Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3

[Nick Thompson]

All,

Please take good notes> it would be the kind of thing that I would love to
work on as perhaps a book or pamplet once I can get myself retired and out
there.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
nickthompson at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson

> [Original Message]
> From: <friam-request at redfish.com>
> To: <friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 8/2/2006 12:00:25 PM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity; Wed Aug 2, 1:30p @
>       Tesoro (Owen Densmore)
>    2. Re: WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity; Wed Aug 2, 1:30p @
>       Tesoro (Phil Henshaw)
>    3. Re: WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity; Wed Aug 2, 1:30p @
>       Tesoro (Jochen Fromm)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 12:12:22 -0600
> From: Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity; Wed Aug 2,
> 1:30p @ Tesoro
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <7EB11DB0-CF0D-41E0-8BAC-0FEB1DF2430B at backspaces.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> To kick off our discussions of Formalisms In Complexity, I thought  
> I'd add this to the mix.
>
>      -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore
> http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Six Desert Island Books On Complexity (In no particular order)
>
> This list began after several conversations on FRIAM about formalism,  
> and its lack, in Complexity.  These prompted me to see just what  
> *was* available.  These books all cover part of our Science with  
> sufficient formalism.  I've not read all of any of them, they are  
> more like references for me, but they are focused on areas important  
> to be rigorous about within our Science, if it is to be one.
>
> 1 - Bar-Yam: Dynamics of Complex Systems
>      http://tinyurl.com/qumgf
> I put this first because it stands in for a Complexity Textbook.  
> Surprisingly, there are no such texts that I've been able to find.  
> Bar-Yam does a great job of looking at the areas deemed complex in  
> the early 1990's when the book was written.
>
> 2 - Newman, Barabasi, Watts: The Structure and Dynamics of Networks
>      http://tinyurl.com/jh3u8
> This is "the next best thing" to a textbook, a series of readings,  
> with a good introduction, in an area within complexity.  There are  
> others books of readings, the SFI redbooks, for example.  This is  
> particularly of interest to us due to the fast rise of graph theory  
> within modeling.
>
> 3 - MacKay: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms
>      http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/
>      http://tinyurl.com/e5len
> Robert Holmes led us to this delightful book when he led a couple of  
> WedTech meetings on the Monte Carlo techniques (Ch 29).  This book is  
> not only exceptional for its breadth, but also for its author putting  
> the entire book online for free use!  He also includes software  
> examples using open source tools and actively maintains errata on his  
> website.
>
> 4 - Gintis: Game Theory Evolving
>      http://tinyurl.com/ew3yr
> Many of us use Agent Based Modeling for investigating problems.  The  
> agents have behavior and evolve in time.  This book is a bit wacky in  
> its approach, disdaining dogmatic and classical approaches, in order  
> to focus on the import of evolution within game theory.  Its kinda  
> fun too.
>
> 5 - Strogatz: Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications
>      to Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Engineering
>      http://tinyurl.com/e8ldl
> Strogatz may be the best teacher of technically difficult material in  
> the world!  He's won important prizes in this area.  This is a great  
> book for physicists who've always wondered why their profs gently led  
> them around the great gaping holes in their art.
>
> 6 - Devaney: An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems
>      http://tinyurl.com/z3l8r
> Our sister science, Chaos, has made exquisite headway in formalizing  
> a difficult area.  Were we so lucky!  I have Chaos envy!  There are  
> several books out there, but this is the most cited I think.  I'd  
> also consider Davies, Exploring Chaos, for his short treatment and  
> inclusion of really excellent Java applets, and Williams, Chaos  
> Theory Tamed, for its very pragmatic, approachable and broad coverage.
>
>
>
> On Jul 31, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
>
> > As you have likely noticed, we've had a few conversations on FRIAM
> > discussing formalisms in complexity:
> >    [FRIAM] Definition of Complexity
> >    [FRIAM] Dynamics of Complex Systems by Yaneer Bar-Yam
> >    [FRIAM] Lyapunov Exponent
> >    [FRIAM] What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
> >
> > You are invited to come chat about all this in person at the WedTech
> > meeting this Wed, Aug 2.
> >
> > Due to schedule madness, we'll meet at 1:30, later than usual.  We'll
> > not need the conference room, so we'll meet at Tesoro so we can lunch
> > while chatting.  Best to get there a bit earlier so you can order
> > lunch/greet before we start.
> >
> > Feel free to think of an issue or stance taken in the email exchanges
> > and expand upon the theme.  Or come with something new!  Devil's
> > advocates welcome!
> >
> > Examples taken from the various emails:
> > - Hubler's and Gell-Mann's Definitions.
> > - Thermal Dynamic or Statistical Mechanic formalisms.
> > - Dissipative Structures, Gradients and Work.
> > - Few Textbooks covering the field.
> > - What headway has been made in the last 10 years?
> > - Define Self Organization and/or Emergence.
> > - Measures: Reynolds number, Correlation Length, etc.
> > - What's the rush -- its emerging itself!
> > - It's not a science but an approach.
> > - This is silly and you are all chasing your tails!
> >
> >      -- Owen
> >
> > Owen Densmore
> > http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://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
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:29:03 -0400
> From: "Phil Henshaw" <sy at synapse9.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity; Wed Aug 2,
> 1:30p @ Tesoro
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <00d101c6b5fc$f2d6b060$2f01a8c0 at SavyII>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Great question and great list!   The difficulty of the formal treatments
> is one the things that jumps out as something to contend with in
> discussing them.  Simplifying without confusing this level of work is
> very hard to do.  
>
> I recently found Rob Ulanowicz's "Growth and Development" (1986),
> suggested by Stephen Guerin, to be the first text anywhere I've found
> that attempts to deal with how internal causation develops.  Rob does
> not approach the subject from a view of autonomous agents following
> rules (a different meaning of autonomy), but from generalizing
> eco-system dynamics.   It's that he's generalizing on observations,
> starting very simple, formalizing one careful piece at a time, and
> checking to see what's in the remainder, etc.   Does anyone know any
> other approaches that try to do that (generalizing on the whole rather
> than building up from the parts) in a practical way?   It doesn't seem
> to be the popular path.
>
> I also think knowledge starts with informal notions and then develops,
> so with a field that is breaking new ground you'd expect some
> 'informality'.   The issues of the early Medieval thinkers that gave
> birth to science but can't be found anywhere in it now are one example.
> Every system goes through an historically necessary succession of
> organizational steps which it abandons, I think.  Science has progressed
> through informal-to-formal stages with various things.  With the subject
> of complex systems there's still some question as to whether the
> knowledge base is ready to do that, though.   Isn't it?
>
> It generally starts with 'observation', using a methodology of some
> kind.   One thing curious about observation is that its main purpose is
