From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 1 08:13:37 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 06:13:37 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Rule driven agent-based modeling systems In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0908311936p16e47e33g3d978380c2da04aa@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0908222013p5b2937b2se3304c6c7d4dd670@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908231415g3fcc4a1dr245711c6855d60d6@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311754j1d29b414m6177548169daa25c@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590908311835u6ba70ec5r4f6718aba49dc886@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311936p16e47e33g3d978380c2da04aa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> Hi, Russ. As you might suspect from my previous comments, I have spent many years building models, most of them ABMs, many of them large distributed ones. What I have found over the years is that each problem domain is significantly different from other domains, meaning there there is very little generic agent behavior or functionality that could realistically be captured and reused in an "ABM framework". There is some, however, and in fact I have built my own very lightweight framework (in C++) that uses it. I chose C++ because it is a language that is well-supported in HPC environments. In an abm, agents interact, and their interactions result in changes to the system to occur. Some of the changes to the system occur instantaneously; some interactions will cause a change to occur in the future. An example of the latter is when an agent causes disease to be be transmitted through interactions with other agents. After a latent period some or all of the infected agents will become symptomatic. My framework therefore has a mechanism to cause the simulation clock to advance as a result of agent interactions. My distributed agent framework also has an interface that allows agents to migrate between cpus on a distributed machine, and to send messages between agents residing on different cpus. It also has a mechanism to keep the distributed machine synchronized in time as part of the time update mechanism. That's all the framework does. All of the other logic that defines the agent interactions is written by the model developer. Since the framework is implemented in C++, agents are implemented as C++ objects. As with any well-designed OO code, the objects contain their state information as object member data, and their logic definitions (rules) as object member methods. There is a very simple API that allows the agents to recognize the system clock and to cause it to be updated as interactions dictate. That's where the framework functionality stops. There is no generic rule generation in the framework. There is no rule rewriting. The framework does not provide any generic genetic algorithms. There are no classes of agents. No doctor agent classes. No stock arbitrage agent classes. No hospital patient agent classes. No car agent classes. No house agent classes. No airplane agent classes. These are all examples of application-specific agent functionality that may or may not be required to implement an abm for a specific problem definition. This is my abm design methodology as it relates to implementation within my own abm framework: - The model developer defines his agents at a level of resolution that is sufficient to capture the information required to address the problem that (this specific) abm is intended solve. - The model developer identifies all state data that an agent will be required to maintain (for this specific abm). - The model developer identifies all of the (specific for this application) rule logic definitions which will control the interactions of the agents with each other, and within (this specific) simulation state-space. - The agents are implemented as C++ objects I looked at the AMP platform that Miles mentioned, and it appears to me to be extremely constraining, and not well-suited to implementing large abms as it only appeared to support serial, non-distributed compute architectures. I think I would feel like a slave to the AMP IDE were I to try to use it. I would prefer more flexibility that it seems to provide. Regards, --Doug On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Hi Doug, > > I got Miles message as well, but I want to ask you about this one anyway. > I'd be interested to know what your answer to your question about added > value would be for you to think that an ABM framework is worth the trouble > to build. I'm not asking as a challenge but so that I have some guidance > about what you think would be valuable/important to include in our system. > > I'm copying Miles who may not actually be on the list. > > Miles, I'd be very interested in your answer also. How would you respond to > Doug's added-value question wrt AMF > > -- Russ > > > On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> *"As I see it, Drools is essentially a layer above Java that supplies a >> great many of the capabilities I want. It doesn't have the notion of agent >> at all. But we can build that."* >> >> I think I get it. >> >> Layers of abstraction, piled upon more layers. That's the answer. I >> forget what the question was. >> >> I can get behind that (hey, I work for a living too). >> >> Aside: Warning flag #2 usually goes up when I see the words "Schwa, schwa, >> schwa, Framework, schwa, schwa" preceding the description of some >> historically-vetted simulation approach, or another. >> >> What I would really love to see is a concise statement of what the added >> value that this proposed approach is supposed to bring to the table. >> >> --Doug >> >> >> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >>> Hi Miles, >>> >>> I got both of your messages. Thanks. >>> >>> Our situation is that we have embarked on building a framework based on >>> the DroRuss.Abbott at gmail.com, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >>> Coffee Group ols ExpertRete rules engine. Drools was developed within JBoss for controlling >>> distributed J2EE applications. It wasn't developed with agent-based modeling >>> in mind. Nonetheless I like it as a starting point for a number of reasons. >>> >>> - Its rule language is both simple and open. It supports get/set >>> operations on Java objects. So it it not limited to operating on any >>> particular category of things. In addition, the rule language allows any >>> java method call to be embedded within a rule. That may seem too open, but >>> it allows new primitives to be added to the repertoire of agent operations >>> very easily. The rules may be written in MVEL, >>> which is a Java expression language. Although I'm not an expert in either >>> Drools or MVEL, my expectation is that one could embed a Genetic Programming >>> capability within agents by using the MVEL parser. What's interesting about >>> MVEL (from the little I've read about it) is that it's basically the kind of >>> code that one would write in a Java method. That is, it doesn't have class >>> declarations, but it supports Java procedural and evaluation constructs >>> within an expression-oriented framework. >>> - Drools allows one to add rules dynamically. >>> - One can instantiate as many Drools Rete engines as one likes. They >>> can share the same workspace. They can run in separate threads. >>> >>> As I see it, Drools is essentially a layer above Java that supplies a >>> great many of the capabilities I want. It doesn't have the notion of agent >>> at all. But we can build that. Each agent can have its own Rete engine and >>> run in its own thread. That would be the next layer. All this is still >>> really just Java libraries. In adopting Drools and building some agent-like >>> capabilities on top of it, we are not yet cutting off our ability to add >>> features in straight Java. >>> >>> Part of my vision is that the framework will support what I've been >>> calling service oriented agent-based modeling. That means that everything an >>> agent does can be understood as a service that another agent can make use >>> of. The simple paradigm is that an agent operates on objects in its >>> environment -- including possibly other agents. An agent rule would take >>> objects as input and produce either new objects or modified objects as >>> output. Clearly this is an extraordinarily simple paradigm. But I think it >>> supports a great deal of what I think we need in a modeling environment. >>> >>> Once we have that layer going, I'd like to develop mechanisms to hook >>> agents up in networks. (Again, something quite simple.) A simple version of >>> such a network within my basic paradigm is a supply chain. But the network >>> would allow loops and it would be dynamically reconfigurable. The agents >>> could restructure it as circumstances suggest. So what I'm saying here is >>> that a networking capability would be another layer in this framework. One >>> wouldn't be forced to use it, but it would be there. >>> >>> My question for you is what would you want to see as additional agent >>> support in a project that took this route? >>> >>> -- Russ >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Miles Parker wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Hi Russ! >>>> >>>> I am developing two components that could be useful here. The AMP >>>> project itself is overall infrastructure for this kind of modeling, and you >>>> can use the olde Ascape API is you wanted for that. You can add rules in >>>> mid-run w/ Ascape *but* they apply to a collection of agents. An alternative >>>> is to roll your own rule sets and have them fired as part of a single Ascape >>>> rule. At least all of the other ABM stuff would be supported. >>>> >>>> The more directly aplicaable bit is the Agent Modeling Framework whihc >>>> is similar to the Eclipse Modeling Framework. There is a very high level >>>> represeentation for agent behavior using a Query->Control->Transofmration >>>> paradigm that would suit *I think* what you say well -- though it would be >>>> good to have an example to know for sure. Now.. the issue with AMF right now >>>> is that it is designed for static rules / behaviors. That is, the >>>> infrastructure uses code generation at design time, but there is no such >>>> limitation for models themselves -- but that is a distinction with a >>>> difference at the moment as there is no way to execute such agents. :). >>>> Marcus Daniels especially has convinced me of the importance of >>>> self-modifying/dynamic rulesets and I think it is also a potential big >>>> advantage of the Meta-Model approach because it provides clean high-level >>>> semantics. One (of many many) things that I would love to see happen with >>>> AMF is a dynamic / interpreted run time for self-modifying models. EMF does >>>> a similar thing quite well and there is no reason that in principal this >>>> couldn't be done with AMF. Basically, instead of generating code that maps >>>> the high-level AMF description to some existing API toolset (e.g. Repast, >>>> Ascape) you'd have an execution environment that loaded an AMF model and >>>> then invoked API calls through reflection. Obviously you'd take a >>>> performance hit but if you had nice high-evel APIs that mapped well to the >>>> AMF meta-model it needn't be huge. >>>> >>>> Sorry if this is somehwat confused but hopefully enough info to see if >>>> there is any potential here. >>>> >>>> cheers, >>>> >>>> Miles >>>> >>>> On Aug 23, 2009, at 2:15 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi Miles, >>>> >>>> We exchanged some mutually appreciative emails some time ago but haven't >>>> spoken in quite a while. I hope things are well with you. >>>> >>>> I'm looking for an ABM framework in which (a) agents are driven by >>>> forward chaining rules (i.e., a "blackboard" system) and (b) those rules are >>>> themselves first class citizens in the model so that, for example, an agent >>>> can create a new agent with dynamically generated rules or an agent can >>>> modify its own rules dynamically. >>>> >>>> Owen Densmore of the FRIAM group suggested (see below) that you may be >>>> working on something like this. Are you? I can't find the reference Owen >>>> referred to. >>>> >>>> Thanks, >>>> >>>> -- Russ Abbott >>>> _____________________________________________ >>>> Professor, Computer Science >>>> California State University, Los Angeles >>>> Cell phone: 310-621-3805 >>>> o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: >>>> >>>>> Isn't this close to Miles Parker's latest work? His WedTech talk >>>>> seemed to suggest that. His proposal was accepted, and he's got a project >>>>> page: >>>>> http://www.eclipse.org/amp/ >>>>> .. he may have become less ambitious in the rule-driven approach, not >>>>> sure. >>>>> >>>>> -- Owen >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Aug 22, 2009, at 9:58 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Russ, >>>>>> >>>>>> I haven't seen a system like your describing. It shouldn't be too hard >>>>>> to assemble though if the rule grammar was simple. >>>>>> >>>>>> -S >>>>>> --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... >>>>>> stephen.guerin at redfish.com >>>>>> (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 >>>>>> redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com >>>>>> >>>>>> On Aug 22, 2009, at 9:13 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm interesting in developing a model that uses rule-driven agents. I >>>>>>> would like the agent rules to be condition-action rules, i.e., similar to >>>>>>> the sorts of rules one finds in forward chaining blackboard systems. In >>>>>>> addition, I would like both the agents and the rules themselves to be first >>>>>>> class objects. In other words, the rules should be able: >>>>>>> ? to refer to agents, >>>>>>> ? to create and destroy agents, >>>>>>> ? to create new rules for newly created agents, >>>>>>> ? to disable rules for existing agents, and >>>>>>> ? to modify existing rules for existing agents. >>>>>>> Does anyone know of a system like that? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- Russ >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Doug Roberts >> droberts at rti.org >> doug at parrot-farm.net >> 505-455-7333 - Office >> 505-670-8195 - Cell >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 08:38:37 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 05:38:37 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Rule driven agent-based modeling systems In-Reply-To: <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0908222013p5b2937b2se3304c6c7d4dd670@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908231415g3fcc4a1dr245711c6855d60d6@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311754j1d29b414m6177548169daa25c@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590908311835u6ba70ec5r4f6718aba49dc886@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311936p16e47e33g3d978380c2da04aa@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909010538q3b29d22fk7f2de39a7fe04074@mail.gmail.com> The system you describe reminds me of WarpIV by Jeff Steinman. I haven't kept up with this work in a few years, but it might be worth looking at. It's intended for very large simulations that run on diestributed processors. It includes a time warp capability so that processors aren't required to be synchronized at all time. -- Russ On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 5:13 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Hi, Russ. > > As you might suspect from my previous comments, I have spent many years > building models, most of them ABMs, many of them large distributed ones. > What I have found over the years is that each problem domain is > significantly different from other domains, meaning there there is very > little generic agent behavior or functionality that could realistically be > captured and reused in an "ABM framework". > > There is some, however, and in fact I have built my own very lightweight > framework (in C++) that uses it. I chose C++ because it is a language that > is well-supported in HPC environments. > > In an abm, agents interact, and their interactions result in changes to the > system to occur. Some of the changes to the system occur instantaneously; > some interactions will cause a change to occur in the future. An example of > the latter is when an agent causes disease to be be transmitted through > interactions with other agents. After a latent period some or all of the > infected agents will become symptomatic. > > My framework therefore has a mechanism to cause the simulation clock to > advance as a result of agent interactions. > > My distributed agent framework also has an interface that allows agents to > migrate between cpus on a distributed machine, and to send messages between > agents residing on different cpus. It also has a mechanism to keep the > distributed machine synchronized in time as part of the time update > mechanism. > > That's all the framework does. All of the other logic that defines the > agent interactions is written by the model developer. Since the framework is > implemented in C++, agents are implemented as C++ objects. As with any > well-designed OO code, the objects contain their state information as object > member data, and their logic definitions (rules) as object member methods. > There is a very simple API that allows the agents to recognize the system > clock and to cause it to be updated as interactions dictate. That's where > the framework functionality stops. > > There is no generic rule generation in the framework. There is no rule > rewriting. The framework does not provide any generic genetic algorithms. > There are no classes of agents. No doctor agent classes. No stock arbitrage > agent classes. No hospital patient agent classes. No car agent classes. > No house agent classes. No airplane agent classes. These are all examples > of application-specific agent functionality that may or may not be required > to implement an abm for a specific problem definition. > > This is my abm design methodology as it relates to implementation within my > own abm framework: > > - The model developer defines his agents at a level of resolution that > is sufficient to capture the information required to address the problem > that (this specific) abm is intended solve. > - The model developer identifies all state data that an agent will be > required to maintain (for this specific abm). > - The model developer identifies all of the (specific for this > application) rule logic definitions which will control the interactions of > the agents with each other, and within (this specific) simulation > state-space. > - The agents are implemented as C++ objects > > > I looked at the AMP platform that Miles mentioned, and it appears to me to > be extremely constraining, and not well-suited to implementing large abms as > it only appeared to support serial, non-distributed compute architectures. > I think I would feel like a slave to the AMP IDE were I to try to use it. I > would prefer more flexibility that it seems to provide. > > Regards, > > --Doug > > > On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> Hi Doug, >> >> I got Miles message as well, but I want to ask you about this one anyway. >> I'd be interested to know what your answer to your question about added >> value would be for you to think that an ABM framework is worth the trouble >> to build. I'm not asking as a challenge but so that I have some guidance >> about what you think would be valuable/important to include in our system. >> >> I'm copying Miles who may not actually be on the list. >> >> Miles, I'd be very interested in your answer also. How would you respond >> to Doug's added-value question wrt AMF >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: >> >>> *"As I see it, Drools is essentially a layer above Java that supplies a >>> great many of the capabilities I want. It doesn't have the notion of agent >>> at all. But we can build that."* >>> >>> I think I get it. >>> >>> Layers of abstraction, piled upon more layers. That's the answer. I >>> forget what the question was. >>> >>> I can get behind that (hey, I work for a living too). >>> >>> Aside: Warning flag #2 usually goes up when I see the words "Schwa, >>> schwa, schwa, Framework, schwa, schwa" preceding the description of some >>> historically-vetted simulation approach, or another. >>> >>> What I would really love to see is a concise statement of what the added >>> value that this proposed approach is supposed to bring to the table. >>> >>> --Doug >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Miles, >>>> >>>> I got both of your messages. Thanks. >>>> >>>> Our situation is that we have embarked on building a framework based on >>>> the DroRuss.Abbott at gmail.com, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >>>> Coffee Group ols ExpertRete rules engine. Drools was developed within JBoss for controlling >>>> distributed J2EE applications. It wasn't developed with agent-based modeling >>>> in mind. Nonetheless I like it as a starting point for a number of reasons. >>>> >>>> - Its rule language is both simple and open. It supports get/set >>>> operations on Java objects. So it it not limited to operating on any >>>> particular category of things. In addition, the rule language allows any >>>> java method call to be embedded within a rule. That may seem too open, but >>>> it allows new primitives to be added to the repertoire of agent operations >>>> very easily. The rules may be written in MVEL, >>>> which is a Java expression language. Although I'm not an expert in either >>>> Drools or MVEL, my expectation is that one could embed a Genetic Programming >>>> capability within agents by using the MVEL parser. What's interesting about >>>> MVEL (from the little I've read about it) is that it's basically the kind of >>>> code that one would write in a Java method. That is, it doesn't have class >>>> declarations, but it supports Java procedural and evaluation constructs >>>> within an expression-oriented framework. >>>> - Drools allows one to add rules dynamically. >>>> - One can instantiate as many Drools Rete engines as one likes. They >>>> can share the same workspace. They can run in separate threads. >>>> >>>> As I see it, Drools is essentially a layer above Java that supplies a >>>> great many of the capabilities I want. It doesn't have the notion of agent >>>> at all. But we can build that. Each agent can have its own Rete engine and >>>> run in its own thread. That would be the next layer. All this is still >>>> really just Java libraries. In adopting Drools and building some agent-like >>>> capabilities on top of it, we are not yet cutting off our ability to add >>>> features in straight Java. >>>> >>>> Part of my vision is that the framework will support what I've been >>>> calling service oriented agent-based modeling. That means that everything an >>>> agent does can be understood as a service that another agent can make use >>>> of. The simple paradigm is that an agent operates on objects in its >>>> environment -- including possibly other agents. An agent rule would take >>>> objects as input and produce either new objects or modified objects as >>>> output. Clearly this is an extraordinarily simple paradigm. But I think it >>>> supports a great deal of what I think we need in a modeling environment. >>>> >>>> Once we have that layer going, I'd like to develop mechanisms to hook >>>> agents up in networks. (Again, something quite simple.) A simple version of >>>> such a network within my basic paradigm is a supply chain. But the network >>>> would allow loops and it would be dynamically reconfigurable. The agents >>>> could restructure it as circumstances suggest. So what I'm saying here is >>>> that a networking capability would be another layer in this framework. One >>>> wouldn't be forced to use it, but it would be there. >>>> >>>> My question for you is what would you want to see as additional agent >>>> support in a project that took this route? >>>> >>>> -- Russ >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Miles Parker wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hi Russ! >>>>> >>>>> I am developing two components that could be useful here. The AMP >>>>> project itself is overall infrastructure for this kind of modeling, and you >>>>> can use the olde Ascape API is you wanted for that. You can add rules in >>>>> mid-run w/ Ascape *but* they apply to a collection of agents. An alternative >>>>> is to roll your own rule sets and have them fired as part of a single Ascape >>>>> rule. At least all of the other ABM stuff would be supported. >>>>> >>>>> The more directly aplicaable bit is the Agent Modeling Framework whihc >>>>> is similar to the Eclipse Modeling Framework. There is a very high level >>>>> represeentation for agent behavior using a Query->Control->Transofmration >>>>> paradigm that would suit *I think* what you say well -- though it would be >>>>> good to have an example to know for sure. Now.. the issue with AMF right now >>>>> is that it is designed for static rules / behaviors. That is, the >>>>> infrastructure uses code generation at design time, but there is no such >>>>> limitation for models themselves -- but that is a distinction with a >>>>> difference at the moment as there is no way to execute such agents. :). >>>>> Marcus Daniels especially has convinced me of the importance of >>>>> self-modifying/dynamic rulesets and I think it is also a potential big >>>>> advantage of the Meta-Model approach because it provides clean high-level >>>>> semantics. One (of many many) things that I would love to see happen with >>>>> AMF is a dynamic / interpreted run time for self-modifying models. EMF does >>>>> a similar thing quite well and there is no reason that in principal this >>>>> couldn't be done with AMF. Basically, instead of generating code that maps >>>>> the high-level AMF description to some existing API toolset (e.g. Repast, >>>>> Ascape) you'd have an execution environment that loaded an AMF model and >>>>> then invoked API calls through reflection. Obviously you'd take a >>>>> performance hit but if you had nice high-evel APIs that mapped well to the >>>>> AMF meta-model it needn't be huge. >>>>> >>>>> Sorry if this is somehwat confused but hopefully enough info to see if >>>>> there is any potential here. >>>>> >>>>> cheers, >>>>> >>>>> Miles >>>>> >>>>> On Aug 23, 2009, at 2:15 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hi Miles, >>>>> >>>>> We exchanged some mutually appreciative emails some time ago but >>>>> haven't spoken in quite a while. I hope things are well with you. >>>>> >>>>> I'm looking for an ABM framework in which (a) agents are driven by >>>>> forward chaining rules (i.e., a "blackboard" system) and (b) those rules are >>>>> themselves first class citizens in the model so that, for example, an agent >>>>> can create a new agent with dynamically generated rules or an agent can >>>>> modify its own rules dynamically. >>>>> >>>>> Owen Densmore of the FRIAM group suggested (see below) that you may be >>>>> working on something like this. Are you? I can't find the reference Owen >>>>> referred to. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks, >>>>> >>>>> -- Russ Abbott >>>>> _____________________________________________ >>>>> Professor, Computer Science >>>>> California State University, Los Angeles >>>>> Cell phone: 310-621-3805 >>>>> o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Isn't this close to Miles Parker's latest work? His WedTech talk >>>>>> seemed to suggest that. His proposal was accepted, and he's got a project >>>>>> page: >>>>>> http://www.eclipse.org/amp/ >>>>>> .. he may have become less ambitious in the rule-driven approach, not >>>>>> sure. >>>>>> >>>>>> -- Owen >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Aug 22, 2009, at 9:58 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Russ, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I haven't seen a system like your describing. It shouldn't be too >>>>>>> hard to assemble though if the rule grammar was simple. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -S >>>>>>> --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... >>>>>>> stephen.guerin at redfish.com >>>>>>> (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 >>>>>>> redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Aug 22, 2009, at 9:13 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Hi, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm interesting in developing a model that uses rule-driven agents. >>>>>>>> I would like the agent rules to be condition-action rules, i.e., similar to >>>>>>>> the sorts of rules one finds in forward chaining blackboard systems. In >>>>>>>> addition, I would like both the agents and the rules themselves to be first >>>>>>>> class objects. In other words, the rules should be able: >>>>>>>> ? to refer to agents, >>>>>>>> ? to create and destroy agents, >>>>>>>> ? to create new rules for newly created agents, >>>>>>>> ? to disable rules for existing agents, and >>>>>>>> ? to modify existing rules for existing agents. >>>>>>>> Does anyone know of a system like that? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -- Russ >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> 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 >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Doug Roberts >>> droberts at rti.org >>> doug at parrot-farm.net >>> 505-455-7333 - Office >>> 505-670-8195 - Cell >>> >> >> > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 09:05:49 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 06:05:49 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Personal search Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909010605u71a9089as120bff88560f3f56@mail.gmail.com> It was interesting to watch myself fish for the names WarpIV and Jeff Steinman when I replied to Doug's message. I knew that Doug's description reminded me of a system I had known about. But I couldn't retrieve either WarpIV or Jeff Steinman from my own memory even though I knew it was that system that I wanted to mention to Doug. How to find those names. I knew that Jeff's company was in San Diego. I also knew that he had previously worked at JPL. So I did a search for JPL, Simulation, and San Diego. Among the items returned, the term "time warp" showed up. I recognized that as part of Jeff's approach. So I added that to the search. That search returned an item with the name WarpIV. I recognized that and tracked down Jeff and his company. What was interesting was that I knew what I wanted, I didn't know its name, but I was able to recognize relevant terms when Google thrust them in front of me. That and some persistence was what it took. -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 1 09:16:39 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 07:16:39 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Personal search In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909010605u71a9089as120bff88560f3f56@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909010605u71a9089as120bff88560f3f56@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909010616v43ac4dacw37e02ac320af9c2e@mail.gmail.com> People call me persistent too. As in "persistent nuisance". Re: Time Warm and optimistic schedulers: I'm not a big fan of them, at least the the classes of problems that I usually end up simulating. The systems are too tightly coupled for the scheduler to show any advantage. In fact, they end up doing endless rollbacks. I have, however implemented an efficient random pair-wise synchronization algorith for running on distributed hardware. I described it to someone else on the list earlier: EpiSims uses a relatively new method of synchronization that does not require a centralized controller: each slave cpu in the run randomly synchronizes with other slave processes during the run. This is done in such a way that the entire machine stays in sync without a centralized controller; therefore, it scales well. This Slashdot article discusses this style of parallel synchronization. The Slashdot article includes a link to the NewScientist.com article where I originally read about the approach in 2003. http://slashdot.org/articles/03/02/01/1342203.shtml?tid=126 These references discuss the specific approach that I implemented in EpiSims. I discovered that one of the authors was Zoltan Toroczkai who also worked at LANL at the time. It is a difficult algorithm to implement, but as the articles indicate it is worth the effort because of the improved performance and scaling behavior of the distributed application as compared to centralized controller synchronization approaches. http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2003/021203/Scheme_smooths_parallel_processing_021203.html http://www.rpi.edu/~korniss/Research/gk_research.html --Doug On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > It was interesting to watch myself fish for the names WarpIV and Jeff > Steinman when I replied to Doug's message. > > I knew that Doug's description reminded me of a system I had known about. > But I couldn't retrieve either WarpIV or Jeff Steinman from my own memory > even though I knew it was that system that I wanted to mention to Doug. How > to find those names. I knew that Jeff's company was in San Diego. I also > knew that he had previously worked at JPL. So I did a search for JPL, > Simulation, and San Diego. Among the items returned, the term "time warp" > showed up. I recognized that as part of Jeff's approach. So I added that to > the search. That search returned an item with the name WarpIV. I recognized > that and tracked down Jeff and his company. > > What was interesting was that I knew what I wanted, I didn't know its name, > but I was able to recognize relevant terms when Google thrust them in front > of me. That and some persistence was what it took. > > -- Russ Abbott > _____________________________________________ > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > Cell phone: 310-621-3805 > o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 1 12:33:48 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 10:33:48 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Rule driven agent-based modeling systems In-Reply-To: <0FA8872F-F1DF-4AA2-9559-F59C46617A0C@gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0908222013p5b2937b2se3304c6c7d4dd670@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908231415g3fcc4a1dr245711c6855d60d6@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311754j1d29b414m6177548169daa25c@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590908311835u6ba70ec5r4f6718aba49dc886@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311936p16e47e33g3d978380c2da04aa@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> <0FA8872F-F1DF-4AA2-9559-F59C46617A0C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909010933l39c1a3bay267570ac3eb03493@mail.gmail.com> Posture? Russ asked for my input; I gave it to him. And that's my posture on this issue. ;-} On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Miles Parker wrote: > > OK, I'm going to sign off this discussion now. Don't really care enough to > posture like this. > > On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:13 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > Hi, Russ. > > As you might suspect from my previous comments, I have spent many years > building models, most of them ABMs, many of them large distributed ones. > What I have found over the years is that each problem domain is > significantly different from other domains, meaning there there is very > little generic agent behavior or functionality that could realistically be > captured and reused in an "ABM framework". > > There is some, however, and in fact I have built my own very lightweight > framework (in C++) that uses it. I chose C++ because it is a language that > is well-supported in HPC environments. > > In an abm, agents interact, and their interactions result in changes to the > system to occur. Some of the changes to the system occur instantaneously; > some interactions will cause a change to occur in the future. An example of > the latter is when an agent causes disease to be be transmitted through > interactions with other agents. After a latent period some or all of the > infected agents will become symptomatic. > > My framework therefore has a mechanism to cause the simulation clock to > advance as a result of agent interactions. > > My distributed agent framework also has an interface that allows agents to > migrate between cpus on a distributed machine, and to send messages between > agents residing on different cpus. It also has a mechanism to keep the > distributed machine synchronized in time as part of the time update > mechanism. > > That's all the framework does. All of the other logic that defines the > agent interactions is written by the model developer. Since the framework is > implemented in C++, agents are implemented as C++ objects. As with any > well-designed OO code, the objects contain their state information as object > member data, and their logic definitions (rules) as object member methods. > There is a very simple API that allows the agents to recognize the system > clock and to cause it to be updated as interactions dictate. That's where > the framework functionality stops. > > There is no generic rule generation in the framework. There is no rule > rewriting. The framework does not provide any generic genetic algorithms. > There are no classes of agents. No doctor agent classes. No stock arbitrage > agent classes. No hospital patient agent classes. No car agent classes. > No house agent classes. No airplane agent classes. These are all examples > of application-specific agent functionality that may or may not be required > to implement an abm for a specific problem definition. > > This is my abm design methodology as it relates to implementation within my > own abm framework: > > - The model developer defines his agents at a level of resolution that > is sufficient to capture the information required to address the problem > that (this specific) abm is intended solve. > - The model developer identifies all state data that an agent will be > required to maintain (for this specific abm). > - The model developer identifies all of the (specific for this > application) rule logic definitions which will control the interactions of > the agents with each other, and within (this specific) simulation > state-space. > - The agents are implemented as C++ objects > > > I looked at the AMP platform that Miles mentioned, and it appears to me to > be extremely constraining, and not well-suited to implementing large abms as > it only appeared to support serial, non-distributed compute architectures. > I think I would feel like a slave to the AMP IDE were I to try to use it. I > would prefer more flexibility that it seems to provide. > > Regards, > > --Doug > > On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> Hi Doug, >> >> I got Miles message as well, but I want to ask you about this one anyway. >> I'd be interested to know what your answer to your question about added >> value would be for you to think that an ABM framework is worth the trouble >> to build. I'm not asking as a challenge but so that I have some guidance >> about what you think would be valuable/important to include in our system. >> >> I'm copying Miles who may not actually be on the list. >> >> Miles, I'd be very interested in your answer also. How would you respond >> to Doug's added-value question wrt AMF >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: >> >>> *"As I see it, Drools is essentially a layer above Java that supplies a >>> great many of the capabilities I want. It doesn't have the notion of agent >>> at all. But we can build that."* >>> >>> I think I get it. >>> >>> Layers of abstraction, piled upon more layers. That's the answer. I >>> forget what the question was. >>> >>> I can get behind that (hey, I work for a living too). >>> >>> Aside: Warning flag #2 usually goes up when I see the words "Schwa, >>> schwa, schwa, Framework, schwa, schwa" preceding the description of some >>> historically-vetted simulation approach, or another. >>> >>> What I would really love to see is a concise statement of what the added >>> value that this proposed approach is supposed to bring to the table. >>> >>> --Doug >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Miles, >>>> >>>> I got both of your messages. Thanks. >>>> >>>> Our situation is that we have embarked on building a framework based on >>>> the DroRuss.Abbott at gmail.com, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >>>> Coffee Group ols ExpertRete rules engine. Drools was developed within JBoss for controlling >>>> distributed J2EE applications. It wasn't developed with agent-based modeling >>>> in mind. Nonetheless I like it as a starting point for a number of reasons. >>>> >>>> - Its rule language is both simple and open. It supports get/set >>>> operations on Java objects. So it it not limited to operating on any >>>> particular category of things. In addition, the rule language allows any >>>> java method call to be embedded within a rule. That may seem too open, but >>>> it allows new primitives to be added to the repertoire of agent operations >>>> very easily. The rules may be written in MVEL, >>>> which is a Java expression language. Although I'm not an expert in either >>>> Drools or MVEL, my expectation is that one could embed a Genetic Programming >>>> capability within agents by using the MVEL parser. What's interesting about >>>> MVEL (from the little I've read about it) is that it's basically the kind of >>>> code that one would write in a Java method. That is, it doesn't have class >>>> declarations, but it supports Java procedural and evaluation constructs >>>> within an expression-oriented framework. >>>> - Drools allows one to add rules dynamically. >>>> - One can instantiate as many Drools Rete engines as one likes. They >>>> can share the same workspace. They can run in separate threads. >>>> >>>> As I see it, Drools is essentially a layer above Java that supplies a >>>> great many of the capabilities I want. It doesn't have the notion of agent >>>> at all. But we can build that. Each agent can have its own Rete engine and >>>> run in its own thread. That would be the next layer. All this is still >>>> really just Java libraries. In adopting Drools and building some agent-like >>>> capabilities on top of it, we are not yet cutting off our ability to add >>>> features in straight Java. >>>> >>>> Part of my vision is that the framework will support what I've been >>>> calling service oriented agent-based modeling. That means that everything an >>>> agent does can be understood as a service that another agent can make use >>>> of. The simple paradigm is that an agent operates on objects in its >>>> environment -- including possibly other agents. An agent rule would take >>>> objects as input and produce either new objects or modified objects as >>>> output. Clearly this is an extraordinarily simple paradigm. But I think it >>>> supports a great deal of what I think we need in a modeling environment. >>>> >>>> Once we have that layer going, I'd like to develop mechanisms to hook >>>> agents up in networks. (Again, something quite simple.) A simple version of >>>> such a network within my basic paradigm is a supply chain. But the network >>>> would allow loops and it would be dynamically reconfigurable. The agents >>>> could restructure it as circumstances suggest. So what I'm saying here is >>>> that a networking capability would be another layer in this framework. One >>>> wouldn't be forced to use it, but it would be there. >>>> >>>> My question for you is what would you want to see as additional agent >>>> support in a project that took this route? >>>> >>>> -- Russ >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Miles Parker wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hi Russ! >>>>> >>>>> I am developing two components that could be useful here. The AMP >>>>> project itself is overall infrastructure for this kind of modeling, and you >>>>> can use the olde Ascape API is you wanted for that. You can add rules in >>>>> mid-run w/ Ascape *but* they apply to a collection of agents. An alternative >>>>> is to roll your own rule sets and have them fired as part of a single Ascape >>>>> rule. At least all of the other ABM stuff would be supported. >>>>> >>>>> The more directly aplicaable bit is the Agent Modeling Framework whihc >>>>> is similar to the Eclipse Modeling Framework. There is a very high level >>>>> represeentation for agent behavior using a Query->Control->Transofmration >>>>> paradigm that would suit *I think* what you say well -- though it would be >>>>> good to have an example to know for sure. Now.. the issue with AMF right now >>>>> is that it is designed for static rules / behaviors. That is, the >>>>> infrastructure uses code generation at design time, but there is no such >>>>> limitation for models themselves -- but that is a distinction with a >>>>> difference at the moment as there is no way to execute such agents. :). >>>>> Marcus Daniels especially has convinced me of the importance of >>>>> self-modifying/dynamic rulesets and I think it is also a potential big >>>>> advantage of the Meta-Model approach because it provides clean high-level >>>>> semantics. One (of many many) things that I would love to see happen with >>>>> AMF is a dynamic / interpreted run time for self-modifying models. EMF does >>>>> a similar thing quite well and there is no reason that in principal this >>>>> couldn't be done with AMF. Basically, instead of generating code that maps >>>>> the high-level AMF description to some existing API toolset (e.g. Repast, >>>>> Ascape) you'd have an execution environment that loaded an AMF model and >>>>> then invoked API calls through reflection. Obviously you'd take a >>>>> performance hit but if you had nice high-evel APIs that mapped well to the >>>>> AMF meta-model it needn't be huge. >>>>> >>>>> Sorry if this is somehwat confused but hopefully enough info to see if >>>>> there is any potential here. >>>>> >>>>> cheers, >>>>> >>>>> Miles >>>>> >>>>> On Aug 23, 2009, at 2:15 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hi Miles, >>>>> >>>>> We exchanged some mutually appreciative emails some time ago but >>>>> haven't spoken in quite a while. I hope things are well with you. >>>>> >>>>> I'm looking for an ABM framework in which (a) agents are driven by >>>>> forward chaining rules (i.e., a "blackboard" system) and (b) those rules are >>>>> themselves first class citizens in the model so that, for example, an agent >>>>> can create a new agent with dynamically generated rules or an agent can >>>>> modify its own rules dynamically. >>>>> >>>>> Owen Densmore of the FRIAM group suggested (see below) that you may be >>>>> working on something like this. Are you? I can't find the reference Owen >>>>> referred to. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks, >>>>> >>>>> -- Russ Abbott >>>>> _____________________________________________ >>>>> Professor, Computer Science >>>>> California State University, Los Angeles >>>>> Cell phone: 310-621-3805 >>>>> o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Isn't this close to Miles Parker's latest work? His WedTech talk >>>>>> seemed to suggest that. His proposal was accepted, and he's got a project >>>>>> page: >>>>>> http://www.eclipse.org/amp/ >>>>>> .. he may have become less ambitious in the rule-driven approach, not >>>>>> sure. >>>>>> >>>>>> -- Owen >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Aug 22, 2009, at 9:58 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Russ, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I haven't seen a system like your describing. It shouldn't be too >>>>>>> hard to assemble though if the rule grammar was simple. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -S >>>>>>> --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... >>>>>>> stephen.guerin at redfish.com >>>>>>> (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 >>>>>>> redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Aug 22, 2009, at 9:13 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Hi, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm interesting in developing a model that uses rule-driven agents. >>>>>>>> I would like the agent rules to be condition-action rules, i.e., similar to >>>>>>>> the sorts of rules one finds in forward chaining blackboard systems. In >>>>>>>> addition, I would like both the agents and the rules themselves to be first >>>>>>>> class objects. In other words, the rules should be able: >>>>>>>> ? to refer to agents, >>>>>>>> ? to create and destroy agents, >>>>>>>> ? to create new rules for newly created agents, >>>>>>>> ? to disable rules for existing agents, and >>>>>>>> ? to modify existing rules for existing agents. >>>>>>>> Does anyone know of a system like that? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -- Russ >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> 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 >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Doug Roberts >>> droberts at rti.org >>> doug at parrot-farm.net >>> 505-455-7333 - Office >>> 505-670-8195 - Cell >>> >> >> > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Tue Sep 1 18:21:04 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 08:21:04 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Rule driven agent-based modeling systems In-Reply-To: <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0908222013p5b2937b2se3304c6c7d4dd670@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908231415g3fcc4a1dr245711c6855d60d6@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311754j1d29b414m6177548169daa25c@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590908311835u6ba70ec5r4f6718aba49dc886@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311936p16e47e33g3d978380c2da04aa@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090901222104.GA4690@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Tue, Sep 01, 2009 at 06:13:37AM -0600, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Hi, Russ. > > As you might suspect from my previous comments, I have spent many years > building models, most of them ABMs, many of them large distributed ones. > What I have found over the years is that each problem domain is > significantly different from other domains, meaning there there is very > little generic agent behavior or functionality that could realistically be > captured and reused in an "ABM framework". > > There is some, however, and in fact I have built my own very lightweight > framework (in C++) that uses it. I chose C++ because it is a language that > is well-supported in HPC environments. > Doug, did you ever take a look at EcoLab? (http://ecolab.sf.net) It is a C++ ABM framework that I've worked on that addresses similar issues to yours. One of its key features is adding automatic reflection to C++ making it extremely easy to migrate agents between processors. A couple of years ago, I did a 13.5 million agent simulation running on 8 processors, which worked like a charm. Anyway, given your experience, I'd be interested in your honest opinion on it. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 1 18:27:44 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 16:27:44 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Rule driven agent-based modeling systems In-Reply-To: <20090901222104.GA4690@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <15fe0a4a0908222013p5b2937b2se3304c6c7d4dd670@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908231415g3fcc4a1dr245711c6855d60d6@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311754j1d29b414m6177548169daa25c@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590908311835u6ba70ec5r4f6718aba49dc886@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0908311936p16e47e33g3d978380c2da04aa@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909010513i12fab00dp7f26e182e0a36125@mail.gmail.com> <20090901222104.GA4690@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <681c54590909011527i6015e0f3kc38c1b995cde0432@mail.gmail.com> Sorry, it's the first I've heard of it. Looks interesting, though. --Doug On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 4:21 PM, russell standish wrote: > On Tue, Sep 01, 2009 at 06:13:37AM -0600, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > Hi, Russ. > > > > As you might suspect from my previous comments, I have spent many years > > building models, most of them ABMs, many of them large distributed ones. > > What I have found over the years is that each problem domain is > > significantly different from other domains, meaning there there is very > > little generic agent behavior or functionality that could realistically > be > > captured and reused in an "ABM framework". > > > > There is some, however, and in fact I have built my own very lightweight > > framework (in C++) that uses it. I chose C++ because it is a language > that > > is well-supported in HPC environments. > > > > Doug, did you ever take a look at EcoLab? (http://ecolab.sf.net) It is > a C++ ABM framework that I've worked on that addresses similar issues > to yours. One of its key features is adding automatic reflection to > C++ making it extremely easy to migrate agents between processors. A > couple of years ago, I did a 13.5 million agent simulation running on > 8 processors, which worked like a charm. > > Anyway, given your experience, I'd be interested in your honest > opinion on it. > > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Thu Sep 3 09:58:47 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 07:58:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] lecture @ sfcomplex: **Today** 9/2 5p-7p : Alicia Juarrero - Rethinking Causality Message-ID: Alicia's talk should be very good tonight. Please attend if you are around. -Steve -- SPEAKER: Alicia Juarrero TITLE: Rethinking Causality - As Constraint Sept 3 5p-7p Santa Fe Complex, 624 Agua Fria Alicia Juarrero, professor of philosophy emerita at Prince George?s Community College in Maryland, offers her views on complexity Thursday, September 3 at 5:00p,m. Widely recognized for her writing and her skills in the classroom, Dr. Juarrero is the author of Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System (MIT Press, 1999), and co-editor of Reframing Complexity: Perspectives from North and South, (ISCE Publishing, 2007) and Emergence, Self- Organization and Complexity: Precursors and Prototypes (ISCE Publishing, 2008). In this talk, she rethinks the concept of cause in terms of context-sensitive constraints. Because the received view of causality as forceful impact is eminently unsuitable for complex systems, she argues, a renewed understanding of part-whole and whole- part causes, and of complex systems? embeddedness in history and the environment, opens up for the complexity scientist. . Alicia Juarrero was named 2002 U.S. Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She served on the board of the National Council on the Humanities, the Advisory Board of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). From 1992-2000, she served as Chair of NEH Council Committee on State Programs. She earned her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Miami. Born in Cuba, Professor Juarrero has played a leading role in introducing Complexity concepts and theory to that island nation, which currently has nine complexity study centers or catedra. http://sfcomplex.org/wordpress/2009/08/rethinking-causality#more-2866 From jfromm at t-online.de Thu Sep 3 16:54:52 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 22:54:52 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs Message-ID: <8C008DD347784B7DB2BA74B83F44B665@Toshiba> Here is a list of 40 good Psychology blogs, which Psychology blogs do you read regularly? http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/07/40-superb-psychology-blogs.php -J. From nickthompson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 17:57:25 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 15:57:25 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs Message-ID: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> I am the only person in the world who doesnt read blogs? But I have to say this site looks interesting. May Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Jochen Fromm > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/3/2009 7:17:24 PM > Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs > > Here is a list of 40 good Psychology blogs, > which Psychology blogs do you read regularly? > http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/07/40-superb-psychology-blogs.php > > -J. > > ============================================================ > 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 From doug at parrot-farm.net Thu Sep 3 18:05:12 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 16:05:12 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> That you didn't read blogs would surprise me, as interested as you are in *other* people's opinions... ;-} --Doug On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > I am the only person in the world who doesnt read blogs? > > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Jochen Fromm > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > Friam at redfish.com> > > Date: 9/3/2009 7:17:24 PM > > Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs > > > > Here is a list of 40 good Psychology blogs, > > which Psychology blogs do you read regularly? > > http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/07/40-superb-psychology-blogs.php > > > > -J. > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Thu Sep 3 18:11:25 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 16:11:25 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Alicia's talk will start at 5:30p Message-ID: <5AA4F6ED-00A9-4DEA-8099-151F81B89FE1@redfish.com> Given the confusion on start time between 5p and 6p, we will officially start at 5:30p tonight. If you come early, we'll have pre- talk chat...if you come late at 6p, we'll wait to get to the meaty part of the presentation then. :-) --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... stephen.guerin at redfish.com (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com From owen at backspaces.net Thu Sep 3 18:14:08 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 16:14:08 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 3, 2009, at 4:05 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > That you didn't read blogs would surprise me, as interested as you > are in *other* people's opinions... To be fair, following blogs can be difficult. So many interesting ones, so little time. Tom Johnson does a great job at it .. Tom: do you use some sort of aggregator? Or just rss feeds? The browser I use makes it fairly easy to follow blogs via rss feeds. But I ran into trouble when I followed several really busy blogs via rss -- I'd end up with 100 entries within a day or so. So I break blog usage into three modes: - RSS feeds for 20-30 blogs that publish daily or less. - Direct links to the busy blogs that I care about. - And best of all FRIAM and other great groups who point things out to me! -- Owen From rec at elf.org Thu Sep 3 18:28:16 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 16:28:16 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> I just put it all into Google Reader and star the stuff I might want to go back to read later. If I get too far behind, I just mark it all read and go on. -- rec -- On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > On Sep 3, 2009, at 4:05 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: >> >> That you didn't read blogs would surprise me, as interested as you are in >> *other* people's opinions... > > > To be fair, following blogs can be difficult. ?So many interesting ones, so > little time. > > Tom Johnson does a great job at it .. Tom: do you use some sort of > aggregator? Or just rss feeds? > > The browser I use makes it fairly easy to follow blogs via rss feeds. ?But I > ran into trouble when I followed several really busy blogs via rss -- I'd > end up with 100 entries within a day or so. > > So I break blog usage into three modes: > - RSS feeds for 20-30 blogs that publish daily or less. > - Direct links to the busy blogs that I care about. > - And best of all FRIAM and other great groups who point things out to me! > > ? ?-- 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 > From owen at backspaces.net Thu Sep 3 18:35:36 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 16:35:36 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 3, 2009, at 4:28 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > I just put it all into Google Reader and star the stuff I might want > to go back to read later. If I get too far behind, I just mark it all > read and go on. > > -- rec -- The problem is that you are a computer pro. I doubt you could show others how to think in this fashion. You need to understand blogs, and that they are article based with dates. You'd have to explain RSS feeds as a notification stunt. You'd have to explain that there are ways to use the feeds: Google Reader, Browser functionalities, Aggregators, and so on. It really is hard, at least at the conceptual level for non-geeks. I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we ought to go back to that? -- Owen From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Fri Sep 4 10:14:32 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 08:14:32 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] XMPP and Google App Engine Message-ID: <12720D93-819D-46EF-B30B-440B1F29C6AC@redfish.com> There's been some discussion of XMPP at sfComplex to use it as a distributed agent messaging infrastructure. It's interesting that Google App Engine is supporting it directly: http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/java/xmpp/overview.html -S --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... stephen.guerin at redfish.com (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 4 11:05:43 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:05:43 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09/03/2009 03:35 PM: > I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to > use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it > be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop > and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we > ought to go back to that? The trouble with this sort of thing is that (I posit) that the internet has been successful because of the low-overhead (read "I can use it however I want because it's simple and composable") protocols. Adding layers of abstraction like "etiquette" and how to (properly) use it are quickly rendered obsolete. A better set of howtos would target _very_ specific and concrete actions... like, how to find out who added that clearly biased clause to the Wikipedia entry on Haskell. [grin] Or, how to cross-correlate forums to find out whether a blogger is using another identity to comment on his own blog entries. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 16:18:46 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:18:46 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs Message-ID: <380-22009954201846688@earthlink.net> It may be the Berkeley Relic speaking in me, but I have often found "ettiquette" to be the next door neighbor of fascism. Do you all remember the "Sandwich Nazi" of Seinfeld? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/4/2009 9:06:50 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs > > Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09/03/2009 03:35 PM: > > I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to > > use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it > > be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop > > and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we > > ought to go back to that? > > The trouble with this sort of thing is that (I posit) that the internet > has been successful because of the low-overhead (read "I can use it > however I want because it's simple and composable") protocols. Adding > layers of abstraction like "etiquette" and how to (properly) use it are > quickly rendered obsolete. > > A better set of howtos would target _very_ specific and concrete > actions... like, how to find out who added that clearly biased clause to > the Wikipedia entry on Haskell. [grin] Or, how to cross-correlate > forums to find out whether a blogger is using another identity to > comment on his own blog entries. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 4 17:47:02 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:47:02 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <380-22009954201846688@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009954201846688@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA18AD6.6060109@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-09-04 01:18 PM: > It may be the Berkeley Relic speaking in me, but I have often found > "ettiquette" to be the next door neighbor of fascism. It doesn't ring the same bells for me. I'm fond of Eco's (vague but indicating) characteristics of fascism: 1. cult of tradition 2. luddism/irrationalism 3. action for action's sake 4. anti-critical 5. fear of dissension 6. appeal to the frustrated middle 7. pervasive belief in conspiracy 8. the myopic underdog 9. life is warfare 10. contempt for underlings 11. herophilia or glorification of martyrdom 12. conflation of the biological with the social 13. abstracted (ideal, not real) body politic 14. newspeak And I don't really see a good place to put etiquette. I suppose various colors of it could fall under (1), (4), (5), and (14)... and, perhaps (2) and (8) on a stretch. But, mostly, etiquette is just an attempt to govern based on a minimal, civilized, set of soft rules. Everything anti-fascist can still take place within the bounds of etiquette. But the thing I was trying to point out was that any "standard of behavior" over and above what is possible is easily punctured when the underlying components are simple and easily composed. A great example is a unix shell. An interesting example is, say, RESTful web development. A self-referencing example is the recent discussion of kitchen-sink ABM frameworks. A HowTo on "how to use a wiki" is a lot like one on "how to build an ABM". But a HowTo on "how to build a page graph in a wiki" is much more tenable, even though it's still multivalent. The more specific and concrete you get, the more likely you'll be successful. (... unless your goal is to use large catch-all buzzwords to get people excited without giving them any real tools they can take home with them, in which case you want to be as general and abstract as possible.) A more reflective point about puncturing standards of behavior (e.g. Ikea's recent font change) is that when a subset of the participants _expect_ an easily punctured standard, innovative participants will inevitably be considered rude or as not being "team players". I think this is why the internet intensifies people's feelings that others are rude or obnoxious.... because the internet consists of simple, easily composed things that no matter what organization one chooses for her construct, it will violate some other person's standard. That also leads to a much larger number of "should" statements... "One should never use orange text on a blue background!" [grin] -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 18:09:11 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:09:11 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette Message-ID: <380-2200995422911304@earthlink.net> Glen, You caught me in a slap-dash quip which I regretted the minute I started reading your post. I have long been cranky with some of my associates who have insisted, for instance, that using caps in an email message is SHOUTING, or that it is bad manners to send messages in HTML. Now, I certainly can imagine a kindly message warning me that, given traditions in some circles, one runs a risk of misunderstanding or censure for using these practices (which are more common in teh world from which I sprang) , but it is quite another to claim that such practices are against nature. It seems so unlike internet values of freedom and exploration to make any such claim. But crankiness began to seem deeply trivial in the face of your fascism list. What struck me is how closely your list corresponded to our current political discourse on health care. In fact, it scared the wits out of me. Have we come so far?? Who is Eco and where is that discussion taking place? Thanks for enobling the discourse. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/4/2009 3:48:08 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-09-04 01:18 PM: > > It may be the Berkeley Relic speaking in me, but I have often found > > "ettiquette" to be the next door neighbor of fascism. > > It doesn't ring the same bells for me. I'm fond of Eco's (vague but > indicating) characteristics of fascism: > > 1. cult of tradition > 2. luddism/irrationalism > 3. action for action's sake > 4. anti-critical > 5. fear of dissension > 6. appeal to the frustrated middle > 7. pervasive belief in conspiracy > 8. the myopic underdog > 9. life is warfare > 10. contempt for underlings > 11. herophilia or glorification of martyrdom > 12. conflation of the biological with the social > 13. abstracted (ideal, not real) body politic > 14. newspeak > > And I don't really see a good place to put etiquette. I suppose various > colors of it could fall under (1), (4), (5), and (14)... and, perhaps > (2) and (8) on a stretch. But, mostly, etiquette is just an attempt to > govern based on a minimal, civilized, set of soft rules. Everything > anti-fascist can still take place within the bounds of etiquette. > > But the thing I was trying to point out was that any "standard of > behavior" over and above what is possible is easily punctured when the > underlying components are simple and easily composed. A great example > is a unix shell. An interesting example is, say, RESTful web > development. A self-referencing example is the recent discussion of > kitchen-sink ABM frameworks. A HowTo on "how to use a wiki" is a lot > like one on "how to build an ABM". > > But a HowTo on "how to build a page graph in a wiki" is much more > tenable, even though it's still multivalent. The more specific and > concrete you get, the more likely you'll be successful. (... unless > your goal is to use large catch-all buzzwords to get people excited > without giving them any real tools they can take home with them, in > which case you want to be as general and abstract as possible.) > > A more reflective point about puncturing standards of behavior (e.g. > Ikea's recent font change) is that when a subset of the participants > _expect_ an easily punctured standard, innovative participants will > inevitably be considered rude or as not being "team players". I think > this is why the internet intensifies people's feelings that others are > rude or obnoxious.... because the internet consists of simple, easily > composed things that no matter what organization one chooses for her > construct, it will violate some other person's standard. That also > leads to a much larger number of "should" statements... "One should > never use orange text on a blue background!" [grin] > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From jfromm at t-online.de Fri Sep 4 18:41:59 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 00:41:59 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette In-Reply-To: <380-2200995422911304@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200995422911304@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5EE1583D2FB84D18AC3091FCBE1D3D4F@Toshiba> I guess he means the Italian author Umberto Eco. In a 1995 essay "Eternal Fascism", Eco attempts to list general properties of fascist ideology. I would add "lack of differentiation", "uncontrolled growth" beyond the normal limits, invasion of adjacent systems, and generally "malignant, agressive and egoistic behavior" to the list - the hallmarks of cancer. Fascism is a bit like cancer for politics. The political system allows the self-rejuvenation by granting the rights to demonstrate and to found new parties. This can lead to an ideology like fascism, which spreads and growths like cancer, and eventually destroys the old system completely. Cancer is the result of a self-renewal or self-rejuvenation which has gone wrong. It is a bit like the evolution of an ancient or alien life form inside of the own system which is normally prohibited, and cancer development is a remarkably similar to the process of embryonic development and evolution itself. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicholas Thompson" To: Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 12:09 AM Subject: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette > > Have we come so far?? Who is Eco and where is that discussion taking > place? > From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 4 18:48:55 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:48:55 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette In-Reply-To: <380-2200995422911304@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200995422911304@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA19957.5050105@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-09-04 03:09 PM: > You caught me in a slap-dash quip which I regretted the minute I started > reading your post. I have long been cranky with some of my associates who > have insisted, for instance, that using caps in an email message is > SHOUTING, or that it is bad manners to send messages in HTML. Heh, well, I hardly even read e-mails that are typed in all caps. It hurts my eyes (actually it hurts somewhere behind my eyes). But it's easily remedied in emacs. [grin] And I've bumped up my spamassassin score for HTML-only e-mails so that I don't usually receive them. So, you wouldn't get an admonishment from me at all... in fact, you probably wouldn't get anything from me! (Hm, perhaps that's why my company doesn't get very many business leads. ;-) > But crankiness began to seem deeply trivial in the face of your fascism > list. What struck me is how closely your list corresponded to our current > political discourse on health care. In fact, it scared the wits out of me. > Have we come so far?? Who is Eco and where is that discussion taking > place? Thus spake Jochen Fromm circa 09-09-04 03:41 PM: > I guess he means the Italian author Umberto Eco. Yes. Sorry for the absence of refs: http://www.justicescholars.org/pegc/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf You'll find a lot of extremists cite the essay to argue that other extremists are fascists. But, if you read the essay, it's pretty clear that neither our Democrats nor Republicans are fascists in the least. So, the rhetoric is too hyperbolic to be useful for me. Still, though, it's interesting to consider. Eco's 14 points have been mostly useful to me to point out to whatever extremists I'm talking to that they're abusing the words and that we'd make more progress if they stopped using those words. It seems to me that our tendency toward fascism is systemic ... emergent [cough], as it were, rather than ascribable to any subset of the components (people, laws, corporations, etc.) within. It has something to do with precedent (static treatment of a dynamic system), the need to treat every circumstance with a rule (hyper generalization), and the tendency to avoid smearing blame (aka reductive causality). But I'm not skilled enough to study it effectively. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From highlandwinds at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 00:32:09 2009 From: highlandwinds at gmail.com (peggy miller) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:32:09 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] re vol 75, issue 25 Message-ID: <4041b6f0909042132r53f302efh810b33ea655081b@mail.gmail.com> Nicholas Thompson: no, I also don't read blogs. Probably no consolation, but I don't/ Peggy Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rjcord1 at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 11:20:11 2009 From: rjcord1 at gmail.com (Robert Cordingley) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:20:11 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> I agree presenting specific stories and examples at the Complex of /How I use the web /could be very interesting. Presenters can declare their topic ahead of time so that advanced/cognoscenti users can pick and choose. Perhaps a series of "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet/Facebook/Blogging/Wikis/" might be a nice break from the more techy sessions. Any volunteers? Nick: you are not alone - FWIW, I don't read (or write) blogs either. Robert C glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09/03/2009 03:35 PM: > >> I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to >> use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it >> be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop >> and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we >> ought to go back to that? >> > > The trouble with this sort of thing is that (I posit) that the internet > has been successful because of the low-overhead (read "I can use it > however I want because it's simple and composable") protocols. Adding > layers of abstraction like "etiquette" and how to (properly) use it are > quickly rendered obsolete. > > A better set of howtos would target _very_ specific and concrete > actions... like, how to find out who added that clearly biased clause to > the Wikipedia entry on Haskell. [grin] Or, how to cross-correlate > forums to find out whether a blogger is using another identity to > comment on his own blog entries. