[FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

[Phil Henshaw]

Well, it would be hard for me to draw the picture of what the local Santa Fe
FRIAM community 'does', but it's often that a complex system retains it's
original concept and develops from that idea by addition and adjustment as
it grew.     It may have reached a stable form or have a stability only of
wandering perhaps, and says a lot about it.     Using that 'story form' is
one good way to describe a complex system that gives people a well ordered
ladder of both insights and open questions that they can then plug into as
they like.

 

Phil

 

From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 2:32 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Cc: kitchen at lists.clarku.edu
Subject: [FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

 

All, 

 

Colleagues at my former institutution have asked me to provide a reading or
other ...... representation .... that can be consumed in less than an hour
that would give a sense of what it is "we" do in Friam, in Santa Fe, etc.
Hopefully not words ABOUT it but an example OF it, if you see what I mean,
but we might have to settle for words.  If you had ONE SHOT at turning a
colleague into a complexitist, what would you do with him/her.  

 

Does FRIAM have some suggestions????  

 

A related question in my mind:  if agent-based-models come closest to
capturing the essense of complexity thinking,  WHY?  

 

Discuss.   I will collect your responses and forward them on to Worcester. 

 

Nick 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)

Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
(nthompson at clarku.edu)

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080408/a4dbb020/attachment.html