Re: comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence)
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Re: Faith and Science (was comm.)
 
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On Sep 18, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > And by the way, when I say one can't help but have an opinion about > the color of the sky I'm really saying that one can't help but have > an opinion about one's experience of seeing the sky. Certainly one > can ask whether it even makes sense to say that the sky has a color, > and if so how would one measure it, etc. That's not what I'm talking > about. I'm saying that one can hardly help but have an opinion about > having experienced the sky having a blue color when one looks at it. > I don't know whether that clarifies things or not. Now, this really is the heart of the matter. One certainly can experience without forming an opinion. Granted, that can take a lot of practice. But a world in which all phenomenon could only be appreciated through our learned, parochial biases would for me feel very fruitless and almost scary. ============================================================ 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 |
Re: Faith and Science (was comm.)
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In reply to this post by Russ Abbott
Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-18 09:53 AM:
> Glen, You and Nick (and I) actually agree that thought is not necessary for > us to eat, walk, etc. We do it whether or not we think that we do it. It > seems to me that you are supposing that Nick (and I) are saying something > different. We're not. What I'm saying (and what I imagine Nick is saying) > is that once one starts to think about it, it makes no sense to deny > reality, not that our thought is necessary for reality. And I find that ridiculous. What has changed "once one starts to think about it"??? Nothing. You still act the way you act, regardless. What galls me is this "it makes no sense" part. Makes no sense to whom? You? Are you claiming that things must make sense to _you_ in order for them to happen? So, although you may _think_ you're saying the same thing I am, you most definitely are not. You're saying that (by some magic) your belief matters to your actions. And I'm saying it doesn't. Actions don't have to "make sense". Now, there are some amongst us (you seem to be one of them) who _desire_ things to make sense to them or else they have trouble believing them. Fine. Do whatever you need to do in your own brain to make sense of your experiences. If you need to believe in a convenient fiction (e.g. external reality, God, whatever), do it. But don't claim that we're all wrong or confused if we don't believe the same way you believe. > Furthermore, I would add (and I don't know what Nick thinks about this), > that we are thiking beings and that we almost can't help ourselves from > thinking. I agree. But it doesn't mean that what we think is True. > Consequently (in my view), we can't honestly say that we have no > opinion about reality. We can hardly help ourselves. It's part of human > nature to look around, observe, and conclude. Wrong. We *can* have "no opinion" because what you mean by "no opinion" is "no _single_ opinion". I actually have _lots_ of opinions about reality, DEPENDING on the context, as I explained before ad nauseum. And I actually believe that every thinking creature has context-dependent opinions, even you. Again, however, there are some of us with a mental illness who _insist_ on reducing every opinion they have down to a _single_ opinion that applies across the board to all contexts they or anyone else shall ever experience. This is akin to the psychological symptom of "delusions of grandeur". The rest of us just accept that we have multiple, sometimes contradictory opinions, and go about our day without chewing our nails off about it. As I quoted before: "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." -- Steven Hawking. I'll throw in another of my favorites: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large -- I contain multitudes.)" -- Walt Whitman > That's one way in which we are different from pond scum. Oh? You think the pond scum doesn't also have "opinions"?!? Can you define "opinion" crisply enough to prove that? I suspect not without making a billion questionable assumptions and launching another endless philosophical/metaphysical debate about "intention". > So since (again in my view) one can't help but > have an opinion about reality (at least once someone poses the question), it > makes no sense to me to then deny it -- or even to deny having an opinion. > We just aren't built that way. I agree that we are built to hold opinions (and I think in some sense pond scum also hold opinions). But I disagree that we are built to reconcile and over-generalize all our concepts so that each concept is unique and consistent with all other concepts in our heads. In fact, I believe we are built to maintain _multiple_ (often contradictory) models of the various contexts we experience. > Admittedly that's a somewhat different > question, and it's possible that we can not have an opinion about issues > like that. But I doubt it. It's like looking at the sky (with no clouds) and > denying that one has an opinion about its color. It's hard for me to believe > that one can do that. But as I said, perhaps it's possible. I have many opinions about sky color. I do not have a _single_ opinion about sky color. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
Re: Faith and Science (was comm.)
