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On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 07:06:34AM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Russell Standish wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 08:55:29PM +0200, G?nther Greindl wrote: > >> But, as said above, it seems that RR defines mechanism differently. This > >> is of course very unfortunate, as it will have people talking past each > >> other. Unfortunate also because mechanism is indeed a word which can be > >> given a precise, mathematical meaning. > >> > > > > Is this in fact the case? > > Which part? Are you asking whether it's true that Rosen uses a peculiar > definition of "mechanism"? Or are you asking whether or not the normal > use of "mechanism" can be given a precise, mathematical meaning? The former, and I mean whether his definition is inequivalent to the usual computer science meaning, not that he expesses the usual concept in a peculiar way. > > > When I read "What is Life", > > Surely you mean "Life Itself"? "What is Life" is a book by Schr?dinger. > Yes, sorry - its been a few years :( > - -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > And therefore the victories won by a master of war gain him neither > reputation for wisdom nor merit for valour. -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFIEJPqpVJZMHoGoM8RAuq4AKCFXP+v/dj8VAEUDJ3LMYkV95ZZWACfRjkp > 7Mpoco1Dhq/GSW8T7acq2EE= > =XzKe > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > ============================================================ > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
The question arises from how using self-consistent models for physical
systems full of undefined parts forces us to leave the undefined parts out of the model, as for the individual behavior of any natural system. There is a kind of 'common physics' displayed by the users of mismatched models and subjects of this type. The environmental movement spent 30 years developing ways to turn agricultural land into fuel before they found out that someone else was already using the same land for something else. It tipped a balance in a natural system and triggered a world food crisis we're beginning to see can't be solved by increasing the food supply. The whole idea had been to correct the harm being done to the earth by other people who had made almost exactly the same mistake by over using our energy supplies in the first place. The environmentalists used a massive network of activists and decades of well funded governmental and industrial research, and they all failed to ask what in nature the new land use might run into. To me it looks like they were using a simple self-consistent model for their purpose and never questioned whether it contained living things that might react in an unexpected way not represented in their model. If you don't 'see the life' you don't get wonder what it'll do when you interfere with it. That's what always seems to be the problem. We don't know how independent things will react when we run into them, importantly because we have a habit of using models that conceal the presence of the things that'll get in our way. Self-consistent models represent environments very well, just omitting their living parts, "mind without matter". Would any of the things you guys suggested fix that? Phil Henshaw??????????????????? ??? ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040? tel: 212-795-4844????? e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com?????explorations: www.synapse9.com?? ?in the last 200 years the amount of change that once needed a century?of thought now takes just five weeks? > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On > Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella > Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 6:02 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > > phil henshaw wrote: > >> Can a self-consistent model have independently behaving parts, like > >> environments do? > >> > > If the independently behaving parts don't have some underlying common > > physics (e.g. they could in principle become different from time to > time > > according to some simple rules, but generally are the same), then > there > > will be so many degrees of freedom from the independently behaving > parts > > that arguments about why a system does what it does will be > > quantitatively as good as any other. > > I don't think that's quite true. It's close to true, but not quite > true. [grin] > > Even if the parts don't have a common, underlying physics > (Truth/Reality), as long as they can interact _somehow_ and if they > interact a lot (highly connected), then a common "physics" may cohere > after a time so that a forcing structure limits the degrees of freedom. > > In such a case (perhaps physical symmetry breaking is one example?), > some arguments about why a system does what it does will be more > accurate and precise than others, namely the ones that capture the > emergent "physics". > > This could be true even if the "physics" that emerges is completely > abstracted from the original medium of interaction (the actual > physics). > Ultimately, whether such a "ladder of abstraction" is _completely_ > closed or not is a matter of faith or philosophy. Is there a bottom > turtle or not? > > - -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to > fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFIEQNnpVJZMHoGoM8RAl+TAJ46LnSihLOL4dwjNfXY+9zTCdtU+ACfXVPn > QTbC887A1yQK0MhaH5IqBew= > =UD39 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > ============================================================ > 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 ep ropella
