Growth (was Re: so what would be wrong with saying what you think?)

[Phil Henshaw-2]

More later, but yes, and the ones of particular interest being the
properties of organizational developmental processes.   Some of those
can be refined to describe universal process structures.   Of those
the most interesting to me is that the organizational development of
growth is self destabilizing...   We might have to work a little to
specify what those terms refer to in the physical world.   The big
hurdle seems to be just to make the attempt and then start to sort
things out rather than dismiss it as impractical without trying.

>
> > it's also possible that my statement of what
> > seems to be the most fascinating and relevant
> > problem of our times is incomplete, and I very
> > openly welcome contributions to how it should be posed
>
> It seems to be a bit incomplete indeed.
> If I understand you right, you want us
> to formulate the question which you want to
> ask us then ? That's a bit odd, isn't it ?
> Why do you think growth is the most
> fascinating and relevant problem of our
> times ? Here are four reasons why growth
> is interesting.
>
> 1. What I find interesting about growth is
> that it is often associated with shrinkage,
> for instance you become a personality
> by giving up the freedom to try different
> things, by learning more and more about
> an increasingly narrow field until you
> have become an expert who knows everything
> about nothing.
>
> 2. Growth is also interesting because it is
> of fundamental importance in many complex
> adaptive systems and organizations: religious,
> political, military and other groups try to do
> everything to ensure growth. Growth means more
> jobs, more money, more gain. The more agents an
> organization has, the more power, influence,
> and reputation are available for the leader.
> This contant drive for growth causes a lot of
> problems, but it is more a fact than a problem.
> As Shimon Peres said "If a problem has no
> solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact
> - not to be solved, but to be coped with over
> time."
>
> 3. Growth is important to nourish illusions of
> the poor to become rich: the classic american
> dream resembles the dreams of China and India
> today. Most people are poor and have a bad life,
> and everybody beliefs he can make it if he only
> works hard enough, and this belief is fueled by
> constant growth. Yet real success is often an
> exception, while most people are exploited badly,
> only a few people really make it, often lucky
> people who have been at the right place at the
> right time with the right idea.
>
> 4. Finally growth is interesting because it is
> a process related to self-organization and
> the increase of complexity, especially if it
> is combined with positive feedback (for example
> Paul Krugman's model of city formation or
> Schelling's segregation model, or the
> "preferential attachment" model for complex
> scale-free networks).
>
> -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
>
>

--
Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: sy at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Maybe it can be approached with two questions.   Does something direct
the rapid evolution of growth systems and know about what they're going
to run into before they get there, predetermining how they should
respond, or do growth processes animate themselves and discover their
own futures, inventing their responses to what they run into as that
occurs?   If you think about this you'll see it is the same as the
question of whether events begin and end, or whether all events are on
an ideal universal continuum in which nothing original ever occurs.  

I certainly use which ever assumption is useful at the moment, given the
situation, of course.  There's a theorem I'll be including in my talk as
NECSI in a couple weeks that proves that growth is the required behavior
for things that begin and end.   In so far as growth is commonly
observed, it seems demonstrated that growth is self-animating and change
occurs as a discovery process rather than as a consequence of it's
predictability.   You follow?  

Then the second question is, if growth systems are autonomous little
storms of some kind, inventing their internal evolution and external
responses, what is feedback?