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In reply to this post by Miles Parker
Thus spake Miles Parker circa 09-09-18 10:18 AM:
> Now, this really is the heart of the matter. One certainly can > experience without forming an opinion. Granted, that can take a lot of > practice. But a world in which all phenomenon could only be appreciated > through our learned, parochial biases would for me feel very fruitless > and almost scary. Well, I might disagree with you on this point. I think the technique you're claiming allows you to experience a context without forming an opinion is really the ability to experience a context and form _multiple_ opinions. Often this is called empathy. Let's say someone knocks my beer over in a bar, which makes me very mad because it was a $7 imperial stout of which they only brew 1 batch per year.... let's say... ;-) Now, my first opinion is that I should jump up and elbow them in the nose. But after a few microseconds (depending on how many beers I've had), my second opinion is from his point of view... I've knocked over others' beers at various times and didn't believe I should be elbowed in the nose. And given a few more moments, I may form many more opinions... perhaps he's drinking a Budweiser and needs to be elbowed in the nose because he has no taste in beer and probably thinks my beer is as crappy as his, which means nobody really cares if it gets knocked over! This ability to form many hypothetical models of any given aspect can eventually _seem_ like not forming any opinion. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
ABMs and Psychology (was Re:FW:Re:Re:WTF: Faith and Science (was comm.))
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
It is true, many terms in Psychology and Sociology
are abstract and "unreal". You mentioned personality, extroversion, emotional intelligence, in-group preference,.. For social systems, many abstract concepts like power and freedom become concrete, observable and measurable phenomena if we consider them as Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) or CAS, and model them in a suitable way http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=Agent_interaction_pattern The situation is maybe similar for a "psychological system". If we decompose the brain into different parts and neural subsystems, then we can possibly map computational processes in the "cognitive architecture" on the corresponding psychological phenomena. Maybe ABM can be helpful here, too. I would really like see an ABM of self-consciousness.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_architecture -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: ERIC P. CHARLES To: friam Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:55 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) [..] I argued that it serves scientists well to believe that what they are studying is real (hence the reference to faith). For example: People who study personality believe that the word "personality" refers to a real phenomenon, a real happening in the world. At the least, they routinely convince me that they think it is real. This is the standard, lay use of the word "real", which conforms reasonably well to many (but not all) philosophical specifications of the term. Now I do not believe in "personality", at least not in the way those researchers do, but most of them don't believe in "perception" the way I think perception works. What goes on at the higher levels is a war over what is "real". In Science (with a capital S), we like to think that will be decided on the merits of empirical evidence (which again necessitates belief in the real). I get the impression that if any researchers, in psychology, chemistry, physics, art, history of Europe, etc., stopped believing they were studying something real, the whole enterprise would fall apart. Given that many of these endeavors do, in the long run, produce useful things, it would be sad to see them go. Thus, there is good reason for scientists to have faith in the reality of what they are studying. ============================================================ 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 |
Re: ABMs and Psychology (was Re:FW:Re:Re:WTF: Faith and Science (was comm.))