> OK. So RR makes a prohibitive claim ... something like "living systems > cannot be accurately modeled with a UTM because MR systems cannot be > realized". And you are refuting that claim by a counter-claim that MR > systems _can_ be realized, emphasizing that the recursion theorem is > crucial to such a realization. > > Do I have it right? Yes that's basically my claim - RR also mentions his closed efficient cause, that's where the rec. theorem comes in: you can code whatever behaviour you like and then replicate it indefinitely. What is _not_ addressed in the (M,R) model is how it comes up in the first place (= origin of life); that is where evolution comes in, and a machine model is at no disadvantage here, again. Cheers, G?nther |
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In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
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Hash: SHA1 phil henshaw wrote: > Self-consistent models represent environments very well, just omitting their > living parts, "mind without matter". > > Would any of the things you guys suggested fix that? I believe so. At least 1/2 of the solution to any problem lies in a good formulation of the problem. And in that sense, being able to state (as precisely as possible) which closures are maintained in which context and which closures are broken in which context, therefore, contributes immensely to the solution. I.e. if the problem is that our modeling methods only capture isolable (separable, "linear", analytic, etc.) systems _well_, then we need other modeling methods to capture holistic ("nonlinear", non-analytic) systems. As I understand it, this is the basic conception behind the "sustainability movement", somehow capturing or understanding externalities and engineering organizations so that their waste is more useful to other organizations. What Rosen tried to do (in my _opinion_) is help us specify what parts of our modeling methods are inadequate to the task of capturing certain broken closures. I.e. I think he tried to explain _why_ so many of our models are so fragile, namely, because they cannot capture the closure of efficient cause (agency). That concept requires no mathematics (ala category theory). But he tried to communicate the concept using mathematics and logic via the discussions of Poincare's "impredicativity" and rhetorical vs. causal loops. So, yes, I think these things can help with our understanding of the fragility of _simple_ models ("mechanism" in Rosen's peculiar terminology). Even if Rosen's MR-systems or his "closure to efficient cause" are inadequate to the task (which I think they _are_), at least considering those attempts and how/where they may fail facilitates our progress toward other, hopefully more successful, solutions. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. -- Omar N. Bradley -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIEjtUpVJZMHoGoM8RAt6gAJkB0y2YDBB3/LsFr8i561UrfEPvsgCggAKu I8mcbIbWrFljoixYiONhrCg= =CxBC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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In reply to this post by Günther Greindl
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl wrote: >> OK. So RR makes a prohibitive claim ... something like "living >> systems cannot be accurately modeled with a UTM because MR systems >> cannot be realized". And you are refuting that claim by a >> counter-claim that MR systems _can_ be realized, emphasizing that >> the recursion theorem is crucial to such a realization. >> >> Do I have it right? > > Yes that's basically my claim - RR also mentions his closed efficient > cause, that's where the rec. theorem comes in: you can code whatever > behaviour you like and then replicate it indefinitely. OK. But you must realize that this is not really a _refutation_ or disproof. It's just one guy (Rosen) arguing with another guy (G?nther). For an actual refutation (proof that Rosen's claim is false), you'd have to provide an explicit (effective) construction of a computational living system. And you haven't done that. [grin] Hence, you haven't proven Rosen wrong ... yet. ALifers across the planet are working on this constructive proof feverishly, of course. Or, you could show us specifically where Rosen's claim contradicts the recursion theorem. But to my knowledge nobody has formalized Rosen's work to the degree of specificity we'd need to show such a contradiction. I could easily be wrong about that, of course. So, if you'll point to such a rigorous formulation of Rosen's claim and precisely how it contradicts the recursion theorem, then we could say that one or the other (Rosen's or the recursion theorem) is refuted. > What is _not_ addressed in the (M,R) model is how it comes up in the > first place (= origin of life); Nobody (including the most zealous Rosenite, I think) would disagree with that. > that is where evolution comes in, and a machine model is at no > disadvantage here, again. It would be interesting to augment MR systems with some reasonably accurate formulation of evolution. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. -- H. P. Lovecraft -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIEj5KpVJZMHoGoM8RAkx0AJ4ivFZFJgaCq9gdvoMWnbON3fnYzwCgqR/A tG+AVzNzHle0kEt6dKpDeww= =o6uQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
