Posted by
Nick Thompson on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/order-and-disorder-tp522512.html
Phil,
My life time passion concerns the world's love affair with circular
explanation. An explanation is circular if the terms in which it is
identfied are the same terms as those by whatever explains it. The
complex-random distinction is one of those, isnt it? I.e., we cannot know
whether a pattern is random or complex until we know exactly how that
pattern was made.
I am hoping I am wrong about this.
NIck
> [Original Message]
> From: <friam-request at redfish.com>
> To: <friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 8/25/2006 12:00:37 PM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 53
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. lecture Wed August 30 - David Stout: 100 Monkey Garden -
> Interactive Ecosystem (Stephen Guerin)
> 2. Is disorder harder to describe than order? (Phil Henshaw)
> 3. Re: Is disorder harder to describe than order? (Jochen Fromm)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 17:15:58 -0600
> From: "Stephen Guerin" <stephen.guerin at redfish.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] lecture Wed August 30 - David Stout: 100 Monkey
> Garden - Interactive Ecosystem
> To: <friam at redfish.com>, <discuss at nmvis.org>
> Cc: io at csf.edu
> Message-ID: <002f01c6c7d3$43f9f780$0202fea9 at hongyu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> *** note that this lecture will be hosted at College of Santa Fe ***
>
> SPEAKER:
> David Stout, Cory Metcalf and Luke DuBois
> College of Santa Fe
>
> TITLE:
> 100 Monkey Garden - Interactive Ecosystem
>
> LOCATION:
> MOV-iN Gallery
> College of Santa Fe
> 1600 St. Michaels Dr.
>
> Located at Moving Image Arts Department
> (same building as THE SCREEN)
> map:
http://mov-in.org/aboutus.php>
> TIME: Wed, August 30 12:30p
>
> Lunch will be available for purchase
>
> ABSTRACT:
> Video/sound artist and moving image arts Professor David Stout will give a
> personal tour of this highly immersive interactive ecosystem and digital
art
> space. Using multiple projectors and computer monitors, as well as an
array of
> sound and motion sensing devices, David enables the 100 Monkey spectator
to
> witness a digitally imagined world creating and recreating itself, its
rules and
leading
> laptop performers exploring real-time cross-synthesis of sound and image.
He
> is the recipient of the Harvestworks Interactive Technology Award and the
Sun
> Micro Systems Award for Academic Excellence (2004) and a nominee for the
both
> the WTN World Technology Award (2003) and the International Media Art
Prize
> (2004). His work in interactive media includes electro-acoustic scores
for stage
> and screen, live cinema, video-dance, data-base narrative, noise
performance and
> telematic video events that emphasize multi-screen projection as an
extension of
> performer, audience and environment. David currently lives and works in
Santa
> Fe, New Mexico.
>
> Cory Metcalf is a moving image and sound artist who lives in Santa Fe,
NM. His
> work explores the intersection of human performance, real-time media
systems and
> responsive installation environments. His interests range from the field
of
> bio-mimicry to the practices of aerial theater, extended vocal techniques
and
> instrumental noise-music performance. As a seminal member of the
interactive
> performance group, i2O, Metcalf developed dynamic diffusion sound designs
for
> live acoustics and video performance instruments. Metcalf's interest in
physical
> computing is evidenced in works such as Sensor Swarm, a hybrid interactive
> performance-installation that employs sensing technology to blur the
distinction
> between the audience and performance, fore-grounding the normally
unconscious
> influence that humans impose on their environment. Currently Cory is
working
> with real-time 3D simulation and complex data feed-back programs to model
> synthetic-ecologies based on genetic and behavioral processes found in
living
> systems.
>
> R. Luke DuBois is a composer, programmer, and video artist living in New
York
> City. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University,
and
> teaches interactive sound and video performance at Columbia's Computer
Music
> Center and at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York
University.
> He has done collaborated on interactive performance, installation and
music
> production work with many artists, most recently Toni Dove, Todd Reynolds,
> Michael Joaquin Grey, Elliott Sharp, and Michael Gordon, and was a staff
> programming consultant for Engine27 for the 2003 season. He is a
co-author of
> Jitter, a software suite developed by Cycling'74 for real-time
manipulation of
> matrix data. His music (with or without his band, the Freight Elevator
Quartet),
> is available on Caipirinha/Sire, Cycling'74, and Cantaloupe music, and his
> artwork is represented by Bitforms Gallery in New York City.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:13:54 -0400
> From: "Phil Henshaw" <sy at synapse9.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Is disorder harder to describe than order?
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <00ee01c6c7f4$7fc5b990$2f01a8c0 at SavyII>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
>
> I was reading Yaneer Bar-Yam's construction of systems theory from
> Shannon's information theory and couldn't help notice that I disagree
> that disorder is harder to describe. Yes, it's useful to have a theory
> that helps you design efficient use of bandwidth, but maybe that doesn't
> have to do with the real difference between order and disorder.
>
> A random distribution of data looks to me like a very complicated
> question with a very simple answer, and a patterned distribution a
> somewhat simpler question with an impossible answer (at least any way
> we've agreed to describe natural systems so far). The material
> evidence is that science has made great progress with the former, the
> phenomena of the world based on random processes, in that they can be
> reliably described.
>
> Could it be that there's a flaw in Shannon, or was he maybe talking
> about data (questions) rather than information (answers)?
>
>
>
> Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: 212-795-4844
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:36:11 +0200
> From: "Jochen Fromm" <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Is disorder harder to describe than order?
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <000001c6c821$87f404f0$537a338d at Toshiba>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> Something is hard to describe if it is complex.
> Neither pure disorder nor pure order in form of simple
> regularities is very hard to describe. Complexity is
> characterized by order in disorder or order in chaos:
> regularity in irregularity, predictability in
> unpredictability, and unity in diversity.
>
> Murray Gell-Mann argues that the effective complexity
> for both completely regular and completely random systems
> is very low, because you cannot find many regularities
> in the system which can be expressed by a suitable schema,
> description or rule (see the end of chapter 5 in his book
> "The Quark and the Jaguar").
>
> -J.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> End of Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 53
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