The quintessence of complexity thinking

[Nick Thompson]

All,

Colleagues at my former institutution have asked me to provide a reading or other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in Friam, in Santa Fe, etc.  Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean, but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a colleague into a complexitist, what would you do with him/her.  

Does FRIAM have some suggestions????  

A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to capturing the essense of complexity thinking,  WHY?  

Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester.

Nick


Nicholas S. Thompson
Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu)
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[glen ep ropella]

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Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Colleagues at my former institutution have asked me to provide a
> reading or other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in
> less than an hour that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in
> Friam, in Santa Fe, etc.  Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example
> OF it, if you see what I mean, but we might have to settle for words.
> If you had ONE SHOT at turning a colleague into a complexitist, what
> would you do with him/her.

I would probably sit down with them and play a couple tiling games, one
periodic and one aperiodic.  Or if that were infeasible, I'd probably
set up some game-theoretic human-in-the-loop games.

Anything involving collaborative (stigmergic) construction would be
good, especially if it usually produces counter-intuitive results.

> A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
> capturing the essense of complexity thinking,  WHY?

_If_ they do (and I'm not convinced they do with all the pitfalls of
modeling and simulation in the way), it is exactly because of the
potential for collaborative construction in ABSs.  It's collaborative
construction that provides the umbrella for things like stigmergy,
scaffolding, co-evolution, implicit selection functions, dynamic
landscapes, and relatively easy demonstrations of interesting
generator-phenomena mappings.

Of course, this focus on synthesis misses the other half of "complexity"
to some extent, patterns and analysis.  Finding an inverse map from
phenomena to generator and the techniques involved is at least half of
the domain.  And in this, the construction (especially modeling and
simulation) is just a cognitive aid.  For the analysis half, ABM is NOT
the best way to capture complexity.  For that, I'd say studying fractals
is the best way to get the point across.  Cellular automata might be a
close second.

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
Liberty is the only thing you can't have unless you give it to others.
- -- William Allen White

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[Phil Henshaw-2]

Well, it would be hard for me to draw the picture of what the local Santa Fe
FRIAM community 'does', but it's often that a complex system retains it's
original concept and develops from that idea by addition and adjustment as
it grew.     It may have reached a stable form or have a stability only of
wandering perhaps, and says a lot about it.     Using that 'story form' is
one good way to describe a complex system that gives people a well ordered
ladder of both insights and open questions that they can then plug into as
they like.

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 2:32 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Cc: kitchen at lists.clarku.edu
Subject: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

 

All,

 

Colleagues at my former institutution have asked me to provide a reading or
other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour
that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in Friam, in Santa Fe, etc.
Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean,
but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a
colleague into a complexitist, what would you do with him/her.  

 

Does FRIAM have some suggestions????  

 

A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
capturing the essense of complexity thinking,  WHY?  

 

Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester.

 

Nick

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)

Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
(nthompson at clarku.edu)

 

 

 

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[Rich Murray]

Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking: paradox, BB --> "Dubya"
Bush: Rich Murray 2008.04.08

" 2008.04.08 "  " Santa Fe ", " New Mexico "

All:

Part of the astrophysical consensus after 448 years of exponential evolution
of modern global science complex adaptive knowledge processes since the dawn
of the Royal Society in London in  "1660 AD ":

About 380 Ky ABB ( " After Big Bang " -- a temporarily expanding quantum
fluctuation of a tiny region of a dynamic geometry with ten spatial
dimensions and one temporal dimension ???...

Isn't it likely that this admittedly higher dimensional, hugher source
reality still exists and evolves within itself, untouched by our universe
bubble, transcendent to our spaces and times? ),

while now the currently observable universe at light speed seems to be 13.7
By old -- sedately spaceous, cold, dark, and deep --  " then " it was making
a phase transition from a hot, optically opaque plasma of mostly protons and
electrons to cooler, transparent hydrogen atoms and molecules, with a
uniformity of about one part in a hundred thousand.

Incidentally, in order to explain the extraordinary large scale flatness and
uniformity of OOUB  ( " Our Observable Universe Bubble " ),
the wider universe so unreachable by light speed signals must be 10exp25
times wider, with 10exp75 vaster volume,
clock full of just as many galaxies and molecular life forms as OOUB, as
estimated by A. Guth et al," 1980.

So, even a billion years more would allow scientific access to only 10exp27
of the vaster volume, leaving 10exp48 unknown.

