What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
 
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Hi all,
I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real world but are at least based on what was asked before. So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060724/7664cde7/attachment.html |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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I tend to identify myself more strongly with Artificial Life as a
discipline, with Complexity Science being more of an umbrella category. Whilst ALife had a long period during the 90s of not much happening, I have seen a burst of results over tghe last 5 years, most spectacularly in robotics (robots that can walk for instance). In the field of evolutionary systems that I work in, we do know better how to measure evolutionary progress (eg Bedau-Packard statistics), and we do know some factors (eg specialisation - on of my own babies) that influence evolvability. We have also seen the emergence of protolife in artificial chemistry experiment (Tim Hutton's work comes to mind). But more seriously, which university has a department of complex systems? Theres the Santa Fe Institute, and possibly NECSI, but where else? Cheers On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 07:21:18AM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote: > Hi all, > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what has > complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's health is that > the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look at particle physics, they > now know stuff that they didn't 15 years ago (neutrino mass for example); if > I look at high-temperature superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I > look at string theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse > and unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real world > but are at least based on what was asked before. > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly what can > we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > Robert > ============================================================ > 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 -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 (") UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
(GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the...
Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... Mike On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > Hi all, > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > Robert > ============================================================ > 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 |
(GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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You beat me to it Mike. I was re-reading Kuhn this morning because I'm
pretty darn sure that complexity science is failing to establish itself as a paradigm, and I wanted support for this contention from someone a whole load cleverer than me. I'll report back on my readings... Just as a starter, Kuhn suggests that a field's history is largely represented in the new textbooks that accompany the paradigm shift. I'm thinking that if we don't have the textbooks (see Owen's thread), it's hard for us to even claim that a new paradigm exists ("there's no there there"). Robert On 7/24/06, Michael Agar <magar at anth.umd.edu> wrote: > > Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the... > > Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the > last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into > numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... > > Mike > > > On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > > > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > > > Robert > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060724/9cfd38fd/attachment-0001.html |
(GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexitydone for us?
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Guys--
I usually stay out of this, having a true appreciation of my own limitations (to paraphrase Clint Eastwood in one of the Dirty Harry movies, I believe) but there are at least two venues where this work is appreciated: in the American Association for History and Computing (they will be having a cyberconference in the spring) and the Midwest Political Science Association Modeling Section (mutatis mutandis--the section's name changes as often as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.) If those with appropriate knowledge skills would care to contribute, these are areas to establish beachheads. Chris Newman ________________________________ From: [hidden email] on behalf of Robert Holmes Sent: Mon 7/24/2006 9:55 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] (GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexitydone for us? You beat me to it Mike. I was re-reading Kuhn this morning because I'm pretty darn sure that complexity science is failing to establish itself as a paradigm, and I wanted support for this contention from someone a whole load cleverer than me. I'll report back on my readings... Just as a starter, Kuhn suggests that a field's history is largely represented in the new textbooks that accompany the paradigm shift. I'm thinking that if we don't have the textbooks (see Owen's thread), it's hard for us to even claim that a new paradigm exists ("there's no there there"). Robert On 7/24/06, Michael Agar <magar at anth.umd.edu> wrote: Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the... Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... Mike On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > Hi all, > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > Robert > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
> So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly
> what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? just some things... I'm sure I'm missing some important ones... (can't see what's everywhere) 1. complex networks 2. systems biology 3. synthetic life, i.e. protocells (well, not here yet, but give it another two years...) 4. Internet (well, it was just starting... say 20 years ago?) Cheers, Carlos Gershenson... Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ ?Tendencies tend to change...? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060724/ac2fdc63/attachment.html |
(GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexitydone for us?