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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Henshaw [mailto:sy at synapse9.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 4:34 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Growth (was Re: so what would be wrong
> with saying what you think?)
>
>
> More later, but yes, and the ones of particular interest being the
> properties of organizational developmental processes.   Some of those
> can be refined to describe universal process structures.   Of those
> the most interesting to me is that the organizational development of
> growth is self destabilizing...   We might have to work a little to
> specify what those terms refer to in the physical world.   The big
> hurdle seems to be just to make the attempt and then start to sort
> things out rather than dismiss it as impractical without trying.
>
> >
> > > it's also possible that my statement of what
> > > seems to be the most fascinating and relevant
> > > problem of our times is incomplete, and I very
> > > openly welcome contributions to how it should be posed
> >
> > It seems to be a bit incomplete indeed.
> > If I understand you right, you want us
> > to formulate the question which you want to
> > ask us then ? That's a bit odd, isn't it ?
> > Why do you think growth is the most
> > fascinating and relevant problem of our
> > times ? Here are four reasons why growth
> > is interesting.
> >
> > 1. What I find interesting about growth is
> > that it is often associated with shrinkage,
> > for instance you become a personality
> > by giving up the freedom to try different
> > things, by learning more and more about
> > an increasingly narrow field until you
> > have become an expert who knows everything
> > about nothing.
> >
> > 2. Growth is also interesting because it is
> > of fundamental importance in many complex
> > adaptive systems and organizations: religious,
> > political, military and other groups try to do
> > everything to ensure growth. Growth means more
> > jobs, more money, more gain. The more agents an
> > organization has, the more power, influence,
> > and reputation are available for the leader.
> > This contant drive for growth causes a lot of
> > problems, but it is more a fact than a problem.
> > As Shimon Peres said "If a problem has no
> > solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact
> > - not to be solved, but to be coped with over
> > time."
> >
> > 3. Growth is important to nourish illusions of
> > the poor to become rich: the classic american
> > dream resembles the dreams of China and India
> > today. Most people are poor and have a bad life,
> > and everybody beliefs he can make it if he only
> > works hard enough, and this belief is fueled by
> > constant growth. Yet real success is often an
> > exception, while most people are exploited badly,
> > only a few people really make it, often lucky
> > people who have been at the right place at the
> > right time with the right idea.
> >
> > 4. Finally growth is interesting because it is
> > a process related to self-organization and
> > the increase of complexity, especially if it
> > is combined with positive feedback (for example
> > Paul Krugman's model of city formation or
> > Schelling's segregation model, or the
> > "preferential attachment" model for complex
> > scale-free networks).
> >
> > -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
> >
> >
>
> --
> Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> ~        
> tel: [phone]                
> e-mail: sy at synapse9.com          
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>

[Robert Holmes]

Phil,
The questions you are asking are too broad for cogent answers. But I'm
always game for a go at this sort of thing:

Does something direct the rapid evolution of growth systems?
Sometimes yes, sometime no. I guess it depends what you do and don't mean by
a "growth system" (care to provide a definition?)

Do growth process animate themselves and discover their futures?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I guess it depends on what you mean by
"animate" (can growth only be a property of something with the awareness to
animate itself and discover things? Sounds unlikely... that rules out a lot
of non-sentient "growth processes")

Do events begin and end or are all events on an ideal universal continuum in
which nothing original ever occurs?
No surprise here: sometimes yes, sometimes no. I guess it depends what you
mean by "begin", "end" and "continuum" [though I think you mean cycle: that
implies repetition and continuum does not]. Parmenides has some interesting
thoughts on the notion of "begin" and "end". Hinduism has some thoughts on
cosmic cycles (and it's about 427,000 years till the end of the current Kali
Yuga).

Want to ask rather more precise questions? Or shall we just continue these
metaphysical ramblings?

Robert


On 10/14/06, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:

>
> Maybe it can be approached with two questions.   Does something direct
> the rapid evolution of growth systems and know about what they're going
> to run into before they get there, predetermining how they should
> respond, or do growth processes animate themselves and discover their
> own futures, inventing their responses to what they run into as that
> occurs?   If you think about this you'll see it is the same as the
> question of whether events begin and end, or whether all events are on
> an ideal universal continuum in which nothing original ever occurs.
>
> I certainly use which ever assumption is useful at the moment, given the
> situation, of course.  There's a theorem I'll be including in my talk as
> NECSI in a couple weeks that proves that growth is the required behavior
> for things that begin and end.   In so far as growth is commonly
> observed, it seems demonstrated that growth is self-animating and change
> occurs as a discovery process rather than as a consequence of it's
> predictability.   You follow?
>
> Then the second question is, if growth systems are autonomous little
> storms of some kind, inventing their internal evolution and external
> responses, what is feedback?
>
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: [phone]
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Phil Henshaw [mailto:sy at synapse9.com]
> > Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 4:34 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Growth (was Re: so what would be wrong
> > with saying what you think?)
> >
> >
> > More later, but yes, and the ones of particular interest being the
> > properties of organizational developmental processes.   Some of those
> > can be refined to describe universal process structures.   Of those
> > the most interesting to me is that the organizational development of
> > growth is self destabilizing...   We might have to work a little to
> > specify what those terms refer to in the physical world.   The big
> > hurdle seems to be just to make the attempt and then start to sort
> > things out rather than dismiss it as impractical without trying.
> >
> > >
> > > > it's also possible that my statement of what
> > > > seems to be the most fascinating and relevant
> > > > problem of our times is incomplete, and I very
> > > > openly welcome contributions to how it should be posed
> > >
> > > It seems to be a bit incomplete indeed.
> > > If I understand you right, you want us
> > > to formulate the question which you want to
> > > ask us then ? That's a bit odd, isn't it ?
> > > Why do you think growth is the most
> > > fascinating and relevant problem of our
> > > times ? Here are four reasons why growth
> > > is interesting.
> > >
> > > 1. What I find interesting about growth is
> > > that it is often associated with shrinkage,
> > > for instance you become a personality
> > > by giving up the freedom to try different
> > > things, by learning more and more about
> > > an increasingly narrow field until you
> > > have become an expert who knows everything
> > > about nothing.
> > >
> > > 2. Growth is also interesting because it is
> > > of fundamental importance in many complex
> > > adaptive systems and organizations: religious,
> > > political, military and other groups try to do
> > > everything to ensure growth. Growth means more
> > > jobs, more money, more gain. The more agents an
> > > organization has, the more power, influence,
> > > and reputation are available for the leader.
> > > This contant drive for growth causes a lot of
> > > problems, but it is more a fact than a problem.
> > > As Shimon Peres said "If a problem has no
> > > solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact
> > > - not to be solved, but to be coped with over
> > > time."
> > >
> > > 3. Growth is important to nourish illusions of
> > > the poor to become rich: the classic american
> > > dream resembles the dreams of China and India
> > > today. Most people are poor and have a bad life,
> > > and everybody beliefs he can make it if he only
> > > works hard enough, and this belief is fueled by
> > > constant growth. Yet real success is often an
> > > exception, while most people are exploited badly,
> > > only a few people really make it, often lucky
> > > people who have been at the right place at the
> > > right time with the right idea.
> > >
> > > 4. Finally growth is interesting because it is
> > > a process related to self-organization and
> > > the increase of complexity, especially if it
> > > is combined with positive feedback (for example
> > > Paul Krugman's model of city formation or
> > > Schelling's segregation model, or the
> > > "preferential attachment" model for complex
> > > scale-free networks).
> > >
> > > -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
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > ~
> > tel: [phone]
> > e-mail: sy at synapse9.com
> > explorations: www.synapse9.com
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061015/2bb66228/attachment-0001.html

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Robert,
>
> Phil,
> The questions you are asking are too broad for cogent
> answers. But I'm always game for a go at this sort of thing:
In some ways, yes, but it could also be like saying you can't really
hold a flopping fish in your hands, failing to consider the possibility
of having a net.
 
>> Does something direct the rapid evolution of growth systems?
> Sometimes yes, sometime no. I guess it depends what you do
> and don't mean by a "growth system" (care to provide a definition?)
There are several kinds of physical behaviors you might expect to find
associated with data curves that appear to have successive changes in
slope implying that all derivatives are real and of the same sign.  I'm
usually referring to the rapidly evolving distributed physical systems
within that group.  Some people commonly see growth as including both
the accelerating and decelerating periods of organizational development.
The two trickiest parts, I think, are associating data curves with
derivatives (when to read dots as curves), and what to call a system in
which all parts are disconnected and if it's "a thing".