> to grope around outside one's formalisms to see what else there might be
> incorporate.   Anyway, that's how I see formality in science, something
> you do over and over, continually going back to the source for new
> material.  The question I can't answer about formalism in complexity
> theory is what part of the world has been included in the formality, and
> what's been left out.
>
>
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040                      
> tel: [phone]                
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
> explorations: www.synapse9.com    
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 2:12 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity;Wed
> > Aug 2, 1:30p @ Tesoro
> >
> >
> > To kick off our discussions of Formalisms In Complexity, I thought  
> > I'd add this to the mix.
> >
> >      -- Owen
> >
> > Owen Densmore
> > http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The Six Desert Island Books On Complexity (In no particular order)
> >
> > This list began after several conversations on FRIAM about
> > formalism,  
> > and its lack, in Complexity.  These prompted me to see just what  
> > *was* available.  These books all cover part of our Science with  
> > sufficient formalism.  I've not read all of any of them, they are  
> > more like references for me, but they are focused on areas important  
> > to be rigorous about within our Science, if it is to be one.
> >
> > 1 - Bar-Yam: Dynamics of Complex Systems
> >      http://tinyurl.com/qumgf
> > I put this first because it stands in for a Complexity Textbook.  
> > Surprisingly, there are no such texts that I've been able to find.  
> > Bar-Yam does a great job of looking at the areas deemed complex in  
> > the early 1990's when the book was written.
> >
> > 2 - Newman, Barabasi, Watts: The Structure and Dynamics of Networks
> >      http://tinyurl.com/jh3u8
> > This is "the next best thing" to a textbook, a series of readings,  
> > with a good introduction, in an area within complexity.  There are  
> > others books of readings, the SFI redbooks, for example.  This is  
> > particularly of interest to us due to the fast rise of graph theory  
> > within modeling.
> >
> > 3 - MacKay: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms
> >      http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/
> >      http://tinyurl.com/e5len
> > Robert Holmes led us to this delightful book when he led a couple of  
> > WedTech meetings on the Monte Carlo techniques (Ch 29).  This
> > book is  
> > not only exceptional for its breadth, but also for its author
> > putting  
> > the entire book online for free use!  He also includes software  
> > examples using open source tools and actively maintains
> > errata on his  
> > website.
> >
> > 4 - Gintis: Game Theory Evolving
> >      http://tinyurl.com/ew3yr
> > Many of us use Agent Based Modeling for investigating problems.  The  
> > agents have behavior and evolve in time.  This book is a bit
> > wacky in  
> > its approach, disdaining dogmatic and classical approaches, in order  
> > to focus on the import of evolution within game theory.  Its kinda  
> > fun too.
> >
> > 5 - Strogatz: Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications
> >      to Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Engineering
> >      http://tinyurl.com/e8ldl
> > Strogatz may be the best teacher of technically difficult
> > material in  
> > the world!  He's won important prizes in this area.  This is a great  
> > book for physicists who've always wondered why their profs
> > gently led  
> > them around the great gaping holes in their art.
> >
> > 6 - Devaney: An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems
> >      http://tinyurl.com/z3l8r
> > Our sister science, Chaos, has made exquisite headway in formalizing  
> > a difficult area.  Were we so lucky!  I have Chaos envy!  There are  
> > several books out there, but this is the most cited I think.  I'd  
> > also consider Davies, Exploring Chaos, for his short treatment and  
> > inclusion of really excellent Java applets, and Williams, Chaos  
> > Theory Tamed, for its very pragmatic, approachable and broad coverage.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jul 31, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
> >
> > > As you have likely noticed, we've had a few conversations on FRIAM
> > > discussing formalisms in complexity:
> > >    [FRIAM] Definition of Complexity
> > >    [FRIAM] Dynamics of Complex Systems by Yaneer Bar-Yam
> > >    [FRIAM] Lyapunov Exponent
> > >    [FRIAM] What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
> > >
> > > You are invited to come chat about all this in person at
> > the WedTech
> > > meeting this Wed, Aug 2.
> > >
> > > Due to schedule madness, we'll meet at 1:30, later than
> > usual.  We'll
> > > not need the conference room, so we'll meet at Tesoro so we
> > can lunch
> > > while chatting.  Best to get there a bit earlier so you can order
> > > lunch/greet before we start.
> > >
> > > Feel free to think of an issue or stance taken in the email
> > exchanges
> > > and expand upon the theme.  Or come with something new!  Devil's
> > > advocates welcome!
> > >
> > > Examples taken from the various emails:
> > > - Hubler's and Gell-Mann's Definitions.
> > > - Thermal Dynamic or Statistical Mechanic formalisms.
> > > - Dissipative Structures, Gradients and Work.
> > > - Few Textbooks covering the field.
> > > - What headway has been made in the last 10 years?
> > > - Define Self Organization and/or Emergence.
> > > - Measures: Reynolds number, Correlation Length, etc.
> > > - What's the rush -- its emerging itself!
> > > - It's not a science but an approach.
> > > - This is silly and you are all chasing your tails!
> > >
> > >      -- Owen
> > >
> > > Owen Densmore
> > > http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://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
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > 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
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 10:05:59 +0200
> From: "Jochen Fromm" <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity; Wed Aug 2,
> 1:30p @ Tesoro
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <000001c6b60a$7da3e8e0$976fa8c0 at Toshiba>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>  
> IMHO formal treatments and formalisms are not helpful for
> complex systems, if you want to understand complex systems
> in general. They are NOT the right way, because they try to
> press the diversity of complex systems into equations with
> a few placeholders. This is the old way science has tried
> for centuries and which is now more or less obsolete,
> since Stephen Wolfram has proposed a "New Kind of Science".
> Formal treatments, formalisms and equations are of course
> useful for chaos theory. Chaos theory and strange attractors
> are fascinating. The problem is that deterministic chaos is
> only a very special case of a complex system.
>
> Simplicity has a unified form, but complexity has many
> varieties. As Phil says, simplifying without confusing
> is not always easy. Perhaps the best way to understand
> complexity is to consider it as 'unity in diversity'.
> Formal or even mathematical definitions of complexity,
> self-organization or emergence are not helpful. They
> are helpful for simple systems with dumb particles and
> strong regularities, but they are less useful for complex
> systems with intelligent agents where many exceptional,
> unexpected and accidental events can happen. Classifications
> and taxonomies are much more useful wherever one has to
> deal with diversity.
>
> What one can do is to describe the different forms and
> types of complex systems, the different class of emergence
> and self-organization. If one has a more or less comprehensive
> set of classes, one can examine how they are connected,
> how they have evolved, and if it is possible to find a
> general principle like evolution, 'edge of chaos' or
> growth which connects them.
>
> -J.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On

