Welcome, Jim
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Welcome aboard,
At the Santa Fe Complex, we are presently devising ways to shrink the world so that you will be able to attend in the future. Until then, we will have to settle for this forum. Ask as a question. We havent had a good question recently. Nick > [Original Message] > From: <friam-request at redfish.com> > To: <friam at redfish.com> > Date: 4/17/2008 10:01:13 AM > Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 58, Issue 16 > > Send Friam mailing list submissions to > friam at redfish.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > friam-request at redfish.com > > You can reach the person managing the list at > friam-owner at redfish.com > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Introduction (Jim Witkam) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:39:57 +0200 > From: "Jim Witkam" <jw at altreva.com> > Subject: [FRIAM] Introduction > To: <friam at redfish.com> > Message-ID: <098d01c8a077$62b06960$0801a8c0 at jimcm> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; > reply-type=original > > Hi everyone, I've been on the FRIAM list for some time now but haven't > introduced myself yet, so here goes: > > My background is in computer science and finance. For the last 5 years I > have been an independent researcher and software developer in the fields > (agent-based) computational economics and evolutionary computation. > Specifically I've been busy with agent-based simulation models of financial > markets for the purpose of price forecasting. The complex behavior of > financial markets has been a long time interest of me, as well as artificial > intelligence and related computer science fields. My work can be found at > www.altreva.com. > > Prior life experience includes an Msc in computer science from Universiteit > Twente, 4 years as a consultant at Ernst & Young Treasury & Financial Risk > Management, 1 year as marketing director of an AI software startup company, > 1 year as manager at Ernst & Young Corporate Finance, 5 years of traveling > and living in Sout-East Asia. > > I'm living in the Netherlands so unfortunately I won't be able to attend the > FRIAM meetings on a regular basis but I hope to take part in the FRIAM > community through electronic ways. > > Jim Witkam > http://www.altreva.com > jw at altreva.com > > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Friam mailing list > Friam at redfish.com > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > End of Friam Digest, Vol 58, Issue 16 > ************************************* |
Question about financial markets and networks
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Nick, thanks for inviting me to ask a (good) question. This forced me to go
over my list of "everything I always wanted to know about complex systems but was afraid to ask" with a critical eye. In the end I decided on a question that has been haunting me for some time now in my work and which is still an open question I believe in the field of agent-based computational economics: Considering a financial market as a complex system and the important role of networks in complex systems; what network topology would best describe the connections (of information exchange) between market participants in a real-world financial market (i.e. a stock market)? With the information being exchanged I mean: any information that is potentially relevant for making trading decisions such as news, analyst recommendations, valuations, trading strategies, rumours, etc. So this deals with the question where people (and institutions) get their information from and to what extent they forward information about their own opinions, decisions, trading strategies, returns, etc. to others. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> To: <friam at redfish.com> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:24 PM Subject: [FRIAM] Welcome, Jim > Welcome aboard, > > At the Santa Fe Complex, we are presently devising ways to shrink the > world > so that you will be able to attend in the future. Until then, we will > have > to settle for this forum. > > Ask as a question. We havent had a good question recently. > > Nick > > >> [Original Message] >> From: <friam-request at redfish.com> >> To: <friam at redfish.com> >> Date: 4/17/2008 10:01:13 AM >> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 58, Issue 16 >> >> Send Friam mailing list submissions to >> friam at redfish.com >> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to >> friam-request at redfish.com >> >> You can reach the person managing the list at >> friam-owner at redfish.com >> >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >> than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..." >> >> >> Today's Topics: >> >> 1. Introduction (Jim Witkam) >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:39:57 +0200 >> From: "Jim Witkam" <jw at altreva.com> >> Subject: [FRIAM] Introduction >> To: <friam at redfish.com> >> Message-ID: <098d01c8a077$62b06960$0801a8c0 at jimcm> >> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >> reply-type=original >> >> Hi everyone, I've been on the FRIAM list for some time now but haven't >> introduced myself yet, so here goes: >> >> My background is in computer science and finance. For the last 5 years I >> have been an independent researcher and software developer in the fields > of >> (agent-based) computational economics and evolutionary computation. >> Specifically