>> Do growth process animate themselves and discover their futures?
> Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I guess it depends on what you
> mean by "animate" (can growth only be a property of something
> with the awareness to animate itself and discover things?
> Sounds unlikely... that rules out a lot of non-sentient
> "growth processes")
Well, taken that way, since all language is written from the human point
of view, perhaps we could question lots of our assertions about physical
things.  The 'ani' syllable is one that I expand a little for the
purpose.  I take it as 'action making' in a broad sense, separate from
any form of cognition.  The question I'm getting at is about the
'gradients' that are usually credited with causing the action in nature.
The alternative is finding that the gradients are passive resources
being employed by the internal workings of the growth processes that use
them.  I don't think that interpretation requires implying 'awareness'
or 'intention', or any of that stuff, to describe rapidly evolving loops
of organization.

 
>> Do events begin and end or are all events on an ideal
>> universal continuum in which nothing original ever occurs?
> No surprise here: sometimes yes, sometimes no. I guess it
> depends what you mean by "begin", "end" and "continuum"
> [though I think you mean cycle: that implies repetition and
> continuum does not]. Parmenides has some interesting thoughts
> on the notion of "begin" and "end". Hinduism has some
> thoughts on cosmic cycles (and it's about 427,000 years till
> the end of the current Kali Yuga).
It's very hard to tell when or if anything begins or ends, because if so
it's at times and in ways that are too small to observe.   Another way
to say that is that beginning and ending always seem to violate their
scales.   That theorem I mentioned says that energy conservation
requires that if things are to begin or end they must do so at invisible
scales and have periods of development during which all implied
derivatives are of the same sign.  The testable part of that seems to
match observation.  

The continuous processes that have no discernable beginning or end, say
planetary orbits and gravity, or just a good sin wave on a screen, won't
have any periods when all derivatives are of the same sign.

> Want to ask rather more precise questions? Or shall we just
> continue these metaphysical ramblings?
Well, did I?   :,)

Phil

> Robert
>
> On 10/14/06, Phil Henshaw < sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
> Maybe it can be approached with two questions.   Does
> something direct
> the rapid evolution of growth systems and know about what
> they're going to run into before they get there,
> predetermining how they should respond, or do growth
> processes animate themselves and discover their own futures,
> inventing their responses to what they run into as that
> occurs?   If you think about this you'll see it is the same as the
> question of whether events begin and end, or whether all
> events are on an ideal universal continuum in which nothing
> original ever occurs.
>
> I certainly use which ever assumption is useful at the
> moment, given the situation, of course.  There's a theorem
> I'll be including in my talk as NECSI in a couple weeks that
> proves that growth is the required behavior
> for things that begin and end.   In so far as growth is commonly
> observed, it seems demonstrated that growth is self-animating
> and change occurs as a discovery process rather than as a
> consequence of it's
> predictability.   You follow?
>
> Then the second question is, if growth systems are autonomous
> little storms of some kind, inventing their internal
> evolution and external responses, what is feedback?
>
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: [phone]
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Phil Henshaw [mailto:sy at synapse9.com]
> > Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 4:34 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Growth (was Re: so what would be wrong
> > with saying what you think?)
> >
> >
> > More later, but yes, and the ones of particular interest being the
> > properties of organizational developmental processes.  
> Some of those
> > can be refined to describe universal process structures.   Of those
> > the most interesting to me is that the organizational development of
> > growth is self destabilizing...   We might have to work a little to
> > specify what those terms refer to in the physical world.   The big
> > hurdle seems to be just to make the attempt and then start to sort
> > things out rather than dismiss it as impractical without trying.
> >
> > >
> > > > it's also possible that my statement of what
> > > > seems to be the most fascinating and relevant
> > > > problem of our times is incomplete, and I very
> > > > openly welcome contributions to how it should be posed
> > >
> > > It seems to be a bit incomplete indeed.
> > > If I understand you right, you want us
> > > to formulate the question which you want to
> > > ask us then ? That's a bit odd, isn't it ?
> > > Why do you think growth is the most
> > > fascinating and relevant problem of our
> > > times ? Here are four reasons why growth
> > > is interesting.
> > >
> > > 1. What I find interesting about growth is
> > > that it is often associated with shrinkage,
> > > for instance you become a personality
> > > by giving up the freedom to try different
> > > things, by learning more and more about
> > > an increasingly narrow field until you
> > > have become an expert who knows everything
> > > about nothing.
> > >
> > > 2. Growth is also interesting because it is
> > > of fundamental importance in many complex
> > > adaptive systems and organizations: religious,
> > > political, military and other groups try to do
> > > everything to ensure growth. Growth means more
> > > jobs, more money, more gain. The more agents an
> > > organization has, the more power, influence,
> > > and reputation are available for the leader.
> > > This contant drive for growth causes a lot of
> > > problems, but it is more a fact than a problem.
> > > As Shimon Peres said "If a problem has no
> > > solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact
> > > - not to be solved, but to be coped with over
> > > time."
> > >
> > > 3. Growth is important to nourish illusions of
> > > the poor to become rich: the classic american
> > > dream resembles the dreams of China and India
> > > today. Most people are poor and have a bad life,
> > > and everybody beliefs he can make it if he only
> > > works hard enough, and this belief is fueled by
> > > constant growth. Yet real success is often an
> > > exception, while most people are exploited badly,
> > > only a few people really make it, often lucky
> > > people who have been at the right place at the
> > > right time with the right idea.
> > >
> > > 4. Finally growth is interesting because it is
> > > a process related to self-organization and
> > > the increase of complexity, especially if it
> > > is combined with positive feedback (for example
> > > Paul Krugman's model of city formation or
> > > Schelling's segregation model, or the
> > > "preferential attachment" model for complex
> > > scale-free networks).
> > >
> > > -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
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > ~
> > tel: [phone]
> > e-mail: sy at synapse9.com
> > explorations: www.synapse9.com
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