Behalf

> Of Owen Densmore
> Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 8:12 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WedTech: Formalisms In Complexity;Wed Aug 2, 1:30p @
> Tesoro
>
> To kick off our discussions of Formalisms In Complexity, I thought  
> I'd add this to the mix.
>
>      -- Owen
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Friam mailing list
> Friam at redfish.com
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3
> ************************************

[McNamara, Laura A]

Nick and FRIAM-ers,

I assume Nick's talking about the book-development meeting. I can't be
at the meeting today, but wouldn't mind doing something on efforts to
apply complexity in real-world decision making contexts - like foreign
policy.  

- Laura

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Perhaps another theme for conversation or books would be "are they
converging"?  It seems to me we're definitely all looking at the same
subject and making some progress, but may be heading in separate
directions.   I know nature must connect them some how, but are we
discovering it?  

A) Abstract complexity sciences: experimental pattern generators, the
arts of pure mathematical form.

B) Historical complexity sciences: observation & pattern recognition,
various formal methods and models.

Is there a connection?


Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

[Jochen Fromm-3]

Perhaps the best way to solve complex problems is to
let your guts decide ? What did Stephen Colbert say
at the White House Correspondents Dinner ? "..That's
where the truth lies, right down here in the gut", see
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879

-J.

[Phil Henshaw-2]

the great laugh, of course, was that Bush probably didn't get the
joke...  

But seriously, it does point to one of the grand properties of human
perception, and I think emergent complexity generally, that every
observer feels 'in their guts' that their own perception provides the
one correct model of the universe!   That would explain why everyone is
so satisfied with their own snap judgments, it's sort of built in.   A
case in point.   IF the Earth turns out to have finite development
potential, the world plan for continual growth becomes a plan for not
only 'you' to take over the Earth, but for everyone else to do so as
well, independently.   The usual reaction is something dreamy, "oh yes,
yes, and when that matters you can wake me again...", or "that's nice,
I'm going to take over the world then...", etc.   Humans do actually
seem to be adrift in a dream world of their own making, for the very
cool reason that we all build our own (dream) world from the inside!
The drawback is that it's also be a trap.

I think seeing breaks in the wall points to ways out.   When a modeled
artificial ecology develops emergent structures I suppose there's
evidence of their developing responsively somehow.   Is there any
evidence that they then become inherently unresponsive?


Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
> Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 3:20 AM
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3
>
>
>
> Perhaps the best way to solve complex problems is to
> let your guts decide ? What did Stephen Colbert say
> at the White House Correspondents Dinner ? "..That's
> where the truth lies, right down here in the gut", see

http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879

-J.



============================================================
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

[Marcus G. Daniels-2]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> it does point to one of the grand properties of human
> perception, and I think emergent complexity generally, that every
> observer feels 'in their guts' that their own perception provides the
> one correct model of the universe!
Another view is that the perceptions shared by others may be done to
manipulate and confuse, and to forward the agenda of a local group.

I'm not suggesting the President should be best described as a skeptic.

For example, in legal matters, ignoring subjective interpretations, in
favor of objective evidence, is vigilance.
Talk is cheap!

Marcus

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Markus,

It's a step in the right direction to try to distinguish objective fact
from subjective opinion, but there are lots of things for which that
isn't easy.   What, for example, is objective evidence where the
subjects themselves are subjective???  

