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Re: Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22

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Kim Sorvig

Re: Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22

Hey Nick -
An historical query: Is British Emergence related to the British Invasion?
Kim

----- Original Message -----
From: <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:00 AM
Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
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Today's Topics:

1. Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson)
2. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Russ Abbott)
3. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson)
4. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Roger Critchlow)
5. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (russell standish)
6. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Owen Densmore)
7. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson)
8. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Russ Abbott)
9. FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson)
10. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson)
11. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (russell standish)
12. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Russ Abbott)
13. Re: 3D Modeling Software (siddharth)
14. Beware Flash cookies (Robert Holmes)
15. concrete study (was Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence)
(glen e. p. ropella)
16. Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
(glen e. p. ropella)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:22:04 -0600
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email]
Cc: [hidden email]
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

All,

I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions
of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to
say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).

Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary
Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to
me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and
unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
forces" then what the dickens are they?

Can anybody help me with this paradox????

I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
forward any remarks he may have back to you.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:38:56 -0700
From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why
should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense
now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I
mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern
English, thinks it's very important what people used to think.

It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important
what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from
there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you
are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the
question.

If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would
be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the
presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to
determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a
problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British
Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for
spending much time talking about it.

-- Russ

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> All,
>
> I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
> reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions
> of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out
> of
> business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to
> say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
> main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
>
> Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary
> Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA,
> and
> proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus,
> to
> me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and
> unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
> forces" then what the dickens are they?
>
> Can anybody help me with this paradox????
>
> I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object,
> will
> forward any remarks he may have back to you.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

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------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:55:59 -0600
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email]
Cc: [hidden email]
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Russ,

To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views
of the same subject in mind at the same time. I think our discussions on
this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their
opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion
with which they disagree.
Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a
night-shrouded bay. Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources
in this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that
is, to compare and contrast it with other opinions. But hey, I am an
academic and a humanist: what would you expect me to believe

Don't let that woman out of your sight!!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: [hidden email];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why
should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense
now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I
mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern
English, thinks it's very important what people used to think.

It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important
what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from
there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you
are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the
question.

If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would
be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the
presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to
determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a
problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British
Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for
spending much time talking about it.

-- Russ

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

All,

I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions
of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to
say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).

Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary
Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to
me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and
unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
forces" then what the dickens are they?

Can anybody help me with this paradox????

I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
forward any remarks he may have back to you.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

============================================================
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
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------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:48:55 -0600
From: Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Cc: [hidden email]
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
to emergent or resultant rule sets.

The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They
believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety
of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it
wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
of biology.

Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but
they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
complicated configurations of nuclei.

The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
inheritance.

But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists,
as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the
resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
one sense they really cared about.

-- rec --

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> All,
>
> I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
> reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central assertions
> of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out
> of
> business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on to
> say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
> main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
>
> Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary
> Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA,
> and
> proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus,
> to
> me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and
> unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
> forces" then what the dickens are they?
>
> Can anybody help me with this paradox????
>
> I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object,
> will
> forward any remarks he may have back to you.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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: 5
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:39:14 +1000
From: russell standish <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

>From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the
same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very
"configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by
emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is
used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole
professional life.

It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely
rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as
complexity researchers, would we be interested in that?

Cheers

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote:

> As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
> are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
> to emergent or resultant rule sets.
>
> The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They
> believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
> of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
> it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
> answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
> than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety
> of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
> according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it
> wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
> result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
> of biology.
>
> Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
> configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
> operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
> statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
> same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but
> they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
> packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
> complicated configurations of nuclei.
>
> The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
> last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
> inheritance.
>
> But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists,
> as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
> configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
> chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
> happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
> distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
> electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the
> resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
> Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
> one sense they really cared about.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we
> > are
> > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central
> > assertions
> > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out
> > of
> > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on
> > to
> > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s]
> > the
> > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> > concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
> >
> > Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary
> > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA,
> > and
> > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus,
> > to
> > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> > dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and
> > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of
> > "configurational
> > forces" then what the dickens are they?
> >
> > Can anybody help me with this paradox????
> >
> > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object,
> > will
> > forward any remarks he may have back to you.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > 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

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [hidden email]
Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:43:02 -0600
From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

[This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was:
Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity
I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of
emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos
and how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we
could similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to
simply look at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing
complexity as a field within chaos.]

Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name
by Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core
problem of Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack
of any success in formalizing it.

Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for
very simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to
grasp. Years passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he
didn't understand error calculations, nor did he understand the
limitations of computation.

Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as
turbulent flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All
had one thing in common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other
would find themselves at a near random distance from each other after
short periods of time.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile
formation, flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality,
however, was not divergence but convergence, not chaos but order.
Typically this is coined "emergence".

I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum,
Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity.

Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as
the core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex".

The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of
divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial
success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar
metric for identifying chaotic systems.

It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize
it, hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our
scope to ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus
simple enough for success.

You see why I included Chaos Envy?

-- Owen

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:54:23 -0600
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: "friam" <[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Dear Russ II,

One of the things I hope to find out by discussing actual texts is whether
it IS the same as vitalism. I don't think so. Another reason to spend a
week on the british emergentists is because of their partial ressemblence
to Authors like Juarerro and Rosen whom some of us do take seriously.

It's hard to believe in top-down causality without endorsing many of the
positions taken by these folks.

And, remember, we are only spending a week on the B.E's; next week it's on
to John Searle!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

> [Original Message]
> From: russell standish <[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 9/15/2009 5:39:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
>
> >From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the
> same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very
> "configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by
> emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is
> used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole
> professional life.
>
> It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely
> rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as
> complexity researchers, would we be interested in that?
>
> Cheers
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> > As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
> > are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
> > to emergent or resultant rule sets.
> >
> > The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They
> > believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
> > of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
> > it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
> > answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
> > than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety
> > of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
> > according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it
> > wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
> > result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
> > of biology.
> >
> > Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
> > configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
> > operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
> > statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
> > same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but
> > they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
> > packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
> > complicated configurations of nuclei.
> >
> > The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
> > last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
> > inheritance.
> >
> > But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists,
> > as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
> > configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
> > chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
> > happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
> > distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
> > electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the
> > resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
> > Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
> > one sense they really cared about.
> >
> > -- rec --
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
> > <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > > All,
> > >
> > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter

we are
> > > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central
assertions
> > > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists
out of
> > > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes
on to
> > > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s]
the
> > > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> > > concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
> > >
> > > Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about
contemporary
> > > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA,
RNA, and
> > > proteins) central to our understanding of biological
development. Thus, to
> > > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> > > dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding
and
> > > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of
"configurational
> > > forces" then what the dickens are they?
> > >
> > > Can anybody help me with this paradox????
> > >
> > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't
object, will

> > > forward any remarks he may have back to you.
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > >
> > > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ============================================================
> > > 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
>
> --
>
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [hidden email]
> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> 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: 8
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:18:06 -0700
From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Owen,

Here's how I would start.

I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or
'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a
structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One
of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints.
I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as
referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large.

I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
representative of emergence.)

That raises a few questions.

1. What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create
structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces:
static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They
produce
emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are
much
more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce
emergent
phenomena like biological and social entities.)
2. How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones
work according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much
more
difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the
entities being structured.)
3. Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer
is that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static
entities
exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is
continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from
equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.)
4. Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software?
(My answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to
worry
about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it
hides
the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software
using
the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the
programming
language one is using.)

-- Russ

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

> [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was:
> Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity
> I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of
> emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and
> how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could
> similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look
> at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a
> field within chaos.]
>
> Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by
> Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of
> Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success
> in
> formalizing it.
>
> Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very
> simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years
> passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand
> error
> calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation.
>
> Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent
> flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in
> common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves
> at
> a near random distance from each other after short periods of time.
> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
>
> Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation,
> flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not
> divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined
> "emergence".
>
> I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum,
> Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity.
>
> Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the
> core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex".
>
> The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of
> divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial
> success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric
> for identifying chaotic systems.
>
> It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it,
> hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to
> ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough
> for
> success.
>
> You see why I included Chaos Envy?
>
> -- Owen
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

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------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:22:46 -0600
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email]
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Oh, gosh!

I hope it was clear to every reader that when I wrote:

I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense
that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with
any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree.

that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the contributions
of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at me, not any one of us.
Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody felt singled out.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

----- Original Message -----
From: Nicholas Thompson
To: [hidden email]
Cc: [hidden email]
Sent: 9/14/2009 7:55:58 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

Russ,

To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views
of the same subject in mind at the same time. I think our discussions on
this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their
opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion
with which they disagree.
Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a
night-shrouded bay. Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources
in this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that
is, to compare and contrast it with other opinions. But hey, I am an
academic and a humanist: what would you expect me to believe

Don't let that woman out of your sight!!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: [hidden email];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why
should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense
now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I
mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern
English, thinks it's very important what people used to think.

It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important
what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from
there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you
are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the
question.

If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would
be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the
presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to
determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a
problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British
Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for
spending much time talking about it.

-- Russ

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

All,

I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions
of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to
say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).

Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary
Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to
me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and
unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
forces" then what the dickens are they?

Can anybody help me with this paradox????

I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
forward any remarks he may have back to you.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

============================================================
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 --------------
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------------------------------

Message: 10
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:30:52 -0600
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email]
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Russ,

I agree with

I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
representative of emergence.)

This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

Owen,

Here's how I would start.

I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or
'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a
structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One
of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints.
I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as
referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large.

I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
representative of emergence.)

That raises a few questions.

What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure?
(My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and
dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent
phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open
and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena
like biological and social entities.)
How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work
according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more
difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the
entities being structured.)
Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that
for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at
equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually
imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must
import energy to keep themselves together.)
Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My
answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about
the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the
energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the
mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming
language one is using.)

-- Russ

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

[This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was:
Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity
I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence,
we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they
achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt
formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of
chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within
chaos.]

Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by
Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of
Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in
formalizing it.

Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very
simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years
passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error
calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation.

Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent
flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in
common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at
a near random distance from each other after short periods of time.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation,
flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not
divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined
"emergence".

I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum,
Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity.

Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the
core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex".

The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence
and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought
the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying
chaotic systems.

It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it,
hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to
ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for
success.

You see why I included Chaos Envy?

-- Owen

============================================================
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 --------------
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------------------------------

Message: 11
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:55:01 +1000
From: russell standish <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now
:). Serves me right, I guess.

I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
something to somebody.

And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational
complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system
and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the
system arranged completely at random).

While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to
calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity
extended to others.

Cheers

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Russ,
>
> I agree with
>
> I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
> entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
> phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
> representative of emergence.)
>
> This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Russ Abbott
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
>
>
> Owen,
>
> Here's how I would start.
>
> I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or
> 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like
> a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important.
> One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global
> constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one
> understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the
> world at large.
>
> I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
> entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
> phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
> representative of emergence.)
>
> That raises a few questions.
>
> What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create
> structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces:
> static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They
> produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones
> are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They
> produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.)
> How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work
> according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more
> difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the
> entities being structured.)
> Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is
> that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities
> exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is
> continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from
> equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.)
> Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My
> answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry
> about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it
> hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in
> software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of)
> the programming language one is using.)
>
>
> -- Russ
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
> [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was:
> Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity
> I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of
> emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and
> how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could
> similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look
> at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a
> field within chaos.]
>
> Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by
> Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of
> Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success
> in formalizing it.
>
> Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very
> simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years
> passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand
> error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation.
>
> Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent
> flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in
> common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves
> at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time.
> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
>
> Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation,
> flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not
> divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined
> "emergence".
>
> I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum,
> Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity.
>
> Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the
> core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex".
>
> The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of
> divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial
> success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric
> for identifying chaotic systems.
>
> It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it,
> hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to
> ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough
> for success.
>
> You see why I included Chaos Envy?
>
> -- Owen
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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

> Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now
> :). Serves me right, I guess.
>
> I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
> structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
> something to somebody.
>
> And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational
> complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system
> and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the
> system arranged completely at random).
>
> While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to
> calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity
> extended to others.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > Russ,
> >
> > I agree with
> >
> > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
> entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
> phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
> representative of emergence.)
> >
> > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Russ Abbott
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
> >
> >
> > Owen,
> >
> > Here's how I would start.
> >
> > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or
> 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like
> a
> structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important.
> One
> of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global
> constraints.
> I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as
> referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large.
> >
> > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured
> entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent"
> phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as
> representative of emergence.)
> >
> > That raises a few questions.
> >
> > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create
> structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces:
> static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They
> produce
> emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much
> more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce
> emergent
> phenomena like biological and social entities.)
> > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones
> > work
> according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more
> difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the
> entities being structured.)
> > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is
> that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities
> exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is
> continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from
> equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.)
> > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My
> answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry
> about
> the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the
> energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using
> the
> mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming
> language one is using.)
> >
> >
> > -- Russ
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> >
> > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was:
> > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity
> > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of
> emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and
> how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could
> similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look
> at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a
> field within chaos.]
> >
> > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name
> > by
> Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of
> Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success
> in
> formalizing it.
> >
> > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very
> simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years
> passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand
> error
> calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation.
> >
> > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent
> flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in
> common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves
> at
> a near random distance from each other after short periods of time.
> > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
> >
> > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile
> > formation,
> flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not
> divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined
> "emergence".
> >
> > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum,
> Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity.
> >
> > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the
> core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex".
> >
> > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of
> divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial
> success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric
> for identifying chaotic systems.
> >
> > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize
> > it,
> hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to
> ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough
> for
> success.
> >
> > You see why I included Chaos Envy?
> >
> > -- Owen
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > 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
>
> --
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [hidden email]
> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

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Message: 13
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:26:29 +1000
From: siddharth <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Rhino is pretty standard nowadays - http://www.rhino3d.com /
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_3D
Stable, powerful, versatile, some great plug-ins...(nope, not an ad!)
Worth a shot.. It used to be free intially, you could still download the
Evaluation version and muck around...