I've been busy with agent-based simulation models of > financial >> markets for the purpose of price forecasting. The complex behavior of >> financial markets has been a long time interest of me, as well as > artificial >> intelligence and related computer science fields. My work can be found at >> www.altreva.com. >> >> Prior life experience includes an Msc in computer science from > Universiteit >> Twente, 4 years as a consultant at Ernst & Young Treasury & Financial > Risk >> Management, 1 year as marketing director of an AI software startup > company, >> 1 year as manager at Ernst & Young Corporate Finance, 5 years of > traveling >> and living in Sout-East Asia. >> >> I'm living in the Netherlands so unfortunately I won't be able to attend > the >> FRIAM meetings on a regular basis but I hope to take part in the FRIAM >> community through electronic ways. >> >> Jim Witkam >> http://www.altreva.com >> jw at altreva.com >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Friam mailing list >> Friam at redfish.com >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> >> >> End of Friam Digest, Vol 58, Issue 16 >> ************************************* > > > > ============================================================ > 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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There's a curious reversal that occurred to me in reading an article by
Boschetti on the computability of nature in relation to Rosen's "Evolution of life is not the construction of a machine", the deep problems of why math "can't do nature". I'm writing a piece on how self-consistent models don't make good operating manuals because they omit the independent parts that make environments work. It's as a stating point for discussing how our models fit their subjects and what to do about the radical lack of fit in many cases. Computability is usually discussed in terms of ?chaos? in which small differences can have large mathematical consequences or the inability to define boundary conditions clearly or that models can?t properly represent the multiple scales of organization that natural systems have. There's also an incomputability of mathematical models that comes directly from our means of doing it, the physical process of doing it. Calculation has an easily perceived ?grain? that comes from its being built from the assemblies of individual parts in computers, the 1's and 0's. Self-consistent sets of equations do not have any grain. The implied continuities of mathematics, therefore, can not be represented with the integer calculations required for digital processing. Mathematical rules imply shades of difference and dynamical derivative rates of change without limit. Perhaps how our mathematical tools necessarily operate then shows that the problem isn?t just that how math is built it can't successfully emulate nature. Maybe it also shows that the way nature is built it can't successfully emulate math. If nature "can't do math", that may have different implications. 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? |
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Phil, There is a fundamental quality in mathematics - equality - or reversibility, if you will, that differs from nature. This means that there is a directionality in natural processes that cannot be deconstructed. Prigogine calls the lack of directional and temporal equality "far from equilibrium". Mathematics works well at describing systems at equilibrium, and seems to get progressively worse the further from equilibrium one gets. Emergence creates an emergency, so to speak. This has been my criticism of rules centered agent based modeling, which is a theme from Wolfram, and why I have been researching compositional pattern producing networks (CPPN's) evolved by HyperNEAT. It seems to take energy to evolve. The interesting thing is a paradigmatic difference between solving problems, and recognizing solutions. Ken > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of phil henshaw > Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 9:06 AM > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' > Subject: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > There's a curious reversal that occurred to me in reading an > article by Boschetti on the computability of nature in > relation to Rosen's "Evolution of life is not the > construction of a machine", the deep problems of why math > "can't do nature". I'm writing a piece on how > self-consistent models don't > make good operating manuals because they omit the independent > parts that make environments work. It's as a stating point > for discussing how our models fit their subjects and what to > do about the radical lack of fit in many cases. > > Computability is usually discussed in terms of ?chaos? in > which small differences can have large mathematical > consequences or the inability to define boundary conditions > clearly or that models can?t properly represent > the multiple scales of organization that natural systems > have. There's > also an incomputability of mathematical models that comes > directly from our means of doing it, the physical process of > doing it. Calculation has an easily perceived ?grain? that > comes from its being built from the assemblies > of individual parts in computers, the 1's and 0's. > Self-consistent sets of > equations do not have any grain. The implied continuities > of mathematics, > therefore, can not be represented with the integer > calculations required for > digital processing. Mathematical rules imply shades of > difference and > dynamical derivative rates of change without limit. Perhaps how our > mathematical tools necessarily operate then shows that the > problem isn?t > just that how math is built it can't successfully emulate > nature. Maybe it > also shows that the way nature is built it can't successfully > emulate math. > If nature "can't do math", that may have different implications. > > > > 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? > > > > > ============================================================ > 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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Hi Ken,