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In reply to this post by Christopher Newman
The odd thing here is that I meant "diffusion" to indicate
development of a paradigm shift, not the absence of one. I'm seeing complexity ideas put to use all over the intellectual and organizational map. Problem is the thing mutates like fruit flies on stereoids, though there's still a there there. I keep trying to articulate the "there," but then it's limitations all the way down (: Mike On Jul 24, 2006, at 9:56 AM, Christopher Newman wrote: > Guys-- > I usually stay out of this, having a true appreciation of my own > limitations (to paraphrase Clint Eastwood in one of the Dirty Harry > movies, I believe) but there are at least two venues where this > work is appreciated: in the American Association for History and > Computing (they will be having a cyberconference in the spring) and > the Midwest Political Science Association Modeling Section (mutatis > mutandis--the section's name changes as often as the Artist > Formerly Known as Prince.) If those with appropriate knowledge > skills would care to contribute, these are areas to establish > beachheads. > Chris Newman > > ________________________________ > > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of Robert Holmes > Sent: Mon 7/24/2006 9:55 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] (GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - > complexitydone for us? > > > You beat me to it Mike. I was re-reading Kuhn this morning because > I'm pretty darn sure that complexity science is failing to > establish itself as a paradigm, and I wanted support for this > contention from someone a whole load cleverer than me. I'll report > back on my readings... > > Just as a starter, Kuhn suggests that a field's history is largely > represented in the new textbooks that accompany the paradigm shift. > I'm thinking that if we don't have the textbooks (see Owen's > thread), it's hard for us to even claim that a new paradigm exists > ("there's no there there"). > > Robert > > > On 7/24/06, Michael Agar <magar at anth.umd.edu> wrote: > > Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the... > > Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the > last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into > numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... > > Mike > > > On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > > > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > > > Robert > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Carlos Gershenson
I didn't form the question well - what I meant was: what can we do now that
we couldn't do 15 years before as a direct consequence of advances in complexity science? Sure, the examples you give can be described as complex systems. But did any of those examples actually come out of university complexity science departments? Or were developed by people who identified themselves as complexity scientists? i.e. Were they the results of advances in the field complex science specifically? I'm pretty sure that the examples below were all appropriated by complexity science after the fact. R On 7/24/06, Carlos Gershenson <cgershen at vub.ac.be> wrote: > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly what > can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > > just some things... I'm sure I'm missing some important ones... (can't see > what's everywhere) > > 1. complex networks > 2. systems biology > 3. synthetic life, i.e. protocells (well, not here yet, but give it > another two years...) > 4. Internet (well, it was just starting... say 20 years ago?) > > Cheers, > > Carlos Gershenson... > Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel > Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium > http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/<http://homepages.vub.ac.be/%7Ecgershen/> > > "Tendencies tend to change..." > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060724/df142ce3/attachment.html |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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I've been following this thread with interest.
Skepticism is admirable and appropriate, but so, perhaps, is patience. Complexity is--or aspires to be--a science, not a technology (though it uses technology, of course) and science just takes longer than technology to firm itself up. For example, the human race has been working on physics since (or before) Archimedes. It was a long time to Newton, and a further long time to Einstein, and it ain't over yet for physics. I would myself be a little bit skeptical of grand schemes to formalize complexity right now, though some bright person or team might indeed find the magic bullet and then I would have to give up my skepticism. Meanwhile, the sciences of complexity offer a new point of view, which, as has been observed, is worth 40 IQ points right there. On Jul 24, 2006, at 1:47 PM, Robert Holmes wrote: > I didn't form the question well - what I meant was: what can we do > now that we couldn't do 15 years before as a direct consequence of > advances in complexity science? > > Sure, the examples you give can be described as complex systems. > But did any of those examples actually come out of university > complexity science departments? Or were developed by people who > identified themselves as complexity scientists? i.e. Were they the > results of advances in the field complex science specifically? I'm > pretty sure that the examples below were all appropriated by > complexity science after the fact. > > R > > On 7/24/06, Carlos