(What 3D-modeling needs are you specifically looking at?)

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which
> system to use.
>
> A few requirements:
> - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at
> $1000+
> - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn
> - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs.
> - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering
> (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there)
> - Run on both Mac/Windows
>
> As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software
>
> Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a
> brief review of?
>
> -- Owen
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

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Message: 14
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:00:16 -0600
From: Robert Holmes <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Beware Flash cookies
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Flash has it's own version of cookies that not many people know about and
are hard to delete. See
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

If you want to delete them or stop them getting dropped on your computer you
actually need to use a control panel on the Adobe site:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html#118539

-- Robert
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Message: 15
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:10:48 -0700
From: "glen e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] concrete study (was Re: Emergence Seminar--British
Emergence)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Russell's on to something, here. What RussA refers to as "structure" is
predicate or operator dependent. (I don't go as far as Russell and boil
it all down to meaning. Meaning is just one kind of operator.) There
is no such thing as an "unstructured component". Hence, there is no
such thing as a "structured entity from unstructured components".

But there are operators that apply to the components and that do not
apply to the collection of components and vice versa. So, the structure
of the collection can (usually will) be different from the structure of
the components.

As for Owen's pragmatic approach, I'd constrain the areas of convergence
studied even more (way tighter than ABM). I'd recommend picking 3
concrete examples and work particularly with them. Systems with
components such that:

1) the operators apply equally well with the system as with the
components (like the systems RussA was trying to find a word for recently),

2) the operators don't, in general, apply to both systems and their
components, but that can be tweaked so that they do apply, and

3) the set of operators on the systems and the set of operators on the
components are disjoint.

(1) represents trivial (or no) emergence. (2) represents weak
emergence. and (3) represents strong emergence. Of course, perhaps we
can't formalize any systems+components so that we realize (3). But
failing to find that 3rd concrete example would be a learning experience.

Thus spake russell standish circa 09/14/2009 09:55 PM:

> I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
> structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
> something to somebody.
>
> [...]
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> I agree with
>>
>> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/14/2009 09:18 PM:
>>> I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a
>>> structured entity from unstructured components--as the
>>> commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the
>>> notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.)
>>
>> This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I
>> think.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com

------------------------------

Message: 16
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:33:03 -0700
From: "glen e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

The lack of depth you point out is the dominant feature of online
discussion, at least in every online forum I've experienced over the
past 28 years. (Some people have told me it's _my_ personal problem and
not a feature of online comm at all. I ignore them, of course. [grin])
I think the reason for the shallowness of the interaction is because
people can be (mis-)quoted, verbatim, and have their own words thrown
back at them. Very few people listen to what the writer is _trying_ to
say. They just listen to what they infer from the writing.

Listening to what the writer is trying to say involves things like 1)
paraphrasing what they wrote by writing it anew in one's own words, 2)
reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some fractioned
piece of it, and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_
of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication,
are difficult and expensive for online comm.

If any one person invests too much energy in exploring another person's
opinion, they a) can appear to hold that opinion themselves and b) can
dynamically be convinced of that opinion, perhaps without realizing it.
In f2f, that happens smoothly and naturally ... then after a few days,
the different opinions either smush together or spread apart. But
(without recording equipment) nobody can effectively add friction to the
process by quoting the other before or after any incremental evolution
or refinement of their opinion. (And, of course, most people end up
with a fuzzy-headed "sameness" or "otherness" sense of the opinions of
the other people, without any real, crisp, distinctions at all.)

Hence, in online comm. (without a robust offline substrate) we find that
most people emphatically assert their individuality and focus on
contrast rather than comparison. If, however, a group of people who
have robust offline relationships augment their conversations with
online comm, the dynamic is much more cohesive.... except when the
sporadic "foreigner" pokes his head in with contributions that lack the
more robust context. ;-)

That's just my opinion, of course.

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/14/2009 09:22 PM:
> I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in
> the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty
> representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree.
>
>
> that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the
> contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at
> me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody
> felt singled out.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com

------------------------------

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End of Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22
*************************************

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