One kind of objective evidence in that common case is found in patterns
of related measures taken over time.   When they display progressive
change with implied derivatives all of the same sign it generally
indicates you're looking at a complex system that has broken the
restraints of homeostasis and is undergoing structural change.   You can
reach that conclusion objectively without knowing what it's happening
to.   You don't have to accept my word.   I think the terms are
definable and it can be verified.  [partly by asking when do points make
meaningful shapes and other interesting stuff]

In part I'm asking if that's also a property of emergent complexity in
alife environments.  I know alifer's originate their models to emulate
natural systems.   I'm asking if you find some of the same properties
that in nature strongly appear to be present for all emergent systems.

> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > it does point to one of the grand properties of human
> perception, and
> > I think emergent complexity generally, that every observer
> feels 'in
> > their guts' that their own perception provides the one
> correct model
> > of the universe!
> Another view is that the perceptions shared by others may be done to
> manipulate and confuse, and to forward the agenda of a local group.
>
> I'm not suggesting the President should be best described as
> a skeptic.
>
> For example, in legal matters, ignoring subjective
> interpretations, in
> favor of objective evidence, is vigilance.
> Talk is cheap!
>
> 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
>
>

[Marcus G. Daniels-2]

Hi Phil,
> It's a step in the right direction to try to distinguish objective fact
> from subjective opinion, but there are lots of things for which that
> isn't easy.  
It would be interesting to evaluate a model of political violence by
populating an imaginary world with an ensemble of individual psychologies.

One assumption could be your notion of everyone in `living in their own
dreamworld', subject to different forces of propaganda, economic
constraints, and so on.  They all react to their world independently,
and are at once both amoral and innocent, but over time various sorts of
organizations and ideals take shape and these in turn shape generation
after generation.   Alternatively, one can imagine that people in power
"follow their gut" because their advisors are not trustworthy. The
question being the degree to which coarse vs. fine-grained interactions
in populations explain how power and institutions form as well as
co-evolved organizations that seek to destroy these institutions.. [etc]

Marcus

[Robert J. Cordingley]

Unfortnately, neither business management nor governing is a total
disclosure game.  Even if it was, it's likely to be as complicated or
more so than say Go (a great total disclosure game).  Even the strongest
Go players eventually have to resort to what 'looks good' or 'feels
right' because they lack the (perhaps expressible) analytical skills to
deduce a correct answer.  I guess, we hope that our intrinsic value
system (gut feel?) matches with our chosen political leaders who make
decisions we are likely to favor regardless of whether we know or not if
it is the right choice in the short term, the medium term or the long
term.  In fact, even the relatively highly constrained environment of Go
has not been solved computationally, and performance of the best program
doesn't approach anywhere near the same level as the best Chess
programs, so, relucantly I wonder, what hope is there of computationally
solving problems involving millions of agents in dozens of countries
acting in myriads of ways (for example)?  May be that wasn't the question.

Robert

Jochen Fromm wrote:

>Perhaps the best way to solve complex problems is to
>let your guts decide ? What did Stephen Colbert say
>at the White House Correspondents Dinner ? "..That's
>where the truth lies, right down here in the gut", see
>http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879
>
>-J.
>
>
>
>============================================================
>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
>
>
>  
>

[Marcus G. Daniels-2]

Robert Cordingley wrote:
> Unfortnately, neither business management nor governing is a total
> disclosure game. [..]  I wonder, what hope is there of computationally
> solving problems involving millions of agents in dozens of countries
> acting in myriads of ways (for example)?  May be that wasn't the question.
>  
Well, one motivation for a computational model is to get ideas about
what needs to be measured in order to make useful predictions, but not
necessarily to be the mechanism of prediction.  Computationally, making
useful predictions could be as simple as a regression once a set of
appropriate signals have been acquired, e.g. by measuring dynamics in a
simplified simulated world and finding the same dynamics in the real
world.  Running a simulation of millions of simple agents with thousands
of variant scenarios ought to be doable for a government or big company,
but even that following that approach doesn't mean anyone is actually
thinking in terms of `solving' the game, or even claiming to know the
rules.  Rather, the goal is just to shift the odds.

Marcus

[Phil Henshaw-2]

The idea of watching network of free agents "'living in their own
dreamworld', subject to different forces of propaganda, economic
constraints, and so on" in which "people in power 'follow their gut'",
is provocative.   Is that feasible and would it help, though?  

As Robert points out there are lots of reasons a direct simulation
couldn't be built.  I think if some semblance succeeded in creating
recognizable patterns that people could use to sensitize themselves to
particular types of information, then maybe it would be useful.

One possible case concerns (what seems to me) the approximately one
month long war feaver that led us into Iraq.   That was a time when the
'gut feelings' of people across the country went through a non-linear
dynamic and nearly everone was swept up in the emotional experience.
Bush felt the readyness of the country and went ahead, ultimately based
on the war hysteria he partly helped to produce.   My clear impression
is that we went to war because of a rush of popular feeling that we were
going to have to fight Sadam sooner or later and if it was inevitable we
should just get it out of the way.  

It seems to have been an error to trust our gut feelings about that, but
we got worked up and did it anyway.   Potentially complex system theory
could design measures to give people an outside view of these things we
get swept up in.  Maybe it could sense and map those dynamics, say
linking that month to data on all the other war feavers in history.
There's a distinct difference between foresight and hindsight on seeing
the importance of little things, but with good information, might we not
have seen we were acting hysterically in the absence of any threat?



Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 11:30 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3
>
>
> Robert Cordingley wrote:
> > Unfortnately, neither business management nor governing is a total
> > disclosure game. [..]  I wonder, what hope is there of
> computationally
> > solving problems involving millions of agents in dozens of
> countries
> > acting in myriads of ways (for example)?  May be that
> wasn't the question.
> >  
> Well, one motivation for a computational model is to get ideas about
> what needs to be measured in order to make useful
> predictions, but not
> necessarily to be the mechanism of prediction.  
> Computationally, making
> useful predictions could be as simple as a regression once a set of
> appropriate signals have been acquired, e.g. by measuring
> dynamics in a
> simplified simulated world and finding the same dynamics in the real
> world.  Running a simulation of millions of simple agents
> with thousands
> of variant scenarios ought to be doable for a government or
> big company,
> but even that following that approach doesn't mean anyone is actually
> thinking in terms of `solving' the game, or even claiming to know the
> rules.  Rather, the goal is just to shift the odds.
>
> 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
>
>

[Marcus G. Daniels-3]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> It seems to have been an error to trust our gut feelings about that, but
> we got worked up and did it anyway.   Potentially complex system theory
> could design measures to give people an outside view of these things we
> get swept up in.  
Here are a couple of documents describing counter terrorism strategy of
the White House:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050425/25roots_3.htm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/counter_terrorism/counter_terrorism_strategy.pdf

Compare page 13 in the latter (as labeled in pages of the document, or
15 in the page selector) with this RAND project, e.g. page 11 (page 19
in the page selector).

http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2005/RAND_CF212.pdf

Five pages later, some "marker issues" are listed that "locate Islamic
groups ideologically", namely democracy, human rights, Shari'a law vs.
civil law, rights of minorities, status of women, legal rights, public
participation, segregation, and "lifestyle" issues.  The next page goes
on to describe examples of different groups on this spectrum and then
gives suggestions on how to use it in a divide and conquer propaganda
battle for the hearts and minds of Islamic moderates.

These sorts of ideas could be extended into agent models to think about
the rates at which such aid and propaganda efforts might progress or
backfire.  Searching some newspapers or blogs could give some ideas on
how such efforts are likely to be resented, e.g.
http://zeitgeistgirl.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_zeitgeistgirl_archive.html.
In contrast, in today's New York Times, the front page has an article on
Hezbollah, _Holding a Gun, Lending a Hand_, which describes the loyalty
of Hezbollah fighters due to the support given to them and their
families by the organization.  Seems like US aid could undermine
terrorist organizations by doing better at the same job.   All these
forces could be considered in an agent model.

It probably wouldn't matter if such a simulation had 1e4 or 1e7 agents
of different persuasions, but rather the mixing ratios of just enough
agents so that the dynamics would be the smooth and similar in a larger
simulation of similar demographics for the same relative configuration.

Personally, I'd rather have political scientists and technical people
developing crude models of various international stability situations
than flushing billions of tax dollars down the drain on a gut feeling  
Maybe provide real time updates to one of those CNN ticker lines showing
odds of success, cumulative cost, and expected value.  :-)

Marcus

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Gee, what you seem to be giving good evidence for is high paid
professional 'quasi-scientific' consulting that is disasterously
incompetent.  Now, I'm sure to object less to messed up plans and
research from people who share my personal prejudices.   But isn't
what's been happening amount to a lot of people planning and acting
boldly on seriously misinformed models?   I mean really, when you look
at those duplicate completely fake and irrational charts you so nicely
identified, how could any kind of measure to be made of them at all?
How do you model brains full of made up nonsense??

I think modeling is out of reach, but story telling may not be.  Telling
the stories of how complex events can be read or misread would be a real
service.   Then again, what if we just decided to spend an equal amount
of money figuring out how to get along with people as on destroying
them.   That would be novel.   The last time I checked killing people
pisses their friends off, especially when they are seen as defending the
religious honor of a whole people, though I haven't seen any official
studies.   Who knows, perhaps "an eye for an eye" is just incorrect.
We should study this.  Maybe the requirement for being a descent
neighbor is to unilaterally NOT return insults... or some thing like
that.  

Sorry for the sarcasm, but that RAND poop just plain pisses me off.


Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 3:13 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3
>
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > It seems to have been an error to trust our gut feelings
> about that, but
> > we got worked up and did it anyway.   Potentially complex
> system theory
> > could design measures to give people an outside view of
> these things
> > we get swept up in.
> Here are a couple of documents describing counter terrorism
> strategy of
> the White House:
>
> http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050425/25roots_3.htm
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/counter_terror
> ism/counter_terrorism_strategy.pdf
>
> Compare page 13 in the latter (as labeled in pages of the
> document, or
> 15 in the page selector) with this RAND project, e.g. page 11
> (page 19
> in the page selector).
>
> http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2005/RAND_CF212.pdf
>
> Five pages later, some "marker issues" are listed that
> "locate Islamic
> groups ideologically", namely democracy, human rights,
> Shari'a law vs.
> civil law, rights of minorities, status of women, legal
> rights, public
> participation, segregation, and "lifestyle" issues.  The next
> page goes
> on to describe examples of different groups on this spectrum and then
> gives suggestions on how to use it in a divide and conquer propaganda
> battle for the hearts and minds of Islamic moderates.
>
> These sorts of ideas could be extended into agent models to
> think about
> the rates at which such aid and propaganda efforts might progress or
> backfire.  Searching some newspapers or blogs could give some
> ideas on
> how such efforts are likely to be resented, e.g.
> http://zeitgeistgirl.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_zeitgeistgirl_arc

hive.html.
In contrast, in today's New York Times, the front page has an article on

Hezbollah, _Holding a Gun, Lending a Hand_, which describes the loyalty
of Hezbollah fighters due to the support given to them and their
families by the organization.  Seems like US aid could undermine
terrorist organizations by doing better at the same job.   All these
forces could be considered in an agent model.