Gershenson < cgershen at vub.ac.be> wrote: >> So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, >> exactly what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > just some things... I'm sure I'm missing some important ones... > (can't see what's everywhere) > > 1. complex networks > 2. systems biology > 3. synthetic life, i.e. protocells (well, not here yet, but give it > another two years...) > 4. Internet (well, it was just starting... say 20 years ago?) > > Cheers, > > Carlos Gershenson... > Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel > Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium > http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ > > "Tendencies tend to change..." > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org "The amount of money one needs is terrifying ..." -Ludwig van Beethoven -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060724/a7a7eb1c/attachment-0001.html |
(GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Michael Agar
Y'know Mike, I think you've hit on something here. I'm beginning to think
that complexity is more a way of thinking than it is a field or academic discipline. And as such it makes as much sense talk about the field of complexity as it does to talk about the field of reductionism (and if someone says that it *does* make sense to talk of reductionism as a field, please identify the university that has a Department of Reductionism). So if complexity is "just" a way of thinking, is it useful? Absolutely, and for all the reasons that Mike points out. The cross-fertitlization it espouses gets us away from that terrible silo-ing to which experts and academic departments are prone. It take us back to an Enlightenment conception of the scientist when you could get to be a physicist and a mathematician and an alchemist and a medic and a..... etc etc. Robert On 7/24/06, Michael Agar <magar at anth.umd.edu> wrote: > > Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the... > > Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the > last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into > numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... > > Mike > > > On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > > > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > > > Robert > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060724/7efc0993/attachment.html |
(GWAVA: SPAM) What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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I agree absolutely, Robert, would have written the same
had you not beat me to it ;-) I think "complexity" is not a science but a way to approach problems. Traditional science asks: what does my discipline have to say to this and that? "Complexity scientists" ask: we have a concrete phenomenon here, which we can't explain. Let's look at it from all directions, on different scaling levels, on different hierarchies of description. Let us apply all current knowledge that is at our disposal and not limit ourselves to the constraints of our discipline. Complexity is a new Enlightenment, an Enlightenment for the scientific community, encouraging everyone to adopt a broader view. Regards, G?nther Robert Holmes wrote: > Y'know Mike, I think you've hit on something here. I'm beginning to > think that complexity is more a way of thinking than it is a field or > academic discipline. And as such it makes as much sense talk about the > field of complexity as it does to talk about the field of reductionism > (and if someone says that it *does* make sense to talk of reductionism > as a field, please identify the university that has a Department of > Reductionism). > > So if complexity is "just" a way of thinking, is it useful? Absolutely, > and for all the reasons that Mike points out. The cross-fertitlization > it espouses gets us away from that terrible silo-ing to which experts > and academic departments are prone. It take us back to an Enlightenment > conception of the scientist when you could get to be a physicist and a > mathematician and an alchemist and a medic and a..... etc etc. > > Robert > > > On 7/24/06, *Michael Agar* <magar at anth.umd.edu > <mailto:magar at anth.umd.edu>> wrote: > > Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the... > > Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the > last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into > numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... > > Mike > > > On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > > > > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > > > > Robert > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Russell Standish
On Jul 24, 2006, at 6:51 AM, Russell Standish wrote: > > > But more seriously, which university has a department of complex > systems? Theres the Santa Fe Institute, and possibly NECSI, but where > else? > SFI and NECSI make room for visiting students at different levels, but neither are degree-granting. In the social realm, UCLA has a new Human Complex Systems institute that is going gangbusters in its first year, but it is undergrad only right now, though the interest there hints that the younger generation is into it already. At NECSI the Portland State University computer science program drew some student attention, since they can cobble together complexity like courses of study. Couple of student emails on the NECSI list pointed to other possibillities, like George Mason University's Center for Social Complexity. Otherwise it seems like academic pockets in various domains. For instance, at NECSI I met a student who works with