[Robert Holmes]

On 10/15/06, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:

>
> <snip>
>
> It's very hard to tell when or if anything begins or ends, because if so
> it's at times and in ways that are too small to observe.   Another way
> to say that is that beginning and ending always seem to violate their
> scales.   That theorem I mentioned says that energy conservation
> requires that if things are to begin or end they must do so at invisible
> scales and have periods of development during which all implied
> derivatives are of the same sign.  The testable part of that seems to
> match observation.

I need a couple of concrete example to understand this. Could you please
tell me (i) the scale violations that occur and (ii)  the attributes whose
derivatives are all positive when:

   - a human (me, for example) is born; and
   - a company (Coca-Cola, for example) is born

Robert
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061015/ef3386fd/attachment.html

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Robert,
> On 10/15/06, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
>> It's very hard to tell when or if anything begins or ends,
>> because if so
>> it's at times and in ways that are too small to observe.   Another
way
>> to say that is that beginning and ending always seem to violate their

>> scales.   That theorem I mentioned says that energy conservation
>> requires that if things are to begin or end they must do so
>> at invisible scales and have periods of development during
>> which all implied derivatives are of the same sign.  The
>> testable part of that seems to
>> match observation.
>
> I need a couple of concrete example to understand this. Could
> you please tell me (i) the scale violations that occur and
> (ii)  the attributes whose derivatives are all positive when:
>
> a human (me, for example) is born; and
> a company (Coca-Cola, for example) is born
> Robert

Let me try,

Not having any data for either event makes it harder to make statements
about how to interpret the data.  Without data everything is quite
invisible, so let's talk about hypothetical data.  What might you
choose?, the curvature of your mom's belly, perhaps, and for Coke the
documented assets of the legal entity?   You can quickly see that both
might make reasonably interesting measures of the early phases of the
development of either new entity, but are going to be useless in
locating "the beginning".  

Pregnancy develops a very noticeable curvature in a belly, but tiny
changes might be quite hard to measure accurately, and a single cell, or
probably even a million, won't produce a noticeable change.  The assets
of a corporation are problematic since it's beginning certainly comes
before it's a legally recognized entity.  The formal signing of the
incorporation documents comes after lots of other organizing steps.  