in the context of Rosen's objections to course of mathematics since pythagoras, in what respect would CPPN's be any better than 'rules centered agent based modelling' ? I never heard about CPPN's; it seems interesting, but I can't really find any examples of something they're better at than 'straight' CA or neural networks ? curious, Joost. On 21 Apr, 2008, at 5:29 PM, Ken Lloyd wrote: > Phil, > > There is a fundamental quality in mathematics - equality - or > reversibility, > if you will, that differs from nature. This means that there is a > directionality in natural processes that cannot be deconstructed. > Prigogine > calls the lack of directional and temporal equality "far from > equilibrium". > > Mathematics works well at describing systems at equilibrium, and > seems to > get progressively worse the further from equilibrium one gets. > Emergence > creates an emergency, so to speak. > > This has been my criticism of rules centered agent based modeling, > which is > a theme from Wolfram, and why I have been researching compositional > pattern > producing networks (CPPN's) evolved by HyperNEAT. It seems to take > energy > to evolve. > > The interesting thing is a paradigmatic difference between solving > problems, > and recognizing solutions. > > Ken ------------------------------------------- Joost Rekveld ----------- http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld ------------------------------------------- "A is better off if B is better off.? (Heinz von Foerster) ------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080421/a858d223/attachment.html |
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In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
Hi,
I still do not see why nature should not be mathematical, or even (stronger) computable. See for instance Max Tegmark's (MIT) Mathematical universe: http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646 The principal claim of Rosen - that life is not mechanically emulable - is shown to be false by the second recursion theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleene%27s_recursion_theorem (which shows that one can mechanically replicate; repair is then a matter of error correction) Cheers, G?nther phil henshaw wrote: > There's a curious reversal that occurred to me in reading an article by > Boschetti on the computability of nature in relation to Rosen's "Evolution > of life is not the construction of a machine", the deep problems of why math > "can't do nature". I'm writing a piece on how self-consistent models don't > make good operating manuals because they omit the independent parts that > make environments work. It's as a stating point for discussing how our > models fit their subjects and what to do about the radical lack of fit in > many cases. > > Computability is usually discussed in terms of ?chaos? in which small > differences can have large mathematical consequences or the inability to > define boundary conditions clearly or that models can?t properly represent > the multiple scales of organization that natural systems have. There's > also an incomputability of mathematical models that comes directly from our > means of doing it, the physical process of doing it. Calculation has an > easily perceived ?grain? that comes from its being built from the assemblies > of individual parts in computers, the 1's and 0's. Self-consistent sets of > equations do not have any grain. The implied continuities of mathematics, > therefore, can not be represented with the integer calculations required for > digital processing. Mathematical rules imply shades of difference and > dynamical derivative rates of change without limit. Perhaps how our > mathematical tools necessarily operate then shows that the problem isn?t > just that how math is built it can't successfully emulate nature. Maybe it > also shows that the way nature is built it can't successfully emulate math. > If nature "can't do math", that may have different implications. > > > > 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? > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- 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 Joost Rekveld
Hi Joost,
