Posted by
glen ep ropella on
Sep 02, 2007; 6:31pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/politics-and-cliques-tp524626p524635.html
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> Gee, I don't know if it helps with your philosophy, but I think you're
> making a common mistake with the inverse square relation. It's an
> indicator of complex system organization, not a design principle. 'A'
> implies 'B' but 'B' in no way implies 'A'. It's like a thermometer, if
> a thermometer reads 98.6 it's likely you've found a human but heating
> something up to 98.6 and trying to talk to it is nutty. The inverse
> square metric is a time saving empirical tool for helping to locate and
> investigate complex systems. You have to look into the system to find
> what makes it organized, though.
Hmmm. I don't think I'm making the mistake you're citing. But, it's
plenty likely. I make all sorts of mistakes all the time. [grin] To
be clear, let me paraphrase what you're saying:
By saying the inverse power law is a result/indicator rather than a
design principle, you're saying that the generators of these results
could be multifarious and not determined. I.e. just because a system
turns out to require things extreme behavior and circumstances doesn't
mean the organization of the system is the only organization that could
possibly achieve its objectives.
You're saying that another system may be organized differently, achieve
the same objectives, and not exhibit the same extrema.
Is that right or did I misunderstand you?
> The network science people seem to have a better way of using it than
> the other mainstream science disciplines interested in the subject I
> think. They're looking at complex systems from the inside out (though
> maybe not having quite realized that networks are artifacts of the
> complex systems they are embedded in). Their identification of the
> elaboration and refinement of network connections during network
> development as the origin of the inverse square metric and 'scale-free'
> distribution of internal connectedness of natural networks is very
> helpful. There should logically be some kind of connection with the
> thinking of people taking an outside in approach to complexity, but I
> have not been able to figure out what it is.
I don't quite buy this. But, my criticism of it takes us on a tangent.
I'll state my criticism anyway and if you choose to pursue the tangent,
then so be it. [grin]
I don't believe there is a fundamental difference between constructivism
and formalism. I.e. one cannot study a system from the inside out
without also studying it from the outside in, and vice versa. When one
uses a phrase like "studying complex systems from the inside out", the
phrase merely _emphasizes_ one part of the studying. Objectively, all
studies involve an iterative approach that cycles between inside and
outside studies. This seems to be true of everything from riding a
bicycle to cosmology.
> As far as the limits of control, don't all complex systems have
> significantly independent design and behavior? It seems to me that the
> first thing anything with independent design and behavior requires is
> basic respect, otherwise you make large mistakes with it, right? We so
> often forget that finding the easy ways for independent things to get
> along is a great design strategy. Nature seems to like it quite a lot
> for evolutionary survival too!
It's not clear to me what you're saying, here. But, I don't really
believe in "design". Design is a cognitive fiction we use to
rationalize/justify our behavior. The causes of the phenomena generated
by a complex system are... occult, occluded, at least to some extent. I
think that's why we call these systems "complex". And its for these
reasons that simulation is such a necessary and powerful tool in the
study of these systems. We can't readily find "laws" that compress the
description of the system. For less complex systems, we can infer these
laws.
Ultimately, however, even when we can (seem to) achieve some descriptive
compression, the causes of the behavior are still occult. But we gain
some confidence through temporal and spatial extrapolation (we repeat
experiments through time and check to be sure the results are the same
and we have different people in different locations repeat the
experiments to see if the results are the same). Through such indirect
"validation", we come to trust that our compressed description is
_correct_ or true. But, ultimately, the causes are still occult. There
is always the chance of a black swan.
So, "don't all complex systems have significantly independent design and
behavior"? For the above reasons, my answer is _no_ because "design" is
a figment of our imagination. A better answer would be that the
question is ill-formed and unanswerable. Complex systems are not
_designed_ at all. They grow and evolve through the propagation of
happenstance.
- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846,
http://tempusdictum.comA random group of homeless people under a bridge would be far more
intellectually sound and principled than anything I've encountered at
the university so far. -- Ward Churchill
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