One can work backward from the evidence you have, of course, but it's
all guess work and peters out.   We can hypothesize that fertilization
is the beginning of a human, though it's generally not observable, and
then you can quibble about whether it's the penetration of the cell wall
or the molecular joining that hypothetically divides before and after,
or another point.  For Coke there might be a particular handshake
between two people to signify their common commitment to form a
corporation.  It might even be recorded at a particular time and place,
but invariably it will be the culmination of a process of idea sharing
and planning which is complex and perfectly untraceable as to its
beginning.

You might try another tack.  For each one try to find a time prior to
any evidence of their beginnings and work forward.   What you get is
another fuzzy horizon, an greatest lower bound to pair with your leas
upper bound.   If you liked you could call the space between the forward
and backward approaches the definite period of beginning, but that's
just a window of probability, not the beginning.  If it were just a
matter of always dividing time up finer and finer to make it unclear
when events that require a duration occur you could agree to use some
inflection point of a definitive beginning moment or triggering event.
That might be the moment of the firmest pressure in the handshake or the
signal which the unfertilized egg sends to select which of the pressing
sperms is to be invited in.  Events that fit that convention might be
found meaningful and useful in some circumstances, but it's a convention
to stop a search at a satisfying point, not the result of finding their
own beginnings and ends.

If you consider a single time-series data set, rather than a ranging
'forensic' type investigation as implied above, finding where the
beginning of growth occurs is where the horizontal line turns into a
lasting upward curve.  That's inherently imprecise because the change
one wishes to identify is always smaller than the irregularity of the
data.

There's also the important question of whether anything begins at all,
or whether all things are unchanging and ever-present in a universal
continuum, and just emerging and vanishing like the composite shapes
produced by a Fourier series.  That seems plausible perhaps from a view
that all form follows mathematical functions.  That's not anyone's
current view, I don't think, and becomes untenable when watching how
natural systems operate through resource pools.  Cells would need extra
sensory perception to coordinate what they deposit in the blood stream
with what other cells independently sweep up from the blood stream and
make use of.  The weaker of two hypotheses is not a good candidate for
being one's automatic assumption and requires some demonstration of
feasibility to entertain.  For things existing in perpetuity there does
not seem to be any.   Still, some things do definitely seem to happen,
so they must begin and end.

I use the term "scale violation" to make it seem like there's something
remarkable about a trail of evidence vanishing into the confusion of
other contexts.   Science has mainly focused on questions where
causation seems to be more definite.  The 'violation' is really of the
common expectation that definitive causes and evidence exist for
everything and we can potentially find them.  I think when you carefully
look at beginnings and endings it looks like the opposite is the case,
at least for the point to point model of causation.  

As to finding periods of change having all higher derivative rates of
the same sign, that's the common feature of growth.   To treat data
curves as having derivatives at all you need the same thing you have for
functions, a rule for finding points along the curve that does not
conflict with the continuity of the underlying structure (physical or
mathematical).  One slippery point is that you sometimes can't
demonstrate that the data at hand may be treated that way (as having
continuity).   You might choose to first assume it to be true, and then
need to confirm that assumption by being led to more substantial
evidence from the shapes you find.  - This is basically about an
investigative tool, that leads to better descriptions, not a descriptive
tool itself. -   Most times, though, any evidence of change that begins
and ends is enough to trigger the presumption that there had to be a
growth process of some kind to then go look for, and treat the data
accordingly...  

Of course, sometimes you just don't have the data.  You could say that
not having evidence of a progression of change is evidence of change
without a progression, but you can usually find more evidence of
connecting progressions in proportion to the effort you put in.
Concluding that such evidence does not exist would violate the
conservation laws anyway and call for confirming evidence of an absence.
That amounts to a proof by speculation based on a lack of evidence, and
that's usually unreliable.

I would agree it may all seem a little sneaky, but it also seems to
work, so I don't mind.

Phil