Re: complexity science map...
Posted by
Nick Thompson on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/complexity-science-map-tp2452775p2453768.html
Dear all,
I have been trying off and on for the last year to assemble a definitive glossary of complexity terms along with definitions that would make sense to any English major. I am having a harder time than one might expect finding the locus classicus of complexity talk. For those of you who don't read beyond the first screen of an email message, I am looking for sources, preferably available on line, that will help me explain the meanings of the words used in complexity talk.
OK. Now for the rest of you: When I started, I thought it was just because I didn't know enough physics, or thermodynamics, or mathematics, but each time I look into one of these areas I find that word usages and meanings in complexity talk don't really line up. For instance, "constraint" in physics-talk is just a force acting perpendicularly to the motion of the thing we are talking about, hence a force doing no work. In at least one version of complexity talk, a constraint is that which transforms energy into work. One candidate for a source of the meanings of complexity-words was Alicia Juarrero's. She relates "constraints" to information theory but also defines them as "relational properties that parts acquire in virtue of being unified -- not just aggregated --into systematic wholes. Here's another example: in thermodynamics, the "system" is just the thing you happen to be talking about. In Juarrero the system is the set of elements and relations among elements such that the properties of the elements depend on the state of the system in which they are located. I like her definition better, but the point is that in fact they are different with very different implications.
Where can I go to find stable language?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 3/9/2009 9:26:22 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] complexity science map...
Well Found Mikhail!
Naturally many of us will take issue with many of the details, relationships and attributions shown here, but as a rough, high-level sketch it has some merit. The more egregious issues have to do with specific attributions, implied precedence, and the most recent additions (e.g.web science, e-science, global network society...). Most of this is handled in the "fine print" provided by the author/artist, so I'm not "complaining", just noticing.
What I'm (yet) more interested in is this general approach to trying to organize/diagram/depict the complex relationships between scientific (and mathematical) (sub) fields as they influence eachother and evolve over time.
This is an area I am actively working in (trying to understand the evolving and emerging relationships among scientific/mathematical disciplines and topics).
I'd be curious to hear others' ideas and opinions about how these kinds of concepts can be understood (structurally, visually, spatially, even metaphorically).
- Steve
Mikhail Gorelkin wrote:
Mikhail Gorelkin
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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============================================================
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