How does that
> > phil henshaw wrote: > > Self-consistent models represent environments very well, just > omitting their > > living parts, "mind without matter". > > > > Would any of the things you guys suggested fix that? > > I believe so. At least 1/2 of the solution to any problem lies in a > good formulation of the problem. And in that sense, being able to > state > (as precisely as possible) which closures are maintained in which > context and which closures are broken in which context, therefore, > contributes immensely to the solution. [ph] the requirement is that your model describe new behavior of independent organisms or communities things you have no information about because they never occurred before. What's the modeling strategy for that? > I.e. if the problem is that our modeling methods only capture isolable > (separable, "linear", analytic, etc.) systems _well_, then we need > other > modeling methods to capture holistic ("nonlinear", non-analytic) > systems. As I understand it, this is the basic conception behind the > "sustainability movement", somehow capturing or understanding > externalities and engineering organizations so that their waste is more > useful to other organizations. > > What Rosen tried to do (in my _opinion_) is help us specify what parts > of our modeling methods are inadequate to the task of capturing certain > broken closures. I.e. I think he tried to explain _why_ so many of our > models are so fragile, namely, because they cannot capture the closure > of efficient cause (agency). That concept requires no mathematics (ala > category theory). But he tried to communicate the concept using > mathematics and logic via the discussions of Poincare's > "impredicativity" and rhetorical vs. causal loops. [ph] I haven't studied Rosen enough the really know if he's pointing to the same conflict between living things and machines that I am, but there clearly is a conflict. Machines are the produce of a self-consistent model in the mind of the inventor, cities and technologies are complex learning processes that grow out of their own environments like all other natural systems..etc. Phil > > So, yes, I think these things can help with our understanding of the > fragility of _simple_ models ("mechanism" in Rosen's peculiar > terminology). Even if Rosen's MR-systems or his "closure to efficient > cause" are inadequate to the task (which I think they _are_), at least > considering those attempts and how/where they may fail facilitates our > progress toward other, hopefully more successful, solutions. > > - -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. -- Omar N. > Bradley > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFIEjtUpVJZMHoGoM8RAt6gAJkB0y2YDBB3/LsFr8i561UrfEPvsgCggAKu > I8mcbIbWrFljoixYiONhrCg= > =CxBC > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > ============================================================ > 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 Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 10:21:59PM -0400, phil henshaw wrote:
> > [ph] I haven't studied Rosen enough the really know if he's pointing to the > same conflict between living things and machines that I am, but there > clearly is a conflict. Machines are the produce of a self-consistent model > in the mind of the inventor, cities and technologies are complex learning > processes that grow out of their own environments like all other natural > systems..etc. > > Phil Only simple machines. More complex machines (eg the Intel Pentium processor) show definite signs of evolutionary accretion, as no one person can design such a complex thing from scratch, but rather previous designs are used and optimised. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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>
> Only simple machines. More complex machines (eg the Intel Pentium > processor) show definite signs of evolutionary accretion, as no one > person can design such a complex thing from scratch, but rather > previous designs are used and optimised. [ph] Right! Layered design is sort of a universal signature of learning processes, in this case the chip designers resourcefully adapting pieces of the old design in making new designs for new problems. Eventually any direction of development or learning runs into diminishing returns, either inherent in the design, or relative to competition with some other. I understand there's also a great deal of arguably creative machine design in chip design too, still accumulative in nature, but I don't think we have processors that 'design themselves', however, nor would they do very well with multiple disconnected parts with different operating systems that only communicated by dumping their waste products on each other... :-) that's the trick that organisms do so nicely and that our way of explaining them misses when we describe their functions and relationships in a self-consistent way. Unlike a logical medium, a physical medium tolerates inconsistently designed and behaving things and allows them to capitalize on each other's unintended side behavior and effects. Phil > -- > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > 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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In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