Here's a case study. Notice how the concept of a geometrical space can be equated to a "context" in which patterns evolve, and see how this differs from its primitive cousin - an evolutionary genetic ANN. http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/papers/gauci_aaai08.pdf Ken ============================= Kenneth A. Lloyd CEO and Director of Systems Science Watt Systems Technologies Inc. Albuquerque, NM USA kalloyd at wattsys.com kenneth.lloyd at incose.org - MBSE Complex, Adaptive & Stochastic Systems kenneth.lloyd at nmug.net - Director of Education www.wattsys.com <http://www.wattsys.com/> <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/9a/824> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/9a/824 This e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above. It may contain privileged or confidential information. If you are not the addressee you must not copy, distribute, disclose or use any of the information in it. If you have received it in error please delete it and immediately notify the sender. _____ From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Joost Rekveld Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 1:54 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen Hi Ken, in the context of Rosen's objections to course of mathematics since pythagoras, in what respect would CPPN's be any better than 'rules centered agent based modelling' ? I never heard about CPPN's; it seems interesting, but I can't really find any examples of something they're better at than 'straight' CA or neural networks ? curious, Joost. On 21 Apr, 2008, at 5:29 PM, Ken Lloyd wrote: Phil, There is a fundamental quality in mathematics - equality - or reversibility, if you will, that differs from nature. This means that there is a directionality in natural processes that cannot be deconstructed. Prigogine calls the lack of directional and temporal equality "far from equilibrium". Mathematics works well at describing systems at equilibrium, and seems to get progressively worse the further from equilibrium one gets. Emergence creates an emergency, so to speak. This has been my criticism of rules centered agent based modeling, which is a theme from Wolfram, and why I have been researching compositional pattern producing networks (CPPN's) evolved by HyperNEAT. It seems to take energy to evolve. The interesting thing is a paradigmatic difference between solving problems, and recognizing solutions. Ken ------------------------------------------- Joost Rekveld ----------- http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld ------------------------------------------- "A is better off if B is better off." (Heinz von Foerster) ------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080421/fd27ee33/attachment.html |
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In reply to this post by Günther Greindl
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl wrote: > I still do not see why nature should not be mathematical, or even > (stronger) computable. I agree. > The principal claim of Rosen - that life is not mechanically emulable - > is shown to be false by the second recursion theorem > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleene%27s_recursion_theorem > > (which shows that one can mechanically replicate; repair is then a > matter of error correction) I disagree. I don't believe that theorem refutes RR's claim, which I prefer to think of as "non-well-founded sets cannot be realized". But, I admit that I'm not as well-versed in computability as I should (or would like to) be. How does the recursion theorem refute RR's claim? Can you be a bit more precise? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. -- Barry Goldwater -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIDPlEpVJZMHoGoM8RAv79AJ0ZmUvLt0ztKw7++SIaaOSp5tM3YwCfTEBE iFphEkKMU8yh2JaXkwNlrnw= =wR98 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Well, I mostly thought you might like the turn of phrase...
There's another one I like of a similar kind, the observation that the conclusion of all proofs, the little triangle of dots that some refer to as the statement "therefore" actually means "... and so I can't think of anything else...". Every step of a proof is a repetition of the fallible human act of "and only this follows"... well unless you think of something else. For any self-consistent model, a way to think of the inconsistencies it entails is to look at how it is embedded into the physical world and all it's loosely connected working parts. 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: Monday, April 21, 2008 4:30 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > G?nther Greindl wrote: > > I still do not see why nature should not be mathematical, or even > > (stronger) computable. > > I agree. > > > The principal claim of Rosen - that life is not mechanically emulable > - > > is shown to be false by the second recursion theorem > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleene%27s_recursion_theorem > > > > (which shows that one can mechanically replicate; repair is then a > > matter of error correction) > > I disagree. I don't believe that theorem refutes RR's claim, which I > prefer to think of as "non-well-founded sets cannot be realized". But, > I admit that I'm not as well-versed in computability as I should (or > would like to) be. > > How does the recursion theorem refute RR's claim? Can you be a bit > more > precise? > > - -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough > to take it all away. -- Barry Goldwater > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFIDPlEpVJZMHoGoM8RAv79AJ0ZmUvLt0ztKw7++SIaaOSp5tM3YwCfTEBE > iFphEkKMU8yh2JaXkwNlrnw= > =wR98 > -----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 Kenneth Lloyd
Hi Ken,