Reuben McDaniels, prof at the University of Texas biz school, known on the Plexus list for his work applying complexity org development to health care. He works with their Prigogine Center, though I'm not sure what they do. I'm sure there are many other centers and institutes and academic pockets that folks on the list know of as well, and many others in other countries. David Lane's group at Reggio-Modena comes to mind. It's an interesting "shreds and patches" kind of situation that probably reflects the scattered and multi-perspectival nature of the field at the moment that motivated Owen's original email. I've been disappointed that anthro hasn't been more active, though there are some good SFI external faculty examples like Steve Lansing in ecology and Doug White in networks and George Gummerman and Tim Kohler on the ancient Anasazi (a questionable label now, since it is a Navajo term and some Pueblo people object). Shortly before electricity was invented, when I was in grad school, we learned about our "holistic" perspective and the "emergent" nature of our work and how our goal was to learn a new perspective "bottom-up," though that term we didn't use. Sander van der Leeuw, former SFI faculty, took over the department at Arizona State and looks like he's changing things in a complex direction, so maybe it's starting to happen. We never did anything rigorous and general with the concepts in the old days, instead learned them by reading ethnographic case after ethnographic case, like lawyers learn legal reasoning. You'd think the field would notice the parallels. If anyone's interested, Lansing did an overview of complexity for the Annual Review of Anthropology a few years back, and I did a piece in Complexity that complexifies some ethnographic issues (We Have Met the Other and We're All Nonlinear) that's on my web page. And now, for something completely different, this week's Economist has a feature on evolutionary economics: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7189617 Mike |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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To follow on Mike's comments: what SFI, NECSI, UCLA, and other hotbeds of complex thinking have in common is some luxury to consider complexity, modeling, and social evolution, to creatively push the application of complex systems studies to culture and society.
And here I go on my soapbox (with apologies to those of you who've heard me rant about this before): what's disturbing is the number of people in government (go figure) who are touting agent based models and complexity as predictive tool and theory, respectively, for making decisions about wickedly complex quagmires in places like... oh, maybe Iraq...? I'm spending the summer studying computational modeling and simulation technologies in the DoD and the level of interest in complexity theory as the holy grail of social theory is both remarkable and worrisome. This being Washington, I've seen more than a few contractors grabbing at DoD money to get that grail up and running, without considering the manifold issues involved. My Sandia colleague, Tim Trucano, and I are gearing up to write about this issue and will likely be at FRIAM quite a bit to toss ideas around with y'all. Lurking in the discourse about complexity, computational modeling, and society is epistemological question, I think, that requires us to consider how we use modeling and simulation tools to produce knowledge about the world we live in. In academia, we have a great deal of latitude in the purpose of knowledge-making activities; we're engaged in discovery over the long run. Inside the Beltway, it's a different story entirely: they want decision tools, and they want them yesterday. Of course, this begs the question of why common sense is so utterly absent in our nation's fine capitol... Laura ________________________________ From: [hidden email] on behalf of Michael Agar Sent: Tue 7/25/2006 6:49 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us? On Jul 24, 2006, at 6:51 AM, Russell Standish wrote: > > > But more seriously, which university has a department of complex > systems? Theres the Santa Fe Institute, and possibly NECSI, but where > else? > SFI and NECSI make room for visiting students at different levels, but neither are degree-granting. In the social realm, UCLA has a new Human Complex Systems institute that is going gangbusters in its first year, but it is undergrad only right now, though the interest there hints that the younger generation is into it already. At NECSI the Portland State University computer science program drew some student attention, since they can cobble together complexity like courses of study. Couple of student emails on the NECSI list pointed to other possibillities, like George Mason University's Center for Social Complexity. Otherwise it seems like academic pockets in various domains. For instance, at NECSI I met a student who works with Reuben McDaniels, prof at the University of Texas biz school, known on the Plexus list for his work applying complexity org development to health care. He works with their Prigogine Center, though I'm not sure what they do. I'm sure there are many other centers and institutes and academic pockets that folks on the list know of as well, and many others in other countries. David Lane's group at Reggio-Modena comes to mind. It's an interesting "shreds and patches" kind of situation that probably reflects the scattered and multi-perspectival nature of the field at the moment that motivated Owen's original email. I've been disappointed that anthro