It probably wouldn't matter if such a simulation had 1e4 or 1e7 agents
of different persuasions, but rather the mixing ratios of just enough
agents so that the dynamics would be the smooth and similar in a larger
simulation of similar demographics for the same relative configuration.

Personally, I'd rather have political scientists and technical people
developing crude models of various international stability situations
than flushing billions of tax dollars down the drain on a gut feeling  
Maybe provide real time updates to one of those CNN ticker lines showing

odds of success, cumulative cost, and expected value.  :-)

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

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Bush's popularity since inaguration
http://jackman.stanford.edu/blog/?p=74



Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

[Marcus G. Daniels-3]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> I think modeling is out of reach, but story telling may not be.  Telling
> the stories of how complex events can be read or misread would be a real
> service.
There will be policy makers and I think it is safe to say they'll find
it easier to convince people of their policies if there are some
dramatic stories involved (e.g. 9/11, WMDs).  I expect a careful and
restrained story of the kind you describe above will be overwhelmed in
general by story tellers at think tanks like the Project for the New
American Century who don't hesitate to provide `leadership' (Perle,
Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld).

On a technical note, I don't buy that social simulations would be
computationally prohibitive, given the will.  The fastest general
purpose supercomputer at Livermore is $100e6 U.S. (BlueGene/L) having
130k processors.   Suppose a simulation ran for a day, that's still 130k
simulations a day.   That's a lot of sensitivity analysis one could do.  
It might take 10 teams of modelers to keep such a machine busy.   For
national security, what's a $100 million here or there?

The 2006 budget for Advanced Simulation and Computing Initiative
computing was $661 million and $6.3 billion overall for stockpile
stewardship.  Yet I keep hearing that `non-state actors' the new threat..
> How do you model brains full of made up nonsense??
Detectives, trial lawyers, and spies tease out models from deceptive
people and suboptimal evidence.   No shame in formalizing these models,
if only to make it clear what is far from being known.  And to deal with
a culture that only wants compliance and to stay `on message'  all I can
suggest is to 1) stomach it, and 2) slowly bend the message in some
other direction.

Marcus

[Phil Henshaw-2]

OK, so let's take half the defense budget and spend it on Bucky's
'livingry' rather than weaponry.   How much you need?   It certainly
couldn't be more of a waste than spending it threaten fanatic community
groups to obtain nuclear weapons...  

I'd still have some major doubts about the adequacy of present modeling
assumptions.  No one seems to have recognized that growth systems are
locally invented compounding instabilities to themselves yet, or that
natural system networks are mostly linked opportunistically rather than
deterministically, or that the variables of our relationship statements
generally refer to things that keep changing definition with little
notice.  I don't think it's an easy problem.


Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 7:12 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3
>
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > I think modeling is out of reach, but story telling may not be.  
> > Telling the stories of how complex events can be read or
> misread would
> > be a real service.
> There will be policy makers and I think it is safe to say
> they'll find
> it easier to convince people of their policies if there are some
> dramatic stories involved (e.g. 9/11, WMDs).  I expect a careful and
> restrained story of the kind you describe above will be
> overwhelmed in
> general by story tellers at think tanks like the Project for the New
> American Century who don't hesitate to provide `leadership' (Perle,
> Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld).
>
> On a technical note, I don't buy that social simulations would be
> computationally prohibitive, given the will.  The fastest general
> purpose supercomputer at Livermore is $100e6 U.S. (BlueGene/L) having
> 130k processors.   Suppose a simulation ran for a day, that's
> still 130k
> simulations a day.   That's a lot of sensitivity analysis one
> could do.  
> It might take 10 teams of modelers to keep such a machine busy.   For
> national security, what's a $100 million here or there?
>
> The 2006 budget for Advanced Simulation and Computing Initiative
> computing was $661 million and $6.3 billion overall for stockpile
> stewardship.  Yet I keep hearing that `non-state actors' the
> new threat..
> > How do you model brains full of made up nonsense??
> Detectives, trial lawyers, and spies tease out models from deceptive
> people and suboptimal evidence.   No shame in formalizing
> these models,
> if only to make it clear what is far from being known.  And
> to deal with
> a culture that only wants compliance and to stay `on message'
>  all I can
> suggest is to 1) stomach it, and 2) slowly bend the message in some
> other direction.
>
> 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
>
>

[Marcus G. Daniels-3]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> OK, so let's take half the defense budget and spend it on Bucky's
> 'livingry' rather than weaponry.   How much you need?   It certainly
> couldn't be more of a waste than spending it threaten fanatic community
> groups to obtain nuclear weapons...  
>  

Half the U.S. defense budget is $209 billion and half of Homeland
Security is $15 billion.   Together $50 billion is being spent on
domestic defense.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/budget06/budget06Agencies.html

For starters pull an amount of 1% of the scale of the domestic defense
budget from the larger defense budget.  That would be $500 million
dollars.  Plenty to buy the best supercomputers and a team of a few
dozen project managers, political scientists, intelligence experts, and
modelers.  Take say $100 million to reimburse the CIA and NSA for their
time on data collection.
> I'd still have some major doubts about the adequacy of present modeling
> assumptions.  No one seems to have recognized that growth systems are
> locally invented compounding instabilities to themselves yet, or that
> natural system networks are mostly linked opportunistically rather than
> deterministically, or that the variables of our relationship statements
> generally refer to things that keep changing definition with little
> notice.  I don't think it's an easy problem.
>  
I agree there is a lot that can't be modeled effectively without heavy
data collection and lots of focused attention.  And some social
phenomena are probably too fleeting to capture and the precedents too
silent.  But consider elections in this country.   Usually it is pretty
clear how things will go once some exit polls are taken.   I'm thinking
of how to study the demographics of change as a function of military and
civil violence, occupation, propaganda and relief efforts.   Situations
where known perturbations have been made to the system, and then an
effort is made to model how those perturbations can be used to predict
rates and intensity of near and medium term disruptive events.  
Insurgency, say, must have some common properties and unfold in ways
that are a function of the number of young people prepared to die,
explosives, technology, and money available and so forth.  I imagine
such models not so much for precise prediction on the ground, but to be
developed over a long periods to fit abstract scenarios.  To help
planners understand social risk as well as direct tactical risk.