phil henshaw wrote:
> Glen wrote: > >> I believe so. At least 1/2 of the solution to any problem lies in a >> good formulation of the problem. And in that sense, being able to >> state >> (as precisely as possible) which closures are maintained in which >> context and which closures are broken in which context, therefore, >> contributes immensely to the solution. >> > > [ph] the requirement is that your model describe new behavior of independent > organisms or communities things you have no information about because they > never occurred before. What's the modeling strategy for that? > measurement of interest at t - 2 that gives the state at t - 1 that gives a state at t. Then prediction is a matter of applying the function more times. Add more functions to describe more individual things or aggregates and note when there are shared functions in those definitions (e.g. food web fundamentally depends photosynthesis). If you want to define all things to be independent, then there is no point in talking about interactions -- you've already defined away the possibility of that! Covariance is zero. Marcus |
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Ok, 'find a function' assumes there is one to find, but the problem set is
running into behavior which has already had major consequences (like starvation for 100million people because of an unexpected world food price level shift) and the question is what 'function' would you use to not be caught flat footed like that. Is there some general function to use in cases where you have no function and don't even know what the problem definition will be? I actually have a very good one, but you won't like it because it means using the models to understand what they fail to describe rather than the usual method of using them to represent other things. Phil Henshaw??????????????????? ??? ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040? tel: 212-795-4844????? e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com?????explorations: www.synapse9.com?? ?in the last 200 years the amount of change that once needed a century?of thought now takes just five weeks? > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On > Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 12:36 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > phil henshaw wrote: > > Glen wrote: > > > >> I believe so. At least 1/2 of the solution to any problem lies in a > >> good formulation of the problem. And in that sense, being able to > >> state > >> (as precisely as possible) which closures are maintained in which > >> context and which closures are broken in which context, therefore, > >> contributes immensely to the solution. > >> > > > > [ph] the requirement is that your model describe new behavior of > independent > > organisms or communities things you have no information about because > they > > never occurred before. What's the modeling strategy for that? > > > Find a function that well describes a state of a thing or aggregate > measurement of interest at t - 2 that gives the state at t - 1 that > gives a state at t. Then prediction is a matter of applying the > function more times. Add more functions to describe more individual > things or aggregates and note when there are shared functions in those > definitions (e.g. food web fundamentally depends photosynthesis). > > If you want to define all things to be independent, then there is no > point in talking about interactions -- you've already defined away the > possibility of that! Covariance is zero. > > 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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phil henshaw wrote:
> Ok, 'find a function' assumes there is one to find, but the problem set is > running into behavior which has already had major consequences (like > starvation for 100million people because of an unexpected world food price > level shift) and the question is what 'function' would you use to not be > caught flat footed like that. The caloric requirements of a person are autocorrelated, but probably for a lot of models a constant will suffice -- a certain amount of body weight decrease, and then the probability of death goes up. As for price fluctuations, that's a matter of modeling the natural resources that go in to food, the costs and benefits to motivate farmers, the commodity markets, and so on. Certainly we can try to understand how each of these work, and then do what-if scenarios when one or more components are perturbed (or destroyed). It's still a matter of finding stories (functions) to fit observables. The availability and accuracy of those observables may be poor, and sometimes all that is possible to imagine worst and best cases, run the numbers, and see how the result changes. > Is there some general function to use in > cases where you have no function and don't even know what the problem > definition will be? > I think you do know what the problem could look like, but most details remain unspecified. If you can construct an example that has catastrophes of the kind you often talk about, and spell out all of