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Here's an interesting question, or perhaps it simply draws us back to the same general problem. Can we say that social or psychological phenomenon are any more or less "real" than say that of physical systems? By corollary, can we say that theories from observations of such system's phenomenon are in general less valid? I can think of at least one way of answering yes, but I'm not sure that it is correct or even wether I like it or not. I think it is a consequence of Glen's thoughts on model validity -- I'm still muling that as it deserves reflection: I don't know what I "know", and from there how I feel about it yet. (These scare quotes are getting tiresome, but I can't think of anyway other way to all out their poorly defined or indefinable qualities.) All of the statements below be challenged, of course. Given: a) Social and psychological systems are inherently more complex than so-called physical systems. b) Our understanding of a given system increases as we add models that are novel and valid. c) Increasingly complex systems require increasing numbers of models in order to show that they are valid. d) A theory is or rests on some model or set of models. .: 1) More models are needed to describe a psychological or social system than for a physical system. Assume: e) The set of models for a given system are of equivalent sophistication, parsimony, scope (size?) and validity. .: 2) In a very general sense, we should regard theories of social and psychological systems as less valid, or... 3) relatively more effort will be required to establish the validity of a social or psychological theory . As I say, I'm not sure that I agree with the premises and am not necessarily at all happy with the conclusion, but on the other hand 3) does seem to dock with public and scientific intuition about the relative quality of our insights into social and physical systems: i.e. quite poor compared to physical systems. In other words, the conclusion is probably not earth-shattering and perhaps not even controversial. On the other hand, if we take that against our apparent or assumed level of understanding or predictive capacity with respect to the (speaking dualistically now :)) interaction between our mind and the world, we might actually evaluate a mental model as more valid than that of a model of the physical world. For example, if a caveman hits himself on the finger with a hammer (or a rock, say), he will take the theory that hammers hurt fingers as more valid than the theory of relativity. Modus tollens, this might challenge Glen's hypothesis. Sorry for the ramble.. On Sep 19, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > It is true, many terms in Psychology and Sociology > are abstract and "unreal". You mentioned personality, > extroversion, emotional intelligence, in-group preference,.. > For social systems, many abstract concepts like > power and freedom become concrete, observable and > measurable phenomena if we consider them as Multi-Agent > Systems (MAS) or CAS, and model them in a suitable way > http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=Agent_interaction_pattern > > The situation is maybe similar for a "psychological > system". If we decompose the brain into different > parts and neural subsystems, then we can possibly map > computational processes in the "cognitive architecture" > on the corresponding psychological phenomena. Maybe > ABM can be helpful here, too. I would really like > see an ABM of self-consciousness.. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_architecture > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: ERIC P. CHARLES > To: friam > Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:55 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > [..] I argued that it serves scientists well to believe that what > they are studying is real (hence the reference to faith). For > example: People who study personality believe that the word > "personality" refers to a real phenomenon, a real happening in the > world. At the least, they routinely convince me that they think it > is real. This is the standard, lay use of the word "real", which > conforms reasonably well to many (but not all) philosophical > specifications of the term. > > Now I do not believe in "personality", at least not in the way those > researchers do, but most of them don't believe in "perception" the > way I think perception works. What goes on at the higher levels is a > war over what is "real". In Science (with a capital S), we like to > think that will be decided on the merits of empirical evidence > (which again necessitates belief in the real). I get the impression > that if any researchers, in psychology, chemistry, physics, art, > history of Europe, etc., stopped believing they were studying > something real, the whole enterprise would fall apart. Given that > many of these endeavors do, in the long run, produce useful things, > it would be sad to see them go. Thus, there is good reason for > scientists to have faith in the reality of what they are studying. > > > ============================================================ > 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 |
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In Physics, energy, mass, force and momentum are abstract
terms, too, but they have a concrete mathematical meaning. We model physical processes as interactions among variables. Unless we don't use mathematical equations like F=ma, the terms remain unreal, abstract and vague. In Sociology and Psychology it is much harder to describe the systems with mathematical equations. Instead of using equations, it is more useful to explain the systems by ABM, as Macy and Willer describe in their article "FROM FACTORS TO ACTORS: Computational Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling". It would be interesting to try a shift from factors to actors in Psychology as well. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Parker" <[hidden email]> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]> Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 10:17 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology (was Re:FW:Re:Re:WTF: Faith andScience (was comm.)) > > Here's an interesting question, or perhaps it simply draws us back to the > same general problem. Can we say that social or psychological phenomenon > are any more or less "real" than say that of physical systems? > ============================================================ 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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Although I agree that much of the "complexity" we see in social and psychological systems (SoPS) is fundamentally related to the formalization (or lack thereof) of the languages used to formulate the questions and hypothetical models of the systems' mechanisms, I don't think this is where the complexity really comes from. I think the (lack of) formalization we see in SoPS comes primarily from the incommensurability between their mechanisms and the operators applied to them. Questions about physical systems are formulated at nearly the same level and in nearly the same language as is used to formulate the purported mechanisms for those systems. The degree of formalization is high because we've reduced the language of mechanisms and questions down to continuous (or discretized continuous) spacetime, fields, particles and their properties, etc. In contrast, in SoPS, it is too difficult to use that same language to express the questions and system mechanisms. The logical depth is too great to formulate, say, "anger" in terms of, say, quarks. So, we hunt around for languages with which to express SoPS, born of partially-baked "ontologies" from Freud, Jung, Hobbes, Locke, Keynes, Maslow, etc. But the apparent complexity is not just (or at all, in my opinion) a consequence of the not-fully-formal languages. It's a consequence of using different languages for the questions/measures from that used for the mechanisms. The degree of mismatch between the language in which the operator is formulated and the language in which the hypothetical mechanisms are formulated is what leads to the apparent complexity. I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some parts of the cycle.*+ So, even once we get all SoPS languages formalized (to the extent we have non-well-founded set theory formalized), as long as we don't reduce it all to a kind of "bottom turtle" language (which may not even be possible), they'll exhibit complexity. I.e. multiple models are required for complex systems because "complex" means "formulated in multiple models". [grin] Ha! Justificationists Unite! [*] Note that this is subtly different from Russell Standish's definition of "emergence", which doesn't seem to require the circularity. However, I'm not quite a Rosenite in that I believe circularity (causal closure) is necessary but not sufficient. The lexical mismatch is also necessary. [+] Also note that the concept of "level" doesn't apply, here, either, as in Russ Abbott's "solution" to the problem of "emergence", because it involves an impredicative definition where the macro generates the micro and the micro generates the macro. ... or, similarly, interfaces implement implementations implement interfaces... ;-) Thus spake Jochen Fromm circa 09-09-20 04:03 AM: > In Physics, energy, mass, force and momentum are abstract > terms, too, but they have a concrete mathematical meaning. > We model physical processes as interactions among > variables. Unless we don't use mathematical equations > like F=ma, the terms remain unreal, abstract and vague. > > In Sociology and Psychology it is much harder to > describe the systems with mathematical equations. > Instead of using equations, it is more useful to explain > the systems by ABM, as Macy and Willer describe > in their article "FROM FACTORS TO ACTORS: > Computational Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling". > > It would be interesting to try a shift from factors to actors > in Psychology as well. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
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On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 03:22:38PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> > I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with > complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators > formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the > language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of > applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is > the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that > doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of > the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some > parts of the cycle.*+ > > [*] Note that this is subtly different from Russell Standish's > definition of "emergence", which doesn't seem to require the > circularity. However, I'm not quite a Rosenite in that I believe > circularity (causal closure) is necessary but not sufficient. The > lexical mismatch is also necessary. > It is true that I don't see causal loops as necessary for emergence. I suspect they might be sufficient though, provided they are non-trivial (cannot be collapsed). I recognise my definition of emergence is probably the most liberal definition that still means something. Stronger emergent concepts exist, of course, such as Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. One trouble you will have is that not everybody accepts causal loops, ie they would posit that all causal loops can be explained by (reduced to) a non-loop structure with the causal direction coming from the lowest levels. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM:
> Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > One trouble you will have is that not everybody accepts causal loops, > ie they would posit that all causal loops can be explained by (reduced > to) a non-loop structure with the causal direction coming from the > lowest levels. Yeah, all justificationist gobbledygook has that type of trouble, including my justificationist gobbledygook. [grin] But, what matters is what I achieve by thinking this way, not how many people think like me. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
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On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 04:10:20PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM: > > Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. > > Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". > As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, whereas I would prefer to reclaim the term for a perfectly well-defined technical meaning. Your approach is not wrong, per se. For instance I've given up attempting to assign a meaning to the term "realism" (from our other thread :). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 05:20 PM:
> I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say > a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". > > BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it > is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I > do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which > makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then > complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). I could live with the idea that emergence is a measure of complexity (which is what I infer from "a complex system exhibits emergence"). I don't treat complexity, in itself, as a measure, though. Complexity is a property (scaled at least from simple to complex). And there are measures that attempt to estimate the complexity of a system. It's important the measures of complexity need not be _metrics_; but they can be. So the co-domain of a measure of complexity can be qualitative, hyperspatial, discrete, continuous, whatever. > I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to > give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new > term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, Well, almost, except I've seen a lot more work on measures of complexity than I have measures of emergence. So, there's at least some footing there. And I believe my defn (and yours) could leverage that work to some extent, except I don't see the need for "emergence" as a term when we have complexity and measures of complexity. If emergence were just a (particular type of) measure of complexity, then even if it's weren't as useless as I find it, it's usefulness would be minimal and specific, which would actually make me happy. 8^) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
One standard explanation for the "failure to thrive" of sociological and
psychological explanations is their intentionality. Here, intentionality takes on a slightly different meaning than it usually does on this list. An utterance is "intentional" in this new sense if it contains a proposition as the object of a verb of mentation. Intentional explanations are of the form, "Jones avoided center al park because he thought there were bears in it." Notice that the truth of the nested proposition has no bearing on the truth of the explanation. Nothing about the state of central park or its wildlife has any bearing (sorry). This feature of intentional explanations blocks a familiar kind of scientific progress in which an explanation is made richer by empirical elaboration. Take for instance, "the London epidemic of 18-- was caused by cholera. We now learn that cholera is a water-born disease. We can now say, given the truth of the cholera assertion, that "the London epidemic was caused by a waterborne disease. This move, called "substitutio salve veritate", (substitution preserving truth), cannot be done with intentional explanations. It does us no good, for instance, to do research on bears and learn that they are large omnivorous mammals. We cannot infer that Jones avoided central park because he thought there were large omnivorous mammals in it because the truth of that assertion depends solely on Jones beliefs, not on the truth of the matter. The idea is that such intentionality in sociological and psychological explanations forever blocks their linkage to the more fundamental and general explanations of biology, chemistry, and physics. Nick 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: 9/22/2009 2:20:08 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology > > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 04:10:20PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM: > > > Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > > > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > > > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > > > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. > > > > Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". > > As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > > > > I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say > a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". > > BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it > is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I > do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which > makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then > complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). > > I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to > give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new > term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, whereas I > would prefer to reclaim the term for a perfectly well-defined > technical meaning. Your approach is not wrong, per se. For instance > I've given up attempting to assign a meaning to the term "realism" > (from our other thread :). > > -- > > > 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 ============================================================ 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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Lots of replies since Glen's first message, but I'd like to go back to that and ask for clarification. Glen wrote:
Questions about physical systems are formulated at nearly the same level
and in nearly the same language as is used to formulate the purported
mechanisms for those systems. The degree of formalization is high
because we've reduced the language of mechanisms and questions down to
continuous (or discretized continuous) spacetime, fields, particles and I don't think that's true about biology, meteorology, geology, etc. Am I misunderstanding you?their properties, etc. In contrast, in SoPS, it is too difficult to use that same language to express the questions and system mechanisms. The logical depth is too great to formulate, say, "anger" in terms of, say, quarks. So, we hunt around for languages with which to express SoPS, born of partially-baked "ontologies" from Freud, Jung, Hobbes, Locke, Keynes, Maslow, etc. But the apparent complexity is not just (or at all, in my opinion) a consequence of the not-fully-formal languages. It's a consequence of using different languages for the questions/measures from that used for the mechanisms. The degree of mismatch between the language in which the operator is formulated and the language in which the hypothetical mechanisms are formulated is what leads to the apparent complexity. I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some parts of the cycle.*+ So, even once we get all SoPS languages formalized (to the extent we have non-well-founded set theory formalized), as long as we don't reduce it all to a kind of "bottom turtle" language (which may not even be possible), they'll exhibit complexity. -- RussA On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: One standard explanation for the "failure to thrive" of sociological and ============================================================ 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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In reply to this post by glen e. p. ropella-2