thanks for this, i'll report back to base as soon as I'm done reading (which might take a while) ciao, Joost. On 21 Apr, 2008, at 10:12 PM, Ken Lloyd wrote: > Hi Joost, > > Here's a case study. Notice how the concept of a geometrical space > can be equated to a "context" in which patterns evolve, and see how > this differs from its primitive cousin - an evolutionary genetic ANN. > > http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/papers/gauci_aaai08.pdf > > Ken > > ============================= > Kenneth A. Lloyd > CEO and Director of Systems Science > Watt Systems Technologies Inc. > Albuquerque, NM USA > kalloyd at wattsys.com > kenneth.lloyd at incose.org - MBSE Complex, Adaptive & Stochastic > Systems > kenneth.lloyd at nmug.net - Director of Education > www.wattsys.com > > http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/9a/824 > > This e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above. It may > contain privileged or confidential information. > If you are not the addressee you must not copy, distribute, > disclose or use any of the information in it. > If you have received it in error please delete it and immediately > notify the sender. > > > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] > On Behalf Of Joost Rekveld > Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 1:54 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > Hi Ken, > > in the context of Rosen's objections to course of mathematics since > pythagoras, in what respect would CPPN's be any better than 'rules > centered agent based modelling' ? > I never heard about CPPN's; it seems interesting, but I can't > really find any examples of something they're better at than > 'straight' CA or neural networks ? > > curious, > > Joost. > > > On 21 Apr, 2008, at 5:29 PM, Ken Lloyd wrote: >> Phil, >> >> There is a fundamental quality in mathematics - equality - or >> reversibility, >> if you will, that differs from nature. This means that there is a >> directionality in natural processes that cannot be deconstructed. >> Prigogine >> calls the lack of directional and temporal equality "far from >> equilibrium". >> >> Mathematics works well at describing systems at equilibrium, and >> seems to >> get progressively worse the further from equilibrium one gets. >> Emergence >> creates an emergency, so to speak. >> >> This has been my criticism of rules centered agent based modeling, >> which is >> a theme from Wolfram, and why I have been researching >> compositional pattern >> producing networks (CPPN's) evolved by HyperNEAT. It seems to >> take energy >> to evolve. >> >> The interesting thing is a paradigmatic difference between solving >> problems, >> and recognizing solutions. >> >> Ken > > > > > ------------------------------------------- > > Joost Rekveld > ----------- http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld > > ------------------------------------------- > > "A is better off if B is better off.? > > (Heinz von Foerster) > > ------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080421/dab66745/attachment.html |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
Dear Glen,
>> The principal claim of Rosen - that life is not mechanically emulable - >> is shown to be false by the second recursion theorem >> > I disagree. I don't believe that theorem refutes RR's claim, which I > prefer to think of as "non-well-founded sets cannot be realized". But, > I admit that I'm not as well-versed in computability as I should (or > would like to) be. > > How does the recursion theorem refute RR's claim? Can you be a bit more > precise? I actually wanted to call into question that life is a non-well founded set. Why should it be? Could you present arguments for that? (I looked at Rosen's (M,R) Model of the cell and did not see any principal problem in modelling this computationally -> that is where the 2nd rec. theorem comes in; indeed, this is necessary and a quite deep insight, Descartes could not solve this, but of course he did not have modern logic at his disposal). If non-well founded sets are then computationally realizable is another question, but why not (a non halting computation?)? Two other things: Category Theory, which RR employs, is not at odds with computer science: "From the 1980s to the present, category theory has found new applications. In theoretical computer science, category theory is now firmly rooted, and contributes, among other things, to the development of new logical systems and to the semantics of programming. (Pitts 2000, Plotkin 2000, Scott 2000, and the references therein)." Quote from SEP http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/category-theory/ See also the paper from Baez Et al. (Rosetta stone) which has already been recommended by someone on this list. RR's approach seems to attract followers because of this: (two quotes from abstract of online paper by Donald C. Mikulecky) http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/PPRISS3.html "It is so because the world of the machine is a "simple" world. Its laws and inhabitants are simple machines or mechanisms." This is a basic misunderstanding of what is a machine: when talking about machines, people think about clockworks and DVD players and cars. But machines can be much more profound than this, and how profound is revealed by logic/set theory/recursion theory. Indeed, there is nothing in empirical physics known at the moment which would contradict viewing nature as a machine (esp. as a CA) (see for instance Wolfram/Schmidhuber and even one or two papers by Nobel laureate 't Hooft) Another quote by Mikulecky: "It isn't the atoms and molecules that are at the hard core of reality, it is the relations between them and the relations between them and things called processes which are at the core of the real world!" Hmm - in theoretical physics one only models mathematically - "particles" are not "things" anymore, they are mathematical relations; all nicely in a mechanist framework; in the end, the more we go into physics, the more the things we study are only true insofar as they have mathematical content (Roger Bacon said similar stuff around 1200, and he had it from the Moors ;-). A mechanist would be very fine with "all is relation". I have not yet seen any substantial claim (except handwaving) coming from RR's work which goes against traditional mechanist/computationalist traditions. Cheers, G?nther |
