[FRIAM] When is something complex
sy at synapse9.com
sy at synapse9.com
Thu Sep 27 13:46:41 EDT 2007
Mikhail,
I grant one can look at and dwell on the mysterious relation between well crafted understandings and the realitiies they connect with that are beyond understanding. I also like taking thoughts in that direction sometimes. It's the opposite direction I'm more interested in learning, though, where complex things are just things, and no kind of confusion with our explanations for them is required...
Phil
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-----Original Message-----
From: "Mikhail Gorelkin" <gorelkin at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:49:39
To:<sy at synapse9.com>, "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'" <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex
Phil, I think it's a method of two Zen Buddhists checking each other by asking koans (that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan) about the subject. ? –Mikhail
To understand is to invent. --J. Piaget
You cannot change a reality if you remain in the same consciousness that made it. --G. Braden
----- Original Message -----
From: Phil Henshaw <mailto:sy at synapse9.com>
To: 'Mikhail Gorelkin' <mailto:gorelkin at hotmail.com> ; 'The Friday Morning
Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 11:10 PM
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] When is something complex
Mikhail,
Well, I was perhaps including that sort of natural category that is known only by the experiential step of 'entering', like stepping into someone else's shoes and the indefinable change of consciousness that always seems to produce. I was more thinking about distinguishing between the systems we see forming in our minds, and the systems we see forming in the physical world outside our minds. There are many many different ways a mental system can form to or reflect a physical system. The trick is to find a method that two minds can check each other on. That's a tough performance standard to meet.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
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-----Original Message-----
From: Mikhail Gorelkin [mailto:gorelkin at hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 12:56 AM
To: sy at synapse9.com; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex
>...so we need some way to capture and relate categories by an efficient method where definition is impossible.
Phil, I like this example: "categories" in those astral worlds that we can enter only ***unconsciously***, and where, therefore, we lose our ability even to ***define*** :-) --Mikhail
----- Original Message -----
From: Phil Henshaw <mailto:sy at synapse9.com>
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group' <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex
Well, one of the most fascinating things about observation is rolled up in that question. It turns out to be naturally difficult to tell whether your data reflects behaviors of the environment or of your method of collecting information. The point is that observation is always a matter of dealing with 2 complexities each of which is indescribably complex and neither of which can be used as a general standard reference.
Both the process of the observer and the process observed are uncalculable, and most particularly because they are real physical processes, each displaying the behavior of the whole indescribable network of distributed independent complex processes of nature from which they arise, including all the features and scales of order we have not yet found a way to observe in detail and have no clue as to how to begin to describe! One of my favorites in that area is molecular light, all the photons being emitted and absorbed in particle interactions all the time. I understand it's real, but molecular light is just another subject on a long list of 'dark matters', for our understanding.
So...complexity means in part that not everything (actually not any physical thing) can be abstractly defined and so we need some way to capture and relate categories by an efficient method where definition is impossible.
Phil
On 9/19/07, Mikhail Gorelkin <gorelkin at hotmail.com <mailto:gorelkin at hotmail.com> > wrote: > However, I think many people consider complexity to be an inherent property, ontologically separate from any descriptions of the
> system
The problems with this statement are: 1) what I comprehended as the complex thing some time ago, now maybe it's not so completely.
Like walking in a big city: for a child (a less sophisticated, less evolved, conceptual mind) the task is too complex to handle
properly, but after living here for a number of years it's the most natural and simplest thing in the world. So, does "complexity"
belong to this situation? or does it reflect our ability to comprehend it? 2) Some things are complex to me, but not, for example,
to you. ? --Mikhail P.S. "Complexity" may be one of the "archetypes" of our cognition.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen E. P. Ropella" <
gepr at tempusdictum.com <mailto:gepr at tempusdictum.com> >
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mikhail Gorelkin wrote:
>> ...let's use this: the minimal description, which "works". ? --Mikhail
>
> The problem is whether or not complexity is an inherent property or an
> ascribed attribute. If it's an ascribed attribute, then the above is as
> good a definition as any... I prefer the concept of logical depth
> (primarily temporal aggregation); but that's effectively the same as a
> minimal description that works.
>
> The justification for assuming complexity is an ascribed attribute lies
> in parsing the word "complexity". Complexity talks about cause and
> effect and the "plaited" threads of cause/effect running through a
> system. The more threads there are and the more intertwined they are,
> the more complex the system. But, cause and effect are human cognitive
> constructs. Hence, complexity is an ascribed attribute of systems and,
> hence, can be defined in terms of descriptions and the efficacy of such.
>
> However, I think many people consider complexity to be an inherent
> property, ontologically separate from any descriptions of the system.
> That doesn't imply independence from intra-system sub-descriptions (e.g.
> one constituent that describes other constituents, making that
> description a constituent of the system), only that there need not be a
> whole system description for it to be complex.
>
> If it's true that complexity is an inherent property, then definitions
> like "minimal description that works" is either irrelevant or is just a
>_measure_ of complexity rather than a definition of it. And if that's
> the case, it brings us back to complexity being an ascribed attribute
> rather than an inherent property. =><=
>
> - --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com <http://tempusdictum.com>
> I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty
> enough to want to force it upon anyone. -- H. L. Mencken
>
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