Re: ABMs and Psychology

Posted by Russ Abbott on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-comm-was-Re-FW-Re-Emergence-Seminar-BritishEmergence-tp3654051p3696071.html

Let's do one at a time.

Circular causality: Why do you say that retrocausality is a source of complexity? It's certainly a weird notion if it exists, but what does it have to do with complexity?  How about flocking, a nice simple example of what is called a complex system. I see no retrocausality here.  Would you suggest a concrete example of a complex system whose complexity (not just quantum weirdness) has to do with retrocausality.

Lexical mismatch: Why is that a cause of complexity? Just becasue the langauge of say, group theory and calculus are lexically mismatched, what does that have to do with the complexity of anything?  If on the other hand you are saying that, for example, the language of economics and the language of particle physics are lexically mismatched, I would agree.  That, in fact, is part of my paper on reductionism, namely that terms for phenomena involving "higher level" entities don't exist at "lower levels." The examples of evolution in biology and Gresham's law in economics are lexically mismatched with the language of particle physics.  So it sounds like you are agreeing with me. But in your original note you specifically said you were disagreeing with me.

-- Russ A

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:13 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 01:52 PM:
> OK. I don't understand what you mean by either *circular causality* or *lexical
> mismatch*.

Whew!  OK.  By "circular causality", I mean that a thing is caused by
another thing that is caused by itself.  Abstractly, let E1, E2, and E3
be events such that E1 causes E2, and E3 causes E3, and E3 causes E1.
Of course, you may object that an event can only occur once in the time
stream and so E3, having occurred after E2 cannot cause E1.  But there
are cases for it:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Current_topics

A more acceptable conception of it comes in the form of non-well-founded
sets and impredicative definitions where an object is _defined_ in terms
of a quantification over the whole set to which that object belongs, or
more simply, a set can be a member of itself.

More flaky conceptions of it are autopoiesis and Rosen's closure to
efficient cause.  A more practical conception of it is co-evolution.

By "lexical mismatch", I mean that two languages are different (at
least) in terms of their vocabulary.  So, a formal system with a set of
symbols {x,y,z} is lexically distinct from a formal system with a set of
symbols {x,y,p}.  It should be clear that sentences formed in the former
may not have an equivalent in the latter.  Lexical mismatch is the
simplest form.  There can also be differences in grammar and/or axioms,
which would lead to a linguistic mismatch, which may also contribute to
complexity.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


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