This is a tad profligate, in terms of the original invocation of Occam's
Razor as a guiding principle for evolving efficient, elegant unifying
models.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin, anyone....?

All of this may be the evolution of a single dynamic geometry, everywhere
contiguous, continuous, smooth, finite, with a single path of deterministic
causal evolution along a single likewise contiguous, continuous, smooth,
finite " temporal ", but strictly one-way and one-dimensional dimension --  
anyone else catch the smell of reified dogmas, fossilized assumptions,
anthropomorphic superstitions, limiting beliefs.....?   May be high time to
apply the axe to the root assumption of strict nonexistence of "backwards"
casuality.....?

For, we have the prime paradox of BB --> President "Dubya" Bush -- how it
possible, or, worse, inevitable?  -- as well as, the undeniable existence of
this moment of awareness,

in which these l i  t   t    l     e       b l  a   c    k    ma r  k   s
,

within the visual space of your awareness,

catalyze remarkable ( hopefully ) subtle appreciations in " your " cognitive
space of awareness....,

Tonto, where is this space of awareness, anyway ..... inside OOUB, for
instance, pray tell?

For OOUB happens within the original source.

" Rich Murray, MA, SFb "  505-501-2298  rmforall at comcast.net

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

From: "Phil Henshaw" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 8:58 AM
To: <nickthompson at earthlink.net>; "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group'" <friam at redfish.com>
Cc: <kitchen at lists.clarku.edu>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

Well, it would be hard for me to draw the picture of what the local Santa Fe
FRIAM community 'does', but it's often that a complex system retains it's
original concept and develops from that idea by addition and adjustment as
it grew.     It may have reached a stable form or have a stability only of
wandering perhaps, and says a lot about it.     Using that 'story form' is
one good way to describe a complex system that gives people a well ordered
ladder of both insights and open questions that they can then plug into as
they like.

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 2:32 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Cc: kitchen at lists.clarku.edu
Subject: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

All,

Colleagues at my former institutution have asked me to provide a reading or
other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour
that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in Friam, in Santa Fe, etc.
Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean,
but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a
colleague into a complexitist, what would you do with him/her.

Does FRIAM have some suggestions????

A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
capturing the essense of complexity thinking,  WHY?

Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)

Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
( nthompson at clarku.edu )

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

[Tom Johnson]

Nick:

For a good introduction to "applied" complexity, perhaps your colleagues
would like to look at Robert Axelrod's home page at the Univ. of Michigan
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/ <http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Eaxe/>
and specifically the link "Recent Courses" in the left column.  That will
take them to his course of last fall, "Complexity Theory in the Social
Sciences <http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Eaxe/PS793.pdf>."  That syllabus
has good hyperlinks to his class assignments and assigned reading for the
course, all of which I find to be quite good and accessible.

-tom

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 12:31 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

>  All,
>
> Colleagues at my former institution have asked me to provide a reading or
> other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour
> that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in FRIAM, in Santa Fe, etc.
> Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean,
> but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a
> colleague into a "complexitist," what would you do with him/her.
>
> Does FRIAM have some suggestions????
>
> A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
> capturing the essence of complexity thinking,  WHY?
>
> Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester.
>
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (
> nthompson at clarku.edu)
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>

--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
==========================================
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[Ann Racuya-Robbins-2]

I think it should be an image or symbol of something living or more
specifically a living act like slowed motion of speech, gestural
communication or writing. DigitalVideo would be good.  I don't think it is
entirely limiting to have the image be human but the imagery could be
trans-species.  I don't think there is anything any more limiting about
including words than imagery so both would probably help. You might want to
even take some of the words from an actual friam. Something weblive might be
good as well and at the same time as the remote class. A drawback to this
approach is that it may lead to vanity and hubris.that would not be good.

 

 

 

  _____  

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 12:32 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Cc: kitchen at lists.clarku.edu
Subject: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

 

All,

 

Colleagues at my former institutution have asked me to provide a reading or
other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour
that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in Friam, in Santa Fe, etc.
Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean,
but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a
colleague into a complexitist, what would you do with him/her.  

 

Does FRIAM have some suggestions????  

 

A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
capturing the essense of complexity thinking,  WHY?  

 

Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester.

 

Nick

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)

Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
(nthompson at clarku.edu)

 

 

 

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[Phil Henshaw-2]

What if in ABM's the agents didn't all follow the same rules, but made up
their own.  Would it still work?