hasn't been more active, though there are some good SFI external faculty examples like Steve Lansing in ecology and Doug White in networks and George Gummerman and Tim Kohler on the ancient Anasazi (a questionable label now, since it is a Navajo term and some Pueblo people object). Shortly before electricity was invented, when I was in grad school, we learned about our "holistic" perspective and the "emergent" nature of our work and how our goal was to learn a new perspective "bottom-up," though that term we didn't use. Sander van der Leeuw, former SFI faculty, took over the department at Arizona State and looks like he's changing things in a complex direction, so maybe it's starting to happen. We never did anything rigorous and general with the concepts in the old days, instead learned them by reading ethnographic case after ethnographic case, like lawyers learn legal reasoning. You'd think the field would notice the parallels. If anyone's interested, Lansing did an overview of complexity for the Annual Review of Anthropology a few years back, and I did a piece in Complexity that complexifies some ethnographic issues (We Have Met the Other and We're All Nonlinear) that's on my web page. And now, for something completely different, this week's Economist has a feature on evolutionary economics: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7189617 Mike ============================================================ 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 <http://www.friam.org/> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 8187 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060725/b86b6731/attachment-0001.bin |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
I think this discussion is productive, because it seems it is
bringing some light and agreement on "what is complexity and what it is not"... > I didn't form the question well - what I meant was: what can we do > now that we couldn't do 15 years before as a direct consequence of > advances in complexity science? In line with what other people have said, complexity has been invading all sciences. e.g. you cannot do systems biology without taking a complexity stance, but all these advances will be seen as biology or medicine... Same for other disciplines... so maybe the question could be what can we do now that we couldn't do 15 years ago as a consequence of complexity thinking? Then the list I gave earlier would be a valid answer... even if the advances come from physics, biology, engineering, they required ideas from complex systems... Best regards, Carlos Gershenson... Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ ?Tendencies tend to change...? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060725/34560ae7/attachment.html |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
I'll be honest, I cheated. I could have gone to the source and read the
man's own words, but sometimes it's just easier to read the Cliff notes (or equivalent). In this case: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/kuhnsyn.html Robert On 7/25/06, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote: > > Which if Kuhn's books would be good to read? There are apparently > several! > > -- Owen > > Owen Densmore > http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org > > > On Jul 24, 2006, at 8:55 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > > > You beat me to it Mike. I was re-reading Kuhn this morning because I'm > > pretty darn sure that complexity science is failing to establish > > itself as a > > paradigm, and I wanted support for this contention from someone a > > whole load > > cleverer than me. I'll report back on my readings... > > > > Just as a starter, Kuhn suggests that a field's history is largely > > represented in the new textbooks that accompany the paradigm shift. > > I'm > > thinking that if we don't have the textbooks (see Owen's thread), > > it's hard > > for us to even claim that a new paradigm exists ("there's no there > > there"). > > > > Robert > > > > On 7/24/06, Michael Agar <magar at anth.umd.edu> wrote: > >> > >> Well, there's the roads, yeah, and then there's the... > >> > >> Romans are the right metaphor, since much of what's happened in the > >> last X years has been diffusion of ideas--ideas, not measures--into > >> numerous different domains. Like Kuhn said... > >> > >> Mike > >> > >> > >> On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > >> > >> > Hi all, > >> > > >> > I really enjoyed Joe's post and it set me thinking - exactly what > >> > has complexity science achieved? IMHO, one measure of a field's > >> > health is that the field moves forward (radical, huh?). If I look > >> > at particle physics, they now know stuff that they didn't 15 years > >> > ago (neutrino mass for example); if I look at high-temperature > >> > superconductivity, Tc moves ever upwards. If I look at string > >> > theory they ask (and occassionally answer) ever more abstruse and > >> > unlikely questions that might not bear any relation to the real > >> > world but are at least based on what was asked before. > >> > > >> > So here's the question: in the field of complexity science, exactly > >> > what can we do now that we could not do 15 years ago? > >> > > >> > Robert > >> > ============================================================ > >> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > >> > >> > >> ============================================================ > >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > >> > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060725/8ba86f35/attachment.html |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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In reply to this post by McNamara, Laura A