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl wrote: >> How does the recursion theorem refute RR's claim? Can you be a bit more >> precise? > > (I looked > at Rosen's (M,R) Model of the cell and did not see any principal problem > in modelling this computationally -> that is where the 2nd rec. theorem > comes in; indeed, this is necessary and a quite deep insight, Descartes > could not solve this, but of course he did not have modern logic at his > disposal). > > I have not yet seen any substantial claim (except handwaving) coming > from RR's work which goes against traditional mechanist/computationalist > traditions. [grin] That's not an answer to my query. You said that the recursion theorem _refutes_ RR's claim. You can't just say "I don't see how RR's claim is justified." That's not a refutation. It's just a simple statement that you don't know the justification. How does the recursion theorem refute RR's claim? After we see your refutation, then either: a) I'll be proven wrong, regardless of how I may re-formulate RR's claim or b) the burden will be on me to criticize your refutation. But we have to see your refutation first. Note that I _agree_ with your main point, that life may be mathematical or computable. But I don't see how the recursion theorem refutes RR's claim that "life is not mechanically emulable"? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com http://meat.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFID3h0pVJZMHoGoM8RAv4jAJ0dT77EtsPdiRQ+6xRoAfPLfpHTWwCggLVK IJECXwIi+Apd3QZJo2Hs+gg= =EGCl -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Dear Glen,
> [grin] That's not an answer to my query. You said that the recursion > theorem _refutes_ RR's claim. You can't just say "I don't see how RR's > claim is justified." That's not a refutation. It's just a simple > statement that you don't know the justification. Sorry, I did not answer directly, that is true. Of course, you have to be careful when criticising Rosen, as most critics are then countered by "that is not how RR uses that and that word". For instance, here: http://www.panmere.com/?p=66 you read: "However, Wells fails to understand that Rosen is constructing a specific and unequivocal definition of ?machine? - Rosen is not attempting to utilize some vague colloquial definition of ?machine?." The thing is: when computer scientist talk about "machine", it is perfectly well defined: they talk about a Universal Turing Machine (or a TM and it's equivalents, whatever you like). So, when I speak of machine/mechanism I mean the general, computer science meaning; also, recursive functions are well defined, no problems in this area. More problematic of course is life: I guess there is no single accepted definition of life, people will not even agree on what is alive (virus? etc) So, maybe Rosen has a personal definition of life, but what I targeted was the (M,R)-systems, which he posits as a model of organism which are opposed to mechanisms. And I can't see anything in (M,R)-system (metabolism, repair) which is not amenable to a mechanistic solution, the only real difficult part being the coding of the replication of the system from within itself - and that is where the recursion theorem comes in. So my argument runs as this: the models Rosen proposes as models of life can be modeled by well known mechanistic models. Hence Rosen's claim that life is not a mechanism is refuted. One objection may be that if life is a mechanism, then why doesn't Alife work out as we would like? Of course, life is a very _complicated_ mechanism. It uses all kinds of natural laws down to quantum phenomena (Van der Waals Forces in Geckos, as a famous example). So maybe life can't be captured by simplistic mechanism (meaning, sequential, slow processing with no relationship to real environment) What I argue against is this fundamental dichotomy which is trying to be interposed between living beings and non-living beings; I find RR's theories fruitful insofar as he proposes new modeling techniques. I find them counterproductive as he argues against mechanism. 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. Concerning argueing against mechanism: Something similar also happens in the domain of mind: the Lucas-Penrose argument that G?del Incompleteness implies a non-mechanistic view of the mind. (Glen, we had a similiar discussion some time ago ;-) While this claim has been shown to be without substance, but still circles around due to public appeal (?), there is indication that rather the contrary holds; (Incompleteness implies mechanism) see this book for instance: Mechanism, Mentalism and Metamathematics: An Essay on Finitism (Synthese Library) by J. Webb http://www.amazon.com/Mechanism-Mentalism-Metamathematics-Finitism-Synthese/dp/9027710465/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208976075&sr=8-1 (Very expensive :-((, maybe your library has it?) Bruno Marchal (http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/) alerted me to the astounding and beautiful consequences of mechanism applied throughout; and the philosophical chasms opening when not doing so. 