 

Phil

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 12:39 PM
To: nickthompson at earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Cc: Marcelo Chacon Reyes; Alicia Juarrero; Maria Isabel Neuman-Sega; Ania
Gonxalez Mora; Fidel Martinez Alvarez; John Casti; Jose A. Betancourt; Eloy
Ortiz Hernandez, Ph.D.
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

 

Nick:

For a good introduction to "applied" complexity, perhaps your colleagues
would like to look at Robert Axelrod's home page at the Univ. of Michigan
<http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Eaxe/> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/
and specifically the link "Recent Courses" in the left column.  That will
take them to his course of last fall, "Complexity
<http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Eaxe/PS793.pdf>  Theory in the Social
Sciences."  That syllabus has good hyperlinks to his class assignments and
assigned reading for the course, all of which I find to be quite good and
accessible.

-tom

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 12:31 AM, Nicholas Thompson
<nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

All,

 

Colleagues at my former institution have asked me to provide a reading or
other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour
that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in FRIAM, in Santa Fe, etc.
Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean,
but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a
colleague into a "complexitist," what would you do with him/her.  

 

Does FRIAM have some suggestions????  

 

A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
capturing the essence of complexity thinking,  WHY?  

 

Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester.

 

Nick

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)

Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
(nthompson at clarku.edu)

 

 

 


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




--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
==========================================

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
>
> What if in ABM?s the agents didn?t all follow the same rules, but made
> up their own. Would it still work?
>
Roughly, models with adaptive agents and no parameters are better than
models with non-adaptive agents and lots of unjustified parameters. Of
course at some level there are rules no matter what, or else it wouldn't
be a model that could be described and reproduced.

Marcus

[Kenneth Lloyd]

Would it be more interesting to ask - What if in second order ABM's the
agents could differentiate meta-rules (as patterns) from rules? Could they
then apply them using evolutionary meta-genetics as a means serving as
abstraction?  Would this work in n^m-order ABM's?

Ken

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 9:20 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> >
> > What if in ABM's the agents didn't all follow the same
> rules, but made
> > up their own. Would it still work?
> >
> Roughly, models with adaptive agents and no parameters are
> better than models with non-adaptive agents and lots of
> unjustified parameters. Of course at some level there are
> rules no matter what, or else it wouldn't be a model that
> could be described and reproduced.
>
> 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
>

[James Steiner]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:24 PM, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
> What if in ABM's the agents didn't all follow the same rules, but made up
> their own.  Would it still work?

Yes, for certain values of "work"  :)

~~James

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Ken Lloyd wrote:
> Would it be more interesting to ask - What if in second order ABM's the
> agents could differentiate meta-rules (as patterns) from rules? Could they
> then apply them using evolutionary meta-genetics as a means serving as
> abstraction?  Would this work in n^m-order ABM's?
>  
An agent notes the prevailing behaviors and/or wisdom in its vicinity,
and then `abstracts' that?
What makes it an abstraction and not just an imperfect copy?  Sometimes
(often?) the whole is less than the sum of its parts...  Simulations
along these lines could address questions like the impact on a
population from meta rules and communication vs. agents living in
ignorant bliss.

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Markus,

So I guess you're saying that if you were to make your models to be
consistent with nature, i.e. have agents that all develop their own
parameters as they go, then it couldn't be 'described' or 'reproduced'.
That sounds like a neat way to state the difficulty of using single
self-consistent ideas to represent a multiplicity of independently behaving
things.

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
> Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:20 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> >
> > What if in ABM's the agents didn't all follow the same rules, but
> made
> > up their own. Would it still work?
> >
> Roughly, models with adaptive agents and no parameters are better than
> models with non-adaptive agents and lots of unjustified parameters. Of
> course at some level there are rules no matter what, or else it
> wouldn't
> be a model that could be described and reproduced.
>
> Marcus
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Markus,
One way would be to program them to recognize the environmental lines of
conflict with other independent agents (like when diminishing returns
indicate a shared resource is becoming contested perhaps), as some form of
primitive consciousness of the things existing outside their self-awareness.
Phil