Yes, the theories in Psychology and Sociology are
structured around people and their ideas: We have the Psychology of Freud, the Psychology of Jung, the Psychology of Skinner, etc. And there is the Sociology of Weber, the Sociology of Marx, the Sociology of Goffman, etc. In order to create a complex theoretical framework, these reseachers have constructed domain specific languages to explain a certain aspect of their science. They divided their complex research object into different parts to explain them. Freund for example invented the id, ego and super-ego model to describe the interactions of body, self-consciousness and culture. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "glen e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:22 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology > > In contrast, in SoPS, it is too difficult to use that same language to > express the questions and system mechanisms. The logical depth is too > great to formulate, say, "anger" in terms of, say, quarks. So, we hunt > around for languages with which to express SoPS, born of partially-baked > "ontologies" from Freud, Jung, Hobbes, Locke, Keynes, Maslow, etc. > ============================================================ 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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In reply to this post by Russ Abbott
Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/21/2009 08:21 PM:
> Lots of replies since Glen's first message, but I'd like to go back > to that and ask for clarification. Glen wrote: > > Thus spake glen e. p. ropella circa 09/21/2009 03:22 PM: >> Questions about physical systems are formulated at nearly the same >> level and in nearly the same language as is used to formulate the >> purported mechanisms for those systems. The degree of >> formalization is high because we've reduced the language of >> mechanisms and questions down to continuous (or discretized >> continuous) spacetime, fields, particles and their properties, etc. >> > > I don't think that's true about biology, meteorology, geology, etc. > Am I misunderstanding you? Well, that's right about biology. I don't consider it physics. However, I don't know enough about meteorology and geology to have a strong opinion. It seems that even if they're not reducible, yet, they soon will be. > Do you have an example? I'm not following you. Didn't Freud, for > example, use the same language for both the questions and the claimed > mechanisms? I'm not defending Freud, but I'm not clear why you are > saying he didn't do what you want. I doubt it. From what I know (which is very little... but if I were afraid of my own ignorance, I'd simply remain ignorant ;-), Freud didn't do much experimentation at all. It seems mostly to consist of the analysis (i.e. imputation) of case studies. Rigorous formalization of questions (but not necessarily mechanisms) requires something like the scientific method, especially reproducibility of experiments. And that means that his use cases, questions, measures, observational methods, etc. are at best ill-formed and at worst, arbitrary. To be sure, _if_ the analysis crowd has made any progress at formalizing the questions and in formalizing the mechanisms (as Jochen summarized), then some sort of comparison can be done to determine how commensurate they are. But my ignorant guess is that both the mechanisms (id, ego, etc.) and the questions ("why do you suck your thumb under stress") are at least fuzzy, if not otherwise incommensurate. To determine how incommensurate they really are would take a meta-psychologist... a psychologist who studies methods of psychology. And I'm certainly not that. >> I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with >> complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system >> operators formulated with intra-system languages that are >> incommensurate with the language of the most fundamental >> mechanisms, where the result of applying these operators is part of >> the mechanism. So, complexity is the result of intra-system >> operators formulated in a language that doesn't match the language >> expressing the mechanism, producing a part of the mechanism, i.e. a >> causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some parts of the >> cycle.*+ > > Again, I'm confused. Is that complexity or just bad science? I > thought you said it was the latter. You're tossing me a red herring with the "bad science" thing. I'm not talking about bad science. I'm speculating that ontological complexity comes about through self-producing causal cycles where the operators applied by one part of a system to another part of the system do not match the mechanisms of the other part of the system. More precisely: Let S = S1 * S2 be a system with two parts. Let O : S2 -> R1 be an operator applied by S1 to S2 that results in some abstracted, lossy, representation of the mechanism of S2 (used as part of the mechanism of S1). And let T : S2 -> R2 be a concrete, non-lossy, accurate representation of S2. Now let C : S -> R be an operator applied to the whole system S where R is an accurate representation of S. C ~ R2-R1. I.e. the complexity of the system is proportional to the difference between R2 and R1. I.e. the more mismatch we have between links in the cyclic causal chains of the system, the more complex the system. This is ontological complexity, not the complexity in the questions we ask of the system. >> So, even once we get all SoPS languages formalized (to the extent >> we have non-well-founded set theory formalized), as long as we >> don't reduce it all to a kind of "bottom turtle" language (which >> may not even be possible), they'll exhibit complexity. > > What would a collection of formalized SoPS languages look like? What > would even one look like? Can you explain with something like an > example? I realize that you are saying it hasn't happened yet, but I > don't understand what it would look like if it did happen. An example > would help. Sure. The iterated prisoner's dilemma is a great example