I know some programs like this are already underway, but it's unclear to
me the degree of funding.

Marcus

[Louis Macovsky, Dynamic BioSystems]

Interesting conversation but it needs to fall on the appropriate ears.  You
need a lobby to at least get this discussion on the computers of legislative
aids.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2006 7:27 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3

> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > OK, so let's take half the defense budget and spend it on Bucky's
> > 'livingry' rather than weaponry.   How much you need?   It certainly
> > couldn't be more of a waste than spending it threaten fanatic community
> > groups to obtain nuclear weapons...
> >
>
> Half the U.S. defense budget is $209 billion and half of Homeland
> Security is $15 billion.   Together $50 billion is being spent on
> domestic defense.
>
>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/budget06/budget06Agencies.html

>
> For starters pull an amount of 1% of the scale of the domestic defense
> budget from the larger defense budget.  That would be $500 million
> dollars.  Plenty to buy the best supercomputers and a team of a few
> dozen project managers, political scientists, intelligence experts, and
> modelers.  Take say $100 million to reimburse the CIA and NSA for their
> time on data collection.
> > I'd still have some major doubts about the adequacy of present modeling
> > assumptions.  No one seems to have recognized that growth systems are
> > locally invented compounding instabilities to themselves yet, or that
> > natural system networks are mostly linked opportunistically rather than
> > deterministically, or that the variables of our relationship statements
> > generally refer to things that keep changing definition with little
> > notice.  I don't think it's an easy problem.
> >
> I agree there is a lot that can't be modeled effectively without heavy
> data collection and lots of focused attention.  And some social
> phenomena are probably too fleeting to capture and the precedents too
> silent.  But consider elections in this country.   Usually it is pretty
> clear how things will go once some exit polls are taken.   I'm thinking
> of how to study the demographics of change as a function of military and
> civil violence, occupation, propaganda and relief efforts.   Situations
> where known perturbations have been made to the system, and then an
> effort is made to model how those perturbations can be used to predict
> rates and intensity of near and medium term disruptive events.
> Insurgency, say, must have some common properties and unfold in ways
> that are a function of the number of young people prepared to die,
> explosives, technology, and money available and so forth.  I imagine
> such models not so much for precise prediction on the ground, but to be
> developed over a long periods to fit abstract scenarios.  To help
> planners understand social risk as well as direct tactical risk.
>
> I know some programs like this are already underway, but it's unclear to
> me the degree of funding.
>
> 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

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Marcus,

I wouldn't want to put a too much of a damper on your enthusiasm.   I do
think there's some cause for excitement over the insight government
could gain by inquiring into complex systems with new tools, but
modeling the general dynamics of events is SO far beyond our present
capabilities I wonder if you're thinking straight.  It's not that I
wouldn't want to help author the rules for a grant competition for
designing the institute you propose.  Integrating interdisciplinary
methods and data takes a lot of discipline.  It's just that the problems
I listed before are far from trivial and I have a long list of others
that are as bad or worse.  

It's not a safe bet to say we'd even get anywhere with a global model of
events in a hundred years.  The bubbling pot of world human interest is
not going to reveal itself any time soon.  It's like the guys intending
to download the brain.   What are they going to do when they find out
there are chemical synapses, or that the electrical synapses seem to
communicate timing rather than data???  How the hell you going to
download that stuff, it's just music!!  Even if black magic gave you all
the motions of all the molecules I don't think it would help you in the
slightest, except in a medical way perhaps, with what they were doing!
There's a larger system there, that I don't think can exist except as
itself.

I'm just saying there are huge disconnects all over and the most
productive approach is to have a ball finding them.   One of the coolest
ones for constructing a general model of events from research data, from
my point of view, is that your data collectors actually would not be
able to distinguish between the abstract patterns they invent in their
own minds and the physical patterns of the world.  When they come back
and tell you what they measured, you won't really know what they're
talking about.  

Just try it, count the number of fanatics who are a threat to motherhood
and apple pie.  All your data collector can efficiently do is look at
you sullenly and assure you they did the exact same thing they did
yesterday and if that's not good enough then get someone else.  That new
person will of course do it differently.   Or, to take the problem of
individual differences seriously, try something that has actually been
given long and careful study.  Try predicting the repeat offences of
individual criminals.  It's not possible.

We sense natural systems exist, we feel them as if they're waves washing
over us, but we don't know why some people get wet and others don't and,
basically, can't see what's happening.   What we should do first is
learn how to identify them.  It's quite difficult.  Imagine we lived
with them for millions of years and only noticed they existed last week.
Nearly all stories are actually about them, but all we see is dense fog.
I think the key is to distinguish between those that are inside our own
brains and those that are not.  It's a clear cut distinction, but
surprisingly difficult.  I think it's that physical worlds have
structure and imaginary worlds are projections.

