[FRIAM] Lyapunov Exponent

[Michael Agar]

I'm just back from a week's work in Baltimore on a project to  
research and improve treatment entry and engagement among narcotics  
addicts. Reason they invite me is because the characteristics of  
complex co-evolutionary systems help them see, understand and act on  
the problem in new and more effective (we all hope, evaluation to  
come) ways. It's less a measure of complexity and more a phase  
transition in perception and action on the part of human actors who  
are part of the system.

What about algorithmic complexity, the measure suggested by Gell- 
Mann, I  think it was? It won't offer an in or out, necessary and  
sufficient condition measure, but rather a "more or less" evaluation  
that allows translation between system patterns and computer code.  
The code is then the measure.

Mike


On Jul 22, 2006, at 11:36 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> At yesterday's FRIAM, I mentioned the Chaos has the luxury of
> reasonably formal techniques, much lacking in Complexity.  My point
> was that there was an "inclusion principal" for chaos .. a way to
> partition processes into those that are chaotic and those that are
> not.  And naturally, neither set is null.
>
> The technique used in Chaos is the Lyapunov exponent:
>    http://hypertextbook.com/chaos/43.shtml
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent
>
> A similar measure, as far as I know, is not available for description
> of Complex systems .. one that offers a solution to the inclusion
> principal for Complex processes.
>
> BTW: We were having difficulty remembering the name of the author of
> one of the more popular books.  I believe we were searching for
> Robert Devaney.  He is editor of the Studies in Nonlinearity series
> of books, which includes a rather interesting one by Brian Davies
> which has a wonderful set of Java applications/applets for exploring
> chaos .. a sort of lab if you will.
>
>      -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore
> http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org
>
>
>
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