where social interactions are crisp and clear. Note that I'm not suggesting the IPD captures _all_ social interactions. I'm just using it as an example of a social dynamic (a game) that has formal mechanisms and many formalized questions. If this sort of thing could be done for _all_ social and psychological interactions, even if it's an infinite collection of piecewise formalized mechanisms but collectively incoherent, it would be possible to compare the languages of the questions to the languages of the mechanisms. When the questions are commensurate with the mechanisms, the systems are simple. When they are incommensurate, the systems are complex. To complexify the IPD, we could insert an evaluation method by one of the prisoners. Let's say, rather than basing his decision on his expectation of whether or not the other guy will defect, he bases it on... say, the price of tea in China. The incommensurability between the operator applied (tea prices) and the mechanism adds ontological complexity to the system. > Are you saying that you want everything in an SoPS expressed in terms > of quarks? If not, then what? I'm just not following you. No. I'm not saying I _want_ anything. ;-) I'm saying that complexity comes about due (in part) to a mismatch between operators and mechanisms. The hypothetical mechanism for physical systems (including quarks) is so totally incommensurate with the questions we ask of, say, politics, that there's definitely going to be epistemological complexity to any experiment performed. I.e. if you tried to ask political questions about a system consisting of quarks, you're going to get very complex observations.... probably indecipherable and perhaps meaningless. So, it would be a bit stupid to try to form a political question over a system constructed from quarks. Rather, if you want less epistemologically complex observations, you formulate your question in as close to the same language as you formulate your mechanism. If the two languages are too close, you get a trivial (simple, tautological) result. So, what you want for experimentation is to formulate your questions in a slightly different language. E.g. you ask economic questions of a political system or vice versa. (Note that I wouldn't suggest that the questions be formulated in a "higher level" language than the mechanism, just a different one.) It's important to note the difference between epistemological and ontological complexity. Ontological complexity comes about through both causal cycles and operator/mechanism mismatches _within_ the system, itself. Epistemological complexity comes about through (at least) a mismatch between experiments executed over the system and the mechanism of the sytem, itself. However, with merely the mismatch, you might really be seeing epistemological complication, not complexity. Perhaps experiments where asking the question must modify the system is required for (real or strong) epistemological complexity. In any case, there's more clarity for my speculation, which I can't really back up with anything more than justificationist gobbledygook. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
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Thus spake glen e. p. ropella circa 09-09-22 10:08 AM:
> To complexify the IPD, we could insert an evaluation method by one of > the prisoners. Let's say, rather than basing his decision on his > expectation of whether or not the other guy will defect, he bases it > on... say, the price of tea in China. The incommensurability > between the operator applied (tea prices) and the mechanism adds > ontological complexity to the system. Oops. I changed the operator from an internal one to an external one (price of tea in China) at the last minute and, thereby, screwed it up. [grin] It's got the mismatch between languages but not the cyclic cause. Since the domain of the operator is not inside the game, it doesn't really add complexity to the system. Sorry. A better example operator would be one based on the current system.... like how often the cop blinks. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 |
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glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Since the domain of the operator is not inside the game, it > doesn't really add complexity to the system. > > Wouldn't conversations about synchronicity be more fun anyway? :-) Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-22 10:52 AM:
> Wouldn't conversations about synchronicity be more fun anyway? :-) Mos def. ============================================================ 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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I still don't understand what you're getting at. let's try again. You said,
I don't consider [biology] physics.
Would you tell me why that is important. Biology isn't physics. Is the
fact that you don't consider it physics a criticism of biology? Are
you saying biology should be physics? I'm missing the point.However, I don't know enough about meteorology and geology to have a strong opinion. It seems that even if they're not reducible, yet, they soon will be. Given that everything is reducible, then what? Economics is ultimately reducible. One can trace everything that happens in the realm of economics (or any other realm) to fundamental forces and particles. Paper money is made of atoms and molecules. Electronic transmissions are based on physics. But so what? It seems impossible to express economic laws in terms of fundamental physics. Economic concepts just don't exist at the level of fundamental physics. The same is true of biology. There is no concept of evolution--in the Darwinian sense--at the level of fundamental physics. This issue was illustrated by an early paper by Fodor who asked how one can explicate Gresham's law (bad money drives out good) in terms of particle physics. So what are you suggesting be done? Or am I still missing your point? -- RussA On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:15 AM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote: Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-22 10:52 AM: ============================================================ 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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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Nah. Let's go with philosophy. Again.
--Doug On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
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