What excites me is the idea of taking old and familiar statistical
methods, (interpolation and differencing and regression) and jazzing
them up a little to reveal natural system events as individuals that can
then be localized and looked at from all sides by other means...  Before
we try to model these things, I think we really need to learn to see
them.   It's hard to see them.  Still, there are a variety of non-linear
patterns that are uniquely associated with emerging complex
organization.  Growth is key because that catches them as they begin,
but there are many other things as well.  I'm sure there are many kinds
of markers that can both serve to identify and localize.  Then... all
you'd need are the six wise men to feel up the elephant without getting
kicked, and tell you what it is!!!  :,)
Phil

> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > OK, so let's take half the defense budget and spend it on Bucky's
> > 'livingry' rather than weaponry.   How much you need?   It certainly
> > couldn't be more of a waste than spending it threaten fanatic
> > community groups to obtain nuclear weapons...
> >  
>
> Half the U.S. defense budget is $209 billion and half of Homeland
> Security is $15 billion.   Together $50 billion is being spent on
> domestic defense.  
>
>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/budget06/budg
et06Agencies.html

>
> For starters pull an amount of 1% of the scale of the
> domestic defense budget from the larger defense budget.  \
> That would be $500 million
> dollars.  Plenty to buy the best supercomputers and a team of a few
> dozen project managers, political scientists, intelligence
> experts, and
> modelers.  Take say $100 million to reimburse the CIA and NSA
> for their
> time on data collection.
> > I'd still have some major doubts about the adequacy of
> present modeling
> > assumptions.  No one seems to have recognized that growth
> systems are
> > locally invented compounding instabilities to themselves
> yet, or that
> > natural system networks are mostly linked opportunistically
> rather than
> > deterministically, or that the variables of our
> relationship statements
> > generally refer to things that keep changing definition with little
> > notice.  I don't think it's an easy problem.
> >  
> I agree there is a lot that can't be modeled effectively
> without heavy
> data collection and lots of focused attention.  And some social
> phenomena are probably too fleeting to capture and the precedents too
> silent.  But consider elections in this country.   Usually it
> is pretty
> clear how things will go once some exit polls are taken.  
> I'm thinking
> of how to study the demographics of change as a function of
> military and
> civil violence, occupation, propaganda and relief efforts.  
> Situations
> where known perturbations have been made to the system, and then an
> effort is made to model how those perturbations can be used
> to predict
> rates and intensity of near and medium term disruptive events.  
> Insurgency, say, must have some common properties and unfold in ways
> that are a function of the number of young people prepared to die,
> explosives, technology, and money available and so forth.  I imagine
> such models not so much for precise prediction on the ground,
> but to be
> developed over a long periods to fit abstract scenarios.  To help
> planners understand social risk as well as direct tactical risk.
>
> I know some programs like this are already underway, but it's
> unclear to
> me the degree of funding.
>
> Marcus
>
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>
>

[Marcus G. Daniels-3]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> Try predicting the repeat offences of individual criminals.  It's not possible.
>  
I'm actually not suggesting predicting anything on a individual level,
except to the extent that ex-officio roles like Olmert, Nasrallah,
Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, and Bush would probably need to be modeled.  I'm
suggesting predicting trends in a set of subpopulations over time.   The
primary purpose of a model like this would be to make aggregate
predictions about the cascade of events from a significant event.  
Secondarily, because getting fine-grained data on how  events actually
transpire is hard, a simulation facilitates what-if exploration of a
tactical and strategic space, given an array of made-up but plausible
group reaction functions.

Zbigniew Brzezinski might have pondered "if we fund the Mujahideen to
fight the Soviets, what's the likelihood these people will endure and
extend their narcissistic rage toward the United States [as
Al-Qaeda]".   Or the Mossad might have thought more carefully about how
much rope they extended to the Hamas.   A computer simulation that
tracked these organizations as existing and intermixing with the general
population (trying to spread their message) could provide some risk
profile for the kind of damage they could do.  It would at least remind
elected officials in later years of the fact they exist at all.

One place to start would be to use signals intelligence to infer a
network of communication patterns.   Then on that network overlay
representative agents that have some capability set, depth of funding,
human resources, and degree of extremism or political agendas.  The
overall political climate would determine what rate volunteers could be
recruited, and the organizational types would determine where they went.
  (That goes for all sides.)  For example, we keep hearing analysts
saying how Israel has polarized the Lebanese to the point that now
Hezbollah is popular.   Perhaps that fades away fast, or perhaps it
collapses in a month or two of intensive destruction, or perhaps it
intensifies and mobilizes a larger set of fighters.  Point is, it's
surely got some scaling and dynamics -- mad people create dynamics at
least so long as they are alive.

I see such a model as sort of thermometer to answer questions like:

 Who is mad
 What are they doing now (as a group, relevant to the conflict)
 What could they do in the next week, month & year, if they achieve it
 What can't they do in the next week, month & year if they are stopped
 Where are they
 Who are they connected to as allies and as enemies
 What do they want
 What do they need
 What do they believe and how mutable is it

Some of these things will change over time, some of may have narrow
variances some of them wide.   But hit it hard enough, or wait for
someone else to, and something has got to give.  If some of those shifts
are predictable, then that's potentially usable for decision makers.  
It doesn't mean it all has to be predictable.  It doesn't matter what
virtual soldier Shlomo is having for lunch (unless perhaps he shows up
on CNN).  The parts that are hopeless can be discarded and the parts
that show utility can be elaborated.  But this is not like medicine
where doing harm is avoided.  No, in our world it seems to be the norm
to futz with the patient using blunt dirty instruments and see what
happens (and then sometimes bother to write it down).

Marcus