>
> Ken Lloyd wrote:
> > Would it be more interesting to ask - What if in second order ABM's
> the
> > agents could differentiate meta-rules (as patterns) from rules? Could
> they
> > then apply them using evolutionary meta-genetics as a means serving
> as
> > abstraction?  Would this work in n^m-order ABM's?
> >
> An agent notes the prevailing behaviors and/or wisdom in its vicinity,
> and then `abstracts' that?
> What makes it an abstraction and not just an imperfect copy?  Sometimes
> (often?) the whole is less than the sum of its parts...  Simulations
> along these lines could address questions like the impact on a
> population from meta rules and communication vs. agents living in
> ignorant bliss.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> So I guess you're saying that if you were to make your models to be
> consistent with nature, i.e. have agents that all develop their own
> parameters as they go, then it couldn't be 'described' or 'reproduced'.
> That sounds like a neat way to state the difficulty of using single
> self-consistent ideas to represent a multiplicity of independently behaving
> things.
>  
The meaning of the word `parameters' here is a bit muddy.   It could be
some array of numbers that characterize the behavior of  certain
agents.  Let's say, that certain set of agents use a lot more energy
than others but without saying why (and that the other agents have a
different array of numbers).   Or it could be a set of arbitrary rules
added to some agents that result in them using more energy.  Or it could
be a simple rule that in all agents, when evaluated over and over in a
different shared circumstance results in lots of energy use.     By an
adaptive model, I mean the latter, and by parameters I'm thinking of the
former two cases.  If a modeler introduces more and more degrees of
freedom, they can get any answer you want.

[Kenneth Lloyd]

Marcus,

And sometimes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This
accounts for emergent features from synergistic network coupling.
Specifically, if an ANN can recognize a coupling pattern in a network that
gives rise to synergistic behavior which is congruent with similar coupling
patterns in other networks - it has abstracted a new patterned, second-order
rule (meta-rule).

I am not so bold as to state this pattern recognition is the same as
"understanding meaning" - only that certain congruent patterns correlate
with certain output categories (the determination of which is beyond this
post).

Ken
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:35 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking
>
> Ken Lloyd wrote:
> > Would it be more interesting to ask - What if in second order ABM's
> > the agents could differentiate meta-rules (as patterns) from rules?
> > Could they then apply them using evolutionary meta-genetics
> as a means
> > serving as abstraction?  Would this work in n^m-order ABM's?
> >  
> An agent notes the prevailing behaviors and/or wisdom in its
> vicinity, and then `abstracts' that?
> What makes it an abstraction and not just an imperfect copy?  
> Sometimes
> (often?) the whole is less than the sum of its parts...  
> Simulations along these lines could address questions like
> the impact on a population from meta rules and communication
> vs. agents living in ignorant bliss.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Ken Lloyd wrote:
> Specifically, if an ANN can recognize a coupling pattern in a network that
> gives rise to synergistic behavior which is congruent with similar coupling
> patterns in other networks - it has abstracted a new patterned, second-order
> rule (meta-rule).
>  
Sure, one could imagine using an ABM to study when meta-rules increase
synergistic interactions vs. the kinds of situations where dropping them
into a population only disrupts an evolved ecology.  The answer is
probably of the form `it depends'.   An example that comes to mind was
the damage done by bringing western agricultural practices to Bali..  
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8186.html

[Kenneth Lloyd]

Good point.

Identifying the existence of a pattern is one thing.  Determining whether
the application of that pattern is, say, "good" or "bad" is something else.
For example, people get ill.  Identifying the pattern of SIR of various
illnesses is a totally different than: "Is it good or bad that people get
sick"? Or, is it better to treat illnesses than prevent them?  Or, does the
overuse of antibiotics create super bacteria?

It is apparent to me that I tend to focus on the former issues, while many
in our group wrestle over issues of the latter kind.  I'm comfortable with
that division of labor.

Ken

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 8:59 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking
>
> Ken Lloyd wrote:
> > Specifically, if an ANN can recognize a coupling pattern in
> a network
> > that gives rise to synergistic behavior which is congruent with
> > similar coupling patterns in other networks - it has
> abstracted a new
> > patterned, second-order rule (meta-rule).
> >  
> Sure, one could imagine using an ABM to study when meta-rules
> increase synergistic interactions vs. the kinds of situations
> where dropping them into a population only disrupts an
> evolved ecology.  The answer is
> probably of the form `it depends'.   An example that comes to
> mind was
> the damage done by bringing western agricultural practices to Bali..  
> http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8186.html
>
>
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