If you actually wanted an opening to complexity theory that would actually
assist government decision making, you'd learn to train computers how to recognize the mathematical difference between homeostatic fluctuation and structural divergence. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> -----Original Message----- From: McNamara, Laura A [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of McNamara, Laura A Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 9:15 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: RE: [FRIAM] What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us? To follow on Mike's comments: what SFI, NECSI, UCLA, and other hotbeds of complex thinking have in common is some luxury to consider complexity, modeling, and social evolution, to creatively push the application of complex systems studies to culture and society. And here I go on my soapbox (with apologies to those of you who've heard me rant about this before): what's disturbing is the number of people in government (go figure) who are touting agent based models and complexity as predictive tool and theory, respectively, for making decisions about wickedly complex quagmires in places like... oh, maybe Iraq...? I'm spending the summer studying computational modeling and simulation technologies in the DoD and the level of interest in complexity theory as the holy grail of social theory is both remarkable and worrisome. This being Washington, I've seen more than a few contractors grabbing at DoD money to get that grail up and running, without considering the manifold issues involved. My Sandia colleague, Tim Trucano, and I are gearing up to write about this issue and will likely be at FRIAM quite a bit to toss ideas around with y'all. Lurking in the discourse about complexity, computational modeling, and society is epistemological question, I think, that requires us to consider how we use modeling and simulation tools to produce knowledge about the world we live in. In academia, we have a great deal of latitude in the purpose of knowledge-making activities; we're engaged in discovery over the long run. Inside the Beltway, it's a different story entirely: they want decision tools, and they want them yesterday. Of course, this begs the question of why common sense is so utterly absent in our nation's fine capitol... Laura _____ From: [hidden email] on behalf of Michael Agar Sent: Tue 7/25/2006 6:49 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us? On Jul 24, 2006, at 6:51 AM, Russell Standish wrote: > > > But more seriously, which university has a department of complex > systems? Theres the Santa Fe Institute, and possibly NECSI, but where > else? > SFI and NECSI make room for visiting students at different levels, but neither are degree-granting. In the social realm, UCLA has a new Human Complex Systems institute that is going gangbusters in its first year, but it is undergrad only right now, though the interest there hints that the younger generation is into it already. At NECSI the Portland State University computer science program drew some student attention, since they can cobble together complexity like courses of study. Couple of student emails on the NECSI list pointed to other possibillities, like George Mason University's Center for Social Complexity. Otherwise it seems like academic pockets in various domains. For instance, at NECSI I met a student who works with Reuben McDaniels, prof at the University of Texas biz school, known on the Plexus list for his work applying complexity org development to health care. He works with their Prigogine Center, though I'm not sure what they do. I'm sure there are many other centers and institutes and academic pockets that folks on the list know of as well, and many others in other countries. David Lane's group at Reggio-Modena comes to mind. It's an interesting "shreds and patches" kind of situation that probably reflects the scattered and multi-perspectival nature of the field at the moment that motivated Owen's original email. I've been disappointed that anthro hasn't been more active, though there are some good SFI external faculty examples like Steve Lansing in ecology and Doug White in networks and George Gummerman and Tim Kohler on the ancient Anasazi (a questionable label now, since it is a Navajo term and some Pueblo people object). Shortly before electricity was invented, when I was in grad school, we learned about our "holistic" perspective and the "emergent" nature of our work and how our goal was to learn a new perspective "bottom-up," though that term we didn't use. Sander van der Leeuw, former SFI faculty, took over the department at Arizona State and looks like he's changing things in a complex direction, so maybe it's starting to happen. We never did anything rigorous and general with the concepts in the old days, instead learned them by reading ethnographic case after ethnographic case, like lawyers learn legal reasoning. You'd think the field would notice the parallels. If anyone's interested, Lansing did an overview of complexity for the Annual Review of Anthropology a few years back, and I did a piece in Complexity that complexifies some ethnographic issues (We Have Met the Other and We're All Nonlinear) that's on my web page. And now, for something completely different, this week's Economist has a feature on evolutionary economics: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7189617 Mike ============================================================ 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 <http://www.friam.org/> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 9780 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060725/5fe098b1/attachment-0001.bin |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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Laura:
In the course of your research this summer, have you run across any examples that would suggest some standard (old fashioned?) Project Management efforts (ideally, files) that were created BEFORE the decision was made to invade Iraq? You know, a Gantt chart here, a PERT diagram there. Maybe even, gasp, a calendar? -Tom To follow on Mike's comments: what SFI, NECSI, UCLA, and other hotbeds of > complex thinking have in common is some luxury to consider complexity, > modeling, and social evolution, to creatively push the application of > complex systems studies to culture and society. > > And here I go on my soapbox (with apologies to those of you who've heard > me > rant about this before): what's disturbing is the number of people in > government (go figure) who are touting agent based models and complexity > as > predictive tool and theory, respectively, for making decisions about > wickedly complex quagmires in places like... oh, maybe Iraq...? I'm > spending the summer studying computational modeling and simulation > technologies in the DoD and the level of interest in complexity theory as > the holy grail of social theory is both remarkable and worrisome. This > being Washington, I've seen more than a few contractors grabbing at DoD > money to get that grail up and running, without considering the manifold > issues involved. My Sandia colleague, Tim Trucano, and I are gearing up to > write about this issue and will likely be at FRIAM quite a bit to toss > ideas > around with y'all. > > Lurking in the discourse about complexity, computational modeling, and > society is epistemological question, I think, that requires us to consider > how we use modeling and simulation tools to produce knowledge about the > world we live in. In academia, we have a great deal of latitude in the > purpose of knowledge-making activities; we're engaged in discovery over > the > long run. Inside the Beltway, it's a different story entirely: they want > decision tools, and they want them yesterday. > > Of course, this begs the question of why common sense is so utterly absent > in our nation's fine capitol... > > Laura > > > _____ > > J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060726/3c5a76d6/attachment.html |
What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us?
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Hey Tom, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. My flippant answer is -
PLANNING??? How naive. You don't 'plan' when God's doing it for you. The serious answer is that I wasn't working closely with military planners, so no, I didn't. There's a remarkable lack of common sense here... even some of the intelligence analysts I interviewed were remarkably open in critiquing this administration. ________________________________ From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Tom Johnson Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 10:24 PM To: sy at synapse9.com; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What have the Romans - sorry - complexity done for us? Laura: In the course of your research this summer, have you run across any examples that would suggest some standard (old fashioned?) Project Management efforts (ideally, files) that were created BEFORE the decision was made to invade Iraq? You know, a Gantt chart here, a PERT diagram there. Maybe even, gasp, a calendar? -Tom To follow on Mike's comments: what SFI, NECSI, UCLA, and other hotbeds of complex thinking have in common is some luxury to consider complexity, modeling, and social evolution, to creatively push the application of complex systems studies to culture and society. And here I go on my soapbox (with apologies to those of you who've heard me rant about this before): what's disturbing is the number of people in government (go figure) who are touting agent based models and complexity as predictive tool and theory, respectively, for making decisions about wickedly complex quagmires in places like... oh, maybe Iraq...? I'm spending the summer studying computational modeling and simulation technologies in the DoD and the level of interest in complexity theory as the holy grail of social theory is both remarkable and worrisome. This being Washington, I've seen more than a few contractors grabbing at DoD money to get that grail up and running, without considering the manifold issues involved. My Sandia colleague, Tim Trucano, and I are gearing up to write about this issue and will likely be at FRIAM quite a bit to toss ideas around with y'all. Lurking in the discourse about complexity, computational modeling, and society is epistemological question, I think, that requires us to consider how we use modeling and simulation tools to produce knowledge about the world we live in. In academia, we have a great deal of latitude in the purpose of knowledge-making activities; we're engaged in discovery over the long run. Inside the Beltway, it's a different story entirely: they want decision tools, and they want them yesterday. Of course, this begs the question of why common sense is so utterly absent in our nation's fine capitol... Laura _____ ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060731/10f65e75/attachment-0001.html |
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