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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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl wrote: > Of course, you have to be careful when criticising Rosen, as most > critics are then countered by "that is not how RR uses that and that word". Yes, I know. [grin] I've been arguing with Rosenites for years and that is, by far, their most frequent and most relied upon defense. C'est la vie. Other cliques do the same thing, from physicists to theologians to mathematicians. I call these people "hermeneuts" ... or, when I'm feeling punchy, "priests". > they talk about a Universal Turing Machine (or a > TM and it's equivalents, whatever you like). > > So, when I speak of machine/mechanism I mean the general, computer > science meaning; also, recursive functions are well defined, no problems > in this area. > > More problematic of course is life: I guess there is no single accepted > definition of life, people will not even agree on what is alive (virus? etc) > > So, maybe Rosen has a personal definition of life, but what I targeted > was the (M,R)-systems, which he posits as a model of organism which are > opposed to mechanisms. > > And I can't see anything in (M,R)-system (metabolism, repair) which is > not amenable to a mechanistic solution, the only real difficult part > being the coding of the replication of the system from within itself - > and that is where the recursion theorem comes in. > > So my argument runs as this: the models Rosen proposes as models of life > can be modeled by well known mechanistic models. Hence Rosen's claim > that life is not a mechanism is refuted. 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? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com If a man can't piss in his own front yard, he's living too close to town. -- Tom Russell -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFID6W5pVJZMHoGoM8RAkphAJ4qJRn7AMpbyCFCjTiwQTxTaDYhvwCgkwzT 01oYZbxBzxUVkQHfLcHxDMw= =fGMH -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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In reply to this post by Günther Greindl
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? When I read "What is Life", my idea of mechanism was still the same (Turing computability), but felt that the "Game of Life" was a counter example to his claims (GoL has multiple inconsistent models). I'm still proposing to write a critique of Chu and Ho's recent Artificial Life paper along somewhat these lines, but I'm stuck evolving fuzzy inference systems for now (and I have some mutual information data mining work stacked up behind it). Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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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? > When I read "What is Life", Surely you mean "Life Itself"? "What is Life" is a book by Schr?dinger. - -- 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----- |
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Can a self-consistent model have independently behaving parts, like
environments do? The energy of any natural system isn't going to be completely independent of it's environment and other things, but the internally generated information structures would seem to be, no? A model of natural system interactions would still need to include the design of their information structures, though, so a self-consistent model would then have the task of representing differently consistent things at the same time, and be unable to do it. Right ? 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 10:07 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] recap on Rosen > > -----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? > > > When I read "What is Life", > > Surely you mean "Life Itself"? "What is Life" is a book by > Schr?dinger. > > - -- > 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 |
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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. Luckily `environments' can have stable observable properties that can be treated as hard, fixed constraints. It seems to me self-consistency and reflectivity isn't a problem, provided the list of exceptions can grow indefinitely or that the individual exceptions can be ambiguous. Consider the popularity of the legal profession. ;-) Marcus |
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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----- |
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glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> 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. > Assuming there is some forcing structure (ok, better to avoid the word "physics"), my point is that it has to be posited, such that it is clear that the function or set of functions can't just disguise any number of degrees of freedom. For example, a model that specifies a benign looking but undisclosed function that, upon further inspection, is discovered to be connected to a giant database of all relevant phenomena... |
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