the details of your work of fiction (that even may happen to resemble reality), such that the what-if scenarios can be reproduced in simulations, then others can study the sensitivities. If there is a `forcing structure' that will occur in many, many variant forms, then you can demonstrate that. > I actually have a very good one, but you won't like it because it means > using the models to understand what they fail to describe rather than the > usual method of using them to represent other things. Right. Model predicts something, it turns out to have some error structure and that structure suggests ways to improve the model or make a new one. Paper published. Meanwhile another guy makes a different model on the same phenomena and publishes a paper. Third person reads the two papers and has idea that accounts for problems in both. So she makes a new model! Marcus |
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No, that does not work at all. Patching together a model to suite a symptom
in retrospect does not help you with being ready for unexpected eventfulness in nature that you previously had no idea that you should be looking for. Phil Henshaw??????????????????? ??? ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040? tel: 212-795-4844????? e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com?????explorations: www.synapse9.com?? ?in the last 200 years the amount of change that once needed a century?of thought now takes just five weeks? > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On > Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 10:45 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > phil henshaw wrote: > > Ok, 'find a function' assumes there is one to find, but the problem > set is > > running into behavior which has already had major consequences (like > > starvation for 100million people because of an unexpected world food > price > > level shift) and the question is what 'function' would you use to not > be > > caught flat footed like that. > The caloric requirements of a person are autocorrelated, but probably > for a lot of models a constant will suffice -- a certain amount of body > weight decrease, and then the probability of death goes up. As for > price fluctuations, that's a matter of modeling the natural resources > that go in to food, the costs and benefits to motivate farmers, the > commodity markets, and so on. Certainly we can try to understand how > each of these work, and then do what-if scenarios when one or more > components are perturbed (or destroyed). It's still a matter of > finding stories (functions) to fit observables. The availability and > accuracy of those observables may be poor, and sometimes all that is > possible to imagine worst and best cases, run the numbers, and see how > the result changes. > > Is there some general function to use in > > cases where you have no function and don't even know what the problem > > definition will be? > > > I think you do know what the problem could look like, but most details > remain unspecified. If you can construct an example that has > catastrophes of the kind you often talk about, and spell out all of the > details of your work of fiction (that even may happen to resemble > reality), such that the what-if scenarios can be reproduced in > simulations, then others can study the sensitivities. If there is a > `forcing structure' that will occur in many, many variant forms, then > you can demonstrate that. > > I actually have a very good one, but you won't like it because it > means > > using the models to understand what they fail to describe rather than > the > > usual method of using them to represent other things. > Right. Model predicts something, it turns out to have some error > structure and that structure suggests ways to improve the model or make > a new one. Paper published. Meanwhile another guy makes a different > model on the same phenomena and publishes a paper. Third person reads > the two papers and has idea that accounts for problems in both. So > she > makes a new model! > > 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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phil henshaw wrote:
> No, that does not work at all. Patching together a model to suite a symptom > in retrospect does not help you with being ready for unexpected eventfulness > in nature that you previously had no idea that you should be looking for. > Never said anything about symptoms. I did suggest maybe you ought to plan on measuring something in particular to see if models (whether your own or those you are interpreting) are consistent with reality in a statistically meaningful way. You can posit whatever driving events or processes you want in-silco. A comet striking the earth, people selling their organs to increase the profit margins of the companies, the importance of prophets in collective decision making, or whatever.. |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
Dear Glen,
> OK. But you must realize that this is not really a _refutation_ or > disproof. It's just one guy (Rosen) arguing with another guy (G?nther). > For an actual refutation (proof that Rosen's claim is false), you'd > have to provide an explicit (effective) construction of a computational > living system. It is neither a mathematically rigorous nor an empirically grounded refutation, I agree, but rather in the sense of Occam's razor/Laplacean "I do not need this hypothesis". > And you haven't done that. [grin] Hence, you haven't proven Rosen wrong > ... yet. ALifers across the planet are working on this constructive > proof feverishly, of course. That proof would then be rigorous, agreed. Have you perchance read Wells, A. J. In Defense of Mechanism Ecological Psychology, 2006, 18, 39-65 ? He takes on Rosen's claims, I have queued the paper for reading, will probably get there in July (have a lot to do at the moment ;-)); and would be glad to continue the conversation. > Or, you could show us specifically where Rosen's claim contradicts the > recursion theorem. But to my knowledge nobody has formalized Rosen's > work to the degree of specificity we'd need to show such a > contradiction. I could easily be wrong about that, of course. So, if > you'll point to such a rigorous formulation of Rosen's claim and > precisely how it contradicts the recursion theorem, then we could say > that one or the other (Rosen's or the recursion theorem) is refuted. Ack, I also think that the problem is that Rosen's ideas are not formalized enough to present a contradiction. Cheers, G?nther -- G?nther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.greindl at univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Marcus,
The 'symptom' I was referring to was being caught flat footed without a model to warn you about the approach of major environmental change. You offered the solution of developing a model that you should have had before you knew it was needed. It appears to violate the direction of time?? I guess what I'm talking about is that the 'bubbles in our minds' are different from the 'bubbles in the world'... For the physical systems we fail to understand there is nothing for us to 'see'. That's always a problem. I think that closely watching for the classic patterns of discrepancy between the world full of otherwise invisible bubbles and our models is possible. It may be imperfect but a vast improvement on not looking at all. What do you think of that? Phil > Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 3:08 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > phil henshaw wrote: > > No, that does not work at all. Patching together a model to suite a > symptom > > in retrospect does not help you with being ready for unexpected > eventfulness > > in nature that you previously had no idea that you should be looking > for. > > > Never said anything about symptoms. I did suggest maybe you ought to > plan on measuring something in particular to see if models (whether > your > own or those you are interpreting) are consistent with reality in a > statistically meaningful way. You can posit whatever driving events or > processes you want in-silco. A comet striking the earth, people > selling > their organs to increase the profit margins of the companies, the > importance of prophets in collective decision making, or whatever.. > > ============================================================ > 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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phil henshaw wrote:
> I guess what I'm talking about is that the 'bubbles in our minds' are > different from the 'bubbles in the world'... The `bubbles in our minds' must come from the world we witness and say something about the world that will be witnessed. They certainly don't need to be a literal interpretation. Of course, in social matters, there's a question of art imitating life vs. life imitating art.. |
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In reply to this post by Günther Greindl
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl wrote: > It is neither a mathematically rigorous nor an empirically grounded > refutation, I agree, but rather in the sense of Occam's razor/Laplacean > "I do not need this hypothesis". Excellent! We pretty much agree. The only area where I might disagree is in attempts to develop measures of complexity. Forget the whole "life <=> non-life" red herring. The simple <=> complex spectrum, however, can be useful. And, in that sense, Rosen's attempts to formalize simple systems as "defined from the outside" versus complex systems as "defined from the inside" is interesting. Albeit, we may not NEED such a theorem because we have plenty of measures of complexity which work to greater or lesser extent in different contexts. (I'm fond of "logical depth" myself, though I admit that I haven't used it successfully.) But I can imagine that certain concepts that are currently used all the time in complexity circles, and which are always horribly vague despite the credentials of the users, ... I can imagine that these concepts will never become clear and concrete until we have such a theorem. And that's where non-well-founded set theory seems useful. What is the ultimate difference between formalisms (models) requiring the foundation axiom and those that do NOT require it? It seems to me that formalisms built without the foundation axiom will lack some of the definiteness we find and expect in our mathematics. And, surprise, we also see a lack of definiteness in complex systems. Now, I'm not just trying to combine two unknowns in an attempt to use one to explain the other. [grin] My point is that this circularity Rosen points out is fundamentally related to cycles in non-well-founded set theory. And it also seems related to the rampant abuse of concepts like iteration (e.g. recursion). Anyway, my thoughts are a jumble of unjustified nonsense at this stage. I need a sugar-momma to pay me to sit around and think. Any takers? [grin] > Have you perchance read > > Wells, A. J. In Defense of Mechanism Ecological Psychology, 2006, 18, 39-65 Nope. It sure sounds familiar, though. > ? He takes on Rosen's claims, I have queued the paper for reading, will > probably get there in July (have a lot to do at the moment ;-)); and > would be glad to continue the conversation. I'll add it to my queue, too, though I'm way beyond being able to commit to it or estimate when I would ever read it. I've always been a slow reader ... though when I do read something, I usually remember it. It'll help if you spontaneously re-start the conversation when you get to Wells' paper. Then make fun of me if I haven't read it, yet. That'll coerce me into reading it. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. -- Mark Twain -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIFf8ApVJZMHoGoM8RAt+gAKCB20DpxiyJ8nwVJeSXVYFG/xHR1wCfX5dG w6gansrDVkGFmZ4GoCQIx5I= =yHDb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
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Hash: SHA1 phil henshaw wrote: > The 'symptom' I was referring to was being caught flat footed without a > model to warn you about the approach of major environmental change. It's not clear to me what you and Marcus are arguing about... But I'll offer the only real insight I've gained over the past few years. [grin] There is only one way to prepare for potentially catastrophic change: agility. We can, post hoc, find examples where an entity (lineage, organization, organism, etc) is pre-adapted for some change such that it _seemed_ like that entity somehow predicted the change. But this isn't an effective tactic. Complex systems are unpredictable (by definition) in the concrete. The only way to be prepared for some unspecified, truly novel, abstractly named "change" is to be as agile as possible. And the best way to develop agility is to rapidly swap out "vignettes" (scenarios, use cases, aspects, stories, models) on a regular basis. The point is not to make attempts to ensure that your suite of vignettes contains a semblance of the coming change, however. The point is to smear the risk by practicing/training in as many different vignettes as possible. And the only way to do this is by continually maintaining multiple models of reality, all the while staying agnostic about the meaning and usefulness any of those models. You don't commit to any one model as the Truth if you want to remain agile. Of course, in stable times, exploitation (commitment) is the rule and exploration is the exception. But in unstable times, exploration is the rule and exploitation is the exception. The trick is to be willing to sacrifice your exploitative efforts when the landscape starts to destabilize. The committed end up dying because their, once true enough, convictions are no longer true enough. This is why small businesses are the heart and soul of capitalism/liberalism and why it's more agile than other organizational strategies. The high attrition rate of small businesses allows us to balance exploration and exploitation. When times are stable we grow big behemoth exploiters. When times become more chaotic, those behemoths come crashing down and us little guys scramble and wander like ants, with all our various deviant models and expectations of the world, exploring the dynamic landscape and hoping to stumble into a niche and become the next behemoth exploiter. Then we hope to hoard enough resources to skate through the next period of instability. The trouble with applying this to "sustainability" is that we define "sustainable" in terms of human comforts, wants, and needs. What I think Rosen would try to justify is the idea that we _cannot_ engineer a world that sustains _human_ comforts, wants, and needs. A sustainable ("living") system can only be designed holistically, from the inside. Any design based on external or sliced up and extracted aspects/purposes will eventually fail (or grow out of "control"). "Humanity" is an abstract and pitifully impoverished _slice_ of Gaia (for lack of a better term). So any design we put in place to preserve the system from the perspective of the human slice will eventually fail or mutate into something not so human friendly. Note that I'm _merely_ arguing from that perspective. I don't personally believe it wholeheartedly. The only part I do believe is that agility is the key to handling novelty and multi-modeling is the key to maintaining agility (as well as _generating_ novelty). - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul -- George Bernard Shaw -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIFgpDpVJZMHoGoM8RAls6AJ0W4AHcuSgus9c+FlazwtaDq6tXsgCeNLtt 8SfCOG7wvVA+a9G7u5ar9rQ= =cZOR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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That's closer I think. There's little point to agility for a little fish after it has been swallowed. All that helps then is making excuses... briefly. Agility only helps if you sense the 'disturbance' and avoid the attack entirely. Derivatives are long range indicators of out of model events approaching.
Phil Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "glen e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:32:51 To:The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 phil henshaw wrote: > The 'symptom' I was referring to was being caught flat footed without a > model to warn you about the approach of major environmental change. It's not clear to me what you and Marcus are arguing about... But I'll offer the only real insight I've gained over the past few years. [grin] There is only one way to prepare for potentially catastrophic change: agility. We can, post hoc, find examples where an entity (lineage, organization, organism, etc) is pre-adapted for some change such that it _seemed_ like that entity somehow predicted the change. But this isn't an effective tactic. Complex systems are unpredictable (by definition) in the concrete. The only way to be prepared for some unspecified, truly novel, abstractly named "change" is to be as agile as possible. And the best way to develop agility is to rapidly swap out "vignettes" (scenarios, use cases, aspects, stories, models) on a regular basis. The point is not to make attempts to ensure that your suite of vignettes contains a semblance of the coming change, however. The point is to smear the risk by practicing/training in as many different vignettes as possible. And the only way to do this is by continually maintaining multiple models of reality, all the while staying agnostic about the meaning and usefulness any of those models. You don't commit to any one model as the Truth if you want to remain agile. Of course, in stable times, exploitation (commitment) is the rule and exploration is the exception. But in unstable times, exploration is the rule and exploitation is the exception. The trick is to be willing to sacrifice your exploitative efforts when the landscape starts to destabilize. The committed end up dying because their, once true enough, convictions are no longer true enough. This is why small businesses are the heart and soul of capitalism/liberalism and why it's more agile than other organizational strategies. The high attrition rate of small businesses allows us to balance exploration and exploitation. When times are stable we grow big behemoth exploiters. When times become more chaotic, those behemoths come crashing down and us little guys scramble and wander like ants, with all our various deviant models and expectations of the world, exploring the dynamic landscape and hoping to stumble into a niche and become the next behemoth exploiter. Then we hope to hoard enough resources to skate through the next period of instability. The trouble with applying this to "sustainability" is that we define "sustainable" in terms of human comforts, wants, and needs. What I think Rosen would try to justify is the idea that we _cannot_ engineer a world that sustains _human_ comforts, wants, and needs. A sustainable ("living") system can only be designed holistically, from the inside. Any design based on external or sliced up and extracted aspects/purposes will eventually fail (or grow out of "control"). "Humanity" is an abstract and pitifully impoverished _slice_ of Gaia (for lack of a better term). So any design we put in place to preserve the system from the perspective of the human slice will eventually fail or mutate into something not so human friendly. Note that I'm _merely_ arguing from that perspective. I don't personally believe it wholeheartedly. The only part I do believe is that agility is the key to handling novelty and multi-modeling is the key to maintaining agility (as well as _generating_ novelty). - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul -- George Bernard Shaw -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIFgpDpVJZMHoGoM8RAls6AJ0W4AHcuSgus9c+FlazwtaDq6tXsgCeNLtt 8SfCOG7wvVA+a9G7u5ar9rQ= =cZOR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ 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 wrote:
> We can, post hoc, find examples where an entity (lineage, > organization, organism, etc) is pre-adapted for some change such that it > _seemed_ like that entity somehow predicted the change. But this isn't > an effective tactic. It's very effective if the population is large enough. 6.6 billion humans is quite a few. |
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