http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Seminal-Papers-in-Complexity-tp524047p524101.html
of being of more historic rather than of current interest. I do think
rather than work by cross fertilizing. It's a little like the reason
warming. The popular press is an entertainment medium with each
self-critical consensus.
680 Ft. Washington Ave
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Owen Densmore [mailto:owen at backspaces.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 12:15 AM
> To: sy at synapse9.com; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Seminal Papers in Complexity
>
>
> Interesting .. when following these links I end up on one of my
> favorite sites:
>
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/ashby.html>
> Cosma Shalizi is one of the more interesting mavericks of the SFI
> world, and taught at the SFI 2000 summer school. Definitely one of
> my favorite reads.
>
> -- Owen
>
>
> On Jun 16, 2007, at 9:35 AM, Phil Henshaw wrote:
>
> > One problem with the seminal papers on complexity is that
> they don't
> > connect. Take the foundational works of H.T. Odum, the systems
> > ecologist(1) or the cybernetic systems thinkers Ross Ashby (2) or
> > Norbert Wiener(3). It's hard to link them to other branches of
> > complex
> > systems study like Prigigene's 'Exploring Complexity' or Wolfram's
> > 'New
> > kind of Science' or Barabasi's 'Linked' (leaving out numerous
> > important
> > others). As a consequence few people are aware of the general
> > timeline
> > of complexity as a subject(4), and any timeline of the field is
> > bound to
> > be missing major contributions.
> >
> > The problem seems is partly that the study of complex systems is
> > interdisciplinary, because systems are, and what happens is each
> > discipline goes off on its own tangent and acts like it is
> trying to
> > take over the subject as a whole, each vying to erase each other
> > rather
> > than connect with each other. My work seems to be an example of an
> > attempt to link approaches, a new form of physics intended
> > expressly for
> > use by any discipline, and incorporating unique useful pieces of
> > what's
> > been developed from all the disciplines I've been exposed
> to. My work
> > may be 'odd' in more ways than that, but it's partly because I'm
> > trying
> > to write in a common language that makes it look 'foreign' to every
> > discipline, so no one'll publish it... Catch 22! :-)
> >
> > (1) Odum: 1994 'Ecological and General Systems' (see
> >
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Odum,_Howard_T.)
> > (2) Ross Ashby's 1947 'Ecological and General Systems' or his 1956
> > "Introduction to Cybernetics" (& see
> >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Ross_Ashby)
> > (3) Weiner 1948 'Control and Communication in the Animal and the
> > Machine'
> > (3) complex systems thinking timeline from the cybernetics soc.
> > (
http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/timeline.htm),
> >
> >
> > Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> > NY NY 10040
> > tel: 212-795-4844
> > e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> > explorations: www.synapse9.com
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
> >> Behalf Of Owen Densmore
> >> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 7:38 PM
> >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> >> Subject: [FRIAM] Seminal Papers in Complexity
> >>
> >>
> >> Several of us have been attending the SFI Summer School this year.
> >> One thing that has stood out for me is that there are very few
> >> appropriate texts on the detailed, seminal ideas within
> complexity.
> >> Either the books are "popular" or they are
> technical/formal enough,
> >> but without broad view of complexity itself. Indeed, they may be
> >> *too* advanced in their speciality for the broad use complexity
> >> wishes to make.
> >>
> >> One example today was the intersection of computational theory and
> >> statistical mechanics given by Cris Moore:
> >> A Tale of Two Cultures: Phase Transitions in
> >> Physics and Computer Science
> >> Here are the slides:
http://www.santafe.edu/~moore/Oxford.pdf> >> You'd be unlikely to find a book bridging algorithms,
> computational
> >> complexity, and statistical mechanics.
> >>
> >> This leads me to believe that seminal papers are likely to
> be a good
> >> solution for bridging the various cultures, hopefully with
> some that
> >> *do* bridge gaps between specialties.
> >>
> >> Sooo -- gentle reader -- this brings me to a request: I'd like to
> >> start a collection of seminal papers who's goal is to
> bridge the gap
> >> between popular books and over-specialized texts, which are formal
> >> enough to be useful for multi-discipline complexity work.
> This may
> >> be daft, but I think not.
> >>
> >> As an example, I'd say Shannon's 1948 paper A Mathematical
> Theory of
> >> Communication would be good.
> >>
> >> -- Owen
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> 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>
>
>