and model programming  to deal with you guys on a somewhat 
equal footing.  But that never happened, and, now, it is too late.  I am amazed 
by the intricacy of your discussion and the broad reach of your thought.  There 
is really little more than I can do then wish you all well, and back out of the 
conversation with my head bowed and my hat clasped to my chest.  

 

Before I leave this conversation, I would like to offer the dubious benefits of 
what expertise I do have, which concerns the perils of circular reasoning.  I 
come by that expertise honestly, through years of struggling with the odd 
paradox of evolutionary biology and psychology, that neither field seems every 
to quite get on with the business of explaining the design of things.  When 
George Williams famously defined adaptation as whatever natural selection 
produces he forever foreclosed to himself and his legions of followers, the 
possibility of saying what sort of a world an adapted world is, what the 
products of natural selection are like.  One of you has pointed out that this 
is an old hobby horse with me, and suggested, perhaps, that it's time to drag 
the old nag to the glue factory.  But I intend to give it one last outing. 

 

So, I have a question for you all:  Do you guys know what you are talking 
about?!  Now I DON’T mean that how it sounds.  I don’t mean to question your 
deep knowledge of the technology and theory of complexity.  Hardly.  What I do 
mean to ask is if,  perhaps, you may sometimes lose sight of the phenomenon you 
are trying to explain, the mystery you hope to solve.  Natural selection theory 
became so sophisticated, well-developed and intricate that its practitioners 
lost track of the phenomenon they were trying to account for, the mystery they 
were trying to solve.  We never developed a descriptive mathematics of design 
to complement our elaborate explanatory mathematics of natural selection.  
Until we have such a descriptive system, natural selection theory is just a 
series of ad hoc inventions, not a theory subject to falsification but  “a 
metaphysical research program” as Popper once famously said, which can always 
be rejiggered to be correct.   Is there a risk of an analogous problem in 
complexity science?  You will have to say.

 

So, I will ask the question again:  Do you guys know what you are talking 
about?!  What is complexity??  If the answer you give is in terms of the deeply 
technical, causal language of your field, there is a danger that you have lost 
sight of what it is you are trying to account for.  And here a little bit of 
naivety could be very helpful. Naivety is all I have to offer, I will offer it. 
 Whatever complexity might be, it is the opposite of simplicity, no?  It is in 
that spirit that I propose a working definition of complexity with which to 
explore this thread’s question:  “Are any non-biological systems complex?”

  

An object is any collection or entity designated for the purposes of 
conversation. 

 

A system is a set of objects that interact more closely with one another than 
they do with entities outside the set.  

 

A system is complex if the objects that compose it are themselves systems. 

 

Only when complex systems have been clearly defined, is it rational to ask the 
question, “Are any natural systems complex?”  Now you may not like my 
definition, but I think you will agree that once it is accepted, the answer to 
the question is clearly, “Yes!”

 

Take hurricanes.  Is a hurricane composed of thunderstorms?  
Clearly, Yes.  Are thunderstorms themselves systems. This is a bit less clear, 
because the boundaries among thunderstorms in a hurricane may be a bit hazy, 
but if one thinks of a thunderstorm as a convective cell -- a column of rising 
air and its related low level inflow and high level outflow – then a 
thunderstorm is definitely a system, and a hurricanes are made up of them.  
Hurricanes may also display an intermediate system-level, a spiral band, which 
consists of a system of thunderstorms spiraling in toward the hurricane’s 
center.  Thus, a hurricane could easily be shown to be a three-level complex 
system.  

 

Notice that this way preceding saves all the intricate explanatory apparatus of 
complexity theory for the job of accounting for how hurricanes come about. Now 
we can ask the question, What kinds of energy flows (insert correct 
terminology, here) occur in all complex systems?   Notice also, that this 
procedure prevents any of us from importing his favorite explanation for 
complex systems into their definition, guaranteeing the truth of the 
explanation no matter what the facts might be, and rendering the theory 
vacuous.  .  

 

One last comment.  When I wrote that perhaps 

Re: [FRIAM] Get ready for Blockchain

[Marcus Daniels]

As Commander Fred says in Handmaid's Tail, "Better never means better for 
everyone.  It always means worse for some."   (The context of this discussion 
is key.)

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of gepr ?
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 6:40 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Get ready for Blockchain

Yes, exactly! One person's dystopia is another's utopia.

On June 5, 2017 9:24:38 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>Glen -
>
>And now you sound a little like Kurt Vonnegut's satire: Harrison 
>Bergeron 
>
>/In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all
>Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter,
>better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The
>Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing
>   citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful,
>radios inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for
>the strong or athletic./
>
>I know you are 'just poking' and I guess I'm poking too!

--
⛧glen⛧


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] semiotics, again?

[gepr ⛧]

Excellent ideas! Thanks.

On June 5, 2017 8:01:43 PM PDT, Carl Tollander  wrote:
>Seems like Kanji would qualify as such an exploration.   See
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji particularly where they talk about
>different "readings".   (also see
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters for a broader
>situating
>explanation)  Somewhat sideways, one could look also at the Kana (signs
>in
>the domain of phonemes) and how they are pronounced slightly
>differently in
>different combinations by different speakers.
>
>Calligraphy might also qualify.
>
>Carl
>
>
>On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 6:26 PM, glen ☣  wrote:
>
>> EricS' categorization of a cumulative hierarchy for reflective
>complexity
>> reminded me of this:
>>
>>   A Linguist Responds to Cormac McCarthy
>>  
>http://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/a-linguist-responds-to-cormac-mccarthy
>>
>> particularly the difference between a "hard-coded" referent (e.g. a
>> hypothetical neuroanatomical structure tightly coupled to efficient
>> language acquisition and use) versus an ambiguous/multi-valent
>referent.
>> And that launched my typically vague meandering back to the semiotics
>> 3-tuple: .  Freedom can occur in any of the
>> three.  A sign can refer to multiple objects, be interpreted by
>multiple
>> interpretants, multiple objects can be signified by the same sign,
>etc.
>> This leads directly to Sedivy's point about compositionality of signs
>and
>> works its way back to my beef with the idea that subsystems like the
>BZ
>> reaction (or any context-dependnt module) are complex systems.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I'm too ignorant of the fleshing of semiotics to know
>> whether these freedoms (in any/all of the triad) have been explored. 
>So,
>> please hand me some clues if you have them!

-- 
⛧glen⛧


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Get ready for Blockchain

[gepr ⛧]

Yes, exactly! One person's dystopia is another's utopia.

On June 5, 2017 9:24:38 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>Glen -
>
>And now you sound a little like Kurt Vonnegut's satire: Harrison 
>Bergeron 
>
>/In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all
>Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter,
>better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The
>Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing
>   citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful,
>radios inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for
>the strong or athletic./
>
>I know you are 'just poking' and I guess I'm poking too!

-- 
⛧glen⛧


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove