Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Langton's ant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Arlo Barnes]

He has a Wikipedia
article, a
Wikiquote  page, and a/an
NNDBpage. The latter says
he started the Swarm development group, which is now
apparently the Center for the Study of Complex Systems (their web design
looks rather similar to that of the Institute, and none of the three
sections of their 'People' page
mention Langton, although they
do mention John Holland). Other pages about
Chris Langtons seem to refer to other people, including an athlete.

Murray Gellmann is alive and presumably well, and I am glad to have met him.

Incidentally, if we are talking about famous people in complexity, the link
and quote (a redux of a redux of a quote from Jonathan Swift about fractal
fleas) that Stephen Guerin posted earlier is a good read; although Lewis
Fry Richardson is not part of the circles we are talking about, having died
in 1953, he appears to have been the one to originate the coastline length
/ fractal dimension thing, while researching whether countries with longer
borders were more likely to be involved in wars with their neighbors.

-Arlo James Barnes

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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Langton's ant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Jochen Fromm]

Langton's ant is a classic. What is Chris doing now? Does he have a homepage, a 
Twitter account or Google+ profile? And what about the other SFI legends like 
John Holland, W. Brian Arthur and Murray Gellmann? Are they still alive? 

-J.

Sent from Android

 Original message From: Pamela McCorduck 
 Date:10/12/2013  19:15  (GMT+01:00) To: 
The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Langton's ant - Wikipedia, the free 
encyclopedia 
He came to a book party of mine in San Francisco for "Edge of Chaos," and 
looked very well. This would've been maybe ten years ago. I may have smothered 
him with kisses, I was so glad to see him. I think he's pretty much left 
A-Life, and for that matter, science. 


On Dec 10, 2013, at 12:09 PM, Owen Densmore  wrote:

Interesting "complexity" stunt I hadn't heard of:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langtons_ant
.. from twitter (https://twitter.com/CompSciFact)

Anyone in touch with Chris nowadays? He's one of the pioneers, at SFI in the 
early days, but I haven't read any of his works and would like to.  Any 
recommended readings?

   -- Owen


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Langton's ant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Steve Smith]

Pamela -
He came to a book party of mine in San Francisco for "Edge of Chaos," 
and looked very well. This would've been maybe ten years ago. I may 
have smothered him with kisses, I was so glad to see him. I think he's 
pretty much left A-Life, and for that matter, science. 


That is good to hear...   I orbited Chris via the A-Life work until the 
late 90's and always enjoyed the specific energy and perspective he 
seemed to bring to everything.  His inability to appease "the system" 
was a natural hazard of the very things that made him so amazing to 
me... so it wasn't surprising when he dropped out.


I do halfway expect him to pop up out of nowhere with some amazing new 
insight or idea, however.


Or not.

- Steve


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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Langton's ant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Pamela McCorduck]

He came to a book party of mine in San Francisco for "Edge of Chaos," and 
looked very well. This would've been maybe ten years ago. I may have smothered 
him with kisses, I was so glad to see him. I think he's pretty much left 
A-Life, and for that matter, science. 


On Dec 10, 2013, at 12:09 PM, Owen Densmore  wrote:

> Interesting "complexity" stunt I hadn't heard of:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langtons_ant
> .. from twitter (https://twitter.com/CompSciFact)
> 
> Anyone in touch with Chris nowadays? He's one of the pioneers, at SFI in the 
> early days, but I haven't read any of his works and would like to.  Any 
> recommended readings?
> 
>-- Owen
> 
> 
> 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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[FRIAM] Fwd: Langton's ant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Owen Densmore]

Interesting "complexity" stunt I hadn't heard of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langtons_ant
.. from twitter (https://twitter.com/CompSciFact)

Anyone in touch with Chris nowadays? He's one of the pioneers, at SFI in
the early days, but I haven't read any of his works and would like to.  Any
recommended readings?

   -- Owen

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