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Sat Sep 5 11:25:13 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 09:25:13 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> Not a psychology blog. Well, actually, yes it is: http://peopleofwalmart.com/ It has definitely gone viral. --Doug On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Robert Cordingley wrote: > I agree presenting specific stories and examples at the Complex of *How I > use the web *could be very interesting. Presenters can declare their > topic ahead of time so that advanced/cognoscenti users can pick and choose. > Perhaps a series of "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the > Internet/Facebook/Blogging/Wikis/" might be a nice break from the > more techy sessions. Any volunteers? > > Nick: you are not alone - FWIW, I don't read (or write) blogs either. > > Robert C > > glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09/03/2009 03:35 PM: > > > I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to > use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it > be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop > and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we > ought to go back to that? > > > The trouble with this sort of thing is that (I posit) that the internet > has been successful because of the low-overhead (read "I can use it > however I want because it's simple and composable") protocols. Adding > layers of abstraction like "etiquette" and how to (properly) use it are > quickly rendered obsolete. > > A better set of howtos would target _very_ specific and concrete > actions... like, how to find out who added that clearly biased clause to > the Wikipedia entry on Haskell. [grin] Or, how to cross-correlate > forums to find out whether a blogger is using another identity to > comment on his own blog entries. > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Sat Sep 5 11:33:21 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:33:21 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA284C1.9060606@swcp.com> I really like the Ignite! format. http://www.ignite-nm.com/ The next one at sfComplex is September 15 and while there are enough speakers (11) for a great event, I suspect there might be room for a few more (@ 5 minutes each). The 5 minute restriction means you can almost hold your breath through a given talk if you need to, and conversely the speaker is motivated to actually be concise enough to say something interesting or meaningful in those five minutes. - Steve Robert Cordingley wrote: > I agree presenting specific stories and examples at the Complex of > /How I use the web /could be very interesting. Presenters can declare > their topic ahead of time so that advanced/cognoscenti users can pick > and choose. Perhaps a series of "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and > Love the Internet/Facebook/Blogging/Wikis/" might be a nice > break from the more techy sessions. Any volunteers? > > Nick: you are not alone - FWIW, I don't read (or write) blogs either. > > Robert C > > glen e. p. ropella wrote: >> Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09/03/2009 03:35 PM: >> >>> I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to >>> use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it >>> be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop >>> and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we >>> ought to go back to that? >>> >> >> The trouble with this sort of thing is that (I posit) that the internet >> has been successful because of the low-overhead (read "I can use it >> however I want because it's simple and composable") protocols. Adding >> layers of abstraction like "etiquette" and how to (properly) use it are >> quickly rendered obsolete. >> >> A better set of howtos would target _very_ specific and concrete >> actions... like, how to find out who added that clearly biased clause to >> the Wikipedia entry on Haskell. [grin] Or, how to cross-correlate >> forums to find out whether a blogger is using another identity to >> comment on his own blog entries. >> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 From sasmyth at swcp.com Sat Sep 5 11:49:04 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:49:04 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> Douglas Roberts wrote: > Not a psychology blog. Well, actually, yes it is: > http://peopleofwalmart.com/ > I would contribute to this blog, excepting that I'd have to actually go INTO WalMart. I used to think this was a snobbish position, now I am one. I prefer photo blogs to the written... http://blogorythmic.blogspot.com/ A chronicle of what catches one's eye/fancy. Limited Commentary. A natural product of camera/internet capable phones and Web 2.0 . From owen at backspaces.net Sat Sep 5 12:38:29 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:38:29 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA284C1.9060606@swcp.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> <4AA284C1.9060606@swcp.com> Message-ID: Alert! The Sept 15 date Ignite conflicts with the Ulam lectures: http://santafe.edu/events/abstract/1498 http://santafe.edu/events/abstract/1625 http://santafe.edu/events/abstract/1626 This year the Ulam lectures honor Murray Gell-Mann's 80th birthday. There are apparently three separate lectures rather than the usual 3 lectures by the same presenter. I note that Ignite starts 1 1/2 hr earlier so maybe not a huge problem? -- Owen On Sep 5, 2009, at 9:33 AM, Steve Smith wrote: > I really like the Ignite! format. > http://www.ignite-nm.com/ > > The next one at sfComplex is September 15 and while there are enough > speakers (11) for a great event, I suspect there might be room for a > few more (@ 5 minutes each). > > The 5 minute restriction means you can almost hold your breath > through a given talk if you need to, and conversely the speaker is > motivated to actually be concise enough to say something interesting > or meaningful in those five minutes. > > - Steve > > Robert Cordingley wrote: >> I agree presenting specific stories and examples at the Complex of / >> How I use the web /could be very interesting. Presenters can >> declare their topic ahead of time so that advanced/cognoscenti >> users can pick and choose. Perhaps a series of "How I Learned to >> Stop Worrying and Love the Internet/Facebook/Blogging/Wikis/ >> " might be a nice break from the more techy sessions. Any >> volunteers? >> >> Nick: you are not alone - FWIW, I don't read (or write) blogs either. >> >> Robert C >> >> glen e. p. ropella wrote: >>> Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09/03/2009 03:35 PM: >>> >>>> I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on >>>> "how to >>>> use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy >>>> would it >>>> be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your >>>> laptop >>>> and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. >>>> Maybe we >>>> ought to go back to that? >>>> >>> >>> The trouble with this sort of thing is that (I posit) that the >>> internet >>> has been successful because of the low-overhead (read "I can use it >>> however I want because it's simple and composable") protocols. >>> Adding >>> layers of abstraction like "etiquette" and how to (properly) use >>> it are >>> quickly rendered obsolete. >>> >>> A better set of howtos would target _very_ specific and concrete >>> actions... like, how to find out who added that clearly biased >>> clause to >>> the Wikipedia entry on Haskell. [grin] Or, how to cross-correlate >>> forums to find out whether a blogger is using another identity to >>> comment on his own blog entries. >>> >>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 From doug at parrot-farm.net Sat Sep 5 12:44:24 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:44:24 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909050944g10cdba7bx796eb05fe2d59b4e@mail.gmail.com> I *new* you could not resist blogging... Nice pics. --Doug On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Steve Smith wrote: > Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Not a psychology blog. Well, actually, yes it is: >> http://peopleofwalmart.com/ >> >> I would contribute to this blog, excepting that I'd have to actually go > INTO WalMart. > I used to think this was a snobbish position, now I am one. > > I prefer photo blogs to the written... > http://blogorythmic.blogspot.com/ > > A chronicle of what catches one's eye/fancy. Limited Commentary. > A natural product of camera/internet capable phones and Web 2.0 . > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From highlandwinds at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 13:17:23 2009 From: highlandwinds at gmail.com (peggy miller) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 11:17:23 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] volume 75, issue 6 Message-ID: <4041b6f0909051017l62da2732v8f1f669086083346@mail.gmail.com> Etiquette a few steps short of fascism? Then all cultures are fascist. Even within the so-called "laid back" Berkeley culture, there was a set etiquette to fitting into the "mainstream" there. Type of clothing, hair, even some could say the style of walk, at one time helped a person to fit in. Then, once they opened their mouth, there were attitudes that were welcomed, and others that weren't to the "mainstream Berkeley" group, a definite desire to hear a more progressive form of thinking.. Though I probably agree with much of that mainstream of Berkeley, I still see that it was a certain etiquette, which I sometimes, when visiting there, found myself wanting to rebel against, as I do when faced with a culture that is very "Valley Girl" (I am from southern California -- Pasadena originally -- now from Missoula, Montana -- where the culture is quite different than where I grew up). If Nicholas Thompson was referring to the normal "Etiquette and manners" found in books even today, I have to admit, to some degree I agree with him, in that the concepts are so binding, and do not allow a vast amount of cultural habits, which tends to change a society by the cookie cutter approach. Furthermore, on the items that fall under fascism's characteristics or distinctions that were mentioned, and I will list them here as they were listed: : 1. cult of tradition -- not necessarily, though I see what you are getting at. Traditions marks a culture -- cookie baking at Christmas, caroling, the types of candles one uses, whether you eat certain foods, do you have your main meal at lunch or dinner time -- these are not fascist. 2. luddism/irrationalism -- the desire to keep or change back to ways used long ago just because they were "best" can be irrational, but the desire to reduce energy because oil is running out and global warming needs to be addressed, can result in the same end result. 3. action for action's sake -- not really a fascist characteristic, just thoughtless. 4. anti-critical -- agree 5. fear of dissension -- agree 6. appeal to the frustrated middle -- agree 7. pervasive belief in conspiracy -- depends on what has happened to you, not necessarily fascist. 8. the myopic underdog -- come on. 9. life is warfare -- agree 10. contempt for underlings -- agree 11. herophilia or glorification of martyrdom -- partiallly agree 12. conflation of the biological with the social -- disagree. The two conflate (?) in many ways. 13. abstracted (ideal, not real) body politic --- need ideals to move real. 14. newspeak -- to a degree I agree. Have a great day! Peggy Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Sat Sep 5 13:27:03 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:27:03 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette In-Reply-To: <4AA19957.5050105@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200995422911304@earthlink.net> <4AA19957.5050105@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AA29F67.1010809@swcp.com> Interesting what a strange bend this conversation took. It started out (I think) as an observation that what makes the Net "work" is that it has a few very simple, very well implemented/enforced rules (low level protocols) and a mechanism for layering higher-level protocols on those and everything else is just "convention", confined at most by "ettiquette". I think there is a parallel between the self-organizing "success" of the ecology we call the Internet and the self-organizing "success" of the ecology we call "civilization". I "quote" success for both objects (civilization *and* the Internet) because it is arguable, depending on our measures about "what means success?". Nick> It may be the Berkeley Relic speaking in me, but I have often found Nick> "ettiquette" to be the next door neighbor of fascism. Nick> Nick> Do you all remember the "Sandwich Nazi" of Seinfeld? You may have meant it precisely this way Nick, but my own experience in Berkeley (2005) was that the old hippies had all become extremely authoritarian, and in some cases truly "fascistic". A good friend (in Berkeley) supports the weekly activities of George Coates ( http://www.betterbadnews.com/ and http://www.georgecoates.org/ ) where he and a small troupe of actors slide into the Berkeley City Council chambers right after the weekly City Council meeting and hold their own spoof on the same... on TV! on the very same Berkeley Public Access Channel station where the *real* council meeting is aired. It is a spontaneous, just-in-time, ad-hoc, extemperaneous, ad-libbed lampooning and spoofing of the very very Berkeley council. A hoot. Too bad they don't air that on on the Internet. This observation by Nick reminds me that the conventional view of politics (or personal values?) as a one dimensional spectrum from conservative to liberal does not model reality well at all. The 2D models such as the Nolan or Pournelle Charts provide a little more room for having complex thoughts and experiences as human individuals and groups. I find it interesting that in our general political discourse, rhetorical speaking (and too often thinking) involves mis-ascribing various values and motives. "Fascism" has become a term of slander. Any perceived authoritarian or extremist position is generally labeled "Fascist" and all too often, it is the extremist who finds all others who don't agree with her, an "extremist". I'm no fan of Fascism myself, but mere extremism or fundamentalism does not capture the key features of Fascism that offend/concern me. The key feature of Fascism for me is the nationalism and militarism (more accurately, a belief that conflict is necessary). Fascism and Communism alike have demonstrated to us some extremes in Totalitarianism, but this is a consequence of their designed-in Authoritarianism which is far from unique to Fascism. As a Flaming Anarchist, I actually like Ettiquete, as it provides some sort of guide to social acceptance that allows one to maintain ones own sense of self, while knowing how to behave in different groups. Like Tarzan of the Apes being able to become Lord Greystoke... could he have ever pulled that off without Victorian Ettiquette? Do we know of any ABMs that have been developed to interact and wander about (self-organize) in the "Political/Sociological Landscape"? It seems that Nick/Owen's MOTH (Myway Or The Highway) is a limited version of this. One of my attractions to modeling and simulation is that it requires a different kind of rigor in thinking than more "conventional" analysis. By trying to actually *build* a model, many well held beliefs suddenly must be inspected closely and considered carefully in the context of all the other well-held beliefs going into the model. Imagine for example, what a 1-D political ABM would look like? About all you might be able to show well is the mechanisms of bipolar extremism and maybe a little bit about centrism. It seems like an absurdly degenerate dynamical system, yet it is the basis for almost all of our political rhetoric. In the *real* human-value/experience (and by projection, political) landscape, there are many more factors at work than mere beliefs about economic and personal freedoms. It is an artifact of (somewhat) our two-party system that we think one-dimensionally. Throw in the Greens and the Libertarians along with the Cons and the NeoCons and the Dems and the Socialists and the Communists and you begin to get a truly interesting stew. - Steve From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 14:43:13 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 12:43:13 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette Message-ID: <380-22009965184313513@earthlink.net> Steve, I have already apologized for my original shallow remark, but I continue to appreciate the rather deep responses it has provoked. This is a very forgiving list. Perhaps my problem is not with etiquette (eg, nick should spell check his messages) but with those who claim to speak on its authority. Etiquette is an emergent. Perhaps it's not etiquette I object to but the Emily Post's of the world. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Steve Smith > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/5/2009 11:27:47 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fascism and ettiquette > > Interesting what a strange bend this conversation took. > > It started out (I think) as an observation that what makes the Net > "work" is that it has a few very simple, very well implemented/enforced > rules (low level protocols) and a mechanism for layering higher-level > protocols on those and everything else is just "convention", confined at > most by "ettiquette". > > I think there is a parallel between the self-organizing "success" of the > ecology we call the Internet and the self-organizing "success" of the > ecology we call "civilization". I "quote" success for both objects > (civilization *and* the Internet) because it is arguable, depending on > our measures about "what means success?". > > Nick> It may be the Berkeley Relic speaking in me, but I have often found > Nick> "ettiquette" to be the next door neighbor of fascism. > Nick> > Nick> Do you all remember the "Sandwich Nazi" of Seinfeld? > > > > You may have meant it precisely this way Nick, but my own experience in > Berkeley (2005) was that the old hippies had all become extremely > authoritarian, and in some cases truly "fascistic". > > A good friend (in Berkeley) supports the weekly activities of George > Coates ( http://www.betterbadnews.com/ and http://www.georgecoates.org/ > ) where he and a small troupe of actors slide into the Berkeley City > Council chambers right after the weekly City Council meeting and hold > their own spoof on the same... on TV! on the very same Berkeley Public > Access Channel station where the *real* council meeting is aired. It is > a spontaneous, just-in-time, ad-hoc, extemperaneous, ad-libbed > lampooning and spoofing of the very very Berkeley council. A hoot. > Too bad they don't air that on on the Internet. > > > This observation by Nick reminds me that the conventional view of > politics (or personal values?) as a one dimensional spectrum from > conservative to liberal does not model reality well at all. The 2D > models such as the Nolan or Pournelle Charts provide a little more room > for having complex thoughts and experiences as human individuals and groups. > > I find it interesting that in our general political discourse, > rhetorical speaking (and too often thinking) involves mis-ascribing > various values and motives. "Fascism" has become a term of slander. > Any perceived authoritarian or extremist position is generally labeled > "Fascist" and all too often, it is the extremist who finds all others > who don't agree with her, an "extremist". > > I'm no fan of Fascism myself, but mere extremism or fundamentalism does > not capture the key features of Fascism that offend/concern me. > > The key feature of Fascism for me is the nationalism and militarism > (more accurately, a belief that conflict is necessary). Fascism and > Communism alike have demonstrated to us some extremes in > Totalitarianism, but this is a consequence of their designed-in > Authoritarianism which is far from unique to Fascism. > > As a Flaming Anarchist, I actually like Ettiquete, as it provides some > sort of guide to social acceptance that allows one to maintain ones own > sense of self, while knowing how to behave in different groups. Like > Tarzan of the Apes being able to become Lord Greystoke... could he have > ever pulled that off without Victorian Ettiquette? > > Do we know of any ABMs that have been developed to interact and wander > about (self-organize) in the "Political/Sociological Landscape"? It > seems that Nick/Owen's MOTH (Myway Or The Highway) is a limited version > of this. > > One of my attractions to modeling and simulation is that it requires a > different kind of rigor in thinking than more "conventional" analysis. > By trying to actually *build* a model, many well held beliefs suddenly > must be inspected closely and considered carefully in the context of all > the other well-held beliefs going into the model. > > Imagine for example, what a 1-D political ABM would look like? About > all you might be able to show well is the mechanisms of bipolar > extremism and maybe a little bit about centrism. It seems like an > absurdly degenerate dynamical system, yet it is the basis for almost all > of our political rhetoric. > > In the *real* human-value/experience (and by projection, political) > landscape, there are many more factors at work than mere beliefs about > economic and personal freedoms. It is an artifact of (somewhat) our > two-party system that we think one-dimensionally. Throw in the Greens > and the Libertarians along with the Cons and the NeoCons and the Dems > and the Socialists and the Communists and you begin to get a truly > interesting stew. > > - Steve > > > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 14:55:45 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 12:55:45 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009965185545785@earthlink.net> I hoped to start a discussion group on emergence this fall. Michel Bloch is in town for the next three weeks and wants to join it, so I am moved to start earlier than I might otherwise. I suggest thursday afternoon at 4pm at Downtown Subscription. Our text is Bedau and Phillips, EMERGENCE. Alicia Juarrero also has a collection of readings we might get into later. At least three of us already have cc of the book, so if others are curious and want to flip through it, they should join us. I just pulled the time and day out of my .... hat, so feel free to renegotiate it. I dont want to lose anybody just because of a time problem. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 16:02:19 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:02:19 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009965185545785@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009965185545785@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909051302m15d24d2cy353b2d09aac4312c@mail.gmail.com> Do you mean Bedau and *Humphreys*? Also, I hope you read my paper, "The reductionist blind spot ." As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. It's no longer the mystery Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. Consequently the papers in their book are fairly obsolete. Of course you will make up your own minds about that. But at least give yourself the chance to reach that conclusion. -- Russ On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > I hoped to start a discussion group on emergence this fall. Michel Bloch > is in town for the next three weeks and wants to join it, so I am moved to > start earlier than I might otherwise. I suggest thursday afternoon at 4pm > at Downtown Subscription. Our text is Bedau and Phillips, EMERGENCE. > Alicia Juarrero also has a collection of readings we might get into later. > At least three of us already have cc of the book, so if others are curious > and want to flip through it, they should join us. > > I just pulled the time and day out of my .... hat, so feel free to > renegotiate it. I dont want to lose anybody just because of a time problem. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfromm at t-online.de Sat Sep 5 16:28:27 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 22:28:27 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909051302m15d24d2cy353b2d09aac4312c@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009965185545785@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051302m15d24d2cy353b2d09aac4312c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1AA52840D5C44626AAF3D484F5567A7E@Toshiba> Even if you have solved the problem of emergence (was there any?) and all problems related to it, are you sure that people want it to be solved? 90% of papers on complexity and social simulation explicitly refer to emergence, i.e. emergent processes, properties, dynamics, and patterns. If you have indeed solved everything related to emergence, everyone else working in complexity science would become jobless immediately.. By the way did you notice that Libya's president Gaddafi proposed the UN to abolish and dismantle Switzerland? Somehow you have got to like this eccentric behavior.. http://is.gd/2VI3H -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 10:02 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Do you mean Bedau and Humphreys? Also, I hope you read my paper, "The reductionist blind spot." As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. It's no longer the mystery Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. Consequently the papers in their book are fairly obsolete. Of course you will make up your own minds about that. But at least give yourself the chance to reach that conclusion. -- Russ From doug at parrot-farm.net Sat Sep 5 16:49:30 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 14:49:30 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <1AA52840D5C44626AAF3D484F5567A7E@Toshiba> References: <380-22009965185545785@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051302m15d24d2cy353b2d09aac4312c@mail.gmail.com> <1AA52840D5C44626AAF3D484F5567A7E@Toshiba> Message-ID: <681c54590909051349j38e74773gdc0b552f7a8b9953@mail.gmail.com> I'm curious, Jochen: what do you mean by "solving the problem of" emergence? Understanding it? Will never happen -- everybody has their own 'correct' working definition of "emergence". Define it? Ditto. Recognizing it? Ditto. On the other hand, though, the image of a bunch of unemployed complexity scientists is oddly compelling... --Doug On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Even if you have solved the problem of emergence > (was there any?) and all problems related to it, > are you sure that people want it to be solved? > 90% of papers on complexity and social simulation > explicitly refer to emergence, i.e. emergent > processes, properties, dynamics, and patterns. > If you have indeed solved everything related to > emergence, everyone else working in complexity > science would become jobless immediately.. > > By the way did you notice that Libya's president > Gaddafi proposed the UN to abolish and dismantle > Switzerland? Somehow you have got to like this > eccentric behavior.. http://is.gd/2VI3H > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 10:02 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > > Do you mean Bedau and Humphreys? Also, I hope you read my paper, "The > reductionist blind spot." As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. > It's no longer the mystery Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. > Consequently the papers in their book are fairly obsolete. Of course you > will make up your own minds about that. But at least give yourself the > chance to reach that conclusion. > > -- Russ > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 16:54:34 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:54:34 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <681c54590909051349j38e74773gdc0b552f7a8b9953@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009965185545785@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051302m15d24d2cy353b2d09aac4312c@mail.gmail.com> <1AA52840D5C44626AAF3D484F5567A7E@Toshiba> <681c54590909051349j38e74773gdc0b552f7a8b9953@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909051354t21e97f53nf463856e7531b060@mail.gmail.com> Once upon a time, a long time ago, it seemed that there was something important about writing software in ways that separated levels of abstraction. But what that really meant and understanding how to do it seemed like something one learned only by experience -- and perhaps not even then. Most people on this list are probably too young to remember those days. But there was a time when the concept of level of abstraction didn't exist or was at best something that one thought in a relatively informal way when evaluating how well some software was designed. The same is true of "coupling" and "cohesion." These terms were never well defined -- and still aren't. They were (are) at best somewhat vague pointers to some sense of what well designed software should look like. By the way, I would now say that loose coupling means that components are loosely coupled when the interact through specified interfaces only. But before the days of APIs and formal (or at least rigorous) specifications that were understood to be Independent of the implementation, one couldn't even say that very well. We now understand what *levels of abstraction* means, and we have tools that help us build libraries and applications in terms of them. That doesn't mean that people should stop writing software. The same is true of emergence. Knowing the mechanisms that bring it about doesn't mean that one should stop exploring the use of those mechanisms or the things one can build using them. -- Russ On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > I'm curious, Jochen: what do you mean by "solving the problem of" > emergence? Understanding it? Will never happen -- everybody has their own > 'correct' working definition of "emergence". Define it? Ditto. Recognizing > it? Ditto. > > On the other hand, though, the image of a bunch of unemployed complexity > scientists is oddly compelling... > > --Doug > > > On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > >> Even if you have solved the problem of emergence >> (was there any?) and all problems related to it, >> are you sure that people want it to be solved? >> 90% of papers on complexity and social simulation >> explicitly refer to emergence, i.e. emergent >> processes, properties, dynamics, and patterns. >> If you have indeed solved everything related to >> emergence, everyone else working in complexity >> science would become jobless immediately.. >> >> By the way did you notice that Libya's president >> Gaddafi proposed the UN to abolish and dismantle >> Switzerland? Somehow you have got to like this >> eccentric behavior.. http://is.gd/2VI3H >> >> -J. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott >> To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group >> Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 10:02 PM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> >> Do you mean Bedau and Humphreys? Also, I hope you read my paper, "The >> reductionist blind spot." As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. >> It's no longer the mystery Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. >> Consequently the papers in their book are fairly obsolete. Of course you >> will make up your own minds about that. But at least give yourself the >> chance to reach that conclusion. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 16:58:21 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 14:58:21 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> Yes I DO mean bedeau and Humphreys. that is the second time I have made that mistake. I dont know who the hell Phillips is and why he has such a firm grip on my E-magination. Oh, yes. You dissolved the problem entirely. there were just a few .... teensy little details I thought we might tidy up by reading the book. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/5/2009 2:02:39 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Do you mean Bedau and Humphreys? Also, I hope you read my paper, "The reductionist blind spot." As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. It's no longer the mystery Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. Consequently the papers in their book are fairly obsolete. Of course you will make up your own minds about that. But at least give yourself the chance to reach that conclusion. -- Russ On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: I hoped to start a discussion group on emergence this fall. Michel Bloch is in town for the next three weeks and wants to join it, so I am moved to start earlier than I might otherwise. I suggest thursday afternoon at 4pm at Downtown Subscription. Our text is Bedau and Phillips, EMERGENCE. Alicia Juarrero also has a collection of readings we might get into later. At least three of us already have cc of the book, so if others are curious and want to flip through it, they should join us. I just pulled the time and day out of my .... hat, so feel free to renegotiate it. I dont want to lose anybody just because of a time problem. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 17:18:55 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 14:18:55 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> I don't want to leave the impression that I think that emergence is a difficult concept to understand and that I but hardly anyone else understands it. Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (*implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In flocking, for example, there is coordination. The flying rules depend on the boids seeing neighboring boids. One can even say that there is some overall coordination: namely that all the boids follow those same rules. *Emergence *is the term we have come to use for that process/effect. In the introduction to Bedau and Humphreys they speak of emergence as some mysterious, perhaps even incoherent phenomenon. It's not. It happens all the time all around us. Our bodies are the emergent result of the actinos of our cells. A country is the emergent result of the actinos of its citizens. This group is the emergent result of the actions of its participants. It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, the comonents may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful in these cases.) But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce the pattern. -- Russ On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Yes I DO mean bedeau and Humphreys. > > that is the second time I have made that mistake. I dont know who the hell > Phillips is and why he has such a firm grip on my E-magination. > > Oh, yes. You dissolved the problem entirely. there were just a few .... > teensy little details I thought we might tidy up by reading the book. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/5/2009 2:02:39 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Do you mean Bedau and *Humphreys*? Also, I hope you read my paper, "The > reductionist blind spot." > As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. It's no longer the mystery > Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. Consequently the papers in their book > are fairly obsolete. Of course you will make up your own minds about that. > But at least give yourself the chance to reach that conclusion. > > -- Russ > > > > On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> I hoped to start a discussion group on emergence this fall. Michel >> Bloch is in town for the next three weeks and wants to join it, so I am >> moved to start earlier than I might otherwise. I suggest thursday afternoon >> at 4pm at Downtown Subscription. Our text is Bedau and Phillips, >> EMERGENCE. Alicia Juarrero also has a collection of readings we might get >> into later. At least three of us already have cc of the book, so if others >> are curious and want to flip through it, they should join us. >> >> I just pulled the time and day out of my .... hat, so feel free to >> renegotiate it. I dont want to lose anybody just because of a time problem. >> >> Nick >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at snoutfarm.com Sat Sep 5 22:49:02 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:49:02 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> Message-ID: <4AA3231E.8040103@snoutfarm.com> Steve Smith wrote: > Douglas Roberts wrote: >> Not a psychology blog. Well, actually, yes it is: >> http://peopleofwalmart.com/ >> > I would contribute to this blog, excepting that I'd have to actually > go INTO WalMart. Fwiw, it turns out you can see some of the same things at the Santa Fe Whole Foods.. From owen at backspaces.net Sat Sep 5 23:16:04 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 21:16:04 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA3231E.8040103@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> <4AA3231E.8040103@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <59007CFF-6CC5-403C-8876-EC1879E181A4@backspaces.net> On Sep 5, 2009, at 8:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Fwiw, it turns out you can see some of the same things at the Santa > Fe Whole Foods.. No. No hubris. -- Owen From owen at backspaces.net Sun Sep 6 11:14:40 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:14:40 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The Princeton Companion to Mathematics - Timothy Gowers Message-ID: <5D54DE4F-AC01-4D32-8783-FB3D75B8E711@backspaces.net> Has anyone in the group read .. or started in on (it's > 10^3 pages) .. Gowers et. al. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691118809/ I'd be interested in your reactions to the book. Its not really a math book per se, but a book about math. It really IS designed to be a companion, a sort of friendly mentor to help the reader in their wandering through the math world. It puts quite a bit of effort into classification of the branches of mathematics and is superb at showing the inter-relations between them. Timothy has a blog which includes the community effort building an errata for the book. Not surprisingly, its large too! http://gowers.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/pcm-errata-iii/ I'm looking forward to the second printing which is due any time now and will include the errata fixes. (I've got a digital copy which is less than wonderful to browse around with.) -- Owen From jfromm at t-online.de Sun Sep 6 11:28:02 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:28:02 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> So the insight you have brought to the world is that the best way to understand emergence is through the lens of implementation - emergent properties can be described as a high level abstraction which is implemented by low level elements. Right? It seems to me that you have just invented a new word for emergence: instead of saying a flock emerges from a number of birds you say the birds implement a flock, and instead of saying foraging trails emerge from an ant colony you say an ant colony implements a foraging trail. For engineers it is in fact useful to understand emergence as an implementation, because if they want to produce an emergent property, they must implement it somehow. Is this revolutionary? To implement a behavior for a group of agents means to implement a distributed alogithm. You know how difficult this is. The "implementation" insight is not very useful if we don't know how to implement a particular emergent property, or how to find the right distributed algorithm for the problem at hand. The interesting question is more how to implement emergence (how do we organize a system which organizes itself, the ESOA and ESOS problem). There are methods to do it, for example genetic algorithms or "Synthetic Microanalysis" (i.e. the scientifc method for the engineer which means rapid prototyping and agile development) http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=ESOS Another interesting question is why it is so hard to find "emergence" in computer science. Implementation means writing code, and code is the foundation of everything in software development. Therefore if you ask where emergence is used in computer science, you have to say "nowhere" - programmers hate unintended consequences and try to avoid them - and "everywhere" - it is just code which we use all the time. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:18 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence I don't want to leave the impression that I think that emergence is a difficult concept to understand and that I but hardly anyone else understands it. Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In flocking, for example, there is coordination. The flying rules depend on the boids seeing neighboring boids. One can even say that there is some overall coordination: namely that all the boids follow those same rules. Emergence is the term we have come to use for that process/effect. In the introduction to Bedau and Humphreys they speak of emergence as some mysterious, perhaps even incoherent phenomenon. It's not. It happens all the time all around us. Our bodies are the emergent result of the actinos of our cells. A country is the emergent result of the actinos of its citizens. This group is the emergent result of the actions of its participants. It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, the comonents may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful in these cases.) But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce the pattern. -- Russ From victoria at toryhughes.com Sun Sep 6 12:32:57 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 10:32:57 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> References: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> Message-ID: Consciousness / self-awareness? Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? > Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" > act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of > that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create > (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a > number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of > some aggregate entity or phenomenon. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From victoria at toryhughes.com Sun Sep 6 12:35:06 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 10:35:06 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> References: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> Message-ID: <816DE402-4C8F-462F-8F37-86A7B06DB20A@toryhughes.com> One would need to acknowledge all the lower-level elements involved in the implementation for this to be accurate. Is the total range of elements knowable in complex systems involving humans? On Sep 6, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > So the insight you have brought to the world is > that the best way to understand emergence is through > the lens of implementation - emergent properties can > be described as a high level abstraction which is > implemented by low level elements. Right? > > It seems to me that you have just invented a new > word for emergence: instead of saying a flock emerges > from a number of birds you say the birds implement > a flock, and instead of saying foraging trails > emerge from an ant colony you say an ant colony > implements a foraging trail. > > For engineers it is in fact useful to understand > emergence as an implementation, because if they > want to produce an emergent property, they must > implement it somehow. Is this revolutionary? > To implement a behavior for a group of agents > means to implement a distributed alogithm. You > know how difficult this is. The "implementation" > insight is not very useful if we don't know how > to implement a particular emergent property, > or how to find the right distributed algorithm for > the problem at hand. > > The interesting question is more how to implement > emergence (how do we organize a system which > organizes itself, the ESOA and ESOS problem). > There are methods to do it, for example genetic > algorithms or "Synthetic Microanalysis" (i.e. > the scientifc method for the engineer which > means rapid prototyping and agile development) > http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=ESOS > > Another interesting question is why it is so > hard to find "emergence" in computer science. > Implementation means writing code, and code is > the foundation of everything in software development. > Therefore if you ask where emergence is used > in computer science, you have to say "nowhere" > - programmers hate unintended consequences > and try to avoid them - and "everywhere" - > it is just code which we use all the time. > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied > Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:18 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > I don't want to leave the impression that I think that emergence is > a difficult concept to understand and that I but hardly anyone else > understands it. Emergence is what happens when components of the > "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence > and persistence of that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create > (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a > number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of > some aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have > to be top-down. In flocking, for example, there is coordination. The > flying rules depend on the boids seeing neighboring boids. One can > even say that there is some overall coordination: namely that all > the boids follow those same rules. Emergence is the term we have > come to use for that process/effect. > > In the introduction to Bedau and Humphreys they speak of emergence > as some mysterious, perhaps even incoherent phenomenon. It's not. It > happens all the time all around us. Our bodies are the emergent > result of the actinos of our cells. A country is the emergent result > of the actinos of its citizens. This group is the emergent result of > the actions of its participants. > > It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent > entities, the comonents may come and go while the entity persists. > What emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing. > That's one of the reasons people get confused. (And that's why > subvenience is not particularly useful in these cases.) > > But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of > activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that > the pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting > to produce the pattern. > > -- Russ > > ============================================================ > 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 > From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 12:47:46 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:47:46 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <816DE402-4C8F-462F-8F37-86A7B06DB20A@toryhughes.com> References: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> <816DE402-4C8F-462F-8F37-86A7B06DB20A@toryhughes.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909060947o1131c521g2d08179c2f264b29@mail.gmail.com> Jochen is right that emergence is implementation. Sometimes it's intentional; sometimes it's not. You may find that disappointing. I'm sure a lot of people do. That's may be why so many people like to continue thinking of emergence as mysterious. Essentially all software is emergent; not none. Emergence doesn't imply unintended consequences. Jochen is also right that knowing that emergence is implementation doesn't tell you how to do it. Figuring out how to implement something is almost always a creative process -- and if you believe Dennett (*Darwin's Dangerous Idea*) all creative processes are fundamentally evolutionary. I think he's right. With respect to consciousness I suppose that it's emergent (implemented) from lower level elements. What's the alternative? Something like vitalism? That consciousness is a new force of nature? That's possible. Another non-emergent view of consciousness is Strawson's panpsychism. He may be right. Consciousness has not yielded much to our attempt to understand it. Chalmer's "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" is still the hard problem of consciousness. But whatever consciousness is, I consider the nature of consciousness a separate question (and still a mystery) from the nature of emergence (not a mystery). -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Victoria Hughes wrote: > One would need to acknowledge all the lower-level elements involved in the > implementation for this to be accurate. > Is the total range of elements knowable in complex systems involving > humans? > > > > On Sep 6, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > > So the insight you have brought to the world is >> that the best way to understand emergence is through >> the lens of implementation - emergent properties can >> be described as a high level abstraction which is >> implemented by low level elements. Right? >> >> It seems to me that you have just invented a new >> word for emergence: instead of saying a flock emerges >> from a number of birds you say the birds implement >> a flock, and instead of saying foraging trails >> emerge from an ant colony you say an ant colony >> implements a foraging trail. >> >> For engineers it is in fact useful to understand >> emergence as an implementation, because if they >> want to produce an emergent property, they must >> implement it somehow. Is this revolutionary? >> To implement a behavior for a group of agents >> means to implement a distributed alogithm. You >> know how difficult this is. The "implementation" >> insight is not very useful if we don't know how >> to implement a particular emergent property, >> or how to find the right distributed algorithm for >> the problem at hand. >> >> The interesting question is more how to implement >> emergence (how do we organize a system which >> organizes itself, the ESOA and ESOS problem). >> There are methods to do it, for example genetic >> algorithms or "Synthetic Microanalysis" (i.e. >> the scientifc method for the engineer which >> means rapid prototyping and agile development) >> http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=ESOS >> >> Another interesting question is why it is so >> hard to find "emergence" in computer science. >> Implementation means writing code, and code is >> the foundation of everything in software development. >> Therefore if you ask where emergence is used >> in computer science, you have to say "nowhere" >> - programmers hate unintended consequences >> and try to avoid them - and "everywhere" - >> it is just code which we use all the time. >> >> -J. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott >> To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group >> Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:18 PM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> I don't want to leave the impression that I think that emergence is a >> difficult concept to understand and that I but hardly anyone else >> understands it. Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent >> entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of >> that entity. >> >> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a >> flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >> >> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >> entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In >> flocking, for example, there is coordination. The flying rules depend on the >> boids seeing neighboring boids. One can even say that there is some overall >> coordination: namely that all the boids follow those same rules. Emergence >> is the term we have come to use for that process/effect. >> >> In the introduction to Bedau and Humphreys they speak of emergence as some >> mysterious, perhaps even incoherent phenomenon. It's not. It happens all the >> time all around us. Our bodies are the emergent result of the actinos of our >> cells. A country is the emergent result of the actinos of its citizens. This >> group is the emergent result of the actions of its participants. >> >> It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, >> the comonents may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a >> pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons >> people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful >> in these cases.) >> >> But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of >> activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the >> pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce >> the pattern. >> >> -- Russ >> ============================================================ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 13:18:58 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 11:18:58 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Hughes To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Consciousness / self-awareness? Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 13:57:28 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 10:57:28 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061057t5eb7fabdo945f2de0bb7c575a@mail.gmail.com> If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the > arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's > *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a > pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am > channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that > you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of > view. Good exercise for the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont > think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it > a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to > skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to > implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the > attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as > consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let > that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the > arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang > together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I > put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the > grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of > constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit > to have a useful conversation about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Victoria Hughes > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a > unique identity? > > > Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in > such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a > flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number > of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate > entity or phenomenon. > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 16:59:52 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 13:59:52 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906201336731@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906201336731@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df641acbee@mail.gmail.com> Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of emergence. Here's how the Introduction finishes. The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena? ... 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new progress on these questions ... This book?s chapters illuminate these questions from many perspectives to help readers with framing their own answers. If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the > book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its > mysterious. > > but i have to go buy fish. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about > entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a > property a property of? > > I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. > This is the second sentence from the Introduction. > "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because > emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems > opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands > on the mystery of emergence. > > -- Russ > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >> *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a >> pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am >> channeling Wimsatt. >> >> The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that >> you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of >> view. Good exercise for the neck. >> >> By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont >> think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it >> a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. >> >> Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to >> skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to >> implement a cat skinning." >> >> Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is >> the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as >> consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let >> that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the >> arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang >> together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I >> put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the >> grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of >> constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit >> to have a useful conversation about emergence. >> >> Nick >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Victoria Hughes >> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> Consciousness / self-awareness? >> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a >> unique identity? >> >> >> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act >> in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that >> entity. >> >> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a >> flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >> >> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >> entity or phenomenon. >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Sun Sep 6 17:11:01 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 15:11:01 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <77A1748D-23EF-4B81-8AAA-BFB1012E1B2C@backspaces.net> Wikipedia appears to agree with you, Nick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence "Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference." (Lewes 1875, p. 412)(Blitz 1992) -- Owen On Sep 6, 2009, at 11:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on > the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the > entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some > properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I > believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy > is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to > point of view. Good exercise for the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I > dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others > have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read > it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one > way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you > can use to implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions > is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as > consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, > but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent > property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. > There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak > construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with > no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. > Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of > constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or > spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Victoria Hughes > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as > a unique identity? > > >> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" >> act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence >> of that entity. >> >> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create >> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >> >> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a >> number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of >> some aggregate entity or phenomenon. > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 17:37:19 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 14:37:19 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence, networks, threshold phenomena, and entity formation Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061437j6b992a3ewca4049265b31f623@mail.gmail.com> In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat edited). Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (* implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) coordination. The flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing neighboring boids. One can even say that there is some overall coordination: all the boids follow the same rules. ** It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, the components may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful in these cases.) But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce the pattern. One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation of entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities as they pass and separate. What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as network formation and connectivity, etc.? Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and if so, what the results were? Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have been asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. Entity formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this sort might shed some light on it -- Russ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 17:56:49 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 14:56:49 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <77A1748D-23EF-4B81-8AAA-BFB1012E1B2C@backspaces.net> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <77A1748D-23EF-4B81-8AAA-BFB1012E1B2C@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061456s380940f2w8ad1cff4c858ebbc@mail.gmail.com> Really Owen, I'm surprised. Quoting Wikipedia as an authoritative source seems risky. And quoting Wikipedia quoting work from 1875 as authoritative on a subject like this seems even riskier. All that notwithstanding, the very next paragraph says Professor Jeffrey Goldsteinin the School of Business at Adelphi University provides a current definition of emergence in the journal, *Emergence* (Goldstein 1999). For Goldstein, emergence can be defined as: "the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems" (Corning 2002 ). So if you believe that not only are properties emergent, so are structures and patterns. Certainly you can define a word any way you want. And one can then have dueling authorities with their dueling definitions. The papers in Bedau and Humphreys will have lots of definitions. Is the one that appears first in a Wikipedia article to be taken as authoritative? Besides all that, this ignores the question I asked Nick, namely what is your theory of entities? What is an entity? How do they arise? What is it that a property is a property of? What does it even mean for something to be a property of something? Can you have properties without having entities? -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > Wikipedia appears to agree with you, Nick: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence > > "Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; > their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when > their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable > in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is > otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to > measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, > there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike > its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be > reduced to their sum or their difference." (Lewes 1875, > p. 412)(Blitz 1992 > ) > > > -- Owen > > > On Sep 6, 2009, at 11:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the > arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's > *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a > pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am > channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that > you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of > view. Good exercise for the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont > think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it > a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to > skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to > implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the > attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as > consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let > that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the > arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang > together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I > put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the > grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of > constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit > to have a useful conversation about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Victoria Hughes > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a > unique identity? > > > Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in > such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a > flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number > of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate > entity or phenomenon. > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Sun Sep 6 18:13:58 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:13:58 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence and mystery In-Reply-To: 15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df641acbee@mail.gmail.com References: <380-22009906201336731@earthlink.net><15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df6 41acbee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1252275238l.868454l.0l@psu.edu> Hmmm, I have not read the book in question, but... to vaguely support Russ's position: Conversations involving emergence do seem to be one of those contexts in which a sizable subset of the participants seem to be primarily interested in maintaining an aura of mystery. It often seems the case that when some purported instance of "emergence" is explained in a manner that a priori seemed satisfactory, it is declared either that said explanation is inherently insufficient in some way or that the instance in question was not actually "emergence" after all. At any rate, it seems that several instances of situations involving emergence are very well understood, or at least understood from many different angles. So, is the quest to "understand emergence" a quest for a general way of handling such situations, is it a quest to find a particular kind of explanation more satisfying than those offered previously, or is it an attempt to wonder at things we like to wonder at and would be sad if the wondering stopped? Of course those options are not exhaustive, but the first two options seem fairly noble, while the last option not so much (though it does seem enjoyable). Eric On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 04:59 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > > >Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. > > >>When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of emergence. > > >Here's how the Introduction finishes. > >>The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, > >>1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. > >2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... > >3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... > >4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... > >5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... > >6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena? ... > >7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. > > > >Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new progress on these questions ... >This book?s chapters illuminate these questions from many perspectives to help readers > > >with framing their own answers. > > >If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. > >-- Russ > > >>On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson <<#>> wrote: > > > > >> >> >>"seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its mysterious. > > >> > >>but i have to go buy fish. >> >> > >>Nick >> > >> >> >>Nicholas S. Thompson >>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>Clark University (<#>) >> >> >> >> > > > >> > >> >>----- Original Message ----- >> > >From: Russ Abbott > >> >> >> >> >To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > >> >Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM > > >> >Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > >> > >If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? > >I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the . "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. > >-- Russ > >>On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson <<#>> wrote: > >> >> >>Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. > > >> >>The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. >> >>By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. > > >> >>Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." >> >>Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. > > >> >> >>Nick >> >> >> >>Nicholas S. Thompson >>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>Clark University (<#>) >> >> >> >> > > > >> > >> >>----- Original Message ----- >> > >From: Victoria Hughes >> >To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > >> >Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > > >> >Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > >> > > > >> >>Consciousness / self-awareness? >>Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? >> > > >> > > >> >Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. > >When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > >That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. > > > > > > > > >============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ >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 > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From victoria at toryhughes.com Sun Sep 6 18:20:35 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:20:35 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence and mystery In-Reply-To: <1252275238l.868454l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009906201336731@earthlink.net><15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df6 41acbee@mail.gmail.com> <1252275238l.868454l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: Is it possible to hold both a satisfactory definition of emergence, and an acceptance / appreciation of ineluctable mystery? IE: is a paradox a possible solution set here? On Sep 6, 2009, at 4:13 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Hmmm, I have not read the book in question, but... to vaguely > support Russ's position: > > Conversations involving emergence do seem to be one of those > contexts in which a sizable subset of the participants seem to be > primarily interested in maintaining an aura of mystery. It often > seems the case that when some purported instance of "emergence" is > explained in a manner that a priori seemed satisfactory, it is > declared either that said explanation is inherently insufficient in > some way or that the instance in question was not actually > "emergence" after all. At any rate, it seems that several instances > of situations involving emergence are very well understood, or at > least understood from many different angles. So, is the quest to > "understand emergence" a quest for a general way of handling such > situations, is it a quest to find a particular kind of explanation > more satisfying than those offered previously, or is it an attempt > to wonder at things we like to wonder at and would be sad if the > wondering stopped? Of course those options are not exhaustive, but > the first two options seem fairly noble, while the last option not > so much (though it does seem enjoyable). > > Eric > > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 04:59 PM, Russ Abbott > wrote: > Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. > > > When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see > that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. > Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any > genuine examples of emergence. > > Here's how the Introduction finishes. > > The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a > state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions > still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the > best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary > philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped > together here are some of the interconnected questions about > emergence that are particularly pressing, > > 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that > only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, > different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall > under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty > about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be > no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. > > 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: > properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or > something else? ... > > 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely > in the eye of the beholder? ... > > 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as > dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... > > 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of > phenomena? ... > > 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their > emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of > emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely > epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An > extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of > emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. > One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns > whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, > especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which > emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. > One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward > causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is > debatable. > > Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New > advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are > converging to enable new progress on these questions ... > This book?s chapters illuminate these questions from many > perspectives to help readers > with framing their own answers. > > If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious > phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are > simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake > of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make > the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. > Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling > books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence > were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of > the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME > people think its mysterious. > > but i have to go buy fish. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you > say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put > another way, what is a property a property of? > > I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence > mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The > topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because > emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence > seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the > Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. > > -- Russ > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on > the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the > entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some > properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I > believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy > is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to > point of view. Good exercise for the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I > dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others > have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read > it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one > way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you > can use to implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions > is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as > consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, > but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent > property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. > There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak > construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with > no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. > Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of > constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or > spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Victoria Hughes > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as > a unique identity? > > > Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" > act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of > that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create > (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a > number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of > some aggregate entity or phenomenon. > > > ============================================================ > 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 > Eric Charles > > Professional Student and > Assistant Professor of Psychology > Penn State University > Altoona, PA 16601 > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tedsaid at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 18:48:05 2009 From: tedsaid at gmail.com (Ted Carmichael) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:48:05 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence, networks, threshold phenomena, and entity formation In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909061437j6b992a3ewca4049265b31f623@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909061437j6b992a3ewca4049265b31f623@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <85eb016d0909061548t762db937h5f4de20c7fa41c1e@mail.gmail.com> Hi, Russ. Thanks for the post. It's always interesting to think about these things. Offhand, I think the most relevant factors would be the number of interactions (how often one boid affects another) and the strength of those interactions (to what degree one boid affects another, and in what ways). In a torus, I believe two boids will always - eventually - flock, regardless of how seldom or weak the interactions are. (Of course, this assumes that the interactions will occur at some point and that they are formulated to induce flocking ... probably it would be possible that their path/speed was such that they reach a point where they stop interacting, even in a torus.) It would also depend on how you define a 'flock,' I suppose. Probably based somehow on the rules for moving closer or farther apart. I think this way would simplify things. I'd guess the boids would keep getting closer together until the number of "move apart" interactions approximately equals the number of "move closer" interactions. This would be the equilibrium point - assuming both types of interactions are equal in their degree of effect). Probably the rate of movement towards a flock would change over time as the % of interactions gets closer to the equilibrium point. I reckon the speed of change in these percentages would decrease as you approach the equilibrium point. Anyway, it should be easy to test ... if all that is correct, you just have to count the interactions of each type over time, and see when (if) they begin to fluctuate around some equilibrium point. How does that sound? Cheers, Ted On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat > edited). > > Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in > such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. > For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (* > implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number > of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate > entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In > flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) coordination. The > flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing neighboring boids. > One can even say that there is some overall coordination: all the boids > follow the same rules. ** > > It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, > the components may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a > pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons > people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful > in these cases.) > > But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of > activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the > pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce > the pattern. > > One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation of > entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. > > With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For > example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to > form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., > toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which > the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each > individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the > velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they > have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing > bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities > as they pass and separate. > > What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. > Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock > formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other > disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. > > How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as network > formation and connectivity, etc.? > > Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? > > Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and if > so, what the results were? > > Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have been > asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. Entity > formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this sort > might shed some light on it > > -- Russ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 19:20:11 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:20:11 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009906232011708@earthlink.net> OK. On the question of what Bedau believes, I leave the field in a rout! However, I want to look at Bedau's own article in the book, where he seems mostly to treat emergence quite casually, before I decide whether I want to try to reinfiltrate the field in the night. But you do realize, Russ, to your shame, that we agree on one important point. Whatever Bedau might believe, you and I believe that emergence is ubiquitous and non-mysterious. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 3:00:12 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of emergence. Here's how the Introduction finishes. The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena? ... 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new progress on these questions ... This book?s chapters illuminate these questions from many perspectives to help readers with framing their own answers. If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its mysterious. but i have to go buy fish. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Hughes To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Consciousness / self-awareness? Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 19:26:27 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:26:27 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence and mystery Message-ID: <380-22009906232627669@earthlink.net> One fundamental difference here is between those who see mystery as a place to be dwelt in and those who see it as a place to be traversed. I am of the latter school. If it's ineluctible, I got no interest in it. On the other hand, I cant think of anything that I believe is ineluctible. such is the arrogance of behaviorism, I guess. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Hughes To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 4:20:37 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence and mystery Is it possible to hold both a satisfactory definition of emergence, and an acceptance / appreciation of ineluctable mystery? IE: is a paradox a possible solution set here? On Sep 6, 2009, at 4:13 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Hmmm, I have not read the book in question, but... to vaguely support Russ's position: Conversations involving emergence do seem to be one of those contexts in which a sizable subset of the participants seem to be primarily interested in maintaining an aura of mystery. It often seems the case that when some purported instance of "emergence" is explained in a manner that a priori seemed satisfactory, it is declared either that said explanation is inherently insufficient in some way or that the instance in question was not actually "emergence" after all. At any rate, it seems that several instances of situations involving emergence are very well understood, or at least understood from many different angles. So, is the quest to "understand emergence" a quest for a general way of handling such situations, is it a quest to find a particular kind of explanation more satisfying than those offered previously, or is it an attempt to wonder at things we like to wonder at and would be sad if the wondering stopped? Of course those options are not exhaustive, but the first two options seem fairly noble, while the last option not so much (though it does seem enjoyable). Eric On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 04:59 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of emergence. Here's how the Introduction finishes. The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena? ... 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new progress on these questions ... This book?s chapters illuminate these questions from many perspectives to help readers with framing their own answers. If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its mysterious. but i have to go buy fish. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Hughes To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Consciousness / self-awareness? Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. ============================================================ 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 Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 19:32:03 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:32:03 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence, networks, threshold phenomena, and entity formation In-Reply-To: <85eb016d0909061548t762db937h5f4de20c7fa41c1e@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909061437j6b992a3ewca4049265b31f623@mail.gmail.com> <85eb016d0909061548t762db937h5f4de20c7fa41c1e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061632l297e64b0s744720f2d3c2f84a@mail.gmail.com> It sounds great if you have the time to do the experiments. :) It's an interesting observation that two boids in a torus will eventually flock. Suppose that they started off moving both orthogonally and out of phase. There is no reason for that to change since they are never in each other's neighborhood. But if you add some random drift effects, then presumably they will eventually begin to affect each other and over time move closer and closer together until they become a flock. By the way, I would define a flock as a collection of boids that form a persistently fully connected network where the boids are the nodes, the links are between boids that are in each other's neighborhoods, and persistently means that the entire collection is always fully connected. Given that definition, given a flock will it eventually settle into a fixed network, i.e., with no link changes? It's conceivable that a flock may remain a flock even though there are continuing internal link changes. So the question is will every flock eventually find a fixed network configuration. Since by my definition of a flock, the entire collection will always be fully connected, then it would seem that internal forces will pull it into a fixed (minimal energy) state. Someone must have proved some results along those lines already. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Ted Carmichael wrote: > Hi, Russ. Thanks for the post. It's always interesting to think about > these things. > Offhand, I think the most relevant factors would be the number of > interactions (how often one boid affects another) and the strength of those > interactions (to what degree one boid affects another, and in what ways). > > In a torus, I believe two boids will always - eventually - flock, > regardless of how seldom or weak the interactions are. (Of course, this > assumes that the interactions will occur at some point and that they are > formulated to induce flocking ... probably it would be possible that their > path/speed was such that they reach a point where they stop interacting, > even in a torus.) > > It would also depend on how you define a 'flock,' I suppose. Probably > based somehow on the rules for moving closer or farther apart. > > I think this way would simplify things. I'd guess the boids would keep > getting closer together until the number of "move apart" interactions > approximately equals the number of "move closer" interactions. This would > be the equilibrium point - assuming both types of interactions are equal in > their degree of effect). Probably the rate of movement towards a flock > would change over time as the % of interactions gets closer to the > equilibrium point. I reckon the speed of change in these percentages would > decrease as you approach the equilibrium point. > > Anyway, it should be easy to test ... if all that is correct, you just have > to count the interactions of each type over time, and see when (if) they > begin to fluctuate around some equilibrium point. > > How does that sound? > > Cheers, > > Ted > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat >> edited). >> >> Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in >> such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. >> For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (* >> implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >> >> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >> entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In >> flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) coordination. The >> flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing neighboring boids. >> One can even say that there is some overall coordination: all the boids >> follow the same rules. ** >> >> It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, >> the components may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a >> pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons >> people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful >> in these cases.) >> >> But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of >> activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the >> pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce >> the pattern. >> >> One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation of >> entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. >> >> With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For >> example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to >> form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., >> toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which >> the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each >> individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the >> velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they >> have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing >> bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities >> as they pass and separate. >> >> What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. >> Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock >> formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other >> disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. >> >> How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as network >> formation and connectivity, etc.? >> >> Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? >> >> Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and if >> so, what the results were? >> >> Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have been >> asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. Entity >> formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this sort >> might shed some light on it >> >> -- Russ >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 19:34:56 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:34:56 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906232011708@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906232011708@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061634p7a528a2ay95ee0a7e09f10466@mail.gmail.com> To my shame? When I find us in agreement that always makes me feel better -- sometimes surprised but always better! -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > OK. On the question of what Bedau believes, I leave the field in a > rout! However, I want to look at Bedau's own article in the book, where he > seems mostly to treat emergence quite casually, before I decide whether I > want to try to reinfiltrate the field in the night. > > But you do realize, Russ, to your shame, that we agree on one important > point. Whatever Bedau might believe, you and I believe that emergence is > ubiquitous and non-mysterious. > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 3:00:12 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. > > When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many > of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the > hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of > emergence. > > Here's how the Introduction finishes. > > The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state > of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack > clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to > comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and > scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the > interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, > > 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one > type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of > emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. > ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize > what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental > questions remain unanswered. > > 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, > substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... > > 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the > eye of the beholder? ... > > 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and > diachronic, or are both possible? ... > > 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of > phenomena? ... > > 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent > bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent > phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it > has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely > epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a > sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent > phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal > powers, especially powers that produce ?downward causation,? in which > emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of > the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is > involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. > > Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in > contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new > progress on these questions ... > This book? chapters illuminate these questions from many perspectives to > help readers > with framing their own answers. > > If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious > phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply > compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If > that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical > landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply > believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the > introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way > to intice people to buy it. > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the >> book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its >> mysterious. >> >> but i have to go buy fish. >> >> Nick >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Russ Abbott >> *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group >> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say >> about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, >> what is a property a property of? >> >> I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. >> This is the second sentence from the Introduction. >> "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because >> emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems >> opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands >> on the mystery of emergence. >> >> -- Russ >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson < >> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: >> >>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >>> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >>> *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a >>> pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am >>> channeling Wimsatt. >>> >>> The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is >>> that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of >>> view. Good exercise for the neck. >>> >>> By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont >>> think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it >>> a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. >>> >>> Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to >>> skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to >>> implement a cat skinning." >>> >>> Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is >>> the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as >>> consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let >>> that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the >>> arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang >>> together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I >>> put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the >>> grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of >>> constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit >>> to have a useful conversation about emergence. >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Victoria Hughes >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>> >>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a >>> unique identity? >>> >>> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act >>> in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that >>> entity. >>> >>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a >>> flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>> >>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >>> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >>> entity or phenomenon. >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 19:37:15 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:37:15 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence and mystery In-Reply-To: <380-22009906232627669@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906232627669@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061637w3ed923ebsbc7e2b360fabdcb6@mail.gmail.com> I agree here too! Even though I'm not a behaviorist -- or at least not what I think of as a behaviorist. I'm still(!) not sure what Nick thinks about subjective experience. But let's not go back to that. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > One fundamental difference here is between those who see mystery as a > place to be dwelt in and those who see it as a place to be traversed. I am > of the latter school. If it's ineluctible, I got no interest in it. On the > other hand, I cant think of anything that I believe is ineluctible. > > such is the arrogance of behaviorism, I guess. > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Victoria Hughes > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 4:20:37 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence and mystery > > Is it possible to hold both a satisfactory definition of emergence, and an > acceptance / appreciation of ineluctable mystery? IE: is a paradox a > possible solution set here? > > > > On Sep 6, 2009, at 4:13 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > > Hmmm, I have not read the book in question, but... to vaguely support > Russ's position: > > Conversations involving emergence do seem to be one of those contexts in > which a sizable subset of the participants seem to be primarily interested > in maintaining an aura of mystery. It often seems the case that when some > purported instance of "emergence" is explained in a manner that a priori > seemed satisfactory, it is declared either that said explanation is > inherently insufficient in some way or that the instance in question was not > actually "emergence" after all. At any rate, it seems that several instances > of situations involving emergence are very well understood, or at least > understood from many different angles. So, is the quest to "understand > emergence" a quest for a general way of handling such situations, is it a > quest to find a particular kind of explanation more satisfying than those > offered previously, or is it an attempt to wonder at things we like to > wonder at and would be sad if the wondering stopped? Of course those options > are not exhaustive, but the first two options seem fairly noble, while the > last option not so much (though it does seem enjoyable). > > Eric > > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 04:59 PM, *Russ Abbott * wrote: > > Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. > > When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many > of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the > hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of > emergence. > > Here's how the Introduction finishes. > > The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state > of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack > clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to > comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and > scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the > interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, > > 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one > type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of > emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. > ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize > what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental > questions remain unanswered. > > 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, > substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... > > 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the > eye of the beholder? ... > > 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and > diachronic, or are both possible? ... > > 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of > phenomena? ... > > 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent > bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent > phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it > has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely > epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a > sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent > phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal > powers, especially powers that produce ?downward causation,? in which > emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of > the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is > involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. > > Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in > contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new > progress on these questions ... > This book? chapters illuminate these questions from many perspectives to > help readers > > with framing their own answers. > > If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious > phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply > compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If > that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical > landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply > believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the > introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way > to intice people to buy it. > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_>> wrote: > >> "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the >> book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its >> mysterious. >> >> but i have to go buy fish. >> >> Nick >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_>) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Russ Abbott <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_> >> *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_>;The Friday >> Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_> >> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say >> about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, >> what is a property a property of? >> >> I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. >> This is the second sentence from the Introduction. >> "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because >> emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems >> opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands >> on the mystery of emergence. >> >> -- Russ >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson < >> nickthompson at earthlink.net <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_>> wrote: >> >>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >>> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >>> *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a >>> pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am >>> channeling Wimsatt. >>> >>> The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is >>> that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of >>> view. Good exercise for the neck. >>> >>> By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont >>> think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it >>> a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. >>> >>> Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to >>> skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to >>> implement a cat skinning." >>> >>> Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is >>> the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as >>> consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let >>> that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the >>> arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang >>> together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I >>> put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the >>> grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of >>> constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit >>> to have a useful conversation about emergence. >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_>) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Victoria Hughes <#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_> >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<#12391b0d1ae8eeb0_> >>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>> >>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a >>> unique identity? >>> >>> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act >>> in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that >>> entity. >>> >>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a >>> flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>> >>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >>> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >>> entity or phenomenon. >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 > > Eric Charles > > Professional Student and > Assistant Professor of Psychology > Penn State University > Altoona, PA 16601 > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rjcord1 at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 19:56:36 2009 From: rjcord1 at gmail.com (Robert Cordingley) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:56:36 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df641acbee@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009906201336731@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df641acbee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA44C34.90108@gmail.com> After observing all the tos and fros, and listening to many in person discussions on emergence and complexity, I've decided (see No. 4), Emergence is in the eye of the beholder. This will continue until someone declares a definition that can be widely adopted by workers in the field. Look at the Reynolds Number that is a dimensionless but useful engineering tool to determine the type of fluid flow, whether it's laminar or turbulent and helps determine how to calculate pipeline pressure drops and such. Or look at Fractal Dimension , that is a statistical quantity, and I believe is another dimensionless quantity, in fact. Is is possible that there is a measure of Complexity that can be used in the same sort of way? As this measure of Complexity increases Emergence happens (like turbulence) above a certain value? And it is so because we say so. Robert C. Russ Abbott wrote: > > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in > the eye of the beholder? ... > > > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson > > wrote: > > "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of > the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME > people think its mysterious. > > but i have to go buy fish. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net > ;The Friday Morning Applied > Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do > you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come > from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? > > I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence > mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction > . > "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in > part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very > idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." > The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. > > -- Russ > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson > > wrote: > > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it > depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of > the parts of the entity. (It's /properties/ that are > emergent, not /entities/ ... some properties of a pile of > sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am > channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The > Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving > from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for > the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to > Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think > he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's > been a few months since I read it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more > than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are > several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence > discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such > perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont > think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The > strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the > arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are > lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak > construction, which I learned when I put together a grape > arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the > grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in > the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about > soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful > conversation about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu > ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Victoria Hughes > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee > Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of > 'the self' as a unique identity? > > >> Emergence is what happens when components of the >> "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about >> the existence and persistence of that entity. >> >> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they >> create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We >> know how it works. >> >> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent >> actions among a number of elements that result in the >> formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or >> phenomenon. > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 20:30:16 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:30:16 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <4AA44C34.90108@gmail.com> References: <380-22009906201336731@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909061359o1852c6caodfe647df641acbee@mail.gmail.com> <4AA44C34.90108@gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909061730g6ee865b0y5b283221da4f9815@mail.gmail.com> David Wolpert has actually proposed such a measure. But I don't think it has much if anything to do with emergence. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Robert Cordingley wrote: > After observing all the tos and fros, and listening to many in person > discussions on emergence and complexity, I've decided (see No. 4), > Emergence is in the eye of the beholder. This will continue until someone > declares a definition that can be widely adopted by workers in the field. > Look at the Reynolds Number that is a dimensionless but useful engineering tool to determine the type of > fluid flow, whether it's laminar or turbulent and helps determine how to > calculate pipeline pressure drops and such. Or look at Fractal Dimension, > that is a statistical quantity, and I believe is another dimensionless > quantity, in fact. > > Is is possible that there is a measure of Complexity that can be used in > the same sort of way? As this measure of Complexity increases Emergence > happens (like turbulence) above a certain value? And it is so because we > say so. > > Robert C. > > Russ Abbott wrote: > > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the > eye of the beholder? ... > > > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the >> book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its >> mysterious. >> >> but i have to go buy fish. >> >> Nick >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Russ Abbott >> *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group >> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say >> about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, >> what is a property a property of? >> >> I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. >> This is the second sentence from the Introduction. >> "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because >> emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems >> opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands >> on the mystery of emergence. >> >> -- Russ >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson < >> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: >> >>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >>> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >>> *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a >>> pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am >>> channeling Wimsatt. >>> >>> The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is >>> that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of >>> view. Good exercise for the neck. >>> >>> By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont >>> think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it >>> a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. >>> >>> Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to >>> skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to >>> implement a cat skinning." >>> >>> Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is >>> the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as >>> consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let >>> that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the >>> arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang >>> together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I >>> put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the >>> grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of >>> constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit >>> to have a useful conversation about emergence. >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Victoria Hughes >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>> >>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a >>> unique identity? >>> >>> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act >>> in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that >>> entity. >>> >>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a >>> flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>> >>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >>> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >>> entity or phenomenon. >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Sun Sep 6 22:20:33 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:20:33 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA46DF1.5030105@swcp.com> Nicholas Thompson wrote: For those Cat Lovers out there: > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way > to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can > use to implement a cat skinning." Let me offer in return: There are many ways to skin a cat, not all of which involve a Lear Jet. From sasmyth at swcp.com Sun Sep 6 22:32:52 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:32:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] "How to use the web" was Re: Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: <4AA3231E.8040103@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net> <681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> <4AA12CC7.7040209@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AA281AB.30205@gmail.com> <681c54590909050825y545633f6kf685b2e6bc805ab7@mail.gmail.com> <4AA28870.3000403@swcp.com> <4AA3231E.8040103@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AA470D4.8040607@swcp.com> Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Steve Smith wrote: >> Douglas Roberts wrote: >>> Not a psychology blog. Well, actually, yes it is: >>> http://peopleofwalmart.com/ >>> >> I would contribute to this blog, excepting that I'd have to actually >> go INTO WalMart. > Fwiw, it turns out you can see some of the same things at the Santa Fe > Whole Foods.. Good Point... I've been referring to Whole Foods as "WalMart for Yuppies" since it opened. I don't go in there much either. Next time I'll remember to use my camera to illustrate the point. From jstafurik at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 23:43:53 2009 From: jstafurik at earthlink.net (Jack Stafurik) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 21:43:53 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Can your computer make you happy, with Computational Eudaemonics Message-ID: <008201ca2f6d$6c081450$44183cf0$@net> Our own Marko Rodriguez of LANL and Knowledge Reef is heading in an interesting new direction, to use the power of computers to make us ?happy?. Below is an interview with him. It raises several issues: 1) He seems to be proposing a ?data mining? approach to determine what makes people happy and a system to improve decision making and suggestions so more people make good ?happiness enhancing? decisions. Having worked for many years with data mining systems, I can see a number of practical and theoretical problems. For example, how to define and measure the many dimensions of ?happiness?, how to get the actual data, how to identify and evaluate all the options for a decision, how to balance short term and long term happiness, and so forth 2) He proposes that ?use? is a good way to determine if the system is actually effective. That is, if people use it then it meets its goals of increasing happiness. That does not seem to me to be an intellectually satisfying way of determining if a system is effective in meeting its purported goals. Is there a better way of determining this? 3) He makes an important distinction between ?frequent? decisions such as which restaurant to eat in, and ?once in a lifetime? decisions such as who to marry (for most people) or where to go to college. He recognizes the data problems of evaluating the ?once in a lifetime? decisions, but seems confident that simply looking at many such decisions will give his system all the data it needs. I?m a skeptic. Having looked at billions of decisions for ?frequent? actions, e.g., soft drink purchases, you quickly find out your decision matrixes are actually pretty sparse when you try to account for many of the key variables, and your statistical models based on these do not always have the accuracy you need. Expanding this to ?once in a lifetime? decisions adds orders of magnitude to the difficulty of the problem. Jack Stafurik Computational Eudaemonics: Expert Happiness Systems Marcelo Rinesi Frontier Economy Posted: Aug 16, 2009 This is an interview with Marko A. Rodriguez, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Besides doing basic research on applied mathematics and computer science, he is doing work on computational eudaemonics ? the use of computer algorithms to increase happiness by helping us make better decisions, even suggesting new options. Do you think the widespread use of eudaemonic algorithms will be contingent on the embracing of an Aristotelian ethic and concept of happiness, or is their usage compatible, in the sense of there being a potentially strong demand for them, with the contemporary ethos? I think the concepts of Aristotle, Norton, Hobbes, Flanagan, and even Rand (to some extent) are all barking up the same tree. And while that species of tree may be the same, the individual instances of it will be different. That is, each person will have to find their own eudaemonic path, where the role of computational eudaemonics is to support the individual in this discovery process. Moreover, for these algorithms, it?s a process too. Some will live and some will die in this ?society of algorithms?, but the society will continue to evolve and adapt to the human condition. When individual algorithms work well with the human and the human allows them to work, then computational eudaemonics will be serving its purpose. How do you see the process of research and validation of an eudaemonic algorithm for decisions with impact over the long term? With respect to validation, I believe the answer to that is the answer to this: ?do people use it?? Take Google for example. There is no formal proof that PageRank is a good algorithm to rank webpages. However there is a pragmatic proof. The pragmatic proof is the fact that people use Google regularly. Similarly for a eudaemonic algorithm, if it survives to be used another day, then it is good it is valid. Do you feel we have or will have enough information in this generation to data mine patterns about, say, the number of children a couple might want to have? I think what will happen is that more and more data will be exposed in the Web of Data. At first, it might just be a better ?recommendation? algorithm ? but with enough information in the Web of Data and enough insight on the part of the algorithm designers, we may just end up putting more faith in the algorithm. p>There?s a clear profit motive for a search engine or a retailer to create a good algorithm ? we interact with them often enough to infer their quality and either become repeating customers or shift to a competitor with a better algorithm ? but for decisions take very seldom (e.g., choosing a major), there would be both a great demand for good algorithms and an unclear process by which the worst ones could be filtered out. What are your thoughts about who might come up with eudaemonic algorithms and their motivations?p>As you note, there are recommendations that are based on repetition: e.g., movies, books, music, webpages, etc. And, as you say as well, there are ?one time only? recommendations: e.g., which major to choose in college. However, you can see these ?one time only? recommendations as happening in repetition ? not through the individual, but through the population. While the ?one time? algorithm may be faulty for an individual at a particular point in time, it may be gathering enough data points to be successful for the next individual down the line. I think the saying is: ?Rome wasn?t build in a day.? I don?t know how accurate these algorithms can get, but there is a sense of better and worse. Moreover, we understand, to some degree, why we like certain movies, books, ideas, etc. So, being able to represent those biases computationally may bring us beyond recommendation and into a world of eudaemonia. For further information: Rodriguez, M.A., Watkins, J., ?Faith in the Algorithm, Part 2: Computational Eudaemonics,? Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems, Invited Session: Innovations in Intelligent Systems, eds. Vel?squez, J.D., Howlett, R.J., and Jain, L.C., Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Springer-Verlag, LA-UR-09-02095, Santiago, Chile, April 2009. [http://arxiv.org/abs/0904.0027] _____ Marcelo Rinesi is the Assistant Director of the IEET. Mr. Rinesi is Editor-in-Chief of Frontier Economy . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 00:06:05 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 22:06:05 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009917465384@earthlink.net> I respectfully but firmly disagree. To see emergence, one may have to observe the phenomenon from a particular angle, emergence itself is out there. Properties of aggregates often depend on the arrangement or order of arrangement of their parts. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Cordingley To: Russ.Abbott at GMail.com;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 5:57:14 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence After observing all the tos and fros, and listening to many in person discussions on emergence and complexity, I've decided (see No. 4), Emergence is in the eye of the beholder. This will continue until someone declares a definition that can be widely adopted by workers in the field. Look at the Reynolds Number that is a dimensionless but useful engineering tool to determine the type of fluid flow, whether it's laminar or turbulent and helps determine how to calculate pipeline pressure drops and such. Or look at Fractal Dimension, that is a statistical quantity, and I believe is another dimensionless quantity, in fact. Is is possible that there is a measure of Complexity that can be used in the same sort of way? As this measure of Complexity increases Emergence happens (like turbulence) above a certain value? And it is so because we say so. Robert C. Russ Abbott wrote: 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its mysterious. but i have to go buy fish. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Hughes To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Consciousness / self-awareness? Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 00:17:13 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 21:17:13 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009917465384@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009917465384@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909062117n602ab2bex8ad3c7aeb6888771@mail.gmail.com> We agree again! It's out there. (Beware.) -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > I respectfully but firmly disagree. To see emergence, one may have to > observe the phenomenon from a particular angle, emergence itself is out > there. Properties of aggregates often depend on the arrangement or order > of arrangement of their parts. > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Robert Cordingley > *To: *Russ.Abbott at GMail.com;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee > Group > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 5:57:14 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > After observing all the tos and fros, and listening to many in person > discussions on emergence and complexity, I've decided (see No. 4), > Emergence is in the eye of the beholder. This will continue until someone > declares a definition that can be widely adopted by workers in the field. > Look at the Reynolds Number that is a dimensionless but useful engineering tool to determine the type of > fluid flow, whether it's laminar or turbulent and helps determine how to > calculate pipeline pressure drops and such. Or look at Fractal Dimension, > that is a statistical quantity, and I believe is another dimensionless > quantity, in fact. > > Is is possible that there is a measure of Complexity that can be used in > the same sort of way? As this measure of Complexity increases Emergence > happens (like turbulence) above a certain value? And it is so because we > say so. > > Robert C. > > Russ Abbott wrote: > > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the > eye of the beholder? ... > > > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the >> book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its >> mysterious. >> >> but i have to go buy fish. >> >> Nick >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Russ Abbott >> *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group >> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say >> about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, >> what is a property a property of? >> >> I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. >> This is the second sentence from the Introduction. >> "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because >> emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems >> opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands >> on the mystery of emergence. >> >> -- Russ >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson < >> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: >> >>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >>> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >>> *properties* that are emergent, not *entities* ... some properties of a >>> pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am >>> channeling Wimsatt. >>> >>> The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is >>> that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of >>> view. Good exercise for the neck. >>> >>> By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont >>> think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it >>> a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. >>> >>> Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to >>> skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to >>> implement a cat skinning." >>> >>> Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is >>> the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as >>> consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let >>> that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the >>> arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang >>> together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I >>> put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the >>> grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of >>> constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit >>> to have a useful conversation about emergence. >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Victoria Hughes >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>> >>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a >>> unique identity? >>> >>> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act >>> in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that >>> entity. >>> >>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a >>> flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>> >>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >>> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >>> entity or phenomenon. >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 02:37:14 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 23:37:14 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Energy, emergence, networks, threshold phenomena, and entity formation Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909062337g5fe892caxa42d6964d5144aa4@mail.gmail.com> One of my pet peeves about most agent-based models is that they ignore energy. The boids model does too. But what happens if we include energy considerations? We could assume that the boids move in a frictionless medium and that they never touch each other. So the only energy issue is the energy expended in following the rules. (Here's Craig Reynolds' pagedescribing his original boids work, which describes the rules.) It's easiest to assume that each boid has access to an unlimited supply of energy which it uses to accelerate itself according to the rules. Obviously it's unrealistic to assume that any agent has access to an unlimited supply of energy. But most agent-based models do! Being a far-from-equilibrium system, energy enters the model through the boids. It dissipates (without warming the environment) as the boids use energy to accelerate themselves. Since there are no internal energy transfers, the energy issues should be fairly easy. Given the boid rules and the availability of unlimited energy, can anything be said about how an arbitrary boid collection will evolve? Will it evolve, for example, to a state that requires the minimum total energy expenditure? If that's the case, can something similar be said about other emergent entities and phenomena? This is a somewhat different question than is normally asked about far-from-equilibrium systems. More frequently one assumes that energy is *pumped into the system at a constant rate*. One then asks what happens. One gets B?nard cells and similar phenomema. But here energy is being *pulled into the system **as needed*. It's pull rather than push! I sincerely hope that someone who can work with the physics of this takes it up. If so, I'll do whatever I can to help. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > It sounds great if you have the time to do the experiments. :) > > It's an interesting observation that two boids in a torus will eventually > flock. Suppose that they started off moving both orthogonally and out of > phase. There is no reason for that to change since they are never in each > other's neighborhood. > > But if you add some random drift effects, then presumably they will > eventually begin to affect each other and over time move closer and closer > together until they become a flock. > > By the way, I would define a flock as a collection of boids that form a > persistently fully connected network where the boids are the nodes, the > links are between boids that are in each other's neighborhoods, and > persistently means that the entire collection is always fully connected. > > Given that definition, given a flock will it eventually settle into a fixed > network, i.e., with no link changes? It's conceivable that a flock may > remain a flock even though there are continuing internal link changes. So > the question is will every flock eventually find a fixed network > configuration. Since by my definition of a flock, the entire collection > will always be fully connected, then it would seem that internal forces will > pull it into a fixed (minimal energy) state. > > Someone must have proved some results along those lines already. > > -- Russ > > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Ted Carmichael wrote: > >> Hi, Russ. Thanks for the post. It's always interesting to think about >> these things. >> Offhand, I think the most relevant factors would be the number of >> interactions (how often one boid affects another) and the strength of those >> interactions (to what degree one boid affects another, and in what ways). >> >> In a torus, I believe two boids will always - eventually - flock, >> regardless of how seldom or weak the interactions are. (Of course, this >> assumes that the interactions will occur at some point and that they are >> formulated to induce flocking ... probably it would be possible that their >> path/speed was such that they reach a point where they stop interacting, >> even in a torus.) >> >> It would also depend on how you define a 'flock,' I suppose. Probably >> based somehow on the rules for moving closer or farther apart. >> >> I think this way would simplify things. I'd guess the boids would keep >> getting closer together until the number of "move apart" interactions >> approximately equals the number of "move closer" interactions. This would >> be the equilibrium point - assuming both types of interactions are equal in >> their degree of effect). Probably the rate of movement towards a flock >> would change over time as the % of interactions gets closer to the >> equilibrium point. I reckon the speed of change in these percentages would >> decrease as you approach the equilibrium point. >> >> Anyway, it should be easy to test ... if all that is correct, you just >> have to count the interactions of each type over time, and see when (if) >> they begin to fluctuate around some equilibrium point. >> >> How does that sound? >> >> Cheers, >> >> Ted >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >>> In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat >>> edited). >>> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in >>> such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. >>> For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create ( >>> *implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>> >>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number >>> of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate >>> entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In >>> flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) coordination. The >>> flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing neighboring boids. >>> One can even say that there is some overall coordination: all the boids >>> follow the same rules. ** >>> >>> It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, >>> the components may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a >>> pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons >>> people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful >>> in these cases.) >>> >>> But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of >>> activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the >>> pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce >>> the pattern. >>> >>> One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation of >>> entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. >>> >>> With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For >>> example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to >>> form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., >>> toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which >>> the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each >>> individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the >>> velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they >>> have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing >>> bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities >>> as they pass and separate. >>> >>> What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. >>> Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock >>> formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other >>> disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. >>> >>> How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as >>> network formation and connectivity, etc.? >>> >>> Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? >>> >>> Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and if >>> so, what the results were? >>> >>> Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have been >>> asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. Entity >>> formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this sort >>> might shed some light on it >>> >>> -- Russ >>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 02:49:30 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 23:49:30 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Energy, emergence, networks, threshold phenomena, and entity formation In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909062337g5fe892caxa42d6964d5144aa4@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909062337g5fe892caxa42d6964d5144aa4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909062349i402b324bof88018509de0de8f@mail.gmail.com> Could we think of the rules and the effects they produce as some sort of relaxation process? If so, toward what end? -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > One of my pet peeves about most agent-based models is that they ignore > energy. The boids model does too. But what happens if we include energy > considerations? > > We could assume that the boids move in a frictionless medium and that they > never touch each other. So the only energy issue is the energy expended in > following the rules. (Here's Craig Reynolds' pagedescribing his original boids work, which describes the rules.) It's > easiest to assume that each boid has access to an unlimited supply of energy > which it uses to accelerate itself according to the rules. > > Obviously it's unrealistic to assume that any agent has access to an > unlimited supply of energy. But most agent-based models do! Being a > far-from-equilibrium system, energy enters the model through the boids. It > dissipates (without warming the environment) as the boids use energy to > accelerate themselves. Since there are no internal energy transfers, the > energy issues should be fairly easy. > > Given the boid rules and the availability of unlimited energy, can anything > be said about how an arbitrary boid collection will evolve? Will it evolve, > for example, to a state that requires the minimum total energy expenditure? > > If that's the case, can something similar be said about other emergent > entities and phenomena? > > This is a somewhat different question than is normally asked about > far-from-equilibrium systems. More frequently one assumes that energy is *pumped > into the system at a constant rate*. One then asks what happens. One gets B?nard > cells and similar > phenomema. But here energy is being *pulled into the system **as needed*. > It's pull rather than push! > > I sincerely hope that someone who can work with the physics of this takes > it up. If so, I'll do whatever I can to help. > > -- Russ > > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> It sounds great if you have the time to do the experiments. :) >> >> It's an interesting observation that two boids in a torus will eventually >> flock. Suppose that they started off moving both orthogonally and out of >> phase. There is no reason for that to change since they are never in each >> other's neighborhood. >> >> But if you add some random drift effects, then presumably they will >> eventually begin to affect each other and over time move closer and closer >> together until they become a flock. >> >> By the way, I would define a flock as a collection of boids that form a >> persistently fully connected network where the boids are the nodes, the >> links are between boids that are in each other's neighborhoods, and >> persistently means that the entire collection is always fully connected. >> >> Given that definition, given a flock will it eventually settle into a >> fixed network, i.e., with no link changes? It's conceivable that a flock >> may remain a flock even though there are continuing internal link changes. >> So the question is will every flock eventually find a fixed network >> configuration. Since by my definition of a flock, the entire collection >> will always be fully connected, then it would seem that internal forces will >> pull it into a fixed (minimal energy) state. >> >> Someone must have proved some results along those lines already. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Ted Carmichael wrote: >> >>> Hi, Russ. Thanks for the post. It's always interesting to think about >>> these things. >>> Offhand, I think the most relevant factors would be the number of >>> interactions (how often one boid affects another) and the strength of those >>> interactions (to what degree one boid affects another, and in what ways). >>> >>> In a torus, I believe two boids will always - eventually - flock, >>> regardless of how seldom or weak the interactions are. (Of course, this >>> assumes that the interactions will occur at some point and that they are >>> formulated to induce flocking ... probably it would be possible that their >>> path/speed was such that they reach a point where they stop interacting, >>> even in a torus.) >>> >>> It would also depend on how you define a 'flock,' I suppose. Probably >>> based somehow on the rules for moving closer or farther apart. >>> >>> I think this way would simplify things. I'd guess the boids would keep >>> getting closer together until the number of "move apart" interactions >>> approximately equals the number of "move closer" interactions. This would >>> be the equilibrium point - assuming both types of interactions are equal in >>> their degree of effect). Probably the rate of movement towards a flock >>> would change over time as the % of interactions gets closer to the >>> equilibrium point. I reckon the speed of change in these percentages would >>> decrease as you approach the equilibrium point. >>> >>> Anyway, it should be easy to test ... if all that is correct, you just >>> have to count the interactions of each type over time, and see when (if) >>> they begin to fluctuate around some equilibrium point. >>> >>> How does that sound? >>> >>> Cheers, >>> >>> Ted >>> >>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>> >>>> In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat >>>> edited). >>>> >>>> Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in >>>> such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. >>>> For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create ( >>>> *implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>>> >>>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a >>>> number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some >>>> aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be >>>> top-down. In flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) >>>> coordination. The flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing >>>> neighboring boids. One can even say that there is some overall coordination: >>>> all the boids follow the same rules. ** >>>> >>>> It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, >>>> the components may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a >>>> pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons >>>> people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful >>>> in these cases.) >>>> >>>> But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of >>>> activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the >>>> pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce >>>> the pattern. >>>> >>>> One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation >>>> of entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. >>>> >>>> With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For >>>> example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to >>>> form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., >>>> toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which >>>> the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each >>>> individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the >>>> velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they >>>> have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing >>>> bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities >>>> as they pass and separate. >>>> >>>> What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. >>>> Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock >>>> formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other >>>> disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. >>>> >>>> How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as >>>> network formation and connectivity, etc.? >>>> >>>> Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? >>>> >>>> Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and if >>>> so, what the results were? >>>> >>>> Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have >>>> been asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. >>>> Entity formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this >>>> sort might shed some light on it >>>> >>>> -- Russ >>>> >>>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 03:02:48 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:02:48 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] (alphabetically) Emergence, energy, entity formation, networks, relaxation, and threshold phenomena Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909070002r4f802018p4d853a6764d769cc@mail.gmail.com> Is there a standard way to determine whether a relaxation calculation will converge -- and if so what it will converge to? This is backward from most relaxation, isn't it? Normally one know where one wants to go but finds that the easiest way to compute the answer is relaxation. Here, we are starting with the relations steps and asking where it will take us. I need help from someone who knows about this stuff. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 11:49 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Could we think of the rules and the effects they produce as some sort of > relaxation process? If so, toward what end? > > -- Russ > > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> One of my pet peeves about most agent-based models is that they ignore >> energy. The boids model does too. But what happens if we include energy >> considerations? >> >> We could assume that the boids move in a frictionless medium and that they >> never touch each other. So the only energy issue is the energy expended in >> following the rules. (Here's Craig Reynolds' pagedescribing his original boids work, which describes the rules.) It's >> easiest to assume that each boid has access to an unlimited supply of energy >> which it uses to accelerate itself according to the rules. >> >> Obviously it's unrealistic to assume that any agent has access to an >> unlimited supply of energy. But most agent-based models do! Being a >> far-from-equilibrium system, energy enters the model through the boids. It >> dissipates (without warming the environment) as the boids use energy to >> accelerate themselves. Since there are no internal energy transfers, the >> energy issues should be fairly easy. >> >> Given the boid rules and the availability of unlimited energy, can >> anything be said about how an arbitrary boid collection will evolve? Will it >> evolve, for example, to a state that requires the minimum total energy >> expenditure? >> >> If that's the case, can something similar be said about other emergent >> entities and phenomena? >> >> This is a somewhat different question than is normally asked about >> far-from-equilibrium systems. More frequently one assumes that energy is >> *pumped into the system at a constant rate*. One then asks what happens. >> One gets B?nard cells and similar phenomema. But here energy is being >> *pulled into the system **as needed*. It's pull rather than push! >> >> I sincerely hope that someone who can work with the physics of this takes >> it up. If so, I'll do whatever I can to help. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> >> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >>> It sounds great if you have the time to do the experiments. :) >>> >>> It's an interesting observation that two boids in a torus will eventually >>> flock. Suppose that they started off moving both orthogonally and out of >>> phase. There is no reason for that to change since they are never in each >>> other's neighborhood. >>> >>> But if you add some random drift effects, then presumably they will >>> eventually begin to affect each other and over time move closer and closer >>> together until they become a flock. >>> >>> By the way, I would define a flock as a collection of boids that form a >>> persistently fully connected network where the boids are the nodes, the >>> links are between boids that are in each other's neighborhoods, and >>> persistently means that the entire collection is always fully connected. >>> >>> Given that definition, given a flock will it eventually settle into a >>> fixed network, i.e., with no link changes? It's conceivable that a flock >>> may remain a flock even though there are continuing internal link changes. >>> So the question is will every flock eventually find a fixed network >>> configuration. Since by my definition of a flock, the entire collection >>> will always be fully connected, then it would seem that internal forces will >>> pull it into a fixed (minimal energy) state. >>> >>> Someone must have proved some results along those lines already. >>> >>> -- Russ >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Ted Carmichael wrote: >>> >>>> Hi, Russ. Thanks for the post. It's always interesting to think about >>>> these things. >>>> Offhand, I think the most relevant factors would be the number of >>>> interactions (how often one boid affects another) and the strength of those >>>> interactions (to what degree one boid affects another, and in what ways). >>>> >>>> In a torus, I believe two boids will always - eventually - flock, >>>> regardless of how seldom or weak the interactions are. (Of course, this >>>> assumes that the interactions will occur at some point and that they are >>>> formulated to induce flocking ... probably it would be possible that their >>>> path/speed was such that they reach a point where they stop interacting, >>>> even in a torus.) >>>> >>>> It would also depend on how you define a 'flock,' I suppose. Probably >>>> based somehow on the rules for moving closer or farther apart. >>>> >>>> I think this way would simplify things. I'd guess the boids would keep >>>> getting closer together until the number of "move apart" interactions >>>> approximately equals the number of "move closer" interactions. This would >>>> be the equilibrium point - assuming both types of interactions are equal in >>>> their degree of effect). Probably the rate of movement towards a flock >>>> would change over time as the % of interactions gets closer to the >>>> equilibrium point. I reckon the speed of change in these percentages would >>>> decrease as you approach the equilibrium point. >>>> >>>> Anyway, it should be easy to test ... if all that is correct, you just >>>> have to count the interactions of each type over time, and see when (if) >>>> they begin to fluctuate around some equilibrium point. >>>> >>>> How does that sound? >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> >>>> Ted >>>> >>>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>> >>>>> In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat >>>>> edited). >>>>> >>>>> Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in >>>>> such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. >>>>> For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create ( >>>>> *implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>>>> >>>>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a >>>>> number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some >>>>> aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be >>>>> top-down. In flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) >>>>> coordination. The flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing >>>>> neighboring boids. One can even say that there is some overall coordination: >>>>> all the boids follow the same rules. ** >>>>> >>>>> It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent >>>>> entities, the components may come and go while the entity persists. What >>>>> emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the >>>>> reasons people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly >>>>> useful in these cases.) >>>>> >>>>> But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of >>>>> activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the >>>>> pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce >>>>> the pattern. >>>>> >>>>> One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation >>>>> of entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. >>>>> >>>>> With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For >>>>> example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to >>>>> form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., >>>>> toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which >>>>> the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each >>>>> individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the >>>>> velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they >>>>> have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing >>>>> bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities >>>>> as they pass and separate. >>>>> >>>>> What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. >>>>> Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock >>>>> formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other >>>>> disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. >>>>> >>>>> How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as >>>>> network formation and connectivity, etc.? >>>>> >>>>> Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? >>>>> >>>>> Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and >>>>> if so, what the results were? >>>>> >>>>> Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have >>>>> been asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. >>>>> Entity formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this >>>>> sort might shed some light on it >>>>> >>>>> -- Russ >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JKennison at clarku.edu Mon Sep 7 03:02:08 2009 From: JKennison at clarku.edu (John Kennison) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 03:02:08 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906232011708@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906232011708@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5A630F46702DD1498FFD48394B4A664C7164DD9496@john.ad.clarku.edu> Isn't it possible that an emergent phenomenon might be mysterious to an observer who didn't know how it was implemented? For example, how might lodestones(?) (I mean magnetized rocks) appear to someone who observed them before the theory of magnetism had been formulated? ________________________________________ From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson [nickthompson at earthlink.net] Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 7:20 PM To: friam at redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence OK. On the question of what Bedau believes, I leave the field in a rout! However, I want to look at Bedau's own article in the book, where he seems mostly to treat emergence quite casually, before I decide whether I want to try to reinfiltrate the field in the night. But you do realize, Russ, to your shame, that we agree on one important point. Whatever Bedau might believe, you and I believe that emergence is ubiquitous and non-mysterious. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 3:00:12 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of emergence. Here's how the Introduction finishes. The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena? ... 7. In what ways are e mergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new progress on these questions ... This book?s chapters illuminate these que stions from many perspectives to help readers with framing their own answers. If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its mysterious. but i have to go buy fish. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Hughes To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence Consciousness / self-awareness? Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, a rchives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org From rjcord1 at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 09:57:06 2009 From: rjcord1 at gmail.com (Robert Cordingley) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:57:06 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009917465384@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009917465384@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA51132.3080905@gmail.com> Nick IMHO, I thought 'to see', 'observations', 'arrangements' and 'order' were also largely 'in the eye of the beholder'! If emergence is ever to become a (part of) science, repeatable measurements (from verifiable observations) leading to one or more calculated parameters is the only way to bring 'emergence' in from the cold/limbo/twilight zone, where it appears to be right now. Statistical and/or structural pattern recognition seem to be good places to start. (See also descriptive statistics) I don't know if this has yet been attempted/done but hope to hear otherwise. Perhaps it's just too hard. Robert C. Nicholas Thompson wrote: > I respectfully but firmly disagree. To see emergence, one may have to > observe the phenomenon from a particular angle, emergence itself is > out there. Properties of aggregates often depend on the arrangement > or order of arrangement of their parts. > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Robert Cordingley > *To: *Russ.Abbott at GMail.com ;The > Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 5:57:14 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > After observing all the tos and fros, and listening to many in > person discussions on emergence and complexity, I've decided (see > No. 4), Emergence is in the eye of the beholder. This will > continue until someone declares a definition that can be widely > adopted by workers in the field. Look at the Reynolds Number > that is a > dimensionless but useful engineering tool to determine the type of > fluid flow, whether it's laminar or turbulent and helps determine > how to calculate pipeline pressure drops and such. Or look at > Fractal Dimension > , that is a > statistical quantity, and I believe is another dimensionless > quantity, in fact. > > Is is possible that there is a measure of Complexity that can be > used in the same sort of way? As this measure of Complexity > increases Emergence happens (like turbulence) above a certain > value? And it is so because we say so. > > Robert C. > > Russ Abbott wrote: >> >> >> 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it >> merely in the eye of the beholder? ... >> >> >> >> -- Russ >> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 12:07:18 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 10:07:18 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-2200991716718278@earthlink.net> Hi, John, I thought the argument was about whether mystery was a defining feature of emergence. I said I thought not. I agree with you emergent phenomena can appear mysterious, but they don't cease to be so when we figure them out. Once we have agreed on the "objective" (forgive me, eric) nature of emergence, we might playfully explore the folloing question: Has there ever been any thing that appears mysterious that has not been emergent. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: John Kennison > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The FridayMorning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/7/2009 1:05:02 AM > Subject: RE: [FRIAM] emergence > > > Isn't it possible that an emergent phenomenon might be mysterious to an observer who didn't know how it was implemented? For example, how might lodestones(?) (I mean magnetized rocks) appear to someone who observed them before the theory of magnetism had been formulated? > ________________________________________ > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson [nickthompson at earthlink.net] > Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 7:20 PM > To: friam at redfish.com > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > OK. On the question of what Bedau believes, I leave the field in a rout! However, I want to look at Bedau's own article in the book, where he seems mostly to treat emergence quite casually, before I decide whether I want to try to reinfiltrate the field in the night. > > But you do realize, Russ, to your shame, that we agree on one important point. Whatever Bedau might believe, you and I believe that emergence is ubiquitous and non-mysterious. > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/6/2009 3:00:12 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Come on Nick. Later on in the Introduction they write the following. > > When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence. Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are any genuine examples of emergence. > > Here's how the Introduction finishes. > > The study of emergence is still in its infancy and currently is in a state of considerable flux, so a large number of important questions still lack clear answers. Surveying those questions is one of the best ways to comprehend the nature and scope of the contemporary philosophical and scientific debate about emergence. Grouped together here are some of the interconnected questions about emergence that are particularly pressing, > > 1. How should emergence be defined? ... We should not presume that only one type of emergence exists and needs definition. Instead, different kinds of emergence may exist, so different that they fall under no unified account. ... Given the high level of uncertainty about how to properly characterize what emergence is, it should be no surprise that many other fundamental questions remain unanswered. > > 2. What ontological categories of entities can be emergent: properties, substances, processes,phenomena, patterns, laws, or something else? ... > > 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? ... > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder? ... > > 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? ... > > 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena? ... > > 7. In what ways are e mergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? ... Another important question about the autonomy of emergent phenomena is whether that autonomy is merely epistemological or whether it has ontological consequences. An extreme version of the merely epistemological interpretation of emergence holds that emergence is simply a sign of our ignorance. One final issue about the autonomy of emergent phenomena concerns whether emergence necessarily involves novel causal powers, especially powers that produce ??downward causation,?? in which emergent phenomena have novel effects on their own emergence base. One of the questions in this context is what kind of downward causation is involved, for the coherence of downward causation is debatable. > > Emergence ... is simultaneously palpable and confusing ... New advances in contemporary philosophy and science ... now are converging to enable new progress on these questions ... > This book?s chapters illuminate these que stions from many perspectives to help readers > with framing their own answers. > > If this isn't an attempt to grapple with an apparently mysterious phenomenon what do you think it is? Or do you suppose they are simply compiling a collection of philosophical papers for the sake of history? If that were the case, I would think they would make the philosophical landscape of emergence sound a lot more settled. Or perhaps they simply believe that they can make some money selling books -- and writing the introduction as if the topic of energence were so unsettled was just a way to intice people to buy it. > > -- Russ > > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > "seems" would seem to be the operative word. He is the editor of the book and he has to represent the range of opinion and SOME people think its mysterious. > > but i have to go buy fish. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/6/2009 11:57:48 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > If you make properties rather than entities emergent, what do you say about entities? What are they? Where do they come from? Put another way, what is a property a property of? > > I think you will find that Bedau and Humphreys find emergence mysterious. This is the second sentence from the Introduction. "The topic of emergence is fascinating and controversial in part because emergence seems to be widespread and yet the very idea of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent." The rest of the Introduction expands on the mystery of emergence. > > -- Russ > > On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Victoria Hughes > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity? > > > Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, a rchives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 7 12:10:26 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:10:26 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <4AA51132.3080905@gmail.com> References: <380-22009917465384@earthlink.net> <4AA51132.3080905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA53072.3090805@agent-based-modeling.com> Yes, Robert's right. What seems to be missing from Russ' (arrogantly named) "solution" is that there _are_ no interfaces that "get implemented" and there _are_ no "entities" that emerge. Subjectively, sure, we observe or measure patterns of interaction (often stable over cosmological time scales) and we measure various coherent blobs behaving in such a way that preserves identity for the blobs. But, ontologically, such things are transient approximations... idealizations... abstractions arrived at by the observer. Even in his paper, Russ claims that emergence is fundamentally abstraction (though "levels" is an irresponsible misnomer). And abstraction is an attribute arrived at via measurement, not a property that exists objectively. In fact, we don't even need the observer/observed dichotomy for this to be true. Any operation will be dependent on some and independent of other aspects of its operand. I.e. any process will ignore some stuff and be totally dependent on other stuff. So, for example, an avalanche depends on type of snow but not on, say, whether my cat scratches me. (There's not much snow where me and my cat live. ;-) The range of an operator, as applied, is a measurement. Emergence depends on the characteristics of the domain and range of some (set of) operator(s). In some cases, the operator is defined by a conscious observer and in some cases, it isn't. Hence, Robert is right that (some) emergence is (solely) in the eye of the observer. But in some cases, emergence is "out there", particularly when the operator isn't defined by a conscious observer, meaning Nick and Russ are right that (some) emergence exists objectively. It's important to note, however, that this CAN be orthogonal to implementation. It is primarily a function of the domains and ranges of the various operators being applied. In software, these are called "aspects". And although aspect-oriented methods tend to take Russ' approach and try to build a simple map between aspect and mechanism, that's not necessary for any software. Aspects are defined by the _usage_ patterns of the users, not the mechanisms that implement the aspects. Yes, the two can be engineered to correspond; but they need not be. A piece of software can exhibit aspects that are not (easily) traceable to the organization of the mechanisms that implement them. In fact, a piece of software can exhibit aspects that forever cease to obtain when the users stop using the software in that way... and in some cases, it only takes a tiny, invisible tweak in the way people use it... hence the script-kiddie exploits and the blossoming domain of software security. That leads to a question: is an aspect _implemented_ if the software is never used in a way that exhibits that aspect? Yes, it is implemented. Does it emerge? No, because an aspect only shows up if the mechanism is _used_ in a particular way. No usage pattern, no aspect, no emergence. Hence, emergence is distinct from implementation, at least in some identifiable cases. (This existence proof, disproves Russ' claim, absent lots of semantic gymnastics surrounding the vague and useless term "emergence".) If the operator isn't applied, there is no emergent attribute. Hence, emergence is not the dual of implementation. Emergence is the result of applying particular operators to the mechanism. I.e. emergence is in the eye of the beholder, even where the beholder is another mechanism. (This extension allows one to hypothesize that there are many other cases where implementation is distinct from emergence.) Thus spake Robert Cordingley circa 09/07/2009 06:57 AM: > IMHO, I thought 'to see', 'observations', 'arrangements' and 'order' > were also largely 'in the eye of the beholder'! If emergence is ever to > become a (part of) science, repeatable measurements (from verifiable > observations) leading to one or more calculated parameters is the only > way to bring 'emergence' in from the cold/limbo/twilight zone, where it > appears to be right now. Statistical and/or structural pattern > recognition seem to > be good places to start. (See also descriptive statistics) > I don't know if > this has yet been attempted/done but hope to hear otherwise. Perhaps > it's just too hard. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From tedsaid at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:01:31 2009 From: tedsaid at gmail.com (Ted Carmichael) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:01:31 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence, networks, threshold phenomena, and entity formation In-Reply-To: References: <15fe0a4a0909061437j6b992a3ewca4049265b31f623@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <85eb016d0909071001t7d6fadcap72c534fefb8dbbf1@mail.gmail.com> The two ideas do seem to be at odds. I think of the "persistence" of emergent features as being caused by basins of attraction. The strange attractors of a system subtly encourage all the agents of that system towards stability, through (perhaps) the efficient use of energy. But that would seem to be in line with increased entropy over time, and it's clear that there are local and/or temporary *decreases *in entropy at the heart of complex systems. Perhaps these are explained by perturbations in the system, either exogenous ones (like the amount of energy from the sun changing on daily, yearly, and decadal scales) or endogenous ones ... feedback from the system that is changing that system at a different scale than what produces the emergent property. In Hugh's peloton example, the bicyclists form these groups, but they also get tired over time. Eventually, they all stop riding, and the emergent property dissipates. Or an ant colony self-organizes to find a food source ... when the food source runs out, this is a perturbation on the system, and they have to reorganize around a different food source. So maybe an emergent feature could be thought of as "temporary persistence." And free energy from the sun ensures a continual supply of perturbations on the earth. Probably two components would be enough to produce an emergent effect, but it wouldn't be a very interesting one. -Ted On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Mirsad Hadzikadic wrote: > Now, I am somewhat confused. To me, persistence refers to a set of > features that continue to be perceived or exhibited, despite the > ?rejuvenation? of the individual elements of the body that creates it. > Emergence, somehow, indicates an uncertain, possibly unexpected, outcome. > Also, persistence somehow assumes a long lasting pattern, while ( to me) > emergence may be short lived or even a one-time event. > > How many components would there have to be for a pattern/persistence to be > noted? Does it depend on the eye of the beholder? > > Mirsad > > > On 9/6/09 5:37 PM, "Russ Abbott" wrote: > > In a recent discussion about emergence I wrote the following (somewhat > edited). > > Emergence is what happens when components of the emergent entity act in > such a way as to bring about the existence and persistence of that entity. > For example, when "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (* > implement*) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a number > of elements that result in the formation and persistence of some aggregate > entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have to be top-down. In > flocking, for example, there is local (or networked) coordination. The > flying rules for on each boid depend on that boid seeing neighboring boids. > One can even say that there is some overall coordination: all the boids > follow the same rules. > > It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent entities, > the components may come and go while the entity persists. What emerges is a > pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's one of the reasons > people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is not particularly useful > in these cases.) > > But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of > activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the > pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to produce > the pattern. > > One of the more interesting issues in complex systems is the formation of > entities --. that "boid attraction" creates flocks is a simple example. > > With that in mind, it might be interesting to do some experiments. For > example, How dense does a collection of boids have to be for a flock to > form? Or more to the point, if the boids are confined to a limited, e.g., > toroidal, space, how does their initial density determine the rate at which > the flock forms? What about the other parameters such as the distance each > individual boid can see (that is, which boids become neighbors) and the > velocity at which the boids are moving compared to the "attraction" they > have on each other? This is like gravity and asking whether two passing > bodies will form an orbiting system or simply affect each other's velocities > as they pass and separate. > > What if the environment included obstacles that the boids had to avoid. > Some of those obstacles could presumably break up a flock. So how do flock > formation and flock disintegration interact? There might be other > disintegration forces such as boids moving a bit more randomly. > > How do these results relate to similar results in networks such as network > formation and connectivity, etc.? > > Do any "self-organized criticality" effects appear? > > Does anyone know whether experiments of this sort have been done, and if > so, what the results were? > > Having written this down, these feel like questions that should have been > asked a decade ago. But perhaps there might still be something there. Entity > formation is an open and important issue. Perhaps experiments of this sort > might shed some light on it > > -- Russ > > > > -- > Mirsad Hadzikadic, Ph.D. > Director, North Carolina Complex Systems Institute > Department of Software and Information Systems > College of Computing and Informatics > 343A Woodward Hall > The University of North Carolina at Charlotte > Charlotte, NC 28223 > USA > Work: 704-687-8643 > Cell: 704-340-0062 > Email: mirsad at uncc.edu > Web: cciweb.uncc.edu/~mirsad/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 13:08:39 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 11:08:39 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-2200991717839462@earthlink.net> All, You can all safely ignore this note, but I need to write it in order to be right with my own conscience. If you do read it, tho, please read through to the bottom before you respond to avoid useless disputation. Eric Charles has been on to me "on the private line" to say that I have to confess to some craziness, here. Do you remember all the conversations this summer about E Holt and the New Realism? As a new realist I am obligated to believe that, while there may be "out theres" that are not "in here", there are no "in heres" that are not "out there", for a properly situated observer. Russ and I went at this hammer and tongue this summer and agreed to disagree. I dont think there is any value in picking up that argument now. Having lived with this craziness for most of my life, I am pretty sure that you all believe that there are "inheres" that are not in principle "outthere" and that you wont be convinced otherwise The best I can hope for is, occasionally, to find a person who is willing to toy with my ontology in a playful spirit (eg, Steve Smith) and see where it might take them. But no need for that now. Note that Russ and I AGREE that emergence is out there. This places us together on the side opposite to those who believe that emergence is a perception that is dissolved by understanding. When we read the EMERGENCE book together, we will find that there are many smart people on both sides of that argument, but that complexity scientists, on the whole, tend to share the view that emergence is not a stage inunderstanding but a state of the world. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/7/2009 10:12:41 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > > Yes, Robert's right. What seems to be missing from Russ' (arrogantly > named) "solution" is that there _are_ no interfaces that "get > implemented" and there _are_ no "entities" that emerge. Subjectively, > sure, we observe or measure patterns of interaction (often stable over > cosmological time scales) and we measure various coherent blobs behaving > in such a way that preserves identity for the blobs. But, > ontologically, such things are transient approximations... > idealizations... abstractions arrived at by the observer. > > Even in his paper, Russ claims that emergence is fundamentally > abstraction (though "levels" is an irresponsible misnomer). And > abstraction is an attribute arrived at via measurement, not a property > that exists objectively. > > In fact, we don't even need the observer/observed dichotomy for this to > be true. Any operation will be dependent on some and independent of > other aspects of its operand. I.e. any process will ignore some stuff > and be totally dependent on other stuff. > > So, for example, an avalanche depends on type of snow but not on, say, > whether my cat scratches me. (There's not much snow where me and my cat > live. ;-) The range of an operator, as applied, is a measurement. > Emergence depends on the characteristics of the domain and range of some > (set of) operator(s). > > In some cases, the operator is defined by a conscious observer and in > some cases, it isn't. Hence, Robert is right that (some) emergence is > (solely) in the eye of the observer. But in some cases, emergence is > "out there", particularly when the operator isn't defined by a conscious > observer, meaning Nick and Russ are right that (some) emergence exists > objectively. > > It's important to note, however, that this CAN be orthogonal to > implementation. It is primarily a function of the domains and ranges of > the various operators being applied. In software, these are called > "aspects". And although aspect-oriented methods tend to take Russ' > approach and try to build a simple map between aspect and mechanism, > that's not necessary for any software. Aspects are defined by the > _usage_ patterns of the users, not the mechanisms that implement the > aspects. Yes, the two can be engineered to correspond; but they need > not be. A piece of software can exhibit aspects that are not (easily) > traceable to the organization of the mechanisms that implement them. In > fact, a piece of software can exhibit aspects that forever cease to > obtain when the users stop using the software in that way... and in some > cases, it only takes a tiny, invisible tweak in the way people use it... > hence the script-kiddie exploits and the blossoming domain of software > security. > > That leads to a question: is an aspect _implemented_ if the software is > never used in a way that exhibits that aspect? Yes, it is implemented. > Does it emerge? No, because an aspect only shows up if the mechanism > is _used_ in a particular way. No usage pattern, no aspect, no > emergence. Hence, emergence is distinct from implementation, at least > in some identifiable cases. (This existence proof, disproves Russ' > claim, absent lots of semantic gymnastics surrounding the vague and > useless term "emergence".) > > If the operator isn't applied, there is no emergent attribute. Hence, > emergence is not the dual of implementation. Emergence is the result of > applying particular operators to the mechanism. I.e. emergence is in > the eye of the beholder, even where the beholder is another mechanism. > (This extension allows one to hypothesize that there are many other > cases where implementation is distinct from emergence.) > > Thus spake Robert Cordingley circa 09/07/2009 06:57 AM: > > IMHO, I thought 'to see', 'observations', 'arrangements' and 'order' > > were also largely 'in the eye of the beholder'! If emergence is ever to > > become a (part of) science, repeatable measurements (from verifiable > > observations) leading to one or more calculated parameters is the only > > way to bring 'emergence' in from the cold/limbo/twilight zone, where it > > appears to be right now. Statistical and/or structural pattern > > recognition seem to > > be good places to start. (See also descriptive statistics) > > I don't know if > > this has yet been attempted/done but hope to hear otherwise. Perhaps > > it's just too hard. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 7 13:27:20 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:27:20 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-2200991717839462@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200991717839462@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA54278.9050108@agent-based-modeling.com> You're placing yourself on one side of a false dichotomy. Doing so for rhetorical sake is fine. Doing so as a serious attempt to categorize people and the way they think is a mistake. There is no strict dichotomy between "in here" vs. "out there". However, some ways of looking at things (some operators) are defined in terms of "in here" and some are defined in terms of "out there". An operator that is defined using an assumption of a conscious observer, will, naturally require a conscious observer. One that isn't, doesn't. Emergent attributes come about as a result of operations. Some emergence is fundamentally dependent on a conscious observer. Some isn't. It's as simple as that. Alienating yourself or others from others or yourself based on this false dichotomy isn't good for you or anyone else. Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/07/2009 10:08 AM: > You can all safely ignore this note, but I need to write it in order to be > right with my own conscience. If you do read it, tho, please read through > to the bottom before you respond to avoid useless disputation. > > Eric Charles has been on to me "on the private line" to say that I have to > confess to some craziness, here. Do you remember all the conversations > this summer about E Holt and the New Realism? As a new realist I am > obligated to believe that, while there may be "out theres" that are not "in > here", there are no "in heres" that are not "out there", for a properly > situated observer. > > Russ and I went at this hammer and tongue this summer and agreed to > disagree. I dont think there is any value in picking up that argument > now. Having lived with this craziness for most of my life, I am pretty sure > that you all believe that there are "inheres" that are not in principle > "outthere" and that you wont be convinced otherwise The best I can hope > for is, occasionally, to find a person who is willing to toy with my > ontology in a playful spirit (eg, Steve Smith) and see where it might take > them. But no need for that now. > > Note that Russ and I AGREE that emergence is out there. This places us > together on the side opposite to those who believe that emergence is a > perception that is dissolved by understanding. When we read the EMERGENCE > book together, we will find that there are many smart people on both sides > of that argument, but that complexity scientists, on the whole, tend to > share the view that emergence is not a stage inunderstanding but a state of > the world. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From merle at arspublica.org Mon Sep 7 13:56:52 2009 From: merle at arspublica.org (Merle Lefkoff) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:56:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> References: <380-22009965205821732@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909051418q10ba8e56g8eda8baa05e281ff@mail.gmail.com> <0648BC4ABFE64CD6805FF9E10BCEA930@Toshiba> Message-ID: <4AA54964.5090705@arspublica.org> Oh, dear, and I thought I was working with programmers who cleverly write code to allow space for emergence to HAPPEN! And Nick, count me in--when I'm in town. Merle Lefkoff Jochen Fromm wrote: > So the insight you have brought to the world is > that the best way to understand emergence is through > the lens of implementation - emergent properties can > be described as a high level abstraction which is > implemented by low level elements. Right? > > It seems to me that you have just invented a new > word for emergence: instead of saying a flock emerges > from a number of birds you say the birds implement > a flock, and instead of saying foraging trails > emerge from an ant colony you say an ant colony > implements a foraging trail. > > For engineers it is in fact useful to understand > emergence as an implementation, because if they > want to produce an emergent property, they must > implement it somehow. Is this revolutionary? > To implement a behavior for a group of agents > means to implement a distributed alogithm. You > know how difficult this is. The "implementation" > insight is not very useful if we don't know how > to implement a particular emergent property, > or how to find the right distributed algorithm for > the problem at hand. > > The interesting question is more how to implement > emergence (how do we organize a system which > organizes itself, the ESOA and ESOS problem). > There are methods to do it, for example genetic > algorithms or "Synthetic Microanalysis" (i.e. > the scientifc method for the engineer which > means rapid prototyping and agile development) > http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=ESOS > > Another interesting question is why it is so > hard to find "emergence" in computer science. > Implementation means writing code, and code is > the foundation of everything in software development. > Therefore if you ask where emergence is used > in computer science, you have to say "nowhere" > - programmers hate unintended consequences > and try to avoid them - and "everywhere" - > it is just code which we use all the time. > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott > To: nickthompson at earthlink.net ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:18 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > I don't want to leave the impression that I think that emergence is a > difficult concept to understand and that I but hardly anyone else > understands it. Emergence is what happens when components of the > "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence > and persistence of that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create (implement) > a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a > number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of > some aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have > to be top-down. In flocking, for example, there is coordination. The > flying rules depend on the boids seeing neighboring boids. One can > even say that there is some overall coordination: namely that all the > boids follow those same rules. Emergence is the term we have come to > use for that process/effect. > > In the introduction to Bedau and Humphreys they speak of emergence as > some mysterious, perhaps even incoherent phenomenon. It's not. It > happens all the time all around us. Our bodies are the emergent result > of the actinos of our cells. A country is the emergent result of the > actinos of its citizens. This group is the emergent result of the > actions of its participants. > > It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent > entities, the comonents may come and go while the entity persists. > What emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing. That's > one of the reasons people get confused. (And that's why subvenience is > not particularly useful in these cases.) > > But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of > activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that the > pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting to > produce the pattern. > > -- Russ > > ============================================================ > 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 > From tom at jtjohnson.com Mon Sep 7 14:00:10 2009 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (tom at jtjohnson.com) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 14:00:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [FRIAM] An article has been posted to Institute for Analytic Journalism Message-ID: <20090907180010.AE71745AA3@blogserver1.blogware.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From merle at arspublica.org Mon Sep 7 14:02:17 2009 From: merle at arspublica.org (Merle Lefkoff) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:02:17 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> But we may have to have a useful conversation about emergence in order to talk about soul, consciousness, or spirit. Merle Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the > arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. > (It's /properties/ that are emergent, not /entities/ ... some > properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I > believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. > > The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is > that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to > point of view. Good exercise for the neck. > > By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont > think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have > thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it. > > Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way > to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can > use to implement a cat skinning." > > Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions > is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as > consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but > let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of > the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of > ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I > learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. > Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are > everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk > about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation > about emergence. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Victoria Hughes > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' > as a unique identity? > > >> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent >> entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and >> persistence of that entity. >> >> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create >> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >> >> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among >> a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence >> of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 14:01:18 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:01:18 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009917181183@earthlink.net> Funny, glen, I dont feel it as an alienation. When somebody acknowledges a difference in point of view, when we share a common view on our different points of view, if you will, I feel embraced, not alienated. But I take your point. n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/7/2009 11:28:28 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > > You're placing yourself on one side of a false dichotomy. Doing so for > rhetorical sake is fine. Doing so as a serious attempt to categorize > people and the way they think is a mistake. > > There is no strict dichotomy between "in here" vs. "out there". > However, some ways of looking at things (some operators) are defined in > terms of "in here" and some are defined in terms of "out there". An > operator that is defined using an assumption of a conscious observer, > will, naturally require a conscious observer. One that isn't, doesn't. > > Emergent attributes come about as a result of operations. Some > emergence is fundamentally dependent on a conscious observer. Some > isn't. It's as simple as that. > > Alienating yourself or others from others or yourself based on this > false dichotomy isn't good for you or anyone else. > > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/07/2009 10:08 AM: > > You can all safely ignore this note, but I need to write it in order to be > > right with my own conscience. If you do read it, tho, please read through > > to the bottom before you respond to avoid useless disputation. > > > > Eric Charles has been on to me "on the private line" to say that I have to > > confess to some craziness, here. Do you remember all the conversations > > this summer about E Holt and the New Realism? As a new realist I am > > obligated to believe that, while there may be "out theres" that are not "in > > here", there are no "in heres" that are not "out there", for a properly > > situated observer. > > > > Russ and I went at this hammer and tongue this summer and agreed to > > disagree. I dont think there is any value in picking up that argument > > now. Having lived with this craziness for most of my life, I am pretty sure > > that you all believe that there are "inheres" that are not in principle > > "outthere" and that you wont be convinced otherwise The best I can hope > > for is, occasionally, to find a person who is willing to toy with my > > ontology in a playful spirit (eg, Steve Smith) and see where it might take > > them. But no need for that now. > > > > Note that Russ and I AGREE that emergence is out there. This places us > > together on the side opposite to those who believe that emergence is a > > perception that is dissolved by understanding. When we read the EMERGENCE > > book together, we will find that there are many smart people on both sides > > of that argument, but that complexity scientists, on the whole, tend to > > share the view that emergence is not a stage inunderstanding but a state of > > the world. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 7 15:00:51 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:00:51 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] word soup (was Re: emergence) In-Reply-To: <380-22009917181183@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009917181183@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA55863.5020106@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/07/2009 11:01 AM: > Funny, glen, I dont feel it as an alienation. When somebody acknowledges a > difference in point of view, when we share a common view on our different > points of view, if you will, I feel embraced, not alienated. OK, well, the vernacular for "alienate" may not be what I mean. I really mean something like "to make alien", in essence, to distinguish oneself deeply. If we were talking about something trivial like the type of hat you prefer to wear or the way you wear your hair, then the right word would be "distinguish". But since we're talking about a very deep paradigm or way in which one views the world, I pine for a stronger word like "alienate." Basically, placing yourself on one side of the false "in here" vs. "out there" dichotomy, and disallowing the fuzzy areas in between, is tantamount to claiming there is a very wide gap between you and the others. _We_ who think this way are very different from _they_ who think that way. The way _they_ think is alien, strange, foreign, other, not-us. In reality, of course, every last one of us sometimes thinks in terms of "in here" and other times thinks in terms of "out there". It's only within the weird (philosophical, overly abstracted, idealistic) context of making false distinctions do we convict ourselves to one side or the other.... like while trying to make indefensible generalizations about our selves and others. Abstraction, objectification, and alienation are the root of all evil. [grin] ... though evil is not always a Bad Thing(tm). By saying you feel "embraced", I suspect what you mean is you feel you've widened the scope... by explaining a distinction, one has to rise up outside of the myopic context into a more synoptic context. Paradoxically, by explaining the difference, you've found a larger category into which both paradigms fit. And although that _sounds_ nice, since the original distinction is a false one, the larger category (as well as the 2 smaller categories) is also false. The classification, though perhaps useful, is only good up to whatever rhetorical construct you're using at the time. For all other rhetoric, it's suspect, or at least needs to be re-established as appropriate. ... OK. I'll stop. I promise. Waiting for my simulation to finish has placed me in a weird state and I've run out of comments to make on Facebook. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 15:06:09 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:06:09 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] word soup (was Re: emergence) In-Reply-To: <4AA55863.5020106@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009917181183@earthlink.net> <4AA55863.5020106@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071206x17a8bf35t4839fd38ceef4a6a@mail.gmail.com> I was believing you until I got to that last bit. -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:00 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/07/2009 11:01 AM: > > > [...] and I've run out of comments to make on Facebook. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 15:14:31 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:14:31 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> This is to the programmers on this list. I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open to virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it is with examples. - In Java, the various collection classes each have this property. A List can be a list of anything. (Note that this isn?t about generics such as List. It?s about the fact that the List functionality does not limit the sorts of things one can put into a list. Typed lists are simply a way of ensuring that a program gets its types right. That's a separate consideration.) - Other examples include map and reduce in functional programming. They are open if not to anything at least to lists of any sort and to functions or any sort that operate on elements in those lists. - Another example is a genetic algorithm in that it does not limit the function that is used as a fitness function or the possible population elements. Again, these can be anything. So is there a generic word for software with this sort of "downwardly open" property? It may be something like "structural" in that the software defines an operational structure but not the elements that occupy the structure. Is there any commonly used word for this? -- Russ P.S. This demonstrates that one can have an idea before having a word for the idea. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 15:30:38 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:30:38 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071230r6c95c544y62f98c11fbf4e882@mail.gmail.com> A private message suggested *template *or *pattern*. The problem with *template *or *pattern *is that they are too generic. Neither implies any kind of defined processing. Each is just a pattern with holes and without suggesting that the pattern *does anything* to whatever fits into the holes. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > This is to the programmers on this list. > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open to > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it is > with examples. > > - In Java, the various collection classes each have this property. A > List can be a list of anything. (Note that this isn?t about generics such as > List. It?s about the fact that the List functionality does not limit > the sorts of things one can put into a list. Typed lists are simply a way of > ensuring that a program gets its types right. That's a separate > consideration.) > > > - Other examples include map and reduce in functional programming. They > are open if not to anything at least to lists of any sort and to functions > or any sort that operate on elements in those lists. > > > - Another example is a genetic algorithm in that it does not limit the > function that is used as a fitness function or the possible population > elements. Again, these can be anything. > > So is there a generic word for software with this sort of "downwardly open" > property? > > It may be something like "structural" in that the software defines an > operational structure but not the elements that occupy the structure. Is > there any commonly used word for this? > > -- Russ > > P.S. This demonstrates that one can have an idea before having a word for > the idea. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 7 15:42:36 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:42:36 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: > This is to the programmers on this list. > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open to > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it is > with examples. How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 15:44:57 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:44:57 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071230r6c95c544y62f98c11fbf4e882@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071230r6c95c544y62f98c11fbf4e882@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071244u1f75dc52y38a9369852946308@mail.gmail.com> *Pattern *suggests *design pattern*. Perhaps closer but still not quite right since *design pattern *doesn't imply executable code whereas the examples I gave earlier do. Some design patterns do fit my categorization. The Visitor pattern is a good example because it can be implemented as code. One can write a visitor function that takes a tree and a function and applies the function to each node of the tree -- like map except on trees. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > A private message suggested *template *or *pattern*. The problem with *template > *or *pattern *is that they are too generic. Neither implies any kind of > defined processing. Each is just a pattern with holes and without suggesting > that the pattern *does anything* to whatever fits into the holes. > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> This is to the programmers on this list. >> >> I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open to >> virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it is >> with examples. >> >> - In Java, the various collection classes each have this property. A >> List can be a list of anything. (Note that this isn?t about generics such as >> List. It?s about the fact that the List functionality does not limit >> the sorts of things one can put into a list. Typed lists are simply a way of >> ensuring that a program gets its types right. That's a separate >> consideration.) >> >> >> - Other examples include map and reduce in functional programming. >> They are open if not to anything at least to lists of any sort and to >> functions or any sort that operate on elements in those lists. >> >> >> - Another example is a genetic algorithm in that it does not limit the >> function that is used as a fitness function or the possible population >> elements. Again, these can be anything. >> >> So is there a generic word for software with this sort of "downwardly >> open" property? >> >> It may be something like "structural" in that the software defines an >> operational structure but not the elements that occupy the structure. Is >> there any commonly used word for this? >> >> -- Russ >> >> P.S. This demonstrates that one can have an idea before having a word for >> the idea. >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 15:46:53 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:46:53 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> Glenn, I'm missing the connection between *undecidable *and what I'm asking for.I don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name for them. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: > > This is to the programmers on this list. > > > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open > to > > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it > is > > with examples. > > How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 7 15:58:26 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:58:26 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA565E2.7070603@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:46 PM: > I'm missing the connection between *undecidable *and what I'm asking for.I > don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name for them. The point is that the validity of a statement (e.g. a program, down to the formal parameters in a method call) can be determined either by syntax or by execution. In the extreme, if the language is fully typed, we can determine the validity of every sentence at compile time. If it's fully dynamic, we have to actually execute each sentence in order to determine if it's a valid statement. Sentences in fully dynamic languages have to be executed in order to determine whether they're valid (i.e. all exceptions happen at runtime). It's not clear to me whether this is precisely the same as a sentence being decidable or undecidable; but the gist is very close. In the most extreme, an undecidable sentence is proven undecidable if its effective computation will never halt, right? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 15:58:34 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:58:34 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> But not *too* generic. Just generic enough. You seem to be difficult to please. What you appear to be asking for is exactly that the STL brought to C++. The Standard Template Library: a completely generic yet well-specified set of containers for any kind of data object, providing the ability to specialize iterators thus allowing the developer to do whatever he wants to the contained data objects. --Doug On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Glenn, > > I'm missing the connection between *undecidable *and what I'm asking for.I > don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name for them. > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, glen e. p. ropella < > gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > >> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: >> > This is to the programmers on this list. >> > >> > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open >> to >> > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it >> is >> > with examples. >> >> How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) >> >> -- >> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 16:04:43 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:04:43 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <4AA565E2.7070603@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <4AA565E2.7070603@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071304n607ac2f3vba331795e4891c8b@mail.gmail.com> Still, *undecidable *is an adjective. I want a noun. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:58 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:46 PM: > > I'm missing the connection between *undecidable *and what I'm asking > for.I > > don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name for them. > > The point is that the validity of a statement (e.g. a program, down to > the formal parameters in a method call) can be determined either by > syntax or by execution. In the extreme, if the language is fully typed, > we can determine the validity of every sentence at compile time. If > it's fully dynamic, we have to actually execute each sentence in order > to determine if it's a valid statement. > > Sentences in fully dynamic languages have to be executed in order to > determine whether they're valid (i.e. all exceptions happen at runtime). > > It's not clear to me whether this is precisely the same as a sentence > being decidable or undecidable; but the gist is very close. In the most > extreme, an undecidable sentence is proven undecidable if its effective > computation will never halt, right? > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 16:10:49 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:10:49 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> OK. And Java and C# have the Collection Classes. STL and Collecition Classes name a group. Is there a generic name for a prototypical member of one of these groupings? The name should also be applicable to generic code that implements the Genetic Algorithm. Perhaps there just isn't such a word. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > But not *too* generic. Just generic enough. You seem to be difficult to > please. > > What you appear to be asking for is exactly that the STL brought to C++. > The Standard Template Library: a completely generic yet well-specified set > of containers for any kind of data object, providing the ability to > specialize iterators thus allowing the developer to do whatever he wants to > the contained data objects. > > --Doug > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> Glenn, >> >> I'm missing the connection between *undecidable *and what I'm asking >> for.I don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name for them. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, glen e. p. ropella < >> gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: >> >>> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: >>> > This is to the programmers on this list. >>> > >>> > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open >>> to >>> > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain >>> it is >>> > with examples. >>> >>> How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? >>> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) >>> >>> -- >>> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >>> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 16:32:49 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:32:49 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> I'm leaning toward a coined term like "processing structure." A processing structure is a active in that it does something. It's also open in that it's a structure into which many different things may fit. Both a list and a genetic algorithm is a processing structure. What do you think? Having written that, what about *active structure*? -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > OK. And Java and C# have the Collection Classes. STL and Collecition > Classes name a group. Is there a generic name for a prototypical member of > one of these groupings? The name should also be applicable to generic code > that implements the Genetic Algorithm. > > Perhaps there just isn't such a word. > > -- Russ > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> But not *too* generic. Just generic enough. You seem to be difficult to >> please. >> >> What you appear to be asking for is exactly that the STL brought to C++. >> The Standard Template Library: a completely generic yet well-specified set >> of containers for any kind of data object, providing the ability to >> specialize iterators thus allowing the developer to do whatever he wants to >> the contained data objects. >> >> --Doug >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >>> Glenn, >>> >>> I'm missing the connection between *undecidable *and what I'm asking >>> for.I don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name for them. >>> >>> -- Russ >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, glen e. p. ropella < >>> gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: >>>> > This is to the programmers on this list. >>>> > >>>> > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is >>>> open to >>>> > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain >>>> it is >>>> > with examples. >>>> >>>> How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? >>>> >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) >>>> >>>> -- >>>> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com >>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> 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 >>>> >>> >>> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From birch at chimptek.com Mon Sep 7 16:38:04 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 14:38:04 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> Data Structure -Birch -- "Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. " - Buckminster Fuller **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 7, 2009, at 2:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > I'm leaning toward a coined term like "processing structure." A > processing structure is a active in that it does something. It's > also open in that it's a structure into which many different things > may fit. > > Both a list and a genetic algorithm is a processing structure. > > What do you think? > > Having written that, what about active structure? > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Russ Abbott > wrote: > OK. And Java and C# have the Collection Classes. STL and Collecition > Classes name a group. Is there a generic name for a prototypical > member of one of these groupings? The name should also be applicable > to generic code that implements the Genetic Algorithm. > > Perhaps there just isn't such a word. > > -- Russ > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Douglas Roberts farm.net> wrote: > But not too generic. Just generic enough. You seem to be difficult > to please. > > What you appear to be asking for is exactly that the STL brought to C > ++. The Standard Template Library: a completely generic yet well- > specified set of containers for any kind of data object, providing > the ability to specialize iterators thus allowing the developer to > do whatever he wants to the contained data objects. > > --Doug > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Russ Abbott > wrote: > Glenn, > > I'm missing the connection between undecidable and what I'm asking > for.I don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name > for them. > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, glen e. p. ropella > wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: > > This is to the programmers on this list. > > > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is > open to > > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to > explain it is > > with examples. > > How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From birch at chimptek.com Mon Sep 7 16:48:45 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 14:48:45 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <03B2A9D9-0080-4C30-A82A-DB907CEFBEBA@chimptek.com> Being slightly less terse: A Data Structure is the term for any collection, container, or arrangement of primitives or objects. In a language that makes functions first class objects, the structure can contain anything (variables, objects, or functions.) The details are sorted out during implementation, but the abstraction of a Data Structure remains. -Birch -- "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons." ~R. Buckminster Fuller **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 7, 2009, at 2:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > I'm leaning toward a coined term like "processing structure." A > processing structure is a active in that it does something. It's > also open in that it's a structure into which many different things > may fit. > > Both a list and a genetic algorithm is a processing structure. > > What do you think? > > Having written that, what about active structure? > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Russ Abbott > wrote: > OK. And Java and C# have the Collection Classes. STL and Collecition > Classes name a group. Is there a generic name for a prototypical > member of one of these groupings? The name should also be applicable > to generic code that implements the Genetic Algorithm. > > Perhaps there just isn't such a word. > > -- Russ > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Douglas Roberts farm.net> wrote: > But not too generic. Just generic enough. You seem to be difficult > to please. > > What you appear to be asking for is exactly that the STL brought to C > ++. The Standard Template Library: a completely generic yet well- > specified set of containers for any kind of data object, providing > the ability to specialize iterators thus allowing the developer to > do whatever he wants to the contained data objects. > > --Doug > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Russ Abbott > wrote: > Glenn, > > I'm missing the connection between undecidable and what I'm asking > for.I don't want a property of these things; I want a generic name > for them. > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, glen e. p. ropella > wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/07/2009 12:14 PM: > > This is to the programmers on this list. > > > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is > open to > > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to > explain it is > > with examples. > > How about "undecidable"? Or perhaps "semidecidable"? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Mon Sep 7 17:32:44 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:32:44 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> Message-ID: <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> Birchard Hayes wrote: > Data Structure Birch... you are *so* not ObjectOrientedly Correct... you, you, you... PROCEDURAL PROGRAMMER! Bring your K&R Bible by the house and we will burn it ceremoniously. It is about time for my first cookstove fire of the season and tip a few glasses of Bulliett Bourbon while the cornbread browns and the beans and green chile simmer, fueled by the rightous fires of a burning C Programming manual. I'm still not tracking Russ's "twenty questions" game here well enough to be sure, but what I hear is simply a "Container Class"... or a particular conventional use of such for the purposes of doing some related/similar processing on all of the members. - Steve From sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com Mon Sep 7 17:39:01 2009 From: sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com (Kim Sorvig) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:39:01 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence Message-ID: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> Nick and all -- I would have to say that many mysterious phenomena are not emergent. It takes one missing piece of information in an otherwise linear deductive process to create "a mystery." The cat jumps into the window and knocks over a kachina that strands there, while I am away. At least for a while, it is a mystery how that happened. It is even more likely to be mysterious if the cat's behavior is atypical, or if I don't see a path for it to get from the floor to the window. Secondly, there are mysteries that I doubt we will ever be able to reduce, with certainty, either to a linear explanation or to one involving emergence. Esamples "What preceded the Big Bang?" or a religious version thereof; "What is outside the Universe and how can it have a boundary?"; or "Where did quarks get the ruleset under which it can be shown that they operate?" There are a small number of baseline existential questions in which mystery is both inherent and irreducible. I know that assertion will get some of the true Rationalists going, and I am not looking for a big fight. Such questions are very few in number, but I believe there are a half-dozen or so that we are obliged to 'fudge' (that is, give operational definitions to them) in order to proceed with rational analysis of the remaining 99.99% of inquiry. Thus, from either a simple or sublime perspective, there can be mystery without emergence. Last but perhaps not least -- and a reason for not making mystery an essential part of a definition of emergence -- mystery is an experiential quality more than an "objective" phenomenon. We can retain the sense of wonder and of mystery even after we have analytically understood how some phenomenon happens. Mystery is a willingness to remain astonished, and as such is not discrete enough to define other terms. My two-cents worth -- which are bound to mystify some folks! Kim Sorvig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gary at NaturesVisualArts.com Mon Sep 7 18:02:46 2009 From: gary at NaturesVisualArts.com (Gary Schiltz) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:02:46 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I get unduly hung up on unparsable grammar, where probably my brain just needs to fill in one missing word, so help me here: did you mean "virtually *any* object". Or, did you mean that the software is able to object ("Your honor, I object!"), and do so virtually? Assuming the first, I would think polymorphic might fit the bill. Time flies like an arrow, Gary On Sep 7, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > This is to the programmers on this list. > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is > open to virtually object in its host language. The best way for me > to explain it is with examples. > In Java, the various collection classes each have this property. A > List can be a list of anything. (Note that this isn?t about generics > such as List. It?s about the fact that the List functionality > does not limit the sorts of things one can put into a list. Typed > lists are simply a way of ensuring that a program gets its types > right. That's a separate consideration.) > Other examples include map and reduce in functional programming. > They are open if not to anything at least to lists of any sort and > to functions or any sort that operate on elements in those lists. > Another example is a genetic algorithm in that it does not limit the > function that is used as a fitness function or the possible > population elements. Again, these can be anything. > So is there a generic word for software with this sort of > "downwardly open" property? > > It may be something like "structural" in that the software defines > an operational structure but not the elements that occupy the > structure. Is there any commonly used word for this? > > -- Russ > > P.S. This demonstrates that one can have an idea before having a > word for the idea. > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From birch at chimptek.com Mon Sep 7 18:08:26 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 16:08:26 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> Message-ID: <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> Steve, I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ decided against so all that was left was the more abstract descriptor. Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying types, loosely defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is neither procedural, declarative, nor functional. Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a rock" like a moth to the flame. I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning books for any reason! -Birch -- "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons." ~R. Buckminster Fuller **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 7, 2009, at 3:32 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Birchard Hayes wrote: >> Data Structure > Birch... > you are *so* not ObjectOrientedly Correct... you, you, > you... PROCEDURAL PROGRAMMER! Bring your K&R Bible by the house > and we will burn it ceremoniously. It is about time for my first > cookstove fire of the season and tip a few glasses of Bulliett > Bourbon while the cornbread browns and the beans and green chile > simmer, fueled by the rightous fires of a burning C Programming > manual. > > I'm still not tracking Russ's "twenty questions" game here well > enough to be sure, but what I hear is simply a "Container Class"... > or a particular conventional use of such for the purposes of doing > some related/similar processing on all of the members. > > - Steve > > > > ============================================================ > 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 From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 18:37:53 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:37:53 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071537o11d11c31m1240306bd8dc4d66@mail.gmail.com> *Data structure* would be a possibility. My problem with it is that it already is in widespread use to refer to static storage organizations. As such it has no active component. An array is a data structure. But an array is not one of the sorts of things I want to include in the class of things I'm looking for a label for. *Container *generically and *bag *are fine examples but they are too limited. I want a term that would also apply to map and reduce in functional programming and to code that implements a genetic algorithm once you pass that code a population, genetic operators that work on elements of the population, and a fitness function. Note that the population could be a population of any objects as far as the GA code is concerned. All that matters is that the genetic operators operate on them to produce new population elements. Similarly, the fitness function can take any population element and return a numeric value. The GA code doesn't care about any of that. But GA code is not a static structure like an array either. The various collection classes are included in my overall category when one thinks of them as classes that implement data structures. A list simply as a sequence of elements is static, but a List class is active in that it takes any objects (again forget about type parameters), stores them in order, and provides access to them with respect to that order. So it too is an active structure, not just a (static) data structure. I'm talking myself into *active structure*.. But I wish there were a standard term. Getting a newly coined term widely accepted is never easy. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > Steve, > > I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ > decided against so all that was left was the more abstract descriptor. > Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying types, loosely > defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is neither procedural, > declarative, nor functional. Of course due to my current work situation I > am drawn to "bring me a rock" like a moth to the flame. > > I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is always > good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning books for > any reason! > > -Birch > > -- > > "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons." > ~R. Buckminster Fuller > > **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** > ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** > > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 3:32 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > Birchard Hayes wrote: >> >>> Data Structure >>> >> Birch... >> you are *so* not ObjectOrientedly Correct... you, you, you... >> PROCEDURAL PROGRAMMER! Bring your K&R Bible by the house and we will burn >> it ceremoniously. It is about time for my first cookstove fire of the >> season and tip a few glasses of Bulliett Bourbon while the cornbread browns >> and the beans and green chile simmer, fueled by the rightous fires of a >> burning C Programming manual. >> >> I'm still not tracking Russ's "twenty questions" game here well enough to >> be sure, but what I hear is simply a "Container Class"... or a particular >> conventional use of such for the purposes of doing some related/similar >> processing on all of the members. >> >> - Steve >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 18:55:44 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:55:44 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence In-Reply-To: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> References: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> Nice explanation. This summer I was in Australia. While there we visited the Sydney aquarium and the land animal "zoo" next door. I found myself amazed at the enormous variety of kinds of life and the niches that they occupy. Even though I understand evolution and am firmly convinced that it's the right way to look at the world, I was still filled with wonder at what I saw. Perhaps *mystery *isn't the right word, but *wonder *and *amazement*come close. Even quarks as we know them embody an inherent mystery -- besides how do they come to function the way they do. Our current theory of quarks includes probabilities and randomness. It seems to me that there is a mystery there all by itself. Attaching words like *probability *and *random *to that sort of behavior is less an explanationthen an acknowledgment that there is no explanation -- which is essentially what a mystery is. And that is built right into the theory. It's not even a meta-question like how come quarks (or strings, or whatever) operate according to whatever theory/laws describe how they operate. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Kim Sorvig wrote: > Nick and all -- > I would have to say that *many* mysterious phenomena are not emergent. > > It takes one missing piece of information in an otherwise linear deductive > process to create "a mystery." The cat jumps into the window and knocks > over a kachina that strands there, while I am away. At least for a while, > it is a mystery how that happened. It is even more likely to be mysterious > if the cat's behavior is atypical, or if I don't see a path for it to get > from the floor to the window. > > Secondly, there are mysteries that I doubt we will ever be able to reduce, > with certainty, *either* to a linear explanation *or* to one involving > emergence. Esamples "What preceded the Big Bang?" or a religious version > thereof; "What is outside the Universe and how can it have a boundary?"; > or "Where did quarks get the ruleset under which it can be shown that they > operate?" There are a small number of baseline existential questions in > which mystery is both inherent and irreducible. I know that assertion will > get some of the true Rationalists going, and I am not looking for a big > fight. Such questions are very few in number, but I believe there are a > half-dozen or so that we are obliged to 'fudge' (that is, give operational > definitions to them) in order to proceed with rational analysis of the > remaining 99.99% of inquiry. > > Thus, from either a simple or sublime perspective, there can be mystery > without emergence. > > Last but perhaps not least -- and a reason for not making mystery an > essential part of a definition of emergence -- mystery is an experiential > quality more than an "objective" phenomenon. We can retain the sense of > wonder and of mystery even after we have analytically understood how some > phenomenon happens. Mystery is a willingness to remain astonished, and as > such is not discrete enough to define other terms. > > My two-cents worth -- which are bound to mystify some folks! > Kim Sorvig > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Mon Sep 7 19:10:28 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 09:10:28 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090907231028.GA6443@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> In C++, such a thing is called a template (which may be an object or a function), and the style of programming is called generic programming. I guess what you're objecing to is that these technical uses of the terms do not seem to relate all that well to the usual English meanings of the terms. PS, your example 3 seems to indicate that the standard C library sort function is one of these, even thought its just a function. However, the standard C++ sort function is actually a template, and far more generally useful than the C version, which is also available as a particular overload. On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 12:14:31PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > This is to the programmers on this list. > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open to > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it is > with examples. > > - In Java, the various collection classes each have this property. A List > can be a list of anything. (Note that this isn?t about generics such as > List. It?s about the fact that the List functionality does not limit > the sorts of things one can put into a list. Typed lists are simply a way of > ensuring that a program gets its types right. That's a separate > consideration.) > > > - Other examples include map and reduce in functional programming. They > are open if not to anything at least to lists of any sort and to functions > or any sort that operate on elements in those lists. > > > - Another example is a genetic algorithm in that it does not limit the > function that is used as a fitness function or the possible population > elements. Again, these can be anything. > > So is there a generic word for software with this sort of "downwardly open" > property? > > It may be something like "structural" in that the software defines an > operational structure but not the elements that occupy the structure. Is > there any commonly used word for this? > > -- Russ > > P.S. This demonstrates that one can have an idea before having a word for > the idea. > ============================================================ > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From victoria at toryhughes.com Mon Sep 7 19:09:43 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:09:43 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> Message-ID: <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> I am up for this one, Merle- Tory On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:02 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: > But we may have to have a useful conversation about emergence in > order to talk about soul, consciousness, or spirit. > > Merle > > > > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on >> the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the >> entity. (It's /properties/ that are emergent, not /entities/ ... >> some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) >> Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a >> collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience >> the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good >> exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was >> a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a >> mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But >> it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider >> the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". >> Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement >> a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in >> emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such >> perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think >> consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a >> triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and >> their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards >> and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put >> together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until >> the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the >> simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or >> consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about >> emergence. >> Nick >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Victoria Hughes >> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> >> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> Consciousness / self-awareness? >> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' >> as a unique identity? >> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent >>> entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and >>> persistence of that entity. >>> >>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create >>> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>> >>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among >>> a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence >>> of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 19:14:32 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:14:32 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071614i5c2bde03r12d9c271666b734@mail.gmail.com> I think I'll have a Martini, while contemplating this opportunity. --Doug On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: > I am up for this one, Merle- > > Tory > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:02 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: > > But we may have to have a useful conversation about emergence in order to >> talk about soul, consciousness, or spirit. >> >> Merle >> >> >> >> >> Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >>> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >>> /properties/ that are emergent, not /entities/ ... some properties of a pile >>> of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling >>> Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy >>> is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point >>> of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a >>> ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i >>> think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few >>> months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is >>> more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several >>> programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big >>> source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach >>> emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont >>> think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a >>> triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their >>> attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a >>> weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no >>> diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent >>> properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to >>> talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation >>> about emergence. >>> Nick >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/< >>> http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Victoria Hughes >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >>> >>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>> >>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' >>> as a unique identity? >>> >>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent >>>> entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and >>>> persistence of that entity. >>>> >>>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create >>>> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>>> >>>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among >>>> a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence >>>> of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. >>>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >> >> > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 19:25:01 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 16:25:01 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <20090907231028.GA6443@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <20090907231028.GA6443@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071625y50f6d905rdb4ee3026cb36d1d@mail.gmail.com> I'm not a C++ programmer and haven't kept up with its Templating capability, which I understand is quite sophisticated. In Java I think that the closest equivalent is type parameterization. And that's really not what I'm after because a type-parameterized entity does not operate on its type parameters. The type parameters just instantiate it further. Also in Java one can pass comparison functions (actually objects) to a sort program. But that is independent of type parameterization. In Java, I think the first happens at compile time; the second happens at run time. I'm interested in things where the application of the function to the arbitrary objects happens at run time -- but not just because the language is dynamically typed(!).;. So if these are both aspects of Templating in C++, perhaps Templating is a bit too general for me. Sorry to be so picky. I have a pretty clear idea what I'm after and want something that picks it out as precisely as possible. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:10 PM, russell standish wrote: > In C++, such a thing is called a template (which may be an object or a > function), and the style of programming is called generic programming. > > I guess what you're objecing to is that these technical uses of the > terms do not seem to relate all that well to the usual English > meanings of the terms. > > PS, your example 3 seems to indicate that the standard C library sort > function is one of these, even thought its just a function. However, > the standard C++ sort function is actually a template, and far more > generally useful than the C version, which is also available as a > particular overload. > > On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 12:14:31PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > This is to the programmers on this list. > > > > I'm looking for a word that refers generically to software that is open > to > > virtually object in its host language. The best way for me to explain it > is > > with examples. > > > > - In Java, the various collection classes each have this property. A > List > > can be a list of anything. (Note that this isn?t about generics such > as > > List. It?s about the fact that the List functionality does not > limit > > the sorts of things one can put into a list. Typed lists are simply a > way of > > ensuring that a program gets its types right. That's a separate > > consideration.) > > > > > > - Other examples include map and reduce in functional programming. > They > > are open if not to anything at least to lists of any sort and to > functions > > or any sort that operate on elements in those lists. > > > > > > - Another example is a genetic algorithm in that it does not limit the > > function that is used as a fitness function or the possible population > > elements. Again, these can be anything. > > > > So is there a generic word for software with this sort of "downwardly > open" > > property? > > > > It may be something like "structural" in that the software defines an > > operational structure but not the elements that occupy the structure. Is > > there any commonly used word for this? > > > > -- Russ > > > > P.S. This demonstrates that one can have an idea before having a word for > > the idea. > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Mon Sep 7 19:27:22 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:27:22 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> Message-ID: <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> Birch - > I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ > decided against so all that was left was the more abstract > descriptor. Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying > types, loosely defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is > neither procedural, declarative, nor functional. Of course. I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the old-school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't really even know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when a Struct is what they really need. Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school beating up honor-roll students for their lunch money)... I tend to the Procedural view of things... I learned all the Applicative and Object Oriented and Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages offered up to me in the g(l)ory days. I have loved my Snobol and APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a programming language!*) and Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and Haskell and Simula, and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the half-step of abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a goddamn bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! > Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a > rock" like a moth to the flame. Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly fascinated with all things work-related that answering enelucidable riddles is like mother's milk? > > I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is > always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning > books for any reason! Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last time you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of books, but that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the woodstove while *I* do. The real sin would be to use good whiskey as an accellerant (for the combustion, not the attitude). > > -Birch > From victoria at toryhughes.com Mon Sep 7 19:32:09 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:32:09 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> Message-ID: <77307861-91A6-42D6-8495-B69DD78CF540@toryhughes.com> That can happen too. That's the point, there are no necessary boundaries. Although I am a bourbon woman, personally. On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:09 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: > I am up for this one, Merle- > > Tory > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:02 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: > >> But we may have to have a useful conversation about emergence in >> order to talk about soul, consciousness, or spirit. >> >> Merle >> >> >> >> >> Nicholas Thompson wrote: >>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on >>> the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the >>> entity. (It's /properties/ that are emergent, not /entities/ ... >>> some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) >>> Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a >>> collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience >>> the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. >>> Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was >>> a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a >>> mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But >>> it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider >>> the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". >>> Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to >>> implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of >>> confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach >>> emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, >>> I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The >>> strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment >>> of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang >>> together boards and still have a weak construction, which I >>> learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal >>> members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent >>> properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We >>> dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a >>> useful conversation about emergence. >>> Nick >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu >>> ) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> > >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Victoria Hughes >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >>> >>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>> >>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' >>> as a unique identity? >>> >>>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent >>>> entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and >>>> persistence of that entity. >>>> >>>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create >>>> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>>> >>>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among >>>> a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence >>>> of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >> > > > ============================================================ > 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 > From owen at backspaces.net Mon Sep 7 19:34:56 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:34:56 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <681c54590909071614i5c2bde03r12d9c271666b734@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> <681c54590909071614i5c2bde03r12d9c271666b734@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > I think I'll have a Martini, while contemplating this opportunity. > > --Doug Sounds good to me too! Er.. I'll drink to that? I have to say I'm a bit surprised at the difficulty with emergence. Wikipedia has an OK shot at it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate system of a feature not apparently derived from its components' interactions. -- Owen From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 19:38:14 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:38:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <77307861-91A6-42D6-8495-B69DD78CF540@toryhughes.com> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> <77307861-91A6-42D6-8495-B69DD78CF540@toryhughes.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071638t6e25ffd9k606833f3fada00ef@mail.gmail.com> Bourbon is also good. Especially when made up into a Manhattan. Small squeeze of fresh orange, a decent sweet red vermouth, marsichino... On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: > That can happen too. > That's the point, there are no necessary boundaries. > Although I am a bourbon woman, personally. > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:09 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: > > I am up for this one, Merle- >> >> Tory >> >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:02 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: >> >> But we may have to have a useful conversation about emergence in order to >>> talk about soul, consciousness, or spirit. >>> >>> Merle >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Nicholas Thompson wrote: >>> >>>> Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the >>>> arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's >>>> /properties/ that are emergent, not /entities/ ... some properties of a pile >>>> of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling >>>> Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy >>>> is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point >>>> of view. Good exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was a >>>> ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i >>>> think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few >>>> months since I read it. Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is >>>> more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several >>>> programs you can use to implement a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big >>>> source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach >>>> emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont >>>> think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a >>>> triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their >>>> attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a >>>> weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no >>>> diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent >>>> properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to >>>> talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation >>>> about emergence. >>>> Nick >>>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>>> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) >>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/< >>>> http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >>>> >>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> *From:* Victoria Hughes >>>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >>>> >>>> *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM >>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence >>>> >>>> Consciousness / self-awareness? >>>> Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? >>>> If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' >>>> as a unique identity? >>>> >>>> Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent >>>>> entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and >>>>> persistence of that entity. >>>>> >>>>> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create >>>>> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. >>>>> >>>>> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among >>>>> a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence >>>>> of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. >>>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> 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 >>> >>> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From victoria at toryhughes.com Mon Sep 7 19:46:23 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:46:23 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <681c54590909071638t6e25ffd9k606833f3fada00ef@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> <77307861-91A6-42D6-8495-B69DD78CF540@toryhughes.com> <681c54590909071638t6e25ffd9k606833f3fada00ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6F1B1085-186C-47A7-9E83-B2E10058B95E@toryhughes.com> I'd need to try that in a test with a good single-distillery small-run bourbon like Elijah Graig. But I can sacrifice myself. We are meant to be giddy when contemplating the soul. We aren't meant to be calvinists, I am sure of that. Major course correction was needed there. ( Great byline to prepare for such a chat- 'I'll have what she's having...') Notice that this is still subject: 'emergence'. So what are acceptable synonyms for 'emergence'? Anyone got any? Tory On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:38 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Bourbon is also good. Especially when made up into a Manhattan. > Small squeeze of fresh orange, a decent sweet red vermouth, > marsichino... > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Victoria Hughes > wrote: > That can happen too. > That's the point, there are no necessary boundaries. > Although I am a bourbon woman, personally. > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:09 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: > > I am up for this one, Merle- > > Tory > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:02 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: > > But we may have to have a useful conversation about emergence in > order to talk about soul, consciousness, or spirit. > > Merle > > > > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on > the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the > entity. (It's /properties/ that are emergent, not /entities/ ... > some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) > Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt. The beauty of reading a > collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience > the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good > exercise for the neck. By the way, Russ (was it?) was > a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a > mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But > it's been a few months since I read it. Implementation: Consider > the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". > Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement > a cat skinning." Consciousness: the big source of confusion in > emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such > perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think > consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a > triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and > their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and > still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together > a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the > grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the > simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or > consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence. > Nick > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Victoria Hughes > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > *Sent:* 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > Consciousness / self-awareness? > Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon? > If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' > as a unique identity? > > Emergence is what happens when components of the "emergent > entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence and > persistence of that entity. > > When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create > (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works. > > That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among > a number of elements that result in the formation and persistence > of some aggregate entity or phenomenon. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 19:48:50 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 16:48:50 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall that a while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal agent-based modeling system. I have been thinking about as a starting point. One of the things I like about Drools is that it is a forward chaining system that supports a workspace that can contain arbitrary Java objects along with rules that operate on those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new primitives to be added at any time while at the same time providing a reasonable framework for logical operations. I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison seems to be to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the population, genetic operators, and fitness function are all left open. The analogy is that the GA population plays a role similar to the Drools workspace and the GA genetic operators and fitness function plays a role similar to the Drools rules. I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of operational framework within which the lowest level objects and operations were left open while the framework implemented some higher level functionality in terms of those objects and operations. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Birch - > >> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ >> decided against so all that was left was the more abstract descriptor. >> Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying types, loosely >> defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is neither procedural, >> declarative, nor functional. >> > Of course. > > I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the old-school > C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't really even > know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when a Struct is what > they really need. > Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming > (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school beating up honor-roll > students for their lunch money)... I tend to the Procedural view of > things... I learned all the Applicative and Object Oriented and > Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages offered up to me in the g(l)ory > days. I have loved my Snobol and APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a > programming language!*) and Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and > Haskell and Simula, and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the > half-step of abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a > goddamn bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy > way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! > >> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a rock" >> like a moth to the flame. >> > Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly fascinated > with all things work-related that answering enelucidable riddles is like > mother's milk? > >> >> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is always >> good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning books for >> any reason! >> > Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last time you > were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of books, but that > doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the woodstove while *I* do. The > real sin would be to use good whiskey as an accellerant (for the combustion, > not the attitude). > >> >> -Birch >> >> > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 19:57:59 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:57:59 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009906171858604@earthlink.net> <4AA54AA9.5030706@arspublica.org> <6042F8F7-9B3C-41C2-9144-EF6CE6BFA06D@toryhughes.com> <681c54590909071614i5c2bde03r12d9c271666b734@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071657w3521e3aj31f7c844e2b68520@mail.gmail.com> Owen, You're surprised? Given this list's demonstrated history of having N definitions for any given buzz-term, where N == the subscribership of this list, X 2, X the day of the week. Further, given that EMERGENCE is the Holy Grail warm fuzzy of all buzz-terms to have ever been uttered here. Really. Consider: Murrey Gell-Man. SFI. On the Edge of Chaos. Flocking. The Stock Market. The Da Vinci Code. Ok, that last one was a stretch. But come on, really. Given the number pure academics who hang out here who have never really done anything (meaning real-world, actually running, in-use, producing results, was paid for by a client and is actually being used for its intended purpose-type application) that could be construed as actually being On The Edge of Complexity, I don't really think that it is all that surprising that such a big deal is being made about "What is the definition of EMERGENCE?" Imagine much smacking of lips at this point. The above, of course, as compared to having written a paper about some fuzzily-defined COMPLEXITY concept. Pause. I've determined to my own satisfaction that the CAPS LOCK key on this new keyboard is working. Please resume pontification. --Doug On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> I think I'll have a Martini, while contemplating this opportunity. >> >> --Doug >> > > Sounds good to me too! Er.. I'll drink to that? > > I have to say I'm a bit surprised at the difficulty with emergence. > Wikipedia has an OK shot at it: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence > > I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate system > of a feature not apparently derived from its components' interactions. > > -- 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com Mon Sep 7 20:14:38 2009 From: sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com (Kim Sorvig) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:14:38 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> References: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks Russ - I'd agree that probability and "randomness" are a couple of the questions I called baseline existential ones, as well as being "fudges", particularly the over-used and much-abused term "random." Despite having rather specific meanings to mathematicians and logicians, random is still an inherently myterious and in my view suspect term. In practice if not by intent, anything that 'Western' science can't describe succinctly and/or predict is called random, and is the rationalist's equivalent of the Magnum Mysterium. Personally, I think that is essnetial and wonderful, though I know it insults some rationalists to their core. As I see, it, rationalism is no-wise diminished by admitting that there are certain questions outside its scope, and that making an assumption yea or nay about a couple such unanswerables is sine-qua-non for logical investigation of the world at large. Emergence iself, it seems to me, is such a mystery. We see the emergent cohesion of a bunch of dots on a screen,and we know the underlying ruleset -- but we don't actually have an explanation for what constitutes 'cohesion' either visually or functionally. It's a mystery! Kim S ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: Kim Sorvig ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 4:55 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence Nice explanation. This summer I was in Australia. While there we visited the Sydney aquarium and the land animal "zoo" next door. I found myself amazed at the enormous variety of kinds of life and the niches that they occupy. Even though I understand evolution and am firmly convinced that it's the right way to look at the world, I was still filled with wonder at what I saw. Perhaps mystery isn't the right word, but wonder and amazement come close. Even quarks as we know them embody an inherent mystery -- besides how do they come to function the way they do. Our current theory of quarks includes probabilities and randomness. It seems to me that there is a mystery there all by itself. Attaching words like probability and random to that sort of behavior is less an explanationthen an acknowledgment that there is no explanation -- which is essentially what a mystery is. And that is built right into the theory. It's not even a meta-question like how come quarks (or strings, or whatever) operate according to whatever theory/laws describe how they operate. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Kim Sorvig wrote: Nick and all -- I would have to say that many mysterious phenomena are not emergent. It takes one missing piece of information in an otherwise linear deductive process to create "a mystery." The cat jumps into the window and knocks over a kachina that strands there, while I am away. At least for a while, it is a mystery how that happened. It is even more likely to be mysterious if the cat's behavior is atypical, or if I don't see a path for it to get from the floor to the window. Secondly, there are mysteries that I doubt we will ever be able to reduce, with certainty, either to a linear explanation or to one involving emergence. Esamples "What preceded the Big Bang?" or a religious version thereof; "What is outside the Universe and how can it have a boundary?"; or "Where did quarks get the ruleset under which it can be shown that they operate?" There are a small number of baseline existential questions in which mystery is both inherent and irreducible. I know that assertion will get some of the true Rationalists going, and I am not looking for a big fight. Such questions are very few in number, but I believe there are a half-dozen or so that we are obliged to 'fudge' (that is, give operational definitions to them) in order to proceed with rational analysis of the remaining 99.99% of inquiry. Thus, from either a simple or sublime perspective, there can be mystery without emergence. Last but perhaps not least -- and a reason for not making mystery an essential part of a definition of emergence -- mystery is an experiential quality more than an "objective" phenomenon. We can retain the sense of wonder and of mystery even after we have analytically understood how some phenomenon happens. Mystery is a willingness to remain astonished, and as such is not discrete enough to define other terms. My two-cents worth -- which are bound to mystify some folks! Kim Sorvig ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From birch at chimptek.com Mon Sep 7 20:27:46 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:27:46 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> Message-ID: <184A70E0-7FC0-4B16-8ED9-B76F08A95CAE@chimptek.com> Steve, C is a wonderful thing and still runs the world, don't give up hope! If it is any consolation, Prolog warped my fragile mind and ML hurt my feelings. Ah Brooklyn, life was simpler then .... -Birch -- "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." -- Stephen Hawking **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Birch - >> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but >> Russ decided against so all that was left was the more abstract >> descriptor. Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and >> underlying types, loosely defined but they are there - IMHO "Data >> Structure" is neither procedural, declarative, nor functional. > Of course. > > I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the old- > school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't > really even know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when > a Struct is what they really need. > Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer > Programming (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school > beating up honor-roll students for their lunch money)... I tend to > the Procedural view of things... I learned all the Applicative and > Object Oriented and Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages > offered up to me in the g(l)ory days. I have loved my Snobol and > APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a programming language!*) and > Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and Haskell and Simula, > and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the half-step of > abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a goddamn > bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy > way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! >> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me >> a rock" like a moth to the flame. > Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly > fascinated with all things work-related that answering enelucidable > riddles is like mother's milk? >> >> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is >> always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone >> burning books for any reason! > Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last > time you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of > books, but that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the > woodstove while *I* do. The real sin would be to use good whiskey > as an accellerant (for the combustion, not the attitude). >> >> -Birch >> > > > ============================================================ > 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 From birch at chimptek.com Mon Sep 7 20:33:16 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:33:16 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5622C.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909071246gfe5bbc3x6aa00edb8b570f26@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Okay Russ, There are several options to chose from, depending on just how adaptive you'd like the functionality to be. LISP (Scheme, et alia): Allows for partial instantiation or "currying." This mechanism allows your program to build functions out of little pieces of text and then call _eval()_ on them when completed. LISP uses a list for a generic structure but does not infer type until you use something. Thus you could have a collection of objects that were all completely different with functionality created on the fly. Javascript: Which, it turns out is a functional language; makes functions first class objects and allows appending objects or replacing their methods at run-time. I believe there is a native "Collection" structure but one could be written if there is not. Javascript also has an _eval()_ function, so partial instantiation is possible. Java (and, to an extent, C++): Allow for Collections of heterogeneous objects, although the language is strongly typed and will try to dissuade the programmer from being too abstract. The smoothest way to apply different behavior is through interfaces, keeping in mind that each class can implement the interface however it chooses. The drawback here is that the interfaces must be concrete at compile time and I don't know of an easy way to modify them at runtime (I'm sure that it can be done but requires more work than the other two options.) The STL has _functors_, generally for comparison but could be extended, which can be called on arbitrary classes iffi those classes provide the requisite methods the functor needs. One would iterate over a Collection and apply the functor to each object, or each pair. However, even with cool stuff like Policy Based Templates (LOKI Libraries, Alexandrescu et al.) I think that compile time type checking will make things less flexible than you desire.) I haven't looked for functors in Java, but I imagine they are there or could be created. Additionally, Java has lent itself to the "new" paradigm of _Aspect Oriented Programming_ which I have not played with very much, but I understand that functionality can be cross-cut across classes and assembled at runtime but I would think that it would still be pretty strongly typed. IMHO, LISP and its bretheren fit what you seek although Javascript potentially offers fertile ground and may be easier to integrate with Java. As for a single term to describe this, I still like Data Structure but that's probably being purist and I could get behind active structure. -Birch -- "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons." ~R. Buckminster Fuller **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall > that a while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal agent- > based modeling system. I have been thinking about as a starting > point. One of the things I like about Drools is that it is a forward > chaining system that supports a workspace that can contain arbitrary > Java objects along with rules that operate on those objects. I find > that very attractive because it allows new primitives to be added at > any time while at the same time providing a reasonable framework for > logical operations. > > I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. > > As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison seems > to be to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the population, > genetic operators, and fitness function are all left open. The > analogy is that the GA population plays a role similar to the Drools > workspace and the GA genetic operators and fitness function plays a > role similar to the Drools rules. > > I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of operational > framework within which the lowest level objects and operations were > left open while the framework implemented some higher level > functionality in terms of those objects and operations. > > -- Russ > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Birch - > > I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but > Russ decided against so all that was left was the more abstract > descriptor. Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and > underlying types, loosely defined but they are there - IMHO "Data > Structure" is neither procedural, declarative, nor functional. > Of course. > > I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the old- > school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't > really even know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when > a Struct is what they really need. > Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer > Programming (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school > beating up honor-roll students for their lunch money)... I tend to > the Procedural view of things... I learned all the Applicative and > Object Oriented and Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages > offered up to me in the g(l)ory days. I have loved my Snobol and > APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a programming language!*) and > Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and Haskell and Simula, > and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the half-step of > abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a goddamn > bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy > way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! > > Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a > rock" like a moth to the flame. > Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly > fascinated with all things work-related that answering enelucidable > riddles is like mother's milk? > > > I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is > always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone > burning books for any reason! > Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last > time you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of > books, but that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the > woodstove while *I* do. The real sin would be to use good whiskey > as an accellerant (for the combustion, not the attitude). > > -Birch > > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 20:34:42 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:34:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence Message-ID: <380-2200992803442905@earthlink.net> Kim, I stand corrected on the first and agree on the second. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Kim Sorvig To: friam at redfish.com Sent: 9/7/2009 3:39:29 PM Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence Nick and all -- I would have to say that many mysterious phenomena are not emergent. It takes one missing piece of information in an otherwise linear deductive process to create "a mystery." The cat jumps into the window and knocks over a kachina that strands there, while I am away. At least for a while, it is a mystery how that happened. It is even more likely to be mysterious if the cat's behavior is atypical, or if I don't see a path for it to get from the floor to the window. Secondly, there are mysteries that I doubt we will ever be able to reduce, with certainty, either to a linear explanation or to one involving emergence. Esamples "What preceded the Big Bang?" or a religious version thereof; "What is outside the Universe and how can it have a boundary?"; or "Where did quarks get the ruleset under which it can be shown that they operate?" There are a small number of baseline existential questions in which mystery is both inherent and irreducible. I know that assertion will get some of the true Rationalists going, and I am not looking for a big fight. Such questions are very few in number, but I believe there are a half-dozen or so that we are obliged to 'fudge' (that is, give operational definitions to them) in order to proceed with rational analysis of the remaining 99.99% of inquiry. Thus, from either a simple or sublime perspective, there can be mystery without emergence. Last but perhaps not least -- and a reason for not making mystery an essential part of a definition of emergence -- mystery is an experiential quality more than an "objective" phenomenon. We can retain the sense of wonder and of mystery even after we have analytically understood how some phenomenon happens. Mystery is a willingness to remain astonished, and as such is not discrete enough to define other terms. My two-cents worth -- which are bound to mystify some folks! Kim Sorvig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 20:39:18 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:39:18 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-220099280391851@earthlink.net> Owen, You wrote: I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate > system of a feature not apparently derived from its components' > interactions. A perfect example of a non-"out there" definition. "Apparently" implies that further understanding, information, knowledge will dispel the emergence. Many smart people hold that position,, but I am not one of them (;-}) Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Owen Densmore > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/7/2009 5:35:02 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > I think I'll have a Martini, while contemplating this opportunity. > > > > --Doug > > Sounds good to me too! Er.. I'll drink to that? > > I have to say I'm a bit surprised at the difficulty with emergence. > Wikipedia has an OK shot at it: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence > > I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate > system of a feature not apparently derived from its components' > interactions. > > -- 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 From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 20:41:38 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:41:38 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> Birch, Written like a true computer scientist. I lived in a LISP world for a happy period between, say '85 - '90. But then the real-world encroached, and C++ began to become the only realistic way to implement large ABMS of complex systems. LISP was nice, but the virtual machine and garbage collection made it a non-player in the modern HPC computing arena. --Doug On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > Okay Russ, > > There are several options to chose from, depending on just how adaptive > you'd like the functionality to be. > > LISP (Scheme, et alia): Allows for partial instantiation or "currying." > This mechanism allows your program to build functions out of little pieces > of text and then call _eval()_ on them when completed. LISP uses a list for > a generic structure but does not infer type until you use something. Thus > you could have a collection of objects that were all completely different > with functionality created on the fly. > > Javascript: Which, it turns out is a functional language; makes functions > first class objects and allows appending objects or replacing their methods > at run-time. I believe there is a native "Collection" structure but one > could be written if there is not. Javascript also has an _eval()_ function, > so partial instantiation is possible. > > Java (and, to an extent, C++): Allow for Collections of heterogeneous > objects, although the language is strongly typed and will try to dissuade > the programmer from being too abstract. The smoothest way to apply > different behavior is through interfaces, keeping in mind that each class > can implement the interface however it chooses. The drawback here is that > the interfaces must be concrete at compile time and I don't know of an easy > way to modify them at runtime (I'm sure that it can be done but requires > more work than the other two options.) The STL has _functors_, generally > for comparison but could be extended, which can be called on arbitrary > classes iffi those classes provide the requisite methods the functor needs. > One would iterate over a Collection and apply the functor to each object, > or each pair. However, even with cool stuff like Policy Based Templates > (LOKI Libraries, Alexandrescu et al.) I think that compile time type > checking will make things less flexible than you desire.) I haven't looked > for functors in Java, but I imagine they are there or could be created. > Additionally, Java has lent itself to the "new" paradigm of _Aspect > Oriented Programming_ which I have not played with very much, but I > understand that functionality can be cross-cut across classes and assembled > at runtime but I would think that it would still be pretty strongly typed. > > IMHO, LISP and its bretheren fit what you seek although Javascript > potentially offers fertile ground and may be easier to integrate with Java. > > As for a single term to describe this, I still like Data Structure but > that's probably being purist and I could get behind active structure. > > -Birch > > -- > > "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons." > ~R. Buckminster Fuller > > **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** > ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** > > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall that a > while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal agent-based modeling > system. I have been thinking about as a starting point. One of the things I > like about Drools is that it is a forward chaining system that supports a > workspace that can contain arbitrary Java objects along with rules that > operate on those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new > primitives to be added at any time while at the same time providing a > reasonable framework for logical operations. > > I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. > > As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison seems to be > to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the population, genetic > operators, and fitness function are all left open. The analogy is that the > GA population plays a role similar to the Drools workspace and the GA > genetic operators and fitness function plays a role similar to the Drools > rules. > > I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of operational > framework within which the lowest level objects and operations were left > open while the framework implemented some higher level functionality in > terms of those objects and operations. > > -- Russ > > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > >> Birch - >> >>> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ >>> decided against so all that was left was the more abstract descriptor. >>> Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying types, loosely >>> defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is neither procedural, >>> declarative, nor functional. >>> >> Of course. >> >> I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the >> old-school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't >> really even know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when a >> Struct is what they really need. >> Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming >> (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school beating up honor-roll >> students for their lunch money)... I tend to the Procedural view of >> things... I learned all the Applicative and Object Oriented and >> Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages offered up to me in the g(l)ory >> days. I have loved my Snobol and APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a >> programming language!*) and Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and >> Haskell and Simula, and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the >> half-step of abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a >> goddamn bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy >> way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! >> >>> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a >>> rock" like a moth to the flame. >>> >> Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly fascinated >> with all things work-related that answering enelucidable riddles is like >> mother's milk? >> >>> >>> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is always >>> good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning books for >>> any reason! >>> >> Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last time you >> were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of books, but that >> doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the woodstove while *I* do. The >> real sin would be to use good whiskey as an accellerant (for the combustion, >> not the attitude). >> >>> >>> -Birch >>> >>> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rec at elf.org Mon Sep 7 20:57:47 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:57:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-220099280391851@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099280391851@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909071757w5052c909p76b79759dc1b0d2e@mail.gmail.com> Sounds like we should move to 5pm at a bar. -- rec -- From doug at parrot-farm.net Mon Sep 7 21:00:52 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 19:00:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909071757w5052c909p76b79759dc1b0d2e@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-220099280391851@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909071757w5052c909p76b79759dc1b0d2e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909071800n6f411ceag61fc1599f53d2d72@mail.gmail.com> WORKSFORME. On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > Sounds like we should move to 5pm at a bar. > > -- rec -- > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From birch at chimptek.com Mon Sep 7 22:14:44 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 20:14:44 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> Doug, True, but now we have boatloads of RAM to fill - he he he. Garbage collection remains a real problem whenever it is included in a language implementation. I've been working in C#/.NET lately and I would venture to say that there is as much "bookkeeping" involved as there was with pointers and explicit destructors; only now, one must learn an entirely new set of rule and MS generated foibles. I wonder if what Russ really wants is an architecture of abstract classes that use a wide variety of interfaces and concrete classes to provide the palette of functions, i.e. an aggregate of abstractions, to provide enough variability in behavior at runtime. That could be done in C++ (STL) with Policy Based Templates and a few other patterns; lot's of heavy lifting though. -Birch -- "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." - Buckminster Fuller **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:41 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Birch, > > Written like a true computer scientist. I lived in a LISP world for > a happy period between, say '85 - '90. > > But then the real-world encroached, and C++ began to become the only > realistic way to implement large ABMS of complex systems. LISP was > nice, but the virtual machine and garbage collection made it a non- > player in the modern HPC computing arena. > > --Doug > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Birchard Hayes > wrote: > Okay Russ, > > There are several options to chose from, depending on just how > adaptive you'd like the functionality to be. > > LISP (Scheme, et alia): Allows for partial instantiation or > "currying." This mechanism allows your program to build functions > out of little pieces of text and then call _eval()_ on them when > completed. LISP uses a list for a generic structure but does not > infer type until you use something. Thus you could have a > collection of objects that were all completely different with > functionality created on the fly. > > Javascript: Which, it turns out is a functional language; makes > functions first class objects and allows appending objects or > replacing their methods at run-time. I believe there is a native > "Collection" structure but one could be written if there is not. > Javascript also has an _eval()_ function, so partial instantiation > is possible. > > Java (and, to an extent, C++): Allow for Collections of > heterogeneous objects, although the language is strongly typed and > will try to dissuade the programmer from being too abstract. The > smoothest way to apply different behavior is through interfaces, > keeping in mind that each class can implement the interface however > it chooses. The drawback here is that the interfaces must be > concrete at compile time and I don't know of an easy way to modify > them at runtime (I'm sure that it can be done but requires more work > than the other two options.) The STL has _functors_, generally for > comparison but could be extended, which can be called on arbitrary > classes iffi those classes provide the requisite methods the functor > needs. One would iterate over a Collection and apply the functor to > each object, or each pair. However, even with cool stuff like > Policy Based Templates (LOKI Libraries, Alexandrescu et al.) I think > that compile time type checking will make things less flexible than > you desire.) I haven't looked for functors in Java, but I imagine > they are there or could be created. Additionally, Java has lent > itself to the "new" paradigm of _Aspect Oriented Programming_ which > I have not played with very much, but I understand that > functionality can be cross-cut across classes and assembled at > runtime but I would think that it would still be pretty strongly > typed. > > IMHO, LISP and its bretheren fit what you seek although Javascript > potentially offers fertile ground and may be easier to integrate > with Java. > > As for a single term to describe this, I still like Data Structure > but that's probably being purist and I could get behind active > structure. > > -Birch > > -- > > "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong > reasons." > ~R. Buckminster Fuller > > **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** > ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** > > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall >> that a while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal >> agent-based modeling system. I have been thinking about as a >> starting point. One of the things I like about Drools is that it is >> a forward chaining system that supports a workspace that can >> contain arbitrary Java objects along with rules that operate on >> those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new >> primitives to be added at any time while at the same time providing >> a reasonable framework for logical operations. >> >> I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. >> >> As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison >> seems to be to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the >> population, genetic operators, and fitness function are all left >> open. The analogy is that the GA population plays a role similar to >> the Drools workspace and the GA genetic operators and fitness >> function plays a role similar to the Drools rules. >> >> I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of operational >> framework within which the lowest level objects and operations were >> left open while the framework implemented some higher level >> functionality in terms of those objects and operations. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >> Birch - >> >> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but >> Russ decided against so all that was left was the more abstract >> descriptor. Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and >> underlying types, loosely defined but they are there - IMHO "Data >> Structure" is neither procedural, declarative, nor functional. >> Of course. >> >> I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the >> old-school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who >> don't really even know what a Struct is... They will create a >> Class when a Struct is what they really need. >> Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer >> Programming (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school >> beating up honor-roll students for their lunch money)... I tend to >> the Procedural view of things... I learned all the Applicative >> and Object Oriented and Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages >> offered up to me in the g(l)ory days. I have loved my Snobol and >> APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a programming language!*) and >> Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and Haskell and Simula, >> and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the half-step of >> abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a goddamn >> bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy >> way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! >> >> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me >> a rock" like a moth to the flame. >> Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly >> fascinated with all things work-related that answering enelucidable >> riddles is like mother's milk? >> >> >> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is >> always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone >> burning books for any reason! >> Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last >> time you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning >> of books, but that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the >> woodstove while *I* do. The real sin would be to use good whiskey >> as an accellerant (for the combustion, not the attitude). >> >> -Birch >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Mon Sep 7 22:24:17 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:24:17 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> References: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA5C051.4090806@swcp.com> All this talk of emergence and mystery reminds me wonderfully of Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" and the many wonderful riffs on that including: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" - Niven & then Pratchett "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Law or my mostest favorites: "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" - Agatha Heterodyne "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo," - Neal Stephenson (in the voice of Enoch Root) So perhaps: "Any sufficiently subtle emergence is indistinguishable from mystery". or "Any sufficiently analyzed emergence is indistinguishable from ..." - Steve From owen at backspaces.net Mon Sep 7 22:28:39 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 20:28:39 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-220099280391851@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099280391851@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Owen, > > You wrote: > > I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate >> system of a feature not apparently derived from its components' >> interactions. > > A perfect example of a non-"out there" definition. "Apparently" > implies > that further understanding, information, knowledge will dispel the > emergence. Many smart people hold that position,, but I am not one > of them > (;-}) Well, I was fudging a bit with "apparently". Formal emergence is divided into two domains, weak and strong. If I understand it correctly, irreversible phenomena are the strong emergence types, while reversible are the weak. In plan language, if the emergence is derived from ignorance, it is weak. If it is fundamental (chaos, for example), it is strong. -- Owen From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 22:46:10 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 19:46:10 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909071946r77e5bbe5iedf101eb76369dd3@mail.gmail.com> No, I'm not looking for programming language features. I'm look for a term that describes a certain class of applications. Here's a revised version of what I wrote a couple of messages ago. Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall that a while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal agent-based modeling system. I have been thinking about Drools as a starting point. One of the things I like about Drools is that it is a forward chaining system that supports (a) a workspace that can contain arbitrary Java objects along with (b) rules that operate on those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new primitives to be added at any time (because there is no constraint on what can be in the workspace) while at the same time providing a reasonable framework (forward chaining rules) for logical reasoning and condition-action style agent operations. I want a term that describes this sort of openness. In my clumsy attempts to describe it, the closest parallel I've found seems to be a general Genetic Algorithm system. The population, genetic operators, and fitness function are all left open. The parallel is that the GA population plays a role similar to the Drools workspace and the GA genetic operators and fitness function play a role similar to the Drools rules. In both cases we have an application (not a programming language or collection of programming language features) that implements a framework of operations. These are (a) forward chaining reasoning for Drools and (b) genetic algorithm evolution. These two operational frameworks don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. What is important and similar is that in both cases, these frameworks are two steps away from a collection of arbitrary Java objects: the workspace and the population. In both cases functions are provided by the user to operate on those objects. Those functions are the rules in the case of Drools and the genetic operators and fitness function in the case of a GA. The GA and Drools provides a specific and useful framework within which the user-provided functions operate on the user provided objects. I want a term that captures that sort of operational framework. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > Doug, > > True, but now we have boatloads of RAM to fill - he he he. > Garbage collection remains a real problem whenever it is included in a > language implementation. I've been working in C#/.NET lately and I would > venture to say that there is as much "bookkeeping" involved as there was > with pointers and explicit destructors; only now, one must learn an entirely > new set of rule and MS generated foibles. > > I wonder if what Russ really wants is an architecture of abstract classes > that use a wide variety of interfaces and concrete classes to provide the > palette of functions, i.e. an aggregate of abstractions, to provide enough > variability in behavior at runtime. That could be done in C++ (STL) with > Policy Based Templates and a few other patterns; lot's of heavy lifting > though. > > -Birch > > -- > > "When I am working on a problem, > I never think about beauty but when I have finished, > if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." > - > Buckminster Fuller > > **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** > ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** > > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:41 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > Birch, > > Written like a true computer scientist. I lived in a LISP world for a > happy period between, say '85 - '90. > > But then the real-world encroached, and C++ began to become the only > realistic way to implement large ABMS of complex systems. LISP was nice, > but the virtual machine and garbage collection made it a non-player in the > modern HPC computing arena. > > --Doug > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > >> Okay Russ, >> >> There are several options to chose from, depending on just how adaptive >> you'd like the functionality to be. >> >> LISP (Scheme, et alia): Allows for partial instantiation or "currying." >> This mechanism allows your program to build functions out of little pieces >> of text and then call _eval()_ on them when completed. LISP uses a list for >> a generic structure but does not infer type until you use something. Thus >> you could have a collection of objects that were all completely different >> with functionality created on the fly. >> >> Javascript: Which, it turns out is a functional language; makes functions >> first class objects and allows appending objects or replacing their methods >> at run-time. I believe there is a native "Collection" structure but one >> could be written if there is not. Javascript also has an _eval()_ function, >> so partial instantiation is possible. >> >> Java (and, to an extent, C++): Allow for Collections of heterogeneous >> objects, although the language is strongly typed and will try to dissuade >> the programmer from being too abstract. The smoothest way to apply >> different behavior is through interfaces, keeping in mind that each class >> can implement the interface however it chooses. The drawback here is that >> the interfaces must be concrete at compile time and I don't know of an easy >> way to modify them at runtime (I'm sure that it can be done but requires >> more work than the other two options.) The STL has _functors_, generally >> for comparison but could be extended, which can be called on arbitrary >> classes iffi those classes provide the requisite methods the functor needs. >> One would iterate over a Collection and apply the functor to each object, >> or each pair. However, even with cool stuff like Policy Based Templates >> (LOKI Libraries, Alexandrescu et al.) I think that compile time type >> checking will make things less flexible than you desire.) I haven't looked >> for functors in Java, but I imagine they are there or could be created. >> Additionally, Java has lent itself to the "new" paradigm of _Aspect >> Oriented Programming_ which I have not played with very much, but I >> understand that functionality can be cross-cut across classes and assembled >> at runtime but I would think that it would still be pretty strongly typed. >> >> IMHO, LISP and its bretheren fit what you seek although Javascript >> potentially offers fertile ground and may be easier to integrate with Java. >> >> As for a single term to describe this, I still like Data Structure but >> that's probably being purist and I could get behind active structure. >> >> -Birch >> >> -- >> >> "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong >> reasons." >> ~R. Buckminster Fuller >> >> **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** >> ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** >> >> >> >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >> Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall that a >> while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal agent-based modeling >> system. I have been thinking about as a starting point. One of the things I >> like about Drools is that it is a forward chaining system that supports a >> workspace that can contain arbitrary Java objects along with rules that >> operate on those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new >> primitives to be added at any time while at the same time providing a >> reasonable framework for logical operations. >> >> I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. >> >> As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison seems to be >> to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the population, genetic >> operators, and fitness function are all left open. The analogy is that the >> GA population plays a role similar to the Drools workspace and the GA >> genetic operators and fitness function plays a role similar to the Drools >> rules. >> >> I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of operational >> framework within which the lowest level objects and operations were left >> open while the framework implemented some higher level functionality in >> terms of those objects and operations. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >> >>> Birch - >>> >>>> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ >>>> decided against so all that was left was the more abstract descriptor. >>>> Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying types, loosely >>>> defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is neither procedural, >>>> declarative, nor functional. >>>> >>> Of course. >>> >>> I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the >>> old-school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't >>> really even know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when a >>> Struct is what they really need. >>> Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming >>> (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school beating up honor-roll >>> students for their lunch money)... I tend to the Procedural view of >>> things... I learned all the Applicative and Object Oriented and >>> Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages offered up to me in the g(l)ory >>> days. I have loved my Snobol and APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a >>> programming language!*) and Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and >>> Haskell and Simula, and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the >>> half-step of abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a >>> goddamn bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy >>> way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! >>> >>>> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a >>>> rock" like a moth to the flame. >>>> >>> Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly >>> fascinated with all things work-related that answering enelucidable riddles >>> is like mother's milk? >>> >>>> >>>> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is >>>> always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning books >>>> for any reason! >>>> >>> Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last time >>> you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of books, but >>> that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the woodstove while *I* do. >>> The real sin would be to use good whiskey as an accellerant (for the >>> combustion, not the attitude). >>> >>>> >>>> -Birch >>>> >>>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From victoria at toryhughes.com Mon Sep 7 23:02:22 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 21:02:22 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence In-Reply-To: <4AA5C051.4090806@swcp.com> References: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5C051.4090806@swcp.com> Message-ID: Could we get all these on a t-shirt and then sell it as a fundraiser? or just distribute them amongst ourselves...? Although I believe Clarke said 'technology' not 'science'. On Sep 7, 2009, at 8:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > All this talk of emergence and mystery reminds me wonderfully of > Clarke's third law: > > "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" > > and the many wonderful riffs on that including: > > "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from > technology" > - Niven & then Pratchett > > "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently > advanced." > - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Law > > or my mostest favorites: > > "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" > - Agatha Heterodyne > > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a > yo-yo," > - Neal Stephenson (in the voice of Enoch Root) > > > So perhaps: > > "Any sufficiently subtle emergence is indistinguishable from > mystery". > or > "Any sufficiently analyzed emergence is indistinguishable from ..." > > > > - Steve > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > From marcus at snoutfarm.com Mon Sep 7 23:31:15 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:31:15 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA5D003.1020408@snoutfarm.com> Douglas Roberts wrote: > LISP was nice, but the virtual machine and garbage collection made it > a non-player in the modern HPC computing arena. I'd argue that the Lisp way, is a reasonable fit to HPC. Certainly virtual machines are not needed to implement Lisp-like languages (some systems are bytecoded, but not all), and it is *garbage* that is the problem not garbage collection. Programmers generate garbage by not paying attention to how things get allocated. If you run malloc/free thousands of times in various-sized pieces, you'll get fragmented heaps and slow performance too. Garbage collectors simply allow for poor practices, but don't require them. It's not uncommon for millions of dollars to be spent in a relatively short period on development of HPC codes. After all, the computers themselves can cost hundreds of millions. Inefficient codes, or codes poorly tuned to the used computer architectures simply waste money. Some of the people that work on these codes know the models, while others must know the details of particular computer architectures. Any black box, like a compiler, is a potential correctness or performance mistake waiting to happen. (This is of course not to say that compilers aren't crucial.) Experienced Lisp programmers, often being anti-authoritarian types, tend to hate black boxes and rigid abstractions. If a language feature like C++ templates are needed, the Lisp programmer writes Lisp macros to implement them, injecting type annotations as necessary, and tweaks the the macros interactively until the generated native code is just right. Yes -- they read and consider both their macro output, and native code the compiler generates from that. Imagine! This is in contrast to Java, where the culture is more about insulating the programmer from having to know how anything in particular works or plays out. And these days, with Domain Specific Languages all the rage (in ABM and elsewhere), it's funny that Lispers have been doing that for 40 years! Finally, most HPC codes have a set of `kernels' where all of the compute time goes, and the rest of the code could run at about any speed and not become a bottleneck. Languages like Common Lisp are fine for this, because there exist native code compilers that *can* be directed to generate fast code, but in general won't try very hard to make vague code be fast. Unfortunately, Lisp culture is a poor fit to conservative HPC culture. The latter being very focused on production capability, and fixed, clearly-communicated requirements. Marcus From sasmyth at swcp.com Mon Sep 7 23:36:12 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:36:12 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] mystery and emergence In-Reply-To: References: <99A7A0C7DAD74C38BA422958C2A3B2E5@KimPC> <15fe0a4a0909071555r5c4cb6a5y15b9f06e93281410@mail.gmail.com> <4AA5C051.4090806@swcp.com> Message-ID: <4AA5D12C.3080802@swcp.com> Victoria Hughes wrote: > Could we get all these on a t-shirt and then sell it as a fundraiser? > or just distribute them amongst ourselves...? > > Although I believe Clarke said 'technology' not 'science'. I believe you are correct... I think my (mis)quote is a common misquote, however. For the T-shirt, I prefer Gehm's Corrolary... if one were to have to pick a single quote. > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 8:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > >> All this talk of emergence and mystery reminds me wonderfully of >> Clarke's third law: >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" >> >> and the many wonderful riffs on that including: >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" >> - Niven & then Pratchett >> >> "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." >> - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Law >> >> or my mostest favorites: >> >> "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" >> - Agatha Heterodyne >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a >> yo-yo," >> - Neal Stephenson (in the voice of Enoch Root) >> >> >> So perhaps: >> >> "Any sufficiently subtle emergence is indistinguishable from mystery". >> or >> "Any sufficiently analyzed emergence is indistinguishable from ..." >> >> >> >> - Steve >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 8 00:03:33 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:03:33 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-220099284333624@earthlink.net> Hi, Owen, Very interesting. Where does your version of this distinction come from? Who has formalized it? I need to know. I think this version is different from the same distinction in Bedau, which is in the collection we will begin discussing in the "Seminar" on Thursday afternoon (4pm, DS), but frankly I found the Bedau article so tortured I cannot be sure. Bedau distinguishes three different "degrees" of emergence, if you will; nominal, weak, and strong. Something is nominally emergent if it displays properties that cannot be displayed by its parts. At the other extreme is strong emergence which "adds the requirement that emergent properties are supervenient properties with irreducible causal powers". Both supervenient and irreducible are difficult terms. Supervenient implies to me a causal ratchet in which knowing how the parts are arranged tells you how the whole will behave but knowing how the whole is behaving tells you only that the parts are arranged on one of a potentially infinite set of ways. Irreducible probably means that the whole can do stuff the parts cant. Neither term seem to suggest irreversibility, which is the criterion your guy suggests. Weak emergence is said to occur when the only way you can work out what the properties of the whole will be is by assembling the parts and seeing what happens, as in a simulation. What these two have to do with one another is a mystery to me, so if you have an author with a more lucid version of the distinction, I am all ears. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the Bedau article is available on the web at http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf, so you can suffer without buying the book. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Owen Densmore > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/7/2009 8:28:41 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > Owen, > > > > You wrote: > > > > I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate > >> system of a feature not apparently derived from its components' > >> interactions. > > > > A perfect example of a non-"out there" definition. "Apparently" > > implies > > that further understanding, information, knowledge will dispel the > > emergence. Many smart people hold that position,, but I am not one > > of them > > (;-}) > > Well, I was fudging a bit with "apparently". Formal emergence is > divided into two domains, weak and strong. If I understand it > correctly, irreversible phenomena are the strong emergence types, > while reversible are the weak. > > In plan language, if the emergence is derived from ignorance, it is > weak. If it is fundamental (chaos, for example), it is strong. > > -- Owen > From tom at astarte.csustan.edu Tue Sep 8 00:12:53 2009 From: tom at astarte.csustan.edu (Tom Carter) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 21:12:53 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071258l19211f64g18d01cbe894c7fe5@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071310u24044a9dke29d3e1924e9f9bf@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909071332o2e163eabhd1f047833dcb7e7@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> Message-ID: <85266534-C862-4286-B2AD-A89649E0E181@astarte.csustan.edu> All -- Apropos some of this, today I found myself going back and forth between the FRIAM discussion and this review/analysis of what's new in Mac OSX Snow Leopard . . . http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/8 tom On Sep 7, 2009, at 7:14 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > Doug, > > True, but now we have boatloads of RAM to fill - he he he. > > Garbage collection remains a real problem whenever it is included in > a language implementation. I've been working in C#/.NET lately and > I would venture to say that there is as much "bookkeeping" involved > as there was with pointers and explicit destructors; only now, one > must learn an entirely new set of rule and MS generated foibles. > > I wonder if what Russ really wants is an architecture of abstract > classes that use a wide variety of interfaces and concrete classes > to provide the palette of functions, i.e. an aggregate of > abstractions, to provide enough variability in behavior at runtime. > That could be done in C++ (STL) with Policy Based Templates and a > few other patterns; lot's of heavy lifting though. > > -Birch > > -- > > "When I am working on a problem, > I never think about beauty but when I have finished, > if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." > - Buckminster > Fuller > > **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** > ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** > > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:41 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Birch, >> >> Written like a true computer scientist. I lived in a LISP world >> for a happy period between, say '85 - '90. >> >> But then the real-world encroached, and C++ began to become the >> only realistic way to implement large ABMS of complex systems. >> LISP was nice, but the virtual machine and garbage collection made >> it a non-player in the modern HPC computing arena. >> >> --Doug >> >> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Birchard Hayes >> wrote: >> Okay Russ, >> >> There are several options to chose from, depending on just how >> adaptive you'd like the functionality to be. >> >> LISP (Scheme, et alia): Allows for partial instantiation or >> "currying." This mechanism allows your program to build functions >> out of little pieces of text and then call _eval()_ on them when >> completed. LISP uses a list for a generic structure but does not >> infer type until you use something. Thus you could have a >> collection of objects that were all completely different with >> functionality created on the fly. >> >> Javascript: Which, it turns out is a functional language; makes >> functions first class objects and allows appending objects or >> replacing their methods at run-time. I believe there is a native >> "Collection" structure but one could be written if there is not. >> Javascript also has an _eval()_ function, so partial instantiation >> is possible. >> >> Java (and, to an extent, C++): Allow for Collections of >> heterogeneous objects, although the language is strongly typed and >> will try to dissuade the programmer from being too abstract. The >> smoothest way to apply different behavior is through interfaces, >> keeping in mind that each class can implement the interface however >> it chooses. The drawback here is that the interfaces must be >> concrete at compile time and I don't know of an easy way to modify >> them at runtime (I'm sure that it can be done but requires more >> work than the other two options.) The STL has _functors_, >> generally for comparison but could be extended, which can be called >> on arbitrary classes iffi those classes provide the requisite >> methods the functor needs. One would iterate over a Collection and >> apply the functor to each object, or each pair. However, even with >> cool stuff like Policy Based Templates (LOKI Libraries, >> Alexandrescu et al.) I think that compile time type checking will >> make things less flexible than you desire.) I haven't looked for >> functors in Java, but I imagine they are there or could be >> created. Additionally, Java has lent itself to the "new" paradigm >> of _Aspect Oriented Programming_ which I have not played with very >> much, but I understand that functionality can be cross-cut across >> classes and assembled at runtime but I would think that it would >> still be pretty strongly typed. >> >> IMHO, LISP and its bretheren fit what you seek although Javascript >> potentially offers fertile ground and may be easier to integrate >> with Java. >> >> As for a single term to describe this, I still like Data Structure >> but that's probably being purist and I could get behind active >> structure. >> >> -Birch >> >> -- >> >> "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong >> reasons." >> ~R. Buckminster Fuller >> >> **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** >> ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** >> >> >> >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >>> Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may >>> recall that a while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an >>> ideal agent-based modeling system. I have been thinking about as a >>> starting point. One of the things I like about Drools is that it >>> is a forward chaining system that supports a workspace that can >>> contain arbitrary Java objects along with rules that operate on >>> those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new >>> primitives to be added at any time while at the same time >>> providing a reasonable framework for logical operations. >>> >>> I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. >>> >>> As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison >>> seems to be to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the >>> population, genetic operators, and fitness function are all left >>> open. The analogy is that the GA population plays a role similar >>> to the Drools workspace and the GA genetic operators and fitness >>> function plays a role similar to the Drools rules. >>> >>> I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of >>> operational framework within which the lowest level objects and >>> operations were left open while the framework implemented some >>> higher level functionality in terms of those objects and operations. >>> >>> -- Russ >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith >>> wrote: >>> Birch - >>> >>> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but >>> Russ decided against so all that was left was the more abstract >>> descriptor. Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and >>> underlying types, loosely defined but they are there - IMHO "Data >>> Structure" is neither procedural, declarative, nor functional. >>> Of course. >>> >>> I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the >>> old-school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who >>> don't really even know what a Struct is... They will create a >>> Class when a Struct is what they really need. >>> Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer >>> Programming (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school >>> beating up honor-roll students for their lunch money)... I tend to >>> the Procedural view of things... I learned all the Applicative >>> and Object Oriented and Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages >>> offered up to me in the g(l)ory days. I have loved my Snobol and >>> APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a programming language!*) and >>> Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and Haskell and >>> Simula, and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the half- >>> step of abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's >>> a goddamn bit processing machine, gimme some register variables >>> and an easy way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw >>> stock! >>> >>> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me >>> a rock" like a moth to the flame. >>> Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly >>> fascinated with all things work-related that answering >>> enelucidable riddles is like mother's milk? >>> >>> >>> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is >>> always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone >>> burning books for any reason! >>> Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last >>> time you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning >>> of books, but that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the >>> woodstove while *I* do. The real sin would be to use good >>> whiskey as an accellerant (for the combustion, not the attitude). >>> >>> -Birch >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> >> >> >> -- >> Doug Roberts >> droberts at rti.org >> doug at parrot-farm.net >> 505-455-7333 - Office >> 505-670-8195 - Cell >> ============================================================ >> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Tue Sep 8 00:26:44 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:26:44 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-220099284333624@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099284333624@earthlink.net> Message-ID: [Oops .. reply did not include friam] On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Hi, Owen, > > Very interesting. Where does your version of this distinction come > from? > Who has formalized it? I need to know. Oops, I may have forgotten the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Strong_vs._weak_emergence Note they quote Bedau. I've somewhat loosely paraphrased the weak/strong distinction, but it appears to be within scope. I'd say any features of a time dependent system that are directly calculable from the initial conditions, once you know how, are weakly emergent. But features that cannot be reverse engineered, so to speak, are strong. Thus systems with chaotic components (Lyapunov exponent > 0) are likely to exhibit strong emergent features. -- Owen > I think this version is different from the same distinction in Bedau, > which is in the collection we will begin discussing in the "Seminar" > on > Thursday afternoon (4pm, DS), but frankly I found the Bedau article so > tortured I cannot be sure. Bedau distinguishes three different > "degrees" > of emergence, if you will; nominal, weak, and strong. Something is > nominally emergent if it displays properties that cannot be > displayed by > its parts. At the other extreme is strong emergence which "adds the > requirement that emergent properties are supervenient properties with > irreducible causal powers". Both supervenient and irreducible are > difficult terms. Supervenient implies to me a causal ratchet in which > knowing how the parts are arranged tells you how the whole will > behave but > knowing how the whole is behaving tells you only that the parts are > arranged on one of a potentially infinite set of ways. Irreducible > probably means that the whole can do stuff the parts cant. Neither > term > seem to suggest irreversibility, which is the criterion your guy > suggests. > Weak emergence is said to occur when the only way you can work out > what the > properties of the whole will be is by assembling the parts and > seeing what > happens, as in a simulation. What these two have to do with one > another is > a mystery to me, so if you have an author with a more lucid version > of the > distinction, I am all ears. > > Fortunately (or unfortunately) the Bedau article is available on the > web at > http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf, so > you can > suffer without buying the book. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > >> [Original Message] >> From: Owen Densmore >> To: ; The Friday Morning Applied >> Complexity > Coffee Group >> Date: 9/7/2009 8:28:41 PM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >>> Owen, >>> >>> You wrote: >>> >>> I think it's simply the appearance within a time varying aggregate >>>> system of a feature not apparently derived from its components' >>>> interactions. >>> >>> A perfect example of a non-"out there" definition. "Apparently" >>> implies >>> that further understanding, information, knowledge will dispel the >>> emergence. Many smart people hold that position,, but I am not one >>> of them >>> (;-}) >> >> Well, I was fudging a bit with "apparently". Formal emergence is >> divided into two domains, weak and strong. If I understand it >> correctly, irreversible phenomena are the strong emergence types, >> while reversible are the weak. >> >> In plan language, if the emergence is derived from ignorance, it is >> weak. If it is fundamental (chaos, for example), it is strong. >> >> -- Owen >> > > From ermendel at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 00:33:06 2009 From: ermendel at gmail.com (Eileen Mendel) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:33:06 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Can your computer make you happy, with Computational Eudaemonics In-Reply-To: <008201ca2f6d$6c081450$44183cf0$@net> References: <008201ca2f6d$6c081450$44183cf0$@net> Message-ID: Alot of times our decisions are repetitious patterns created by our own limitations and beliefs and not necessarily what leads to happiness. So history doesn't always portend the desired future results. On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 9:43 PM, Jack Stafurik wrote: > > > > > Our own Marko Rodriguez of LANL and Knowledge Reef is heading in an > interesting new direction, to use the power of computers to make us ?happy?. > Below is an interview with him. It raises several issues: > > > > 1) He seems to be proposing a ?data mining? approach to determine > what makes people happy and a system to improve decision making and > suggestions so more people make good ?happiness enhancing? decisions. Having > worked for many years with data mining systems, I can see a number of > practical and theoretical problems. For example, how to define and measure > the many dimensions of ?happiness?, how to get the actual data, how to > identify and evaluate all the options for a decision, how to balance short > term and long term happiness, and so forth** > > 2) He proposes that ?use? is a good way to determine if the system is > actually effective. That is, if people use it then it meets its goals of > increasing happiness. That does not seem to me to be an intellectually > satisfying way of determining if a system is effective in meeting its > purported goals. Is there a better way of determining this?** > > 3) He makes an important distinction between ?frequent? decisions > such as which restaurant to eat in, and ?once in a lifetime? decisions > such as who to marry (for most people) or where to go to college. He > recognizes the data problems of evaluating the ?once in a lifetime? > decisions, but seems confident that simply looking at many such decisions > will give his system all the data it needs. I?m a skeptic. Having looked at > billions of decisions for ?frequent? actions, e.g., soft drink purchases, > you quickly find out your decision matrixes are actually pretty sparse when > you try to account for many of the key variables, and your statistical > models based on these do not always have the accuracy you need. Expanding > this to ?once in a lifetime? decisions adds orders of magnitude to the > difficulty of the problem.** > > > > Jack Stafurik > *Computational Eudaemonics: Expert Happiness Systems > * > > > Marcelo Rinesi *Frontier > Economy * > > > Posted: Aug 16, 2009 > > This is an interview with Marko A. Rodriguez, a scientist at the Los Alamos > National Laboratory. Besides doing basic research on applied mathematics and > computer science, he is doing work on *computational eudaemonics* ? the > use of computer algorithms to increase happiness by helping us make better > decisions, even suggesting new options. > > *Do you think the widespread use of eudaemonic algorithms will be > contingent on the embracing of an Aristotelian ethic and concept of > happiness, or is their usage compatible, in the sense of there being a > potentially strong demand for them, with the contemporary ethos?* > > I think the concepts of Aristotle, Norton, Hobbes, Flanagan, and even Rand > (to some extent) are all barking up the same tree. And while that species of > tree may be the same, the individual instances of it will be different. That > is, each person will have to find their own eudaemonic path, where the role > of computational eudaemonics is to support the individual in this discovery > process. Moreover, for these algorithms, it?s a process too. Some will live > and some will die in this ?society of algorithms?, but the society will > continue to evolve and adapt to the human condition. When individual > algorithms work well with the human and the human allows them to work, then > computational eudaemonics will be serving its purpose. > > *How do you see the process of research and validation of an eudaemonic > algorithm for decisions with impact over the long term?* > > With respect to validation, I believe the answer to that is the answer to > this: ?do people use it?? Take Google for example. There is no formal proof > that PageRank is a good algorithm to rank webpages. However there is a > pragmatic proof. The pragmatic proof is the fact that people use Google > regularly. Similarly for a eudaemonic algorithm, if it survives to be used > another day, then it is good?it is valid. > > *Do you feel we have or will have enough information in this generation to > data mine patterns about, say, the number of children a couple might want to > have?* > > I think what will happen is that more and more data will be exposed in the > Web of Data. At first, it might just be a better ?recommendation? algorithm > ? but with enough information in the Web of Data and enough insight on the > part of the algorithm designers, we may just end up putting more faith in > the algorithm. > > p>*There?s a clear profit motive for a search engine or a retailer to > create a good algorithm ? we interact with them often enough to infer their > quality and either become repeating customers or shift to a competitor with > a better algorithm ? but for decisions take very seldom (e.g., choosing a > major), there would be both a great demand for good algorithms and an > unclear process by which the worst ones could be filtered out. What are your > thoughts about who might come up with eudaemonic algorithms and their > motivations?*p>As you note, there are recommendations that are based on > repetition: e.g., movies, books, music, webpages, etc. And, as you say as > well, there are ?one time only? recommendations: e.g., which major to choose > in college. However, you can see these ?one time only? recommendations as > happening in repetition ? not through the individual, but through the > population. While the ?one time? algorithm may be faulty for an individual > at a particular point in time, it may be gathering enough data points to be > successful for the next individual down the line. I think the saying is: > ?Rome wasn?t build in a day.? I don?t know how accurate these algorithms can > get, but there is a sense of better and worse. Moreover, we understand, to > some degree, why we like certain movies, books, ideas, etc. So, being able > to represent those biases computationally may bring us beyond recommendation > and into a world of eudaemonia. > > *For further information:* > > Rodriguez, M.A., Watkins, J., ?Faith in the Algorithm, Part 2: > Computational Eudaemonics,? Proceedings of the International Conference on > Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems, Invited > Session: Innovations in Intelligent Systems, eds. Vel?squez, J.D., Howlett, > R.J., and Jain, L.C., Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, > Springer-Verlag, LA-UR-09-02095, Santiago, Chile, April 2009. [ > http://arxiv.org/abs/0904.0027] > > > ------------------------------ > > *Marcelo Rinesi* is the > Assistant Director of the IEET. Mr. Rinesi is Editor-in-Chief of Frontier > Economy . > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 01:24:14 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:24:14 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <85266534-C862-4286-B2AD-A89649E0E181@astarte.csustan.edu> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <780E8BB2-88D8-4EAB-9E20-D6E4C9FF913D@chimptek.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> <85266534-C862-4286-B2AD-A89649E0E181@astarte.csustan.edu> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909072224l6116a792l7acefe27ae1b66d8@mail.gmail.com> WRT the original quest, I realize that the trail is probably cold for most of the list by now and that tangential discussions have now generated more interest, but I think I have a reasonable answer. In functional programming map and reduce are often called *meta-functions*. GA, GP, Ant Colony Optimization, etc. are often called *meta-heuristics*. *Meta programming* is even in Wikipedia referring to programs that manipulate other programs. *Meta-programming* is a bit too general for what I'm after since a compiler is a meta-program and that's not really the point. But * meta-application* may do the trick. Thanks for all your help. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 9:12 PM, Tom Carter wrote: > All -- > Apropos some of this, today I found myself going back and forth between > the FRIAM discussion and this review/analysis of what's new in Mac OSX Snow > Leopard . . . > > http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/8 > > tom > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 7:14 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > > Doug, > > True, but now we have boatloads of RAM to fill - he he he. > Garbage collection remains a real problem whenever it is included in a > language implementation. I've been working in C#/.NET lately and I would > venture to say that there is as much "bookkeeping" involved as there was > with pointers and explicit destructors; only now, one must learn an entirely > new set of rule and MS generated foibles. > > I wonder if what Russ really wants is an architecture of abstract classes > that use a wide variety of interfaces and concrete classes to provide the > palette of functions, i.e. an aggregate of abstractions, to provide enough > variability in behavior at runtime. That could be done in C++ (STL) with > Policy Based Templates and a few other patterns; lot's of heavy lifting > though. > > -Birch > > -- > > "When I am working on a problem, > I never think about beauty but when I have finished, > if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." > - > Buckminster Fuller > > **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** > ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** > > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 6:41 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > Birch, > > Written like a true computer scientist. I lived in a LISP world for a > happy period between, say '85 - '90. > > But then the real-world encroached, and C++ began to become the only > realistic way to implement large ABMS of complex systems. LISP was nice, > but the virtual machine and garbage collection made it a non-player in the > modern HPC computing arena. > > --Doug > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Birchard Hayes wrote: > >> Okay Russ, >> >> There are several options to chose from, depending on just how adaptive >> you'd like the functionality to be. >> >> LISP (Scheme, et alia): Allows for partial instantiation or "currying." >> This mechanism allows your program to build functions out of little pieces >> of text and then call _eval()_ on them when completed. LISP uses a list for >> a generic structure but does not infer type until you use something. Thus >> you could have a collection of objects that were all completely different >> with functionality created on the fly. >> >> Javascript: Which, it turns out is a functional language; makes functions >> first class objects and allows appending objects or replacing their methods >> at run-time. I believe there is a native "Collection" structure but one >> could be written if there is not. Javascript also has an _eval()_ function, >> so partial instantiation is possible. >> >> Java (and, to an extent, C++): Allow for Collections of heterogeneous >> objects, although the language is strongly typed and will try to dissuade >> the programmer from being too abstract. The smoothest way to apply >> different behavior is through interfaces, keeping in mind that each class >> can implement the interface however it chooses. The drawback here is that >> the interfaces must be concrete at compile time and I don't know of an easy >> way to modify them at runtime (I'm sure that it can be done but requires >> more work than the other two options.) The STL has _functors_, generally >> for comparison but could be extended, which can be called on arbitrary >> classes iffi those classes provide the requisite methods the functor needs. >> One would iterate over a Collection and apply the functor to each object, >> or each pair. However, even with cool stuff like Policy Based Templates >> (LOKI Libraries, Alexandrescu et al.) I think that compile time type >> checking will make things less flexible than you desire.) I haven't looked >> for functors in Java, but I imagine they are there or could be created. >> Additionally, Java has lent itself to the "new" paradigm of _Aspect >> Oriented Programming_ which I have not played with very much, but I >> understand that functionality can be cross-cut across classes and assembled >> at runtime but I would think that it would still be pretty strongly typed. >> >> IMHO, LISP and its bretheren fit what you seek although Javascript >> potentially offers fertile ground and may be easier to integrate with Java. >> >> As for a single term to describe this, I still like Data Structure but >> that's probably being purist and I could get behind active structure. >> >> -Birch >> >> -- >> >> "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong >> reasons." >> ~R. Buckminster Fuller >> >> **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** >> ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** >> >> >> >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: >> >> Let me bring this back to where I started with this. You may recall that a >> while ago I was talking about what I wanted in an ideal agent-based modeling >> system. I have been thinking about as a starting point. One of the things I >> like about Drools is that it is a forward chaining system that supports a >> workspace that can contain arbitrary Java objects along with rules that >> operate on those objects. I find that very attractive because it allows new >> primitives to be added at any time while at the same time providing a >> reasonable framework for logical operations. >> >> I wanted a term that would describe this sort of openness. >> >> As I've been attempting to describe it, the closest comparison seems to be >> to a general Genetic Algorithm system in which the population, genetic >> operators, and fitness function are all left open. The analogy is that the >> GA population plays a role similar to the Drools workspace and the GA >> genetic operators and fitness function plays a role similar to the Drools >> rules. >> >> I was looking for a term that would capture the sort of operational >> framework within which the lowest level objects and operations were left >> open while the framework implemented some higher level functionality in >> terms of those objects and operations. >> >> -- Russ >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >> >>> Birch - >>> >>>> I thought Container as well (although Bag leapt to mind too) but Russ >>>> decided against so all that was left was the more abstract descriptor. >>>> Besides, LISP has a data structure or two and underlying types, loosely >>>> defined but they are there - IMHO "Data Structure" is neither procedural, >>>> declarative, nor functional. >>>> >>> Of course. >>> >>> I merely have my face being rubbed in this right now cuz I'm the >>> old-school C programmer working with some new-school C++ kids who don't >>> really even know what a Struct is... They will create a Class when a >>> Struct is what they really need. >>> Since I grew up in the early days of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming >>> (when you were still in a Brooklyn grammar school beating up honor-roll >>> students for their lunch money)... I tend to the Procedural view of >>> things... I learned all the Applicative and Object Oriented and >>> Concatenative ( In my NeWS days) languages offered up to me in the g(l)ory >>> days. I have loved my Snobol and APL and Prolog and PostScript (*as a >>> programming language!*) and Objective C and Java and loved to hate LISP and >>> Haskell and Simula, and made peace with C++, but at heart, I love the >>> half-step of abstraction from hardware that good ole C provides. It's a >>> goddamn bit processing machine, gimme some register variables and an easy >>> way to do bit-shifts and I'll build the rest from raw stock! >>> >>>> Of course due to my current work situation I am drawn to "bring me a >>>> rock" like a moth to the flame. >>>> >>> Does this mean you are avoiding deadlines? Or just so morbidly >>> fascinated with all things work-related that answering enelucidable riddles >>> is like mother's milk? >>> >>>> >>>> I have a bottle of Irish Whiskey to replenish yours and Bourbon is >>>> always good (rot gut or not) but you know that I can't condone burning books >>>> for any reason! >>>> >>> Yes, I believe we did do some damage to a bottle of Jamesons last time >>> you were over. And I don't need you to condone the burning of books, but >>> that doesn't mean you can't warm your hands by the woodstove while *I* do. >>> The real sin would be to use good whiskey as an accellerant (for the >>> combustion, not the attitude). >>> >>>> >>>> -Birch >>>> >>>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > ============================================================ > 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 > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From qef at aol.com Tue Sep 8 01:36:26 2009 From: qef at aol.com (qef at aol.com) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:36:26 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009943215725378@earthlink.net><681c54590909031505o781cf569v4f0484ee42133524@mail.gmail.com><66d1c98f0909031528r38d4b282s7a871dc1d1854493@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CBFE5D719766DF-3F48-136DB@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> Owen -- An excellent point to Roger and the rest of us. Frankly, I struggle with my RSS feeds: at present, Bloglines has me at 576, which is probably on the high end of most users. Still, I like them largely because I selected them, which suggests a certain echo chamber bias. I read probably 20% within a week, another 30% within 30 days, and the remainder within 90 days. The latency bothers me a bit, since time matters somewhat, but I'm unlikely to devote more than about 20 hours/week to blogs directly. It's much better than surfing around to each, however. I'd like to read some blogs more frequently (bOING bOING, for example), but find that the number of entries fills up quickly, and when I'm scanning, I'm much more likely to go for my more macroeconomic blogs that have had 10 entries since last I looked than those that have had 150. Maybe there's an interesting opportunity for blogs to optimize posting frequency, bearing in mind Machiavelli's admonition: Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better. (probably not the best translation, but the best I could find on the Internets). - Claiborne Booker -? -----Original Message----- From: Owen Densmore To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Thu, Sep 3, 2009 4:35 pm Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Psychology Blogs On Sep 3, 2009, at 4:28 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:? ? > I just put it all into Google Reader and star the stuff I might want? > to go back to read later. If I get too far behind, I just mark it all? > read and go on.? >? > -- rec --? ? The problem is that you are a computer pro. I doubt you could show others how to think in this fashion. You need to understand blogs, and that they are article based with dates. You'd have to explain RSS feeds as a notification stunt. You'd have to explain that there are ways to use the feeds: Google Reader, Browser functionalities, Aggregators, and so on. It really is hard, at least at the conceptual level for non-geeks.? ? I remember *several* folks at the complex begging for chats on "how to use the web" so to speak. We never got around to it, but boy would it be useful. Don had a few "barn raising" sessions: come with your laptop and we'll show you how to use the wiki or how to use forums. Maybe we ought to go back to that?? ? ? -- 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? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dale.schumacher at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 10:46:40 2009 From: dale.schumacher at gmail.com (Dale Schumacher) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 09:46:40 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909072224l6116a792l7acefe27ae1b66d8@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <4AA57BFC.3010601@swcp.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> <85266534-C862-4286-B2AD-A89649E0E181@astarte.csustan.edu> <15fe0a4a0909072224l6116a792l7acefe27ae1b66d8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7780e76c0909080746q2b963b17we4bf4901097d35fe@mail.gmail.com> The term "meta-circular" describes a language characteristic that enables meta-programming. It means that the mechanisms needed to define the semantics of a language are available to programmers _in_ the language itself. This leads to support for internal Domain Specific Languages and other higher-order techniques. In a recent interview, John McCarthy said that is was important for a language to have access to it's own parse-tree. I consider that a weak form of meta-circularity, but the right intent is communicated. On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > WRT the original quest, I realize that the trail is probably cold for most > of the list by now and that tangential discussions have now generated more > interest, but I think I have a reasonable answer. > > In functional programming map and reduce are often called *meta-functions*. > GA, GP, Ant Colony Optimization, etc. are often called *meta-heuristics*. > *Meta programming* is even in Wikipedia referring to programs that > manipulate other programs. *Meta-programming* is a bit too general for > what I'm after since a compiler is a meta-program and that's not really the > point. But *meta-application* may do the trick. > > Thanks for all your help. > > -- Russ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 8 12:29:43 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:29:43 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009928162943560@earthlink.net> Owen and Russ, I have spent some time trying to reread Bedau and have lost patience with him. With normal human effort, I have not been able to articulate his categories, weak and strong emergence. The reference to reduction in the definition of strong emergence really gets us nowhere because reduction isnt nailed down in the article. I guess I would like to come to an understanding with you guys: Either we give up on the distinction between strong and weak emergence, or we agree to spend some time in Bedau's text explicating his meaning. My suspicion is that Bedau's presentation is not coherent: i.e., while his distinction between weak and strong is central to his argument, he does not go to the effort to articulate that distinction, i.e., to define weak and strong in the same terms so that we can see the contrast between them. If the distinction is foundation to either of you, then help me to understand it by pointing to some part of the text that you find particularly lucid. The "Bedau" I am referring to is that found in the Bedau and Humphreys collection. Another version of that article up on the web at http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf Even tho one is cited as a reprint of the other, I think I have detected some important differences, so we would have to be careful. We could agree to have read the article by a particular time and "meet" and open a thread on the article when we have all done so. A real webinar or, better still, a WBB (Web Brown Bag). Each of us could be required to have a bottle of beer open beside our computer. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Owen Densmore > To: > Date: 9/8/2009 9:46:07 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > The Truth Sez: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_emergence > > It Must Be True. > > > I spit me of any other kinds! > > > -- Owen > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > I think you have that wrong. He says that the halt of the growth of > > an > > R-pentomino is WEAKLY emergent because you cannot anticipate it from > > the > > early behavior of the automata. You just have to run the sucker. > > If you > > can calculate it, it's only nominally emergent or perhaps not > > emergent at > > all. Unfortunately that passage is not in the version of the ms > > that is in > > the pdf I sent. Merde. In short,I think what you are callling > > strongly > > emergent is what he is calling weakly emergent, and what you are > > calling > > weakly emergent is at best nominally so. > > > > N > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From rec at elf.org Tue Sep 8 12:51:22 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:51:22 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009928162943560@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009928162943560@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909080951o2e600f70jd536e7416dfdddfc@mail.gmail.com> I thought that it was pretty simple: strong emergence would be miraculous if it happened, which is why it is metaphysically problematic; weak emergence is what we find, unexpected lawfulnesses, which, in the end, turn out to be explicable, if not entirely predictable. I followed the link in the wikipedia to the stanford encyc. of philosophy article on supervenience which explained that the common usage, which was at least once commonly used in philosophical discussions of emergence, is not the philosophical usage, which is technical and completely different from the common usage. -- rec -- On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Owen and Russ, > > I have spent some time trying to reread Bedau and have lost patience with > him. ?With normal human effort, I have not been able to articulate his > categories, weak and strong emergence. ? The reference to reduction in the > definition of strong emergence really gets us nowhere because reduction > isnt nailed down in the article. > > I guess I would like to come to an understanding with you guys: Either we > give up on the distinction between strong and weak emergence, or we agree > to spend some time in Bedau's text explicating his meaning. ? ?My suspicion > is that Bedau's presentation is not coherent: ?i.e., while his distinction > between weak and strong is central to his argument, he does not go to the > effort to articulate that distinction, i.e., to define weak and strong in > the same terms so that we can see the contrast between them. ?If the > distinction is foundation to either of you, then help me to understand it > by pointing to some part of the text that you find particularly lucid. > > The "Bedau" I am referring to is that found in the Bedau and Humphreys > collection. ?Another version of that article up on the web at > > http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf > > Even tho one is cited as a reprint of the other, I think I have detected > some important differences, so we would have to be careful. > > We could agree to have read the article by a particular time and "meet" and > open a thread on the article when we have all done so. ?A real webinar or, > better still, a WBB (Web Brown Bag). ?Each of us could be required to have > a bottle of beer open beside our computer. > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > >> [Original Message] >> From: Owen Densmore >> To: >> Date: 9/8/2009 9:46:07 AM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> The Truth Sez: >> ? ?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_emergence >> >> It Must Be True. >> >> >> ? ?I spit me of any other kinds! >> >> >> ? ? ?-- Owen >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >> > I think you have that wrong. ?He says that the halt of the growth of >> > an >> > R-pentomino is WEAKLY emergent because you cannot anticipate it from >> > the >> > early behavior of the automata. ?You just have to run the sucker. >> > If you >> > can calculate it, it's only nominally emergent or perhaps not >> > emergent at >> > all. ?Unfortunately that passage is not in the version of the ms >> > that is in >> > the pdf I sent. ?Merde. ?In short,I think what you are callling >> > strongly >> > emergent is what he is calling weakly emergent, and what you are >> > calling >> > weakly emergent is at best nominally so. >> > >> > N >> > >> > Nicholas S. Thompson >> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 13:36:10 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:36:10 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909080951o2e600f70jd536e7416dfdddfc@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009928162943560@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909080951o2e600f70jd536e7416dfdddfc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909081036g499312bdr83e212bde9c1d569@mail.gmail.com> I read that article a while ago, and my memory is similar. I think that basically Bedau doesn't understand what emergence means. But then he says as much. The point of the article is to attempt to define categories as a way of beginning. It may have been useful at the time, but (in my opinion) it is now obsolete. As I recall, strong emergence meant essentially the appearance of a new force of nature, something with objective causal powers like gravity or electromagnetic attraction/repulsion -- but absolutely new. Vitalism and its notiont of a "life force" is good examples. It appears only at a certain level of biochemical complexity. Once it appears it is able to do things (like being alive) that simply could not be done otherwise and could not be understood in terms of the pre-existing forces of nature. Weak emergence means that one can't understand the emergent phenomenon analytically (like adding the masses of a number of entities to get a total mass of the aggregate) but had to execute it to find out. This is like software for which one can't solve the halting problem but have to run it to see -- and one may never get the answer. -- Russ On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > I thought that it was pretty simple: strong emergence would be > miraculous if it happened, which is why it is metaphysically > problematic; weak emergence is what we find, unexpected lawfulnesses, > which, in the end, turn out to be explicable, if not entirely > predictable. > > I followed the link in the wikipedia to the stanford encyc. of > philosophy article on supervenience which explained that the common > usage, which was at least once commonly used in philosophical > discussions of emergence, is not the philosophical usage, which is > technical and completely different from the common usage. > > -- rec -- > > On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Nicholas > Thompson wrote: > > Owen and Russ, > > > > I have spent some time trying to reread Bedau and have lost patience with > > him. With normal human effort, I have not been able to articulate his > > categories, weak and strong emergence. The reference to reduction in > the > > definition of strong emergence really gets us nowhere because reduction > > isnt nailed down in the article. > > > > I guess I would like to come to an understanding with you guys: Either we > > give up on the distinction between strong and weak emergence, or we agree > > to spend some time in Bedau's text explicating his meaning. My > suspicion > > is that Bedau's presentation is not coherent: i.e., while his > distinction > > between weak and strong is central to his argument, he does not go to the > > effort to articulate that distinction, i.e., to define weak and strong in > > the same terms so that we can see the contrast between them. If the > > distinction is foundation to either of you, then help me to understand it > > by pointing to some part of the text that you find particularly lucid. > > > > The "Bedau" I am referring to is that found in the Bedau and Humphreys > > collection. Another version of that article up on the web at > > > > http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf > > > > Even tho one is cited as a reprint of the other, I think I have detected > > some important differences, so we would have to be careful. > > > > We could agree to have read the article by a particular time and "meet" > and > > open a thread on the article when we have all done so. A real webinar > or, > > better still, a WBB (Web Brown Bag). Each of us could be required to > have > > a bottle of beer open beside our computer. > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > >> [Original Message] > >> From: Owen Densmore > >> To: > >> Date: 9/8/2009 9:46:07 AM > >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence > >> > >> The Truth Sez: > >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_emergence > >> > >> It Must Be True. > >> > >> > >> I spit me of any other kinds! > >> > >> > >> -- Owen > >> > >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > >> > >> > I think you have that wrong. He says that the halt of the growth of > >> > an > >> > R-pentomino is WEAKLY emergent because you cannot anticipate it from > >> > the > >> > early behavior of the automata. You just have to run the sucker. > >> > If you > >> > can calculate it, it's only nominally emergent or perhaps not > >> > emergent at > >> > all. Unfortunately that passage is not in the version of the ms > >> > that is in > >> > the pdf I sent. Merde. In short,I think what you are callling > >> > strongly > >> > emergent is what he is calling weakly emergent, and what you are > >> > calling > >> > weakly emergent is at best nominally so. > >> > > >> > N > >> > > >> > Nicholas S. Thompson > >> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > >> > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > >> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 13:42:34 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:42:34 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <7780e76c0909080746q2b963b17we4bf4901097d35fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> <85266534-C862-4286-B2AD-A89649E0E181@astarte.csustan.edu> <15fe0a4a0909072224l6116a792l7acefe27ae1b66d8@mail.gmail.com> <7780e76c0909080746q2b963b17we4bf4901097d35fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909081042i6d0571fasce122a6b49e25e@mail.gmail.com> Again, I'm not asking for a word that describes a property of a language. I want a word that describes certain kinds of applications. My previous suggestion of *meta-application* is probably not too good either in that it is currently used to refer to operating-system like software -- software that manipulates applications. So now I'm thinking about *application schema*. Admittedly that's moving in the direction of *application template*. Part of my quest is that I want a word that describes application code that can be parametrized in certain ways. *Template *all by itself is just too general in that it doesn't imply that the template is for an application. Lots of things can be templated in a language that supports templates. That's fine but that's not what I want to say. -- Russ On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 7:46 AM, Dale Schumacher wrote: > The term "meta-circular" describes a language characteristic that enables > meta-programming. It means that the mechanisms needed to define the > semantics of a language are available to programmers _in_ the language > itself. This leads to support for internal Domain Specific Languages and > other higher-order techniques. In a recent interview, John McCarthy said > that is was important for a language to have access to it's own parse-tree. > I consider that a weak form of meta-circularity, but the right intent is > communicated. > > > On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > >> WRT the original quest, I realize that the trail is probably cold for most >> of the list by now and that tangential discussions have now generated more >> interest, but I think I have a reasonable answer. >> >> In functional programming map and reduce are often called *meta-functions >> *. GA, GP, Ant Colony Optimization, etc. are often called * >> meta-heuristics*. *Meta programming* is even in Wikipedia referring to >> programs that manipulate other programs. *Meta-programming* is a bit too >> general for what I'm after since a compiler is a meta-program and that's not >> really the point. But *meta-application* may do the trick. >> >> Thanks for all your help. >> >> -- Russ >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 8 14:57:15 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:57:15 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909081042i6d0571fasce122a6b49e25e@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> <655E3CE4-EE18-4D7E-82A8-16613EAD432E@chimptek.com> <4AA596DA.8060901@swcp.com> <15fe0a4a0909071648x36324a7epc35a208668b9f230@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909071741m48375edex51813fd279b66825@mail.gmail.com> <0A995396-1DA0-4D48-B724-5BC9B7A9E80D@chimptek.com> <85266534-C862-4286-B2AD-A89649E0E181@astarte.csustan.edu> <15fe0a4a0909072224l6116a792l7acefe27ae1b66d8@mail.gmail.com> <7780e76c0909080746q2b963b17we4bf4901097d35fe@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909081042i6d0571fasce122a6b49e25e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA6A90B.5010906@snoutfarm.com> Russ Abbott wrote: > So now I'm thinking about /application schema/. Admittedly that's > moving in the direction of /application template/. Part of my quest is > that I want a word that describes application code that can be > parametrized in certain ways. /Template /all by itself is just too > general in that it doesn't imply that the template is for an > application. Lots of things can be templated in a language that > supports templates. That's fine but that's not what I want to say. You might want to look to modeling or category theory to provide the descriptive term you seek. For example, a Common Lisp macro, can expand into different kinds of procedures depending on the parameterization; the full power of the language is available to macros (completely unlike the C preprocessor). A C++ template however, is simply dropping in types into fixed skeletons. The structures one expresses in C++ with different types will be isomorphic whereas with Lisp it would not need to be. Marcus From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 8 18:35:48 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 16:35:48 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence Message-ID: <380-22009928223548974@earthlink.net> I agree with your characterization of his characterization of weak emergence, and while I am inclined to agree with your characterization of his characterization of strong emergence, I cannot for the life of me find it in his present text. But we agree that the distinction is not worth pounding our head against. Thanks, Russ, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group;Roger Critchlow Cc: nickthompson at earthlink.net Sent: 9/8/2009 11:36:31 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence I read that article a while ago, and my memory is similar. I think that basically Bedau doesn't understand what emergence means. But then he says as much. The point of the article is to attempt to define categories as a way of beginning. It may have been useful at the time, but (in my opinion) it is now obsolete. As I recall, strong emergence meant essentially the appearance of a new force of nature, something with objective causal powers like gravity or electromagnetic attraction/repulsion -- but absolutely new. Vitalism and its notiont of a "life force" is good examples. It appears only at a certain level of biochemical complexity. Once it appears it is able to do things (like being alive) that simply could not be done otherwise and could not be understood in terms of the pre-existing forces of nature. Weak emergence means that one can't understand the emergent phenomenon analytically (like adding the masses of a number of entities to get a total mass of the aggregate) but had to execute it to find out. This is like software for which one can't solve the halting problem but have to run it to see -- and one may never get the answer. -- Russ On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote: I thought that it was pretty simple: strong emergence would be miraculous if it happened, which is why it is metaphysically problematic; weak emergence is what we find, unexpected lawfulnesses, which, in the end, turn out to be explicable, if not entirely predictable. I followed the link in the wikipedia to the stanford encyc. of philosophy article on supervenience which explained that the common usage, which was at least once commonly used in philosophical discussions of emergence, is not the philosophical usage, which is technical and completely different from the common usage. -- rec -- On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Owen and Russ, > > I have spent some time trying to reread Bedau and have lost patience with > him. With normal human effort, I have not been able to articulate his > categories, weak and strong emergence. The reference to reduction in the > definition of strong emergence really gets us nowhere because reduction > isnt nailed down in the article. > > I guess I would like to come to an understanding with you guys: Either we > give up on the distinction between strong and weak emergence, or we agree > to spend some time in Bedau's text explicating his meaning. My suspicion > is that Bedau's presentation is not coherent: i.e., while his distinction > between weak and strong is central to his argument, he does not go to the > effort to articulate that distinction, i.e., to define weak and strong in > the same terms so that we can see the contrast between them. If the > distinction is foundation to either of you, then help me to understand it > by pointing to some part of the text that you find particularly lucid. > > The "Bedau" I am referring to is that found in the Bedau and Humphreys > collection. Another version of that article up on the web at > > http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf > > Even tho one is cited as a reprint of the other, I think I have detected > some important differences, so we would have to be careful. > > We could agree to have read the article by a particular time and "meet" and > open a thread on the article when we have all done so. A real webinar or, > better still, a WBB (Web Brown Bag). Each of us could be required to have > a bottle of beer open beside our computer. > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > >> [Original Message] >> From: Owen Densmore >> To: >> Date: 9/8/2009 9:46:07 AM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> The Truth Sez: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_emergence >> >> It Must Be True. >> >> >> I spit me of any other kinds! >> >> >> -- Owen >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >> > I think you have that wrong. He says that the halt of the growth of >> > an >> > R-pentomino is WEAKLY emergent because you cannot anticipate it from >> > the >> > early behavior of the automata. You just have to run the sucker. >> > If you >> > can calculate it, it's only nominally emergent or perhaps not >> > emergent at >> > all. Unfortunately that passage is not in the version of the ms >> > that is in >> > the pdf I sent. Merde. In short,I think what you are callling >> > strongly >> > emergent is what he is calling weakly emergent, and what you are >> > calling >> > weakly emergent is at best nominally so. >> > >> > N >> > >> > Nicholas S. Thompson >> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 8 18:49:45 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 16:49:45 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Michel Block's talk Message-ID: <380-22009928224945487@earthlink.net> All, Forgive me if I have missed a memo... I am not on ALL the lists ...but I assume that tomorrow at 11.30 we are getting together at the SfComplex to hear Michel Bloch talk about his complexity organization in Paris., and subsequently to go out to lunch. If this is NOT the case will somebody respond to me on this list? Michel and I had a great chat. Michel is one of those people who is convinced that conplexity thinking has a broad range of transformative applications to government, industry and research, and he has formed an organization of Parisians dedicated to exploring the various different ways in which complexity thinking can be put to work. He will be around for another two weeks. Please let me know what is happening. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Tue Sep 8 20:34:39 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:34:39 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Veezyon product launch: this Thursday Sept 10 @ sfComplex 6p - 8p Message-ID: <8EDC45B2-98C4-4A44-8393-14AB8636B3C3@redfish.com> Come participate in the Veezyon product launch, get some snacks and then leave your car afterwards and walk over to Zozobra for the 9p burn! ------------- Product Launch! Santa Fe Company Introduces its Social Learning Platform Where: Santa Fe Complex map http://sfcomplex.org/wordpress/contact-us When: September 10, 2009 6.00 p.m. ? 8.00 p.m. At this informal event Veezyon Corporation, a Santa Fe based consumer Internet company, will launch its social learning platform. Veezyon partners with Universities, Institutions and Organizations, which produce professionally edited, knowledge-based, rich media content. Veezyon's social learning platform supports partners? content with cutting edge, web-based productivity and collaboration tools to enhance users? online research and learning experience. Veezyon received Venture Acceleration Funding through the NNM Connect program in 2008 and founders will also discuss how this funding helped them get to the next level. Join Veezyon Founders who are looking for your feedback and a lively discussion. Refreshments will be provided. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to Shandra Clow at clow at lanl.gov . There is no charge for this event. From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 20:40:45 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 17:40:45 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009928223548974@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009928223548974@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909081740u787a2922rf820fc7cd37215d9@mail.gmail.com> Actually, I would say that the issue of strong emergence is important. If there is no strong emergence, it means that the only things in the Universe that make anything happen are the fundamental forces of physics. That may seem obvious, but it means that no matter what we build on top of them, that's all there is in terms of exploitable forces. One way to understand this (which uses an example I find myself using all the time) is in terms of the Game of Life. Nothing (absolutely nothing) happens on a Game of Life Board other than that the Game of Life rules make cells go on and off. Gliders, for example, are not a force -- which is why I called them epiphenomenal in my "Emergence Explained" paper.. They don't make anything happen. It is not correct to say that when a glider reaches a cell it makes the cell go on (or off). Nothing makes cells go on or off other than the Game of Life rules. In other words, there is a sense in which strict reductionism is right! Now you already know that I think that a simple reductionist perspective produces what I've called a blind spot. But that doesn't mean that there are any forces in the universe other than the fundamental forces of physics. That's the challenge of understanding emergence. How can there be higher level things that act in some sense autonomously and are not reducible in a simple way to quarks, etc. if the only things in the universe that make anything happen are the fundamental forces of physics? That's the emergence quandary -- and it's an important thing to think through. The assertion that there is no strong emergence forces one into thinking about that. That's why it's an important idea. -- Russ On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > I agree with your characterization of his characterization of weak > emergence, and while I am inclined to agree with your characterization of > his characterization of strong emergence, I cannot for the life of me find > it in his present text. > > But we agree that the distinction is not worth pounding our head against. > > Thanks, Russ, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > ;Roger Critchlow *Cc: *nickthompson at earthlink.net > *Sent:* 9/8/2009 11:36:31 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence > > I read that article a while ago, and my memory is similar. I think that > basically Bedau doesn't understand what emergence means. But then he says as > much. The point of the article is to attempt to define categories as a way > of beginning. It may have been useful at the time, but (in my opinion) it is > now obsolete. > > As I recall, strong emergence meant essentially the appearance of a new > force of nature, something with objective causal powers like gravity or > electromagnetic attraction/repulsion -- but absolutely new. Vitalism and its > notiont of a "life force" is good examples. It appears only at a certain > level of biochemical complexity. Once it appears it is able to do things > (like being alive) that simply could not be done otherwise and could not be > understood in terms of the pre-existing forces of nature. > > Weak emergence means that one can't understand the emergent phenomenon > analytically (like adding the masses of a number of entities to get a total > mass of the aggregate) but had to execute it to find out. This is like > software for which one can't solve the halting problem but have to run it to > see -- and one may never get the answer. > > -- Russ > > > On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > >> I thought that it was pretty simple: strong emergence would be >> miraculous if it happened, which is why it is metaphysically >> problematic; weak emergence is what we find, unexpected lawfulnesses, >> which, in the end, turn out to be explicable, if not entirely >> predictable. >> >> I followed the link in the wikipedia to the stanford encyc. of >> philosophy article on supervenience which explained that the common >> usage, which was at least once commonly used in philosophical >> discussions of emergence, is not the philosophical usage, which is >> technical and completely different from the common usage. >> >> -- rec -- >> >> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Nicholas >> Thompson wrote: >> > Owen and Russ, >> > >> > I have spent some time trying to reread Bedau and have lost patience >> with >> > him. With normal human effort, I have not been able to articulate his >> > categories, weak and strong emergence. The reference to reduction in >> the >> > definition of strong emergence really gets us nowhere because reduction >> > isnt nailed down in the article. >> > >> > I guess I would like to come to an understanding with you guys: Either >> we >> > give up on the distinction between strong and weak emergence, or we >> agree >> > to spend some time in Bedau's text explicating his meaning. My >> suspicion >> > is that Bedau's presentation is not coherent: i.e., while his >> distinction >> > between weak and strong is central to his argument, he does not go to >> the >> > effort to articulate that distinction, i.e., to define weak and strong >> in >> > the same terms so that we can see the contrast between them. If the >> > distinction is foundation to either of you, then help me to understand >> it >> > by pointing to some part of the text that you find particularly lucid. >> > >> > The "Bedau" I am referring to is that found in the Bedau and Humphreys >> > collection. Another version of that article up on the web at >> > >> > http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf >> > >> > Even tho one is cited as a reprint of the other, I think I have detected >> > some important differences, so we would have to be careful. >> > >> > We could agree to have read the article by a particular time and "meet" >> and >> > open a thread on the article when we have all done so. A real webinar >> or, >> > better still, a WBB (Web Brown Bag). Each of us could be required to >> have >> > a bottle of beer open beside our computer. >> > >> > Nick >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > Nicholas S. Thompson >> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> > >> > >> > >> > >> >> [Original Message] >> >> From: Owen Densmore >> >> To: >> >> Date: 9/8/2009 9:46:07 AM >> >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence >> >> >> >> The Truth Sez: >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_emergence >> >> >> >> It Must Be True. >> >> >> >> >> >> I spit me of any other kinds! >> >> >> >> >> >> -- Owen >> >> >> >> On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >> >> >> > I think you have that wrong. He says that the halt of the growth of >> >> > an >> >> > R-pentomino is WEAKLY emergent because you cannot anticipate it from >> >> > the >> >> > early behavior of the automata. You just have to run the sucker. >> >> > If you >> >> > can calculate it, it's only nominally emergent or perhaps not >> >> > emergent at >> >> > all. Unfortunately that passage is not in the version of the ms >> >> > that is in >> >> > the pdf I sent. Merde. In short,I think what you are callling >> >> > strongly >> >> > emergent is what he is calling weakly emergent, and what you are >> >> > calling >> >> > weakly emergent is at best nominally so. >> >> > >> >> > N >> >> > >> >> > Nicholas S. Thompson >> >> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> >> > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> >> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> > >> > >> > >> > ============================================================ >> > 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Tue Sep 8 20:41:42 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:41:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Wedtech conversation: 11:30a Michel Bloch Message-ID: SPEAKER: Michel Bloch WHEN: Wed Sep 9 11:30a @ SFComplex Commons (lunch at 12:45p at El Tesoro following Michael's talk) ABSTRACT: Michel Bloch, founder of the group ?Emergence Paris? (France) is in Santa Fe from Wednesday the 5th through Monday the 21st. Michel Bloch wishes to discuss with some members of the SFComplex his experience as founder of the group ?Emergence Paris?, and the approach taken for two projects: Systemic Marketing and Segregation in French Ghettos. We could also review briefly the various groups working on the complexity sciences in France and discuss potential contacts. Biography Michel Bloch has an Engineering diploma and is a former executive in the computer industry (GE; Honeywell; Bull Group) in Paris; Bordeaux; New York; Boston. He has an extensive experience in Sales; marketing; strategy; R&D management. He managed an international business unit of 6000 people worldwide dedicated to R&D and Product Line Management, located in Tokyo; Phoenix; Boston; London; Paris; Grenoble and Milano. He is the founder of Mount Vernon Consulting, specialized in increasing productivity of downstream activities with NTIT. Developed a passion for the complexity sciences and founded the workgroup ?Emergence Paris? in 2004. The Group ?Emergence Paris? A workgroup constituted of 35 very diverse persons: sales managers, scientists, communication managers, designers, complex project managers and so on. Created in 2004, Emergence Paris has held 43 meetings dedicated to three types of activities: - Summary of books on complexity sciences - Work session on the key concepts of complexity sciences - Discussion of subjects enriched with the concepts of the complexity sciences Emergence Paris is now connected to the research group GREC/IMA led by Alexandre Makarovitsch, which in turn is associated with ?The National Network for Complex Systems?. A subgroup of Emergence Paris is starting a research project in relation with GREC/IMA applying the complexity concepts to existing sociological studies of the suburban French ghettos. From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 9 19:49:35 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 17:49:35 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar Message-ID: <380-22009939234935895@earthlink.net> All, The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? Why a seminar? Because, as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the subject. One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking from discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we read each of the authors. These are: 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or supvenience (whatever that is?) 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, patterns laws, or something else? 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a rare phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in psychology?) 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder. 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena with their new causes and effects? 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions we hold on these questions. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 9 20:12:50 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 18:12:50 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seiminar ( O O O O P S !!!!!) Message-ID: <380-22009941001250280@earthlink.net> Sorry everybody: 4 pm, Garcia and ACEQUIA MADRE. Thanks Owen, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 20:19:52 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 17:19:52 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar In-Reply-To: <380-22009939234935895@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009939234935895@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909091719y61fcf4c6q6962f0ce62eb53d1@mail.gmail.com> Since I won't be there, let me suggest a pre-requisite activity. Discuss why do you (or anyone else) want to define emergence? In saying that I'm not suggesting that *emergence *should not be defined -- although I now think that it is unfortunate that the word has become so widely used. What I want to do is to prompt you to talk about what it is that leads you to want to define *emergence* in the first place. It seems to me that it's impossible even to begin to answer the questions listed below until one has developed for oneself an intuitive idea about what it is that one wants the word *emergence *to capture. That's where I would suggest you start: what is your possibly vague sense of the sorts of things you want the word *emergence *to refer to. Once you have clarified that for yourself I think the questions below will be easier to deal with -- as will the papers in the book. -- Russ On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > All, > > The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this > thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua > Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, > to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? Why a seminar? Because, > as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the > subject. One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude > ways of thinking from discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the > mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to > hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and > contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage > in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we > read each of the authors. These are: > > 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, > unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or > supvenience (whatever that is?) > 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, > patterns laws, or something else? > 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a rare > phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in > psychology?) > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the > eye of the beholder. > 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and > diachronic, or are both possible? > 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena > with their new causes and effects? > 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent > bases? > > Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions > we hold on these questions. > > > Nick > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rec at elf.org Wed Sep 9 20:55:00 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 18:55:00 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] [WedTech] Emergence Seminar In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909091753x50092deen94648f55a48973bb@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009939234935895@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909091753x50092deen94648f55a48973bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909091755v333c9c9bjfbeb1951079bb381@mail.gmail.com> Point of geography, it's Garcia and Acequia Madre, -- rec -- On Sep 9, 2009 5:51 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" wrote: All, The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? Why a seminar? Because, as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the subject. One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking from discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we read each of the authors. These are: 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or supvenience (whatever that is?) 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, patterns laws, or something else? 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a rare phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in psychology?) 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder. 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena with their new causes and effects? 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions we hold on these questions. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ _______________________________________________ Wedtech mailing list Wedtech at redfish.com http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/wedtech_redfish.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From merle at arspublica.org Wed Sep 9 22:13:41 2009 From: merle at arspublica.org (Merle Lefkoff) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:13:41 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] [WedTech] Emergence Seminar In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909091755v333c9c9bjfbeb1951079bb381@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009939234935895@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909091753x50092deen94648f55a48973bb@mail.gmail.com> <66d1c98f0909091755v333c9c9bjfbeb1951079bb381@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA860D5.9040407@arspublica.org> I think the mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to escape from academia and therefore allow oneself the space to hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and contrast, virtually impossible in academia. So---as a recovering academic, I plan to be there--unless I become enthralled with the Slow Money conference. Merle Lefkoff Roger Critchlow wrote: > > Point of geography, it's Garcia and Acequia Madre, > > -- rec -- > >> On Sep 9, 2009 5:51 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" >> > wrote: >> >> All, >> >> The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting >> this thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia >> and Agua Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in >> its early stages, to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? >> Why a seminar? Because, as I keep saying (sorry), I want to >> articulate the different views on the subject. One thing I noticed >> about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking from >> discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the mark of a >> truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold >> more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and >> contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to >> engage in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven >> questions, as we read each of the authors. These are: >> >> 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, >> unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or >> supvenience (whatever that is?) >> 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, >> phenomena, patterns laws, or something else? >> 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a >> rare phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as >> well as in psychology?) >> 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in >> the eye of the beholder. >> 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic >> and diachronic, or are both possible? >> 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of >> phenomena with their new causes and effects? >> 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent >> bases? >> >> Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what >> preconceptions we hold on these questions. >> >> >> Nick >> >> >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wedtech mailing list >> Wedtech at redfish.com >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/wedtech_redfish.com >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 9 22:55:52 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 20:55:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar Message-ID: <380-22009941025552724@earthlink.net> Hi, Russ, It's my least favorite of the seven questions. To me, the question my be recast as, "What light's your wick in the world to which the label emergence has been attached.?" I know you wouldn't know if from my posts on Friam but I spent most of my career working as a research scientist on forms of communication ... bird song, babies cries, whining, for instance. As a dyed in the wool materialist, I have always been fascinated by the question of how things come into being and why they have come to take the form that they do. Rather than using the question to build a wall around emergence, I would hope that we will use it to develop a list of all the things labeled emergent that have challenged the imagination of group members. Have you read Sean Carroll's book on EVO DEVO? For years I sat in a psychology department listening to sterile arguments concerning nature and nurture. And now, by god, we know how it works, and neither nature nor nurture -- in the sense that their protagonists understood them -- had anything to do with it. I am so glad that I lived to learn how nature makes an organism. nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/9/2009 6:20:13 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar Since I won't be there, let me suggest a pre-requisite activity. Discuss why do you (or anyone else) want to define emergence? In saying that I'm not suggesting that emergence should not be defined -- although I now think that it is unfortunate that the word has become so widely used. What I want to do is to prompt you to talk about what it is that leads you to want to define emergence in the first place. It seems to me that it's impossible even to begin to answer the questions listed below until one has developed for oneself an intuitive idea about what it is that one wants the word emergence to capture. That's where I would suggest you start: what is your possibly vague sense of the sorts of things you want the word emergence to refer to. Once you have clarified that for yourself I think the questions below will be easier to deal with -- as will the papers in the book. -- Russ On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? Why a seminar? Because, as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the subject. One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking from discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we read each of the authors. These are: 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or supvenience (whatever that is?) 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, patterns laws, or something else? 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a rare phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in psychology?) 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder. 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena with their new causes and effects? 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions we hold on these questions. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 23:23:09 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 20:23:09 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Intention (was emergence seminar) Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909092023y19fe693h5f8c2d2e0db69b1e@mail.gmail.com> I think we're asking the same question. I want people to ask themselves why they are asking about emergence. What is it that brings them to that point. Isn't that what you're saying? In any event, I have read EVO-DEVO. Very good book -- as are his other books. On a completely different subject, although this may be a bit off the track of your experience as a research scientist, I wonder if you can offer some insight and instinct and intention. I've been thinking lately about the line between them. Clearly some animal behavior is robotic instinct. (I know I've heard of some good examples of cases in which you interrupt an insect that looks like it is building a nest and put it down a few inches away, and it starts all over again -- or something like that. The goose egg behavior on this pageis another example. I'm surprised that I haven't been able to find more.) And clearly (at least to those of us who are willing to attribute intention to animals) some animal behavior is intentional. There were some recent experiments in which chimps(?) had to figure out that they could retrieve a stick from a container which they could then use to retrieve a reward. This is new, innovative behavior, not a learned trick. So my question is, have biologists identified where one sort of behavior becomes the other -- or probably better, where the lowest level intentional behavior has been observed? -- Russ On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Hi, Russ, > > It's my least favorite of the seven questions. To me, the question my be > recast as, "What light's your wick in the world to which the label emergence > has been attached.?" I know you wouldn't know if from my posts on Friam but > I spent most of my career working as a research scientist on forms of > communication ... bird song, babies cries, whining, for instance. As a dyed > in the wool materialist, I have always been fascinated by the question of > how things come into being and why they have come to take the form that they > do. Rather than using the question to build a wall around emergence, I > would hope that we will use it to develop a list of all the things labeled > emergent that have challenged the imagination of group members. > > Have you read Sean Carroll's book on EVO DEVO? For years I sat in a > psychology department listening to sterile arguments concerning nature and > nurture. And now, by god, we know how it works, and neither nature nor > nurture -- in the sense that their protagonists understood them -- had > anything to do with it. I am so glad that I lived to learn how nature makes > an organism. > > nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/9/2009 6:20:13 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar > > Since I won't be there, let me suggest a pre-requisite activity. > > Discuss why do you (or anyone else) want to define emergence? > > In saying that I'm not suggesting that *emergence *should not be defined > -- although I now think that it is unfortunate that the word has become so > widely used. What I want to do is to prompt you to talk about what it is > that leads you to want to define *emergence* in the first place. It seems > to me that it's impossible even to begin to answer the questions listed > below until one has developed for oneself an intuitive idea about what it is > that one wants the word *emergence *to capture. That's where I would > suggest you start: what is your possibly vague sense of the sorts of things > you want the word *emergence *to refer to. Once you have clarified that > for yourself I think the questions below will be easier to deal with -- as > will the papers in the book. > > -- Russ > > > > On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> All, >> >> The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this >> thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua >> Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, >> to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? Why a seminar? Because, >> as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the >> subject. One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude >> ways of thinking from discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the >> mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to >> hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and >> contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage >> in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we >> read each of the authors. These are: >> >> 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, >> unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or >> supvenience (whatever that is?) >> 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, >> patterns laws, or something else? >> 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a rare >> phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in >> psychology?) >> 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the >> eye of the beholder. >> 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and >> diachronic, or are both possible? >> 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of >> phenomena with their new causes and effects? >> 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent >> bases? >> >> Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions >> we hold on these questions. >> >> >> Nick >> >> >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 9 23:56:57 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 21:56:57 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Intention (was emergence seminar) Message-ID: <380-22009941035657924@earthlink.net> Russ, In his article, The Companion in Bird's Life, Konrad Lorenz took after MacDougall for his failure to realize that while behavior is directed, and behavior has a function, it is never the function toward which behvior is directed. W Powers makes a very similar point in his analysis of control systems, although he is on your side concerning mind, I think. Please take a look at Lorenz's law in the following publication. http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/nthompson/1-websitestuff/Texts/1985-1989/Ethology_and_the_birth_of_comparative_telenomy.pdf At the time, I was using the word purpose for what I think you have in mind when you use the word intention. I think there are many classic examples of the kind of thing you are looking described in the article. The bibliography sucks. I am sorry. I have written quite a lot about intentionality. As you may know, it has two quite distinct (but related) meanings, one referring to the object of directed action, and the other to a more technical philosophical meaning which you can find referred to in http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/nthompson/1-websitestuff/Texts/2000-2005/Intentionality_is_the_mark.pdf Pretty much all of my work is up in the website http://home.earthlink.net/~nthompson/naturaldesigns The lowest level is an abstract of each of the cited papers in Published Work. If you click on the abstract, the entire paper should down load. For some reason I never bothered to explain that in the site. One of these days..... Now you know everything I know. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net Cc: friam at redfish.com Sent: 9/9/2009 9:23:29 PM Subject: Intention (was emergence seminar) I think we're asking the same question. I want people to ask themselves why they are asking about emergence. What is it that brings them to that point. Isn't that what you're saying? In any event, I have read EVO-DEVO. Very good book -- as are his other books. On a completely different subject, although this may be a bit off the track of your experience as a research scientist, I wonder if you can offer some insight and instinct and intention. I've been thinking lately about the line between them. Clearly some animal behavior is robotic instinct. (I know I've heard of some good examples of cases in which you interrupt an insect that looks like it is building a nest and put it down a few inches away, and it starts all over again -- or something like that. The goose egg behavior on this page is another example. I'm surprised that I haven't been able to find more.) And clearly (at least to those of us who are willing to attribute intention to animals) some animal behavior is intentional. There were some recent experiments in which chimps(?) had to figure out that they could retrieve a stick from a container which they could then use to retrieve a reward. This is new, innovative behavior, not a learned trick. So my question is, have biologists identified where one sort of behavior becomes the other -- or probably better, where the lowest level intentional behavior has been observed? -- Russ On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Hi, Russ, It's my least favorite of the seven questions. To me, the question my be recast as, "What light's your wick in the world to which the label emergence has been attached.?" I know you wouldn't know if from my posts on Friam but I spent most of my career working as a research scientist on forms of communication ... bird song, babies cries, whining, for instance. As a dyed in the wool materialist, I have always been fascinated by the question of how things come into being and why they have come to take the form that they do. Rather than using the question to build a wall around emergence, I would hope that we will use it to develop a list of all the things labeled emergent that have challenged the imagination of group members. Have you read Sean Carroll's book on EVO DEVO? For years I sat in a psychology department listening to sterile arguments concerning nature and nurture. And now, by god, we know how it works, and neither nature nor nurture -- in the sense that their protagonists understood them -- had anything to do with it. I am so glad that I lived to learn how nature makes an organism. nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/9/2009 6:20:13 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar Since I won't be there, let me suggest a pre-requisite activity. Discuss why do you (or anyone else) want to define emergence? In saying that I'm not suggesting that emergence should not be defined -- although I now think that it is unfortunate that the word has become so widely used. What I want to do is to prompt you to talk about what it is that leads you to want to define emergence in the first place. It seems to me that it's impossible even to begin to answer the questions listed below until one has developed for oneself an intuitive idea about what it is that one wants the word emergence to capture. That's where I would suggest you start: what is your possibly vague sense of the sorts of things you want the word emergence to refer to. Once you have clarified that for yourself I think the questions below will be easier to deal with -- as will the papers in the book. -- Russ On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua Fria). I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, to the collection, EMERGENCE. Why a collection? Why a seminar? Because, as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the subject. One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking from discussions. So academics tend to scoff. I think the mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and contrast. Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we read each of the authors. These are: 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or supvenience (whatever that is?) 2. What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, patterns laws, or something else? 3. What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena? (Is emergence a rare phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in psychology?) 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye of the beholder. 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and diachronic, or are both possible? 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena with their new causes and effects? 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases? Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions we hold on these questions. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfromm at t-online.de Wed Sep 9 17:36:14 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:36:14 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] I'm looking for a word In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> References: <15fe0a4a0909071214p39022ad9s8b504558d0ffbfa5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <869507112B4B4DD8AFEB273E387653AE@Toshiba> What about "Transmogrifier"? I guess this is not word you have been looking for, but did you that a "Transmogrifier" is indeed a small ?wrapper? method used to propagate a method/property implemented in another subsidiary object? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmogrifier_(computer_science) -J. From nickthompson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 10 14:46:50 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:46:50 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: [WedTech] Emergence Seminar Message-ID: <380-220099410184650510@earthlink.net> All, A couple of people have suggested that they would like to do the emergence seminar if were an evening thing. If any of you are among them, please contact me or send a representative to the first meeting, this afternoon, at 4pm. Another person wrote from afar to ask if we would record the sessions. Doubtful. But here is another thought: Let's say I notify the friam membership of each week's readings, and (thus) open a thread on the chapter. People who want to read with us can join us in a discussion of the readings in the friam list and that thread. I will try, where possible, to obtain electronic references, but I do recommend purchase of the book. Nick > [Original Message] From: anonymous > To: > Date: 9/10/2009 10:18:55 AM > Subject: Re: [WedTech] Emergence Seminar > > Nick: > > Disappointed I won't be able to make this today. I'd like to come, > I'll see if I can manage to start sneaking out early on Thursdays. If > there's a popular movement to make this more of an early evening > thing, count my vote. > > --j > > > On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 5:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > All, > > > > The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this > > thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua > > Fria).? I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, > > to the collection, EMERGENCE.? Why a collection?? Why a seminar?? Because, > > as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the > > subject.? One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude > > ways of thinking from discussions.? So academics tend to scoff.? I think the > > mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to > > hold more than one idea in his or her head at once..... to compare and > > contrast.? Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage > > in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we > > read each of the authors.? These are: > > > > 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, > > unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or > > supvenience (whatever that is?) > > 2.? What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, > > patterns laws, or something else? > > 3.? What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena?? (Is emergence a rare > > phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in > > psychology?) > > 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the > > eye of the beholder. > > 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and > > diachronic, or are both possible? > > 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena > > with their new causes and effects? > > 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent > > bases? > > > > Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions > > we hold on these questions. > > > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wedtech mailing list > > Wedtech at redfish.com > > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/wedtech_redfish.com > > > > From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 11 00:10:48 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:10:48 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009951141048995@earthlink.net> All, The emergence seminar met at Downtown Subscription this afternoon and survived a hailstorm, so I am feeling pretty perky about it. Next week, we will read The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism by Brian P. McLaughlin. British Emergentism is charming to read about. It is all so innocent, upbeat , hierarchical, and Victorian. The great and stable hierarchy of nature. You can almost think of the Queen herself as the last and greatest emergent phenomenon. In McLaughlin's essay, we learn, for instance, that the term, emergent, arose as a contrast to the term resultant ... as in the addition of vectors. When the result of the interaction of two forces was different from the resultant, you had an emergent. See: it's all so simple! I hope that others will join us from afar in reading this source. I have written the author, who teaches at Rutgers, to ask him to supply a pdf of the essay for me to make available for our discussion on the the condition that we would make that discussion available to him in some way, but he has not written back. If anybody knows him and would plead our case, I would be in their debt. A few of you have asked that we might change the time to later. I am going to hang tough for one more week because of the Ulam lectures, but after that we might consider a later time. I am a bit reluctant to make it a beer thing, because I want people sharp, but we shall see. Thanks all, Nick PS. I have a xerox copy of the article if anybody local would like it. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From merle at arspublica.org Fri Sep 11 00:49:50 2009 From: merle at arspublica.org (Merle Lefkoff) Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:49:50 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009951141048995@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009951141048995@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AA9D6EE.2040404@arspublica.org> Dear Nick, So how did it go? I had to make a decision, and I wasn't sure of the time or place for emergence--so I spent the day at the inaugural national organizing meeting of the Slow Money Movement at the Santa Fe Farmers Market. It was---awesome! I have a deep interest in transformational social movements, especially when they are likely to go viral as this one will. Thanks for your note. Please keep me in the loop. Merle Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > All, > > The emergence seminar met at Downtown Subscription this afternoon and > survived a hailstorm, so I am feeling pretty perky about it. Next > week, we will read The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism by Brian > P. McLaughlin. British Emergentism is charming to read about. It > is all so innocent, upbeat , hierarchical, and /Victorian. /The great > and stable hierarchy of nature. You can almost think of the Queen > herself as the last and greatest emergent > phenomenon. In McLaughlin's essay, we learn, for instance, that the > term, emergent, arose as a contrast to the term resultant ... as in > the addition of vectors. When the result of the interaction of two > forces was different from the resultant, you had an emergent. See: > it's all so simple! I hope that others will join us from afar in > reading this source. I have written the author, who teaches at > Rutgers, to ask him to supply a pdf of the essay for me to make > available for our discussion on the the condition that we would make > that discussion available to him in some way, but he has not written > back. If anybody knows him and would plead our case, I would be in > their debt. > > A few of you have asked that we might change the time to later. I am > going to hang tough for one more week because of the Ulam lectures, > but after that we might consider a later time. I am a bit reluctant > to make it a beer thing, because I want people sharp, but we shall see. > > Thanks all, > > Nick > > PS. I have a xerox copy of the article if anybody local would like it. > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 From robert at holmesacosta.com Fri Sep 11 15:54:21 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:54:21 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Swarm-bots Message-ID: <857770150909111254r168e9dfcm90a6338d65e8820c@mail.gmail.com> If I don't see these running round the Complex the next time I visit I'll be *very* disappointed... http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/31/swarm-bots-now-with.html -- Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Fri Sep 11 17:04:53 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:04:53 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Snow Leopard Message-ID: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> How many of us have tried Snow Leopard? -- Owen From marcus at snoutfarm.com Fri Sep 11 17:12:49 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:12:49 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Snow Leopard In-Reply-To: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> References: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <4AAABD51.4040006@snoutfarm.com> Owen Densmore wrote: > How many of us have tried Snow Leopard? Yes -- been using the developer version for a few months too. From victoria at toryhughes.com Fri Sep 11 17:44:40 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:44:40 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: Swarm-bots References: <857770150909111254r168e9dfcm90a6338d65e8820c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35236BEB-439B-43A7-BBC2-C7A7069968A1@toryhughes.com> Tyler? Elan? David? Drew? I will be teaching in southern France until mid-October. After that, I would love to make up some of these with polymer skins and get them interacting. A dozen or so.... Polymer is lightweight, very durable, colorfast, waterproof, and infinitely transformable. Anyone want to join me? An ArtBotFest? A midwinter phototropic confabulation, to put on the arts group calendar? Tory Begin forwarded message: > From: Robert Holmes > Date: September 11, 2009 1:54:21 PM MDT > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Subject: [FRIAM] Swarm-bots > Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > If I don't see these running round the Complex the next time I visit > I'll be *very* disappointed... > > http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/31/swarm-bots-now-with.html > > -- Robert > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rsgonnering1 at mac.com Fri Sep 11 18:06:21 2009 From: rsgonnering1 at mac.com (Russell Gonnering) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:06:21 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] Snow Leopard In-Reply-To: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> References: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> Message-ID: Installed SL on my iMac and PowerBook Pro. iMac worked fine, but after I installed on PowerBook, the machine would boot but only run on an external monitor. While it may be the video card (it was the GeoCities recalled card) quite a coincidence. Still waiting to get the machine back. Russ #3 On Sep 11, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > How many of us have tried Snow Leopard? > > -- 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 From gary at NaturesVisualArts.com Fri Sep 11 18:34:36 2009 From: gary at NaturesVisualArts.com (Gary Schiltz) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:34:36 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] Snow Leopard In-Reply-To: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> References: <4B52D8B1-7791-4818-8DF6-6F49BE2E41D1@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <7C46A752-591F-4334-8C4A-74F2DDF52BC6@NaturesVisualArts.com> The Ars Technica review of Snow Leopard that Tom Carter pointed out the other day got me sufficiently excited to order it, and a friend who is returning from the states next week can bring it to me here in Ecuador. While I'm waiting, I am looking into how best to install it on a separate partition of my MacBook Pro, in order to gradually migrate applications and user data over from my Leopard partition. The main applications that I use extensively and would have any concerns over are Skype and Sketchup. Skype sounds potentially problematic (users have reported it taking more CPU on Snow Leopard than on Windows running under Parallels on Snow Leopard). Sketchup, Office 2008, and Photoshop CS3 sound good to go, and I would hope that the OSX apps like Mail and Safari would be fine as well. And they released 10.6.1 yesterday. I'll post about my experience after I have given it a try. ;; Gary On Sep 11, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > How many of us have tried Snow Leopard? > > -- Owen From tom at jtjohnson.com Fri Sep 11 19:17:33 2009 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:17:33 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] 2009 Healthspottr Fellows Program | Healthspottr Message-ID: FYI -- http://healthspottr.com/fellows Healthspottr Fellow -- *outstanding entrepreneurs will be awarded prizes of up to $250,000 to accelerate their innovative endeavours*. Think MacArthur Genius Grant for healthcare. -tom johnson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Sat Sep 12 18:34:13 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:34:13 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software Message-ID: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which system to use. A few requirements: - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at $1000+ - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) - Run on both Mac/Windows As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a brief review of? -- Owen From sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com Sun Sep 13 13:32:42 2009 From: sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com (Kim Sorvig) Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:32:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 20 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <99C87B4656A4410CBD3BFCCC80F70448@KimPC> Hi Owen -- This might not be germane to your purposes, but to be generally useful, a modelling package should be able to import from both .DWG or whatever is current with AutoCad (other CADs can almost always convert); and from GIS, with Arc as the industry standard. Obviously, if you'renot modelling terrain or architecture, these would be less relevant; CAD for industrial widget design (IWD...) is widespread of course. Kim ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 10:00 AM Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 20 > Send Friam mailing list submissions to > friam at redfish.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > friam-request at redfish.com > > You can reach the person managing the list at > friam-owner at redfish.com > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. 3D Modeling Software (Owen Densmore) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:34:13 -0600 > From: Owen Densmore > Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > , General topics & issues > > Message-ID: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1 at backspaces.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes > > I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on > which system to use. > > A few requirements: > - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at > $1000+ > - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn > - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. > - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering > (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) > - Run on both Mac/Windows > > As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software > > Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could > give a brief review of? > > -- Owen > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Friam mailing list > Friam at redfish.com > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > End of Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 20 > ************************************* > From owen at backspaces.net Mon Sep 14 00:05:37 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:05:37 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] MIT Students Take Pictures from Space on $150 Budget. - iReport.com Message-ID: From a /. post we get: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-328198 -- Owen From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 14 01:45:13 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:45:13 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] MIT Students Take Pictures from Space on $150 Budget. - iReport.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909132245n68d7ddacx555b54a1fed7905c@mail.gmail.com> Look at their individual web pages (click on their names on this page) and see how young they are!. -- Russ On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 9:05 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > From a /. post we get: > http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-328198 > > -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msuazo at gmail.com Mon Sep 14 10:42:14 2009 From: msuazo at gmail.com (M Suazo) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:42:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software In-Reply-To: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> References: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> Message-ID: Have you given Google SketchUp a look? On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which > system to use. > > A few requirements: > - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at $1000+ > - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn > - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. > - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering > (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) > - Run on both Mac/Windows > > As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software > > Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a > brief review of? > > -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rikus.groups at gmail.com Mon Sep 14 11:12:03 2009 From: rikus.groups at gmail.com (Rikus Combrinck) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:12:03 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software In-Reply-To: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> References: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <368B3ABCF63B4BB18283AEF45B03F620@Sauron> How about Blender? http://www.blender.org/ I've played with it occasionally over a period of several years. I don't have any experience with commercial alternatives, so can't comment on how it compares. But it satisfies your stated requirements, it's free, has got very active user and development communities and has been used to make more than one short film. My main complaint is the ugly and unusual GUI. However, regular users maintain it enhances usability and productivity compared to alternatives. Regards, Rikus -------------------------------------------------- From: "Owen Densmore" Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 12:34 AM To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" ; "General topics & issues" Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which system to use. A few requirements: - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at $1000+ - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) - Run on both Mac/Windows As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a brief review of? -- Owen From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 14 19:22:04 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:22:04 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> All, I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they? Can anybody help me with this paradox???? I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 14 19:38:56 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:38:56 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909141638g26bffd55j669b3536c2981b2e@mail.gmail.com> That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think. It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > All, > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 14 21:55:59 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:55:59 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009921515559557@earthlink.net> Russ, To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views of the same subject in mind at the same time. I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a night-shrouded bay. Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources in this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that is, to compare and contrast it with other opinions. But hey, I am an academic and a humanist: what would you expect me to believe Don't let that woman out of your sight!! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think. It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they? Can anybody help me with this paradox???? I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rec at elf.org Mon Sep 14 22:48:55 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:48:55 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909141948g4f06def7t2f7f8b66cbe142b6@mail.gmail.com> As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according to emergent or resultant rule sets. The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples of biology. Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast, operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces, same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly complicated configurations of nuclei. The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for inheritance. But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists, as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct: configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the one sense they really cared about. -- rec -- On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > All, > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central assertions > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on to > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus, to > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Mon Sep 14 23:39:14 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:39:14 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909141948g4f06def7t2f7f8b66cbe142b6@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909141948g4f06def7t2f7f8b66cbe142b6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090915033913.GG6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> >From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very "configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole professional life. It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as complexity researchers, would we be interested in that? Cheers On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote: > As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations > are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according > to emergent or resultant rule sets. > > The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They > believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result > of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew > it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the > answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather > than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety > of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating > according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it > wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the > result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples > of biology. > > Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated > configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast, > operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and > statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces, > same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but > they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons > packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly > complicated configurations of nuclei. > > The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the > last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for > inheritance. > > But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists, > as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct: > configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding > chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that > happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically > distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and > electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the > resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the > Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the > one sense they really cared about. > > -- rec -- > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > All, > > > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central assertions > > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of > > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on to > > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > > concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > > > Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary > > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and > > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus, to > > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > > dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and > > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will > > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owen at backspaces.net Mon Sep 14 23:43:02 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:43:02 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <20090915033913.GG6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909141948g4f06def7t2f7f8b66cbe142b6@mail.gmail.com> <20090915033913.GG6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <9269991A-CE54-4D92-BE3E-A3D125FD5DEB@backspaces.net> [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within chaos.] Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in formalizing it. Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined "emergence". I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying chaotic systems. It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for success. You see why I included Chaos Envy? -- Owen From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 14 23:54:23 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:54:23 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009921535423282@earthlink.net> Dear Russ II, One of the things I hope to find out by discussing actual texts is whether it IS the same as vitalism. I don't think so. Another reason to spend a week on the british emergentists is because of their partial ressemblence to Authors like Juarerro and Rosen whom some of us do take seriously. It's hard to believe in top-down causality without endorsing many of the positions taken by these folks. And, remember, we are only spending a week on the B.E's; next week it's on to John Searle! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 5:39:14 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > >From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the > same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very > "configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by > emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is > used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole > professional life. > > It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely > rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as > complexity researchers, would we be interested in that? > > Cheers > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote: > > As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations > > are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according > > to emergent or resultant rule sets. > > > > The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They > > believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result > > of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew > > it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the > > answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather > > than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety > > of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating > > according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it > > wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the > > result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples > > of biology. > > > > Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated > > configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast, > > operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and > > statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces, > > same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but > > they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons > > packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly > > complicated configurations of nuclei. > > > > The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the > > last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for > > inheritance. > > > > But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists, > > as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct: > > configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding > > chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that > > happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically > > distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and > > electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the > > resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the > > Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the > > one sense they really cared about. > > > > -- rec -- > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson > > wrote: > > > All, > > > > > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > > > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central assertions > > > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of > > > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on to > > > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > > > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > > > concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > > > > > Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary > > > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and > > > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus, to > > > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > > > dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and > > > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > > > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > > > > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > > > > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will > > > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 15 00:18:06 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:18:06 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <9269991A-CE54-4D92-BE3E-A3D125FD5DEB@backspaces.net> References: <380-22009911423224728@earthlink.net> <66d1c98f0909141948g4f06def7t2f7f8b66cbe142b6@mail.gmail.com> <20090915033913.GG6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <9269991A-CE54-4D92-BE3E-A3D125FD5DEB@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909142118x49d7ca7u5343b9818d85ac17@mail.gmail.com> Owen, Here's how I would start. I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) That raises a few questions. 1. What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.) 2. How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the entities being structured.) 3. Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) 4. Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming language one is using.) -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > field within chaos.] > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in > formalizing it. > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > "emergence". > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > for identifying chaotic systems. > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for > success. > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 15 00:22:46 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:22:46 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> Oh, gosh! I hope it was clear to every reader that when I wrote: I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody felt singled out. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Nicholas Thompson To: Russ.Abbott at GMail.com Cc: Friam at redfish.com Sent: 9/14/2009 7:55:58 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Russ, To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views of the same subject in mind at the same time. I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a night-shrouded bay. Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources in this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that is, to compare and contrast it with other opinions. But hey, I am an academic and a humanist: what would you expect me to believe Don't let that woman out of your sight!! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think. It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they? Can anybody help me with this paradox???? I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 15 00:30:52 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:30:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009921543052750@earthlink.net> Russ, I agree with I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Owen, Here's how I would start. I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) That raises a few questions. What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.) How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the entities being structured.) Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming language one is using.) -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within chaos.] Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in formalizing it. Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined "emergence". I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying chaotic systems. It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for success. You see why I included Chaos Envy? -- 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Tue Sep 15 00:55:01 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:55:01 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009921543052750@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009921543052750@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20090915045501.GI6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now :). Serves me right, I guess. I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means something to somebody. And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the system arranged completely at random). While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity extended to others. Cheers On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Russ, > > I agree with > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > Owen, > > Here's how I would start. > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) > > That raises a few questions. > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.) > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the entities being structured.) > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming language one is using.) > > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within chaos.] > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in formalizing it. > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined "emergence". > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying chaotic systems. > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for success. > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > -- 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 15 01:02:04 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:02:04 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <20090915045501.GI6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <380-22009921543052750@earthlink.net> <20090915045501.GI6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909142202x22a32654ua45b0588b055ef22@mail.gmail.com> Dear Russ S, I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that? -- Russ A On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish wrote: > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now > :). Serves me right, I guess. > > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > something to somebody. > > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the > system arranged completely at random). > > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity > extended to others. > > Cheers > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Russ, > > > > I agree with > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Russ Abbott > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > > > > Owen, > > > > Here's how I would start. > > > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or > 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a > structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One > of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. > I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as > referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > > > That raises a few questions. > > > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create > structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: > static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce > emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much > more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent > phenomena like biological and social entities.) > > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work > according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more > difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the > entities being structured.) > > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is > that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities > exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is > continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from > equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My > answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about > the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the > energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the > mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming > language one is using.) > > > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore > wrote: > > > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > field within chaos.] > > > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in > formalizing it. > > > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > "emergence". > > > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > for identifying chaotic systems. > > > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for > success. > > > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > > > -- 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 > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sidhrth at gmail.com Tue Sep 15 03:26:29 2009 From: sidhrth at gmail.com (siddharth) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:26:29 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software In-Reply-To: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> References: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <85e945bd0909150026y2e1a5155r567019d0f4ba77fc@mail.gmail.com> Rhino is pretty standard nowadays - http://www.rhino3d.com / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_3D Stable, powerful, versatile, some great plug-ins...(nope, not an ad!) Worth a shot.. It used to be free intially, you could still download the Evaluation version and muck around... (What 3D-modeling needs are you specifically looking at?) On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: > I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which > system to use. > > A few requirements: > - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at $1000+ > - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn > - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. > - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering > (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) > - Run on both Mac/Windows > > As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software > > Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a > brief review of? > > -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robert at holmesacosta.com Tue Sep 15 09:00:16 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:00:16 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Beware Flash cookies Message-ID: <857770150909150600y4ff7cae2hcf40c095f705b8b2@mail.gmail.com> Flash has it's own version of cookies that not many people know about and are hard to delete. See http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/ If you want to delete them or stop them getting dropped on your computer you actually need to use a control panel on the Adobe site: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html#118539 -- Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 10:10:48 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:10:48 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] concrete study (was Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <20090915045501.GI6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <380-22009921543052750@earthlink.net> <20090915045501.GI6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <4AAFA068.3060705@agent-based-modeling.com> Russell's on to something, here. What RussA refers to as "structure" is predicate or operator dependent. (I don't go as far as Russell and boil it all down to meaning. Meaning is just one kind of operator.) There is no such thing as an "unstructured component". Hence, there is no such thing as a "structured entity from unstructured components". But there are operators that apply to the components and that do not apply to the collection of components and vice versa. So, the structure of the collection can (usually will) be different from the structure of the components. As for Owen's pragmatic approach, I'd constrain the areas of convergence studied even more (way tighter than ABM). I'd recommend picking 3 concrete examples and work particularly with them. Systems with components such that: 1) the operators apply equally well with the system as with the components (like the systems RussA was trying to find a word for recently), 2) the operators don't, in general, apply to both systems and their components, but that can be tweaked so that they do apply, and 3) the set of operators on the systems and the set of operators on the components are disjoint. (1) represents trivial (or no) emergence. (2) represents weak emergence. and (3) represents strong emergence. Of course, perhaps we can't formalize any systems+components so that we realize (3). But failing to find that 3rd concrete example would be a learning experience. Thus spake russell standish circa 09/14/2009 09:55 PM: > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > something to somebody. > > [...] > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> I agree with >> >> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/14/2009 09:18 PM: >>> I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a >>> structured entity from unstructured components--as the >>> commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the >>> notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) >> >> This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I >> think. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 10:33:03 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:33:03 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> The lack of depth you point out is the dominant feature of online discussion, at least in every online forum I've experienced over the past 28 years. (Some people have told me it's _my_ personal problem and not a feature of online comm at all. I ignore them, of course. [grin]) I think the reason for the shallowness of the interaction is because people can be (mis-)quoted, verbatim, and have their own words thrown back at them. Very few people listen to what the writer is _trying_ to say. They just listen to what they infer from the writing. Listening to what the writer is trying to say involves things like 1) paraphrasing what they wrote by writing it anew in one's own words, 2) reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some fractioned piece of it, and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, are difficult and expensive for online comm. If any one person invests too much energy in exploring another person's opinion, they a) can appear to hold that opinion themselves and b) can dynamically be convinced of that opinion, perhaps without realizing it. In f2f, that happens smoothly and naturally ... then after a few days, the different opinions either smush together or spread apart. But (without recording equipment) nobody can effectively add friction to the process by quoting the other before or after any incremental evolution or refinement of their opinion. (And, of course, most people end up with a fuzzy-headed "sameness" or "otherness" sense of the opinions of the other people, without any real, crisp, distinctions at all.) Hence, in online comm. (without a robust offline substrate) we find that most people emphatically assert their individuality and focus on contrast rather than comparison. If, however, a group of people who have robust offline relationships augment their conversations with online comm, the dynamic is much more cohesive.... except when the sporadic "foreigner" pokes his head in with contributions that lack the more robust context. ;-) That's just my opinion, of course. Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/14/2009 09:22 PM: > I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in > the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty > representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. > > > that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the > contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at > me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody > felt singled out. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 12:34:34 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:34:34 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AAFC21A.3060106@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > I think the reason for the shallowness of the interaction is because > people can be (mis-)quoted, verbatim, and have their own words thrown > back at them. Very few people listen to what the writer is _trying_ to > say. They just listen to what they infer from the writing. > > Yes. "Don?t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood." - - Robert Louis Stevenson From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 15 12:53:52 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:53:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-220099215165352241@earthlink.net> Yeah! Like Glen said. [see below]. Except that: when I was a professor, I thought that email was a wonderful way to committ people to writing. Hard to get students to commit. But it never quite worked that way for the reasons that Glen lays out. [sigh]. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 8:34:00 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > The lack of depth you point out is the dominant feature of online > discussion, at least in every online forum I've experienced over the > past 28 years. (Some people have told me it's _my_ personal problem and > not a feature of online comm at all. I ignore them, of course. [grin]) > I think the reason for the shallowness of the interaction is because > people can be (mis-)quoted, verbatim, and have their own words thrown > back at them. Very few people listen to what the writer is _trying_ to > say. They just listen to what they infer from the writing. > > Listening to what the writer is trying to say involves things like 1) > paraphrasing what they wrote by writing it anew in one's own words, 2) > reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some fractioned > piece of it, and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ > of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, > are difficult and expensive for online comm. > > If any one person invests too much energy in exploring another person's > opinion, they a) can appear to hold that opinion themselves and b) can > dynamically be convinced of that opinion, perhaps without realizing it. > In f2f, that happens smoothly and naturally ... then after a few days, > the different opinions either smush together or spread apart. But > (without recording equipment) nobody can effectively add friction to the > process by quoting the other before or after any incremental evolution > or refinement of their opinion. (And, of course, most people end up > with a fuzzy-headed "sameness" or "otherness" sense of the opinions of > the other people, without any real, crisp, distinctions at all.) > > Hence, in online comm. (without a robust offline substrate) we find that > most people emphatically assert their individuality and focus on > contrast rather than comparison. If, however, a group of people who > have robust offline relationships augment their conversations with > online comm, the dynamic is much more cohesive.... except when the > sporadic "foreigner" pokes his head in with contributions that lack the > more robust context. ;-) > > That's just my opinion, of course. > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/14/2009 09:22 PM: > > I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in > > the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty > > representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. > > > > > > that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the > > contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at > > me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody > > felt singled out. > > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 13:36:58 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:36:58 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > 2) reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some fractioned > piece of it, If the parts of the message are wrong or unclear, then doubt should be cast upon the gestalt as well. > and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ > of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, > are difficult and expensive for online comm. The writer is at fault, and it may well be with malicious intent, if in general she expects readers to form a coherent model of her. It is necessary for a reader to form a model of what is written and its relevant context. (If the text is an autobiography, then she can expect the reader to model the writer.) Marcus From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Tue Sep 15 13:33:55 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:33:55 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: River Source is hiring program associate References: Message-ID: <09FB0815-335A-4F42-9FAA-20EACE46C668@redfish.com> We've collaborated with Riversource on education fieldtrips for stream monitoring, GPS use and watershed modeling. This could be a cool job for someone. -S --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... stephen.guerin at redfish.com (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com > > > Dear colleagues, > > I'm writing to announce a job opening at River Source. Please > forward this to anybody that may fit the profile AS SOON AS > POSSIBLE! The closing date for applications is the following > Wednesday, September 23. > > Thanks very much. > > Rich > > River Source > 2300 W. Alameda, A6 > Santa Fe, NM 87507 > 505-660-7928 > www.riversource.net > watershedwiser.org > ecowiser.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Job description for Program Associate sept 09.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 95916 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 14:09:42 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:09:42 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-15 10:36 AM: > glen e. p. ropella wrote: >> 2) reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some >> fractioned >> piece of it, > > If the parts of the message are wrong or unclear, then doubt should be > cast upon the gestalt as well. True. "And yet doubt is a good servant but a bad master; a perfect mistress, but a nagging wife." -- Aleister Crowley, "The Book of Lies" >> and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ >> of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, >> are difficult and expensive for online comm. > > The writer is at fault, and it may well be with malicious intent, if in > general she expects readers to form a coherent model of her. It is > necessary for a reader to form a model of what is written and its > relevant context. (If the text is an autobiography, then she can expect > the reader to model the writer.) I have to disagree with the false dichotomy between writer and reader and the subsequent assignation of blame to either one or the other. All these symbols we push and pull are grounded, albeit loosely. And you're right to suggest the imperative is to limit the model to some practical extent. If you only extend your model to what is written and its (subjectively defined) _relevant_ context, you are basically decapitating the context and considering only the body. And that's fine if it's adequate for your current use. But there are uses where the head should remain attached and be part of the model. And there are other uses where, not only should you make the mind of the writer part of the model, but you should also include the social extent of the writer. There are many texts you simply can't understand without some historical understanding of the society in which the writer lived. E.g. British Emergence. If little Joey, the 13-year-old, video-game-addicted, ritalin-chomping, child fails to understand Shakespeare, is it Shakespeare's fault? Similarly, is it Joey's fault if he can't understand the significance of physical features (like gapped teeth or carbuncles) on a character in Chaucer? p.s. I use Shakespeare and Chaucer because I believe they had malicious intent behind much of their writing.... the malice wasn't directed at those who understood them, though. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 14:54:56 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:54:56 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> Glen wrote: > If you only extend your model to what is written and its > (subjectively defined) _relevant_ context, you are basically > decapitating the context and considering only the body. [..] > And there are > other uses where, not only should you make the mind of the writer part > of the model, but you should also include the social extent of the > writer. What is the goal of a writer? It could be to communicate, but it could also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for them. In e-mail, compared to face-to-face communication, there are fewer signals as to an individual's behaviors and constraints. With these limited signals, it is more difficult for a reader to model the writer's mind and the writer's social extent. To say that the reader has a responsibility to form a model of the writer from an impoverished set of signals (and others which may be in large part synthesis and manipulation) means to invest in a bad model rather than getting better information about the writer out-of-band. The writer that tries to encourage such modeling from their writing alone is probably up to no good. The models would be mostly cultural norms and the reader's projections and, of course, the imaginary person the writer is trying to put forth. Marcus From simon at ai.mit.edu Tue Sep 15 16:32:52 2009 From: simon at ai.mit.edu (Simon Mehalek) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:32:52 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software In-Reply-To: <85e945bd0909150026y2e1a5155r567019d0f4ba77fc@mail.gmail.com> References: <0FD56A7D-D012-4880-A243-6965BE42DCA1@backspaces.net> <85e945bd0909150026y2e1a5155r567019d0f4ba77fc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Rhino is great, but it only runs on Windows on x86 processor family architecture. Avoid Google Sketchup like the plague, its file formats do not export into anything unless you pay for the over priced pro version, and even at that it is far behind the thinking and evolution of other 3d programs such as Maya, or Blender. From the work and file formats I've seen supported by Blender I'd recommend that for a free open source program above many commercial products. Generally speaking though doing seriously 3D modeling work such as is done in film and other industries requires having a pipeline of various tools, and they work together depending on the task that you are doing, and the hardware requirements are generally fairly extensive such as having higher level 3d OpenGL graphics cards. I would say the software toolkit can easily run upwards of $750,000, and hardware in the 50k-150k range depending on the pipelines being created. (again all of this is way outside of the scope of what you are looking for), but I figured I'd give things context from my perspective. -Simon. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:26 AM, siddharth wrote: > Rhino is pretty standard nowadays - http://www.rhino3d.com / > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_3D > Stable, powerful, versatile, some great plug-ins...(nope, not an ad!) > Worth a shot.. It used to be free intially, you could still download the > Evaluation version and muck around... > > (What 3D-modeling needs are you specifically looking at?) > > > On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: > >> I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which >> system to use. >> >> A few requirements: >> - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at >> $1000+ >> - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn >> - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. >> - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering >> (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) >> - Run on both Mac/Windows >> >> As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software >> >> Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a >> brief review of? >> >> -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 16:33:02 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:33:02 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-15 11:54 AM: > What is the goal of a writer? It could be to communicate, but it could > also be to entertain or to manipulate. Can you really distinguish between communication, entertainment, and manipulation? I sometimes _think_ I can; but when I catch myself thinking that, I'm usually wrong. Perhaps you're better at it than I am; but I've often found that good entertainment is the best form of communication and the best form of manipulation. Likewise, the best manipulation is entertaining (e.g. magic tricks) and I think a good case can be made that the best form of communication is entertaining. So, again, I have to object to the false and idealistic distinction you're making. > If a reader thinks they are > modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely > they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for > them. Yes! A good writer does exactly that, competently lays down a path for the reader to follow. And the arrogance (which I define as: "an unjustified belief in one's own abilities") on the part of the reader is not only inherent in the way humans navigate the world, but an integral part of the plan of a good writer. Arrogance is often criticized as somehow bad; but it's not. If we weren't arrogant enough to think we can do things like... survive car crashes when so many others don't, start a business when most others fail, effectively capture sociological processes in a computational model when so many others try and fail, etc, then we would never do anything. That arrogance is a fundamental driver for innovation. So, I say BE arrogant. Believe in yourself. Take unjustified pride in your (imagined and real) abilities. Go ahead and try to model the writer in her entirety if you dare. And hunt down the new data that will ultimately, inevitably show that your model is wrong. > In e-mail, compared to face-to-face communication, there are fewer > signals as to an individual's behaviors and constraints. With these > limited signals, it is more difficult for a reader to model the writer's > mind and the writer's social extent. To say that the reader has a > responsibility to form a model of the writer from an impoverished set of > signals (and others which may be in large part synthesis and > manipulation) means to invest in a bad model rather than getting better > information about the writer out-of-band. Naaa. I don't think it means that. I think it means to invest in the best model you have until you can construct a better one. Granted, if you ever catch yourself believing you've captured all there is in your silly little model, then you have to kick yourself and snap out of it. But don't be afraid to _start_ a model just because you don't have as much data as you want. > The writer that tries to > encourage such modeling from their writing alone is probably up to no > good. The models would be mostly cultural norms and the reader's > projections and, of course, the imaginary person the writer is trying to > put forth. All comm. is mostly cultural norms and the participants' projections. (This is why good science is based on scripted behavior, not words and concepts.) The symbols being pushed around are grounded, but only loosely. So, while I agree with you on that point, I disagree that a writer trying to encourage such modeling is probably up to no good. Good intentions may abound with no impact on the goodness of the actual outcome. Besides, if our impoverished models of writers are so bad, how could we come to the conclusion that a writer encouraging the reader to model her is probably up to no good? ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 15 16:47:47 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:47:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) Message-ID: <380-220099215204747145@earthlink.net> Marcus, I was puzzled, when you wrote ... "It could be to communicate, but it could also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for them." What sort of a "mind" did you have in mind? There are those of us out here that think that mind is just an individuals longstanding pattern of response and sensitiivity. So when you read what I write, you have to try and gather, from the short sample that I give you, what the over all pattern is. So it may be arrogance, but isnt it also a necessity? Arent you constantly building models of the minds of the people around you? Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Marcus G. Daniels > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 12:56:05 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) > > Glen wrote: > > If you only extend your model to what is written and its > > (subjectively defined) _relevant_ context, you are basically > > decapitating the context and considering only the body. > [..] > > > And there are > > other uses where, not only should you make the mind of the writer part > > of the model, but you should also include the social extent of the > > writer. > > What is the goal of a writer? It could be to communicate, but it could > also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are > modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely > they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for > them. > > In e-mail, compared to face-to-face communication, there are fewer > signals as to an individual's behaviors and constraints. With these > limited signals, it is more difficult for a reader to model the writer's > mind and the writer's social extent. To say that the reader has a > responsibility to form a model of the writer from an impoverished set of > signals (and others which may be in large part synthesis and > manipulation) means to invest in a bad model rather than getting better > information about the writer out-of-band. The writer that tries to > encourage such modeling from their writing alone is probably up to no > good. The models would be mostly cultural norms and the reader's > projections and, of course, the imaginary person the writer is trying to > put forth. > > Marcus > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 15 16:51:12 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:51:12 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: EmergenceSeminar--British Emergence) Message-ID: <380-220099215205112581@earthlink.net> Yeah. Again. Like glen said. [see below if you haven't already]. N. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 2:34:16 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: EmergenceSeminar--British Emergence) > > Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-15 11:54 AM: > > What is the goal of a writer? It could be to communicate, but it could > > also be to entertain or to manipulate. > > Can you really distinguish between communication, entertainment, and > manipulation? I sometimes _think_ I can; but when I catch myself > thinking that, I'm usually wrong. Perhaps you're better at it than I > am; but I've often found that good entertainment is the best form of > communication and the best form of manipulation. Likewise, the best > manipulation is entertaining (e.g. magic tricks) and I think a good case > can be made that the best form of communication is entertaining. > > So, again, I have to object to the false and idealistic distinction > you're making. > > > If a reader thinks they are > > modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely > > they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for > > them. > > Yes! A good writer does exactly that, competently lays down a path for > the reader to follow. And the arrogance (which I define as: "an > unjustified belief in one's own abilities") on the part of the reader is > not only inherent in the way humans navigate the world, but an integral > part of the plan of a good writer. Arrogance is often criticized as > somehow bad; but it's not. If we weren't arrogant enough to think we > can do things like... survive car crashes when so many others don't, > start a business when most others fail, effectively capture sociological > processes in a computational model when so many others try and fail, > etc, then we would never do anything. That arrogance is a fundamental > driver for innovation. > > So, I say BE arrogant. Believe in yourself. Take unjustified pride in > your (imagined and real) abilities. Go ahead and try to model the > writer in her entirety if you dare. And hunt down the new data that > will ultimately, inevitably show that your model is wrong. > > > In e-mail, compared to face-to-face communication, there are fewer > > signals as to an individual's behaviors and constraints. With these > > limited signals, it is more difficult for a reader to model the writer's > > mind and the writer's social extent. To say that the reader has a > > responsibility to form a model of the writer from an impoverished set of > > signals (and others which may be in large part synthesis and > > manipulation) means to invest in a bad model rather than getting better > > information about the writer out-of-band. > > Naaa. I don't think it means that. I think it means to invest in the > best model you have until you can construct a better one. Granted, if > you ever catch yourself believing you've captured all there is in your > silly little model, then you have to kick yourself and snap out of it. > But don't be afraid to _start_ a model just because you don't have as > much data as you want. > > > The writer that tries to > > encourage such modeling from their writing alone is probably up to no > > good. The models would be mostly cultural norms and the reader's > > projections and, of course, the imaginary person the writer is trying to > > put forth. > > All comm. is mostly cultural norms and the participants' projections. > (This is why good science is based on scripted behavior, not words and > concepts.) The symbols being pushed around are grounded, but only > loosely. So, while I agree with you on that point, I disagree that a > writer trying to encourage such modeling is probably up to no good. > Good intentions may abound with no impact on the goodness of the actual > outcome. Besides, if our impoverished models of writers are so bad, how > could we come to the conclusion that a writer encouraging the reader to > model her is probably up to no good? ;-) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From milesparker at gmail.com Tue Sep 15 17:00:16 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:00:16 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <85B70834-96F7-41E8-94F7-955E6DFFABB9@gmail.com> Holy crap, I think you guys have rediscovered New Criticism. :D Speaking quite seriously now, I think that we really are at a time when literary theory should become a core part of the hard sciences curriculum. Now that would be an interesting turn around... BTW, Glen, I don't know how I missed it before but I'm just taking a look at your page and recent work. Right on! I think you have identified the core issue as lying in the explicit -- and more damagingly, the methodological implicit -- bias toward the continuum and it sounds like you're poking the established view at exactly the weak point. On Sep 15, 2009, at 11:54 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Glen wrote: >> If you only extend your model to what is written and its >> (subjectively defined) _relevant_ context, you are basically >> decapitating the context and considering only the body. > [..] > >> And there are >> other uses where, not only should you make the mind of the writer >> part >> of the model, but you should also include the social extent of the >> writer. > > What is the goal of a writer? It could be to communicate, but it > could also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks > they are modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), > it's likely they are just going down the road the writer so > competently put out for them. > > In e-mail, compared to face-to-face communication, there are fewer > signals as to an individual's behaviors and constraints. With these > limited signals, it is more difficult for a reader to model the > writer's mind and the writer's social extent. To say that the > reader has a responsibility to form a model of the writer from an > impoverished set of signals (and others which may be in large part > synthesis and manipulation) means to invest in a bad model rather > than getting better information about the writer out-of-band. The > writer that tries to encourage such modeling from their writing > alone is probably up to no good. The models would be mostly > cultural norms and the reader's projections and, of course, the > imaginary person the writer is trying to put forth. > > Marcus > > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 17:28:02 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:28:02 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <85B70834-96F7-41E8-94F7-955E6DFFABB9@gmail.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <85B70834-96F7-41E8-94F7-955E6DFFABB9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB006E2.4090008@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Miles Parker circa 09-09-15 02:00 PM: > > Holy crap, I think you guys have rediscovered New Criticism. > :D Speaking quite seriously now, I think that we really are at a time > when literary theory should become a core part of the hard sciences > curriculum. Now that would be an interesting turn around... Yeah, it would be funny if people began to take seriously the concept of a "well-rounded education" again. Of course, it would be no skin off my nose since I wouldn't be amongst those forced to conjugate Latin verbs. > BTW, Glen, I don't know how I missed it before but I'm just taking a > look at your page and recent work. Right on! I think you have identified > the core issue as lying in the explicit -- and more damagingly, the > methodological implicit -- bias toward the continuum and it sounds like > you're poking the established view at exactly the weak point. Hm. Thanks! We were hoping the attack was a little less visible. Thanks for making a bunch of noise and alerting the enemy to our approach. Whose side are you on, anyway?!?! [grin] -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 17:39:09 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:39:09 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <380-220099215204747145@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099215204747145@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AB0097D.8030307@snoutfarm.com> Nicholas Thompson wrote: > I was puzzled, when you wrote ... > > "It could be to communicate, but it could > also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are > modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely > they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for > them." > > What sort of a "mind" did you have in mind? There are those of us out here > that think that mind is just an individuals longstanding pattern of > response and sensitiivity. So when you read what I write, you have to try > and gather, from the short sample that I give you, what the over all > pattern is. So it may be arrogance, but isnt it also a necessity? Arent > you constantly building models of the minds of the people around you? > I may or may not be. Why would you assume that it is effective for me, in order to better understand your arguments, to model YOU? Just the opposite could be true. It could be better for me to filter out the noise (a highly parameterized model of someone's personality) to get to the signal (the point or its absence). Down with straw men, Marcus From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 18:20:35 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:20:35 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Can you really distinguish between communication, entertainment, and > manipulation? I can recognize that Penn Jillette excels at all three, but I also recognize he won't get Nobel prize for it. Marcus From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 19:51:47 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:51:47 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-15 03:20 PM: > glen e. p. ropella wrote: >> Can you really distinguish between communication, entertainment, and >> manipulation? > > I can recognize that Penn Jillette excels at all three, but I also > recognize he won't get Nobel prize for it. Pick a more difficult example... say Paul Krugman? Is he an entertainer? A manipulator? A communicator? All three? Or perhaps we should try your distinguishing measure on Al Gore? I really don't think it's very easy to distinguish these 3 processes. And even if you can distinguish to some degree, the distinction is very fuzzy and open to debate in every case. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 21:12:01 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:12:01 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Pick a more difficult example... say Paul Krugman? Is he an > entertainer? A manipulator? A communicator? All three? > > Or perhaps we should try your distinguishing measure on Al Gore? > Obviously, a person doesn't have to be just one -- you don't have to invoke Gore to show that. If Krugman makes anyone uncomfortable, Einstein or Feynman would work just as well. One can interpret a discussion based on the content of it, or based on guesswork from perceptions of personality or reputation. At some point, I'd say the latter is going to annoy someone. And here you are saying the reader is obligated to do this. I think that's nuts. Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a bovine rights activist? Marcus From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 15 21:16:02 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:16:02 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> Great move, that. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > > Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a > bovine rights activist? > > Marcus > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 15 21:17:26 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:17:26 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Great move, that. > > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > >> >> Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a >> bovine rights activist? >> >> Marcus >> >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 15 21:28:23 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:28:23 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB03F37.6070108@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/15/2009 06:12 PM: > point, I'd say the latter is going to annoy someone. And here you are > saying the reader is obligated to do this. I think that's nuts. No. I did not say the reader is obligated to do anything.... In fact, the reader need not even read the text in the first place. I merely object to your assertion that blame for misunderstanding can be placed solely on either the writer or the reader, regardless of any expectations on the part of either party. I'll repeat it for those with short memories: For some uses, an understanding of the text, sans a model of the writer, are adequate. But there are also some uses that require a model of the writer. And, further, there are some uses that require a model of the social context in which that writer sits. If you need a model for what you're doing, then build one. If you don't, then don't. That's it. There's no more to it. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 15 21:33:38 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:33:38 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> Douglas Roberts wrote: > Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. ooh I've got a `daskeyboard' for my birthday with IBM clicky-clicky keys and no labels on any of them. Nice. From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 15 21:54:09 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:54:09 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909151854t58be1d4ek241941ae4c86afea@mail.gmail.com> I am very envious. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. >> > ooh I've got a `daskeyboard' for my birthday with IBM clicky-clicky keys > and no labels on any of them. Nice. > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Tue Sep 15 22:40:54 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:40:54 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) In-Reply-To: 1253068782l.860360l.0l@psu.edu References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com><4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com><125 3068782l.860360l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <1253068854l.700480l.0l@psu.edu> It's funny, having read the rest of this conversation (about modeling the reader's mind), it went very differently than I thought it would. I thought it would quickly go to a personal example in which it is obvious that modeling the writer's mind helps things. Lets say, to pick an example completely at random, that I'm in a conversation, and the other person says something like "Yeah, but don't forget, I can see your mind." Well, usually that means they are being sarcastic, or making a joking new-age psychic reference. When Nick says it, he is being dead serious. I'm not sure there is anything fancier about "making a model of the writers mind" then that. Whenever we read anything we are constantly evaluating what things the writer meant seriously, which things they meant in jest; what things are crucial to the argument, which are distractions, etc. etc. etc. Eric On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 02:54 PM, "Marcus G. Daniels" wrote: > > Glen wrote: >> If you only extend your model to what is written and >its >> (subjectively defined) _relevant_ context, you are >basically >> decapitating the context and considering only the >body. >[..] > >> And there are >> other uses where, not only >should you make the mind of the writer part >> of the model, but you >should also include the social extent of the >> writer. > >What is the >goal of a writer? It could be to communicate, but it could >also be to >entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are >modeling a >writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely >they are just >going down the road the writer so competently put out for >them. > >In >e-mail, compared to face-to-face communication, there are fewer >signals as >to an individual's behaviors and constraints. With these >limited signals, >it is more difficult for a reader to model the writer's >mind and the >writer's social extent. To say that the reader has a >responsibility to >form a model of the writer from an impoverished set of >signals (and others >which may be in large part synthesis and >manipulation) means to invest in a >bad model rather than getting better >information about the writer >out-of-band. The writer that tries to >encourage such modeling from their >writing alone is probably up to no >good. The models would be mostly >cultural norms and the reader's >projections and, of course, the imaginary >person the writer is trying to >put >forth. > >Marcus > >============================================================ >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 > > > > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robert at holmesacosta.com Tue Sep 15 22:47:36 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:47:36 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <857770150909151947m62ea77edn293f199f435929af@mail.gmail.com> Old-style IBM keyboards now manufactured by Unicom, as featured on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100076874 -- Robert On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. > > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Great move, that. >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: >> >>> >>> Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a >>> bovine rights activist? >>> >>> Marcus >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Doug Roberts >> droberts at rti.org >> doug at parrot-farm.net >> 505-455-7333 - Office >> 505-670-8195 - Cell >> > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robert at holmesacosta.com Tue Sep 15 22:49:06 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:49:06 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <857770150909151947m62ea77edn293f199f435929af@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> <857770150909151947m62ea77edn293f199f435929af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <857770150909151949o2d3c211di1d2453816ced56e@mail.gmail.com> Unicomp not Unicom. Seems I need to replace my keyboard too. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Robert Holmes wrote: > Old-style IBM keyboards now manufactured by Unicom, as featured on NPR: > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100076874 > -- Robert > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: >> >>> Great move, that. >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels >> > wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is >>>> a bovine rights activist? >>>> >>>> Marcus >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> 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 >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Doug Roberts >>> droberts at rti.org >>> doug at parrot-farm.net >>> 505-455-7333 - Office >>> 505-670-8195 - Cell >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Doug Roberts >> droberts at rti.org >> doug at parrot-farm.net >> 505-455-7333 - Office >> 505-670-8195 - Cell >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 15 23:59:42 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:59:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] META: Re: comm. Message-ID: <380-22009931635942108@earthlink.net> Owen is always beating me about the head with two-by-fours about my lack of comprehension of netiquette. I am told that FRIAM is full of highly observant netiquettists whose sensibilities I must never abuse by (say) using caps for emphasis. Now, with all that in mind, can some nettiquettologist explain the following thread transition? "Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones." Did I miss a joke? Feel free to explain it to me off line. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/15/2009 7:18:13 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Great move, that. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a bovine rights activist? Marcus ============================================================ 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 -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 16 00:07:28 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:07:28 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] META: Re: comm. In-Reply-To: <380-22009931635942108@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009931635942108@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <681c54590909152107h267e3662n2df483a141d6df24@mail.gmail.com> Somebody? Anybody? I have this sudden inexplicable urge to suddenly find myself inundated by another flood of academic banter about philosophy, or perhaps "emergence". Say good night, Alice. Goodnight. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Owen is always beating me about the head with two-by-fours about my lack > of comprehension of netiquette. > > I am told that FRIAM is full of highly observant netiquettists whose > sensibilities I must never abuse by (say) using caps for emphasis. > > Now, with all that in mind, can some nettiquettologist explain the > following thread transition? > > "Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. > " > > Did I miss a joke? > > Feel free to explain it to me off line. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Douglas Roberts > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/15/2009 7:18:13 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] comm. > > Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Great move, that. >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: >> >>> >>> Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a >>> bovine rights activist? >>> >>> Marcus >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Doug Roberts >> droberts at rti.org >> doug at parrot-farm.net >> 505-455-7333 - Office >> 505-670-8195 - Cell >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 00:24:29 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:24:29 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) Message-ID: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> Marcus, Hmmm! This communication is a case in point. You hear me to say something like .... forgive the hyperbole ... I have to know whether Marcus's father flogged him with wet noodles before I can understand what he means by his views on writing in forums and listservs. But that is not what I meant to say. I meant to say that language is always ambiguous and that you have to build a big picture of what is being said out of the little words that are offered you. Before you responded to my message, you built a model of my mind. I would say you built the wrong model, although (at the risk of drawing Russ back to this argument) we might bring evidence to bear and argue that point. In short, we held different models of my mind, and it led to a misunderstanding. If one tries to be aware of the different models that might be built on the same words, it helps to make a conversation more fruitful, I believe. If one has read some history of thinking on the subject, one has more potential models available to apply to any utterance. One is more likely to understand what the speaker meant. I thought the comment on the New Criticism was interesting, but I am not sure it's relevant here. Literature is not designed to inform in the same way that I assume [hmmmm!] postings to this list are designed to inform. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Marcus G. Daniels > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 3:40:14 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > I was puzzled, when you wrote ... > > > > "It could be to communicate, but it could > > also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are > > modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely > > they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for > > them." > > > > What sort of a "mind" did you have in mind? There are those of us out here > > that think that mind is just an individuals longstanding pattern of > > response and sensitiivity. So when you read what I write, you have to try > > and gather, from the short sample that I give you, what the over all > > pattern is. So it may be arrogance, but isnt it also a necessity? Arent > > you constantly building models of the minds of the people around you? > > > I may or may not be. Why would you assume that it is effective for me, > in order to better understand your arguments, to model YOU? Just the > opposite could be true. It could be better for me to filter out the > noise (a highly parameterized model of someone's personality) to get to > the signal (the point or its absence). > > Down with straw men, > > Marcus > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 00:25:54 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:25:54 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] META: Re: comm. Message-ID: <380-22009931642554739@earthlink.net> Goodnight, Doug. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/15/2009 10:07:29 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] META: Re: comm. Somebody? Anybody? I have this sudden inexplicable urge to suddenly find myself inundated by another flood of academic banter about philosophy, or perhaps "emergence". Say good night, Alice. Goodnight. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Owen is always beating me about the head with two-by-fours about my lack of comprehension of netiquette. I am told that FRIAM is full of highly observant netiquettists whose sensibilities I must never abuse by (say) using caps for emphasis. Now, with all that in mind, can some nettiquettologist explain the following thread transition? "Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones." Did I miss a joke? Feel free to explain it to me off line. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/15/2009 7:18:13 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. Movie. Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Great move, that. On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: Watching No Country For Old Men, should I infer that Cormac McCarthy is a bovine rights activist? Marcus ============================================================ 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 -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 00:34:14 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:34:14 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909152134j5897c996r42153eb146c8a231@mail.gmail.com> Don't worry. It's not an argument I want to be drawn into. -- RussA On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Marcus, > > Hmmm! This communication is a case in point. You hear me to say something > like .... forgive the hyperbole ... I have to know whether Marcus's father > flogged him with wet noodles before I can understand what he means by his > views on writing in forums and listservs. But that is not what I meant to > say. I meant to say that language is always ambiguous and that you have to > build a big picture of what is being said out of the little words that are > offered you. Before you responded to my message, you built a model of my > mind. I would say you built the wrong model, although (at the risk of > drawing Russ back to this argument) we might bring evidence to bear and > argue that point. In short, we held different models of my mind, and it > led to a misunderstanding. > > If one tries to be aware of the different models that might be built on the > same words, it helps to make a conversation more fruitful, I believe. If > one has read some history of thinking on the subject, one has more > potential models available to apply to any utterance. One is more likely > to understand what the speaker meant. > > I thought the comment on the New Criticism was interesting, but I am not > sure it's relevant here. Literature is not designed to inform in the same > way that I assume [hmmmm!] postings to this list are designed to inform. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Marcus G. Daniels > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > friam at redfish.com> > > Date: 9/15/2009 3:40:14 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: > Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) > > > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > I was puzzled, when you wrote ... > > > > > > "It could be to communicate, but it could > > > also be to entertain or to manipulate. If a reader thinks they are > > > modeling a writer's *mind* (holy crap, the arrogance..), it's likely > > > they are just going down the road the writer so competently put out for > > > them." > > > > > > What sort of a "mind" did you have in mind? There are those of us out > here > > > that think that mind is just an individuals longstanding pattern of > > > response and sensitiivity. So when you read what I write, you have to > try > > > and gather, from the short sample that I give you, what the over all > > > pattern is. So it may be arrogance, but isnt it also a necessity? > Arent > > > you constantly building models of the minds of the people around you? > > > > > > I may or may not be. Why would you assume that it is effective for me, > > in order to better understand your arguments, to model YOU? Just the > > opposite could be true. It could be better for me to filter out the > > noise (a highly parameterized model of someone's personality) to get to > > the signal (the point or its absence). > > > > Down with straw men, > > > > Marcus > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 01:19:58 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:19:58 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AB0757E.7030702@snoutfarm.com> Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Before you responded to my message, you built a model of my mind. I built a model of your utterance from immediate context. In my view, it would not be useful for me to attempt to model your mind, as that includes, among other things, your life memory, emotions, logical and non-logical executive processes. Such a model would be very complex, ill-informed by data available and comprehensible to me, and less effective than asking for clarification on Emergence or communication or whatever. > If one tries to be aware of the different models that might be built on the > same words, it helps to make a conversation more fruitful, I believe. Is a fruitful conversation one that leads to more conversation, or to a conclusion? Marcus -- "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence." Ludwig Wittgenstein From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 01:50:53 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:50:53 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> On Sep 15, 2009, at 9:24 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > I thought the comment on the New Criticism was interesting, but I am > not > sure it's relevant here. Literature is not designed to inform in > the same > way that I assume [hmmmm!] postings to this list are designed to > inform. That's an intriguing issue actually and docks nicely with Marcus's question below. What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? The larger point is that people have done a lot of thinking about this kind of stuff already and if nothing else the post-structuralists have made early critical approaches appear hopelessly naive. I can't help but see some striking parallels between New Criticism and the general scientific materialist world view. Granted, a lot of post- structuralism is self-referential, brain-dead and nihilistic, but some of it quite brilliant and I think ultimately indispensable to any efforts at communicating our understanding and (yes) appreciation of complex systems and knowing the limits of doing so. >> >> If one tries to be aware of the different models that might be >> built on the >> same words, it helps to make a conversation more fruitful, I believe. > Is a fruitful conversation one that leads to more conversation, or > to a conclusion? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 03:18:51 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:18:51 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re:FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) Message-ID: <380-22009931671851530@earthlink.net> Marcus, Well, if you mean by a conclusion only that the subject is dropped, I guess I subscribe to the implication that I am always in favor of further conversation. However, to me a conclusion means more than silence. It means that the discussants understand one another's positions, could articulate the disagreement to one another;s satsifaction, and have agreed or agreed to disagree. Otherwise we are no more than the aforementioned foghorns. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: Marcus G. Daniels > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 11:20:55 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re:FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Before you responded to my message, you built a model of my mind. > I built a model of your utterance from immediate context. In my view, > it would not be useful for me to attempt to model your mind, as that > includes, among other things, your life memory, emotions, logical and > non-logical executive processes. Such a model would be very complex, > ill-informed by data available and comprehensible to me, and less > effective than asking for clarification on Emergence or communication or > whatever. > > If one tries to be aware of the different models that might be built on the > > same words, it helps to make a conversation more fruitful, I believe. > Is a fruitful conversation one that leads to more conversation, or to a > conclusion? > > Marcus > -- > "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk > about we must pass over in silence." > Ludwig Wittgenstein > > ============================================================ > 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 From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 09:49:16 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:49:16 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> Miles Parker wrote: > What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? > Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding how to reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. Why should pre-publication discourse be different? For example, peer review is not supposed to be different. I could see why some interdisciplinary collaborative discourse would be different, as it would involve education (e.g. each colleague could model the other to have an idea of what they probably understand and what they probably don't). But the inputs and outputs to those models would come down to utterances in a domain or set of domains of science, and so there again the direct approach (correct what was said), ought to be fine. Marcus From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 10:41:23 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:41:23 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/16/2009 06:49 AM: > Miles Parker wrote: >> What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? >> > Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding how to > reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. "Must" is too strong. Here's an (obviously contrived) example. Let's say a document says something like: "Next, add 500 mL of gel to a BIBBLEGONK, agitate for 30 seconds, and sluice into 5 250 mL petri dishes." How do we determine what a BIBBLEGONK is? Can we do it in an entirely subject neutral way? True, we can infer many of the properties of a BIBBLEGONK from the usage, here. It must be able to be agitated and we have to be able to sluice from it either with something built into it or with an attachment. But a better way would be to find out precisely what it is, which involves thinking at least enough about the subject to do an internet search or to ask someone local who might know something about these experiments, the equipment required, and the people who conduct them. I.e. it's not entirely subject neutral. This sort of thing happens all the time when one lab reproduces the experiments of another lab, especially when the experiments are spatially or temporally distant. In that sense, I posit that easily reproducible scientific discourse is most definitely NOT subject neutral. Ideally, you'd want to record _everything_ about not just the non-subject elements of the experiment, but about the people executing the experiment and the conditions under which they executed it. 99.999...% of that data would be unnecessary. But in the situation where reproduction proves elusive, it can be mined for salient differences that will help the new lab reproduce the result. Again, as long as the simpler model is adequate for the use, you use it. If it's not, you extend it. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 10:59:40 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:59:40 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB0FD5C.7090207@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: >> Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding how to >> reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. >> > > "Must" is too strong. Here's an (obviously contrived) example. Let's > say a document says something like: "Next, add 500 mL of gel to a > BIBBLEGONK, agitate for 30 seconds, and sluice into 5 250 mL petri dishes." > > How do we determine what a BIBBLEGONK is? Can we do it in an entirely > subject neutral way? I think there should be a reference in the paper for BIBLEGONK. If there isn't, then it is probably well understood in the field what it means, and in that sense it remains subject neutral; the reader is expected to have certain training or background. That's different then them building a generous model of what the writer is trying to say. I don't want to argue the point as to whether the academic literature does an appropriate of making ideas accessible to outsiders. I find I read a lot of stuff where the idea being conveyed ends up being pretty simple, but I have to wade through piles of jargon to get that simple point. The whole first half of Science with its condensed versions of the papers I often find harder to read than the articles themselves. Marcus From epc2 at psu.edu Wed Sep 16 11:35:33 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:35:33 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: 4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com><4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <1253115333l.798808l.0l@psu.edu> What's the big deal about the bibblegonk, that part I figured out - looked it up on ebay and got some at a discount... But then I tried desperately to agitate the mixture, and couldn't find anything to say that it truly found insulting! Again, this conversation about "modeling minds" is weirdly high-end. Even the most trivial understanding of the words in context (e.g., "agitate") requires something of a model of the writer. Eric On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 10:41 AM, "glen e. p. ropella" wrote: > > Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/16/2009 06:49 AM: >> Miles Parker wrote: >> What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? >> >> Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding how to >> reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. > >"Must" is too strong. Here's an (obviously contrived) >example. Let's >say a document says something like: "Next, add 500 mL of gel to a >BIBBLEGONK, agitate for 30 seconds, and sluice into 5 250 mL petri dishes." > >How do we determine what a BIBBLEGONK is? Can we do it in an entirely >subject neutral way? True, we can infer many of the properties of a >BIBBLEGONK from the usage, here. It must be able to be agitated and we >have to be able to sluice from it either with something built into it or >with an attachment. But a better way would be to find out precisely >what it is, which involves thinking at least enough about the subject to >do an internet search or to ask someone local who might know something >about these experiments, the equipment required, and the people who >conduct them. > >I.e. it's not entirely subject neutral. > >This sort of thing happens all the time when one lab reproduces the >experiments of another lab, especially when the experiments are >spatially or temporally distant. > >In that sense, I posit that easily reproducible scientific discourse is >most definitely NOT subject neutral. Ideally, you'd want to record >_everything_ about not just the non-subject elements of the experiment, >but about the people executing the experiment and the conditions under >which they executed it. 99.999...% of that data would be unnecessary. >But in the situation where reproduction proves elusive, it can be mined >for salient differences that will help the new lab reproduce the result. > >Again, as long as the simpler model is adequate for the use, you use it. > If it's not, you extend it. > >-- >glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > >============================================================ >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 > > > > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Wed Sep 16 11:36:26 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:36:26 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Beware Flash cookies In-Reply-To: <857770150909150600y4ff7cae2hcf40c095f705b8b2@mail.gmail.com> References: <857770150909150600y4ff7cae2hcf40c095f705b8b2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: What settings did you use at the adobe site? It wasn't very clear to me what they all meant! And my first visit ended up having the settings program go nuts and I had to kill it. In the bigger picture, Javascript (including the flash libraries) is part of the evolution of the browser being the desktop. Apparently Javascript/Flash is the way the mic and camera are made available today. I *want* the mic and camera to be included, but would like it to be innocuous. This may not be possible. The W3C seems to have a lot of web standards, and the Javascript world is standardized under ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association). Couldn't they together specify the way the mic/camera are managed? In the even larger picture: it seems to me that all languages, not just Javascript, should have a web subset that falls under sandbox or similar standardization. Why not allow, for example, Python etc to be valid browser languages. And I don't mean as simple applet-like extensions/plugins. But something that can manage the DOM itself, that is literally integrated into the browser itself. And thus also able to deal with the mic/camera. Chrome is said to be looking into this. -- Owen On Sep 15, 2009, at 7:00 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > Flash has it's own version of cookies that not many people know > about and are hard to delete. See http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/ > > If you want to delete them or stop them getting dropped on your > computer you actually need to use a control panel on the Adobe site: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html#118539 > > -- Robert From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 12:33:19 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:33:19 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm Message-ID: <380-220099316163319580@earthlink.net> Glen 'n all, Another example: I had to work out (and I am not entirely sure, even now) what Marcus had in mind by "subject" in "subject neutral": subject = the person who is speaking, as in "a subjective utterance"; or subject = the thing the person is talking about, as in "the subject of the conversation". Every man, of course, thinks his own words are plain. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/16/2009 8:42:47 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:EmergenceSeminar--BritishEmergence) > > Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/16/2009 06:49 AM: > > Miles Parker wrote: > >> What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? > >> > > Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding how to > > reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. > > "Must" is too strong. Here's an (obviously contrived) example. Let's > say a document says something like: "Next, add 500 mL of gel to a > BIBBLEGONK, agitate for 30 seconds, and sluice into 5 250 mL petri dishes." > > How do we determine what a BIBBLEGONK is? Can we do it in an entirely > subject neutral way? True, we can infer many of the properties of a > BIBBLEGONK from the usage, here. It must be able to be agitated and we > have to be able to sluice from it either with something built into it or > with an attachment. But a better way would be to find out precisely > what it is, which involves thinking at least enough about the subject to > do an internet search or to ask someone local who might know something > about these experiments, the equipment required, and the people who > conduct them. > > I.e. it's not entirely subject neutral. > > This sort of thing happens all the time when one lab reproduces the > experiments of another lab, especially when the experiments are > spatially or temporally distant. > > In that sense, I posit that easily reproducible scientific discourse is > most definitely NOT subject neutral. Ideally, you'd want to record > _everything_ about not just the non-subject elements of the experiment, > but about the people executing the experiment and the conditions under > which they executed it. 99.999...% of that data would be unnecessary. > But in the situation where reproduction proves elusive, it can be mined > for salient differences that will help the new lab reproduce the result. > > Again, as long as the simpler model is adequate for the use, you use it. > If it's not, you extend it. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 13:15:44 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:15:44 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <1253115333l.798808l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com><4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253115333l.798808l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <4AB11D40.2000208@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 09/16/2009 08:35 AM: > Again, this conversation about "modeling minds" is weirdly high-end. > Even the most trivial understanding of the words in context (e.g., > "agitate") requires something of a model of the writer. Well, Marcus' point is well taken to the extent that if you don't need the extended model of the writer, then a model based purely on the text (including some sort of interpretation of the vernacular meanings of all the words in it) is a) more practical, b) more trustable, c) conservative, etc. The key part is that, especially in science, one is supposed to be building transpersonal knowledge... things that are true for multiple people, not just a single person. So, by sticking with the vernacular meanings as opposed to the specific personal meanings, private to the writer, you help ensure that transitive aspect of the knowledge. Hence, modeling the writer's _mind_ is, from this perspective, not only unnecessary, but a Bad Thing(tm) in general. Only sloppy, irresponsible people (would) use these extended models. At least that's my take on his argument. And I agree with my interpretation of his argument, except in cases where the usage _requires_ an extended model of the writer. E.g. where a text cannot be understood without the extended (speculative) context. In those cases, I say go ahead and extend the model despite your ignorance, but be vigilant in the caveats that the uncertainty in the extended model is unbounded and your model is totally invalid ("invalid" in simulation jargon or "unsound" in logic/philosophy jargon). -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 13:18:47 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:18:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm In-Reply-To: <380-220099316163319580@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099316163319580@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AB11DF7.1040900@snoutfarm.com> Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Another example: I had to work out (and I am not entirely sure, even now) > what Marcus had in mind by "subject" in "subject neutral": subject = the > person who is speaking, as in "a subjective utterance"; or subject = the > thing the person is talking about, as in "the subject of the conversation". > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(philosophy) A scientific report should allow any appropriate reader (a subject) to decide if they want to revise their information set to another state that includes some or all of the information the writer sought to communicate but without any reference to the specific writer (another subject). Different subjects should be able to agree on what was referred to and related (objects), even though they may well have different interpretations of what it means. There should not need to be any act of faith or generous `listening' in the transaction. I would say depth comes more from the analysis of objects and nailing things down whereas breadth requires ongoing examination of the subjective. Marcus From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 13:39:14 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:39:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <4AB11D40.2000208@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com><4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253115333l.798808l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB11D40.2000208@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB122C2.5010303@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > I say go ahead and extend the model despite your ignorance, but be > vigilant in the caveats that the uncertainty in the extended model is > unbounded and your model is totally invalid ("invalid" in simulation > jargon or "unsound" in logic/philosophy jargon). > I'm not denying that this kind of social modeling goes on or that it isn't useful sometimes. But it's risky to even *talk* about this class of models -- that's why there are legal guards against prejudicial evidence and many religions consider bearing false witness a sin. If the symbols of a model aren't anywhere close to grounded, almost any proposition could be true or false. It could be that some things are more or less likely, but figuring that out soon becomes a huge computational/cognitive load. Marcus From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 14:04:04 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:04:04 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> I would put it more strongly and say that it is "entirely not subject neutral". I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that we can drill into that has ultimate reality. I'm not being cute, or deep, or nihilistic, ;) but I really don't think that this is simply a matter of reducing to the absurd either. Or if it is, then we are showing that the very act of reduction is itself absurd. Once we begin with that kind of understanding of the profound limitations of conceptual knowledge then we can begin to do real science. (I am thinking quite seriously about writing a book that catalogs material and concepts simply as an exercise in loosing our affection for seeing things as "really real".) On Sep 16, 2009, at 7:41 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/16/2009 06:49 AM: >> Miles Parker wrote: >>> What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? >>> >> Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding >> how to >> reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. > > I.e. it's not entirely subject neutral. From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 14:18:09 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:18:09 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB122C2.5010303@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com><4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253115333l.798808l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB11D40.2000208@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB122C2.5010303@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB12BE1.8010900@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-16 10:39 AM: > If the symbols of a model > aren't anywhere close to grounded, almost any proposition could be true > or false. It could be that some things are more or less likely, but > figuring that out soon becomes a huge computational/cognitive load. Well, the symbols in such a model _are_ grounded to the person constructing and using the model. So, as a thinking tool, there's no danger at all. The danger comes in when that person makes the mistake of believing that what they think is somehow real. Besides, we can say the exact same thing about models grounded to the vernacular. Just because a bunch of people use the same terms in, seemingly, the same way does NOT imply that those terms are any more grounded than the private terms inside one person's mind. In fact, because those terms are aggregate abstractions, they are _less_ well-grounded than personal terms (because grounding comes from having fingers, toes, tongues, eyes, etc.). The danger of misunderstanding and confusion is much higher when using the vernacular because it's more tempting to think that, because you speak the way others do, you're all somehow _right_ about whatever you're talking about. It's easier to be tricked into thinking a falsehood is true if _lots_ of people share in the falsehood ... another typical trait of organized religion. Using your own private models and forcing yourself to continually map your lexicon to others' is a great way of ensuring you don't fall into the trap of "consensus reality" and justificationism. Really, it's 6 to one 1/2 a dozen to the other. Both are untrustworthy and that's why the success of science is based on _behavior_ not words. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 14:22:22 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:22:22 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> Miles Parker wrote: > > I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that we can > drill into that has ultimate reality. But there are a lot of things that can be controlled very effectively and with predictable failure rates. > I'm not being [...] nihilistic Are they arresting people for that now? Let me know.. :-) Marcus From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 14:48:42 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:48:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB12BE1.8010900@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com><4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253115333l.798808l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB11D40.2000208@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB122C2.5010303@snoutfarm.com> <4AB12BE1.8010900@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB1330A.3060903@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Well, the symbols in such a model _are_ grounded to the person > constructing and using the model. So, as a thinking tool, there's no > danger at all. The danger comes in when that person makes the mistake > of believing that what they think is somehow real. > It's real enough if it works (predicts) and facilitates whatever personal or social goals. If it doesn't work, it's not a great tool. From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 15:11:41 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:11:41 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB1386D.5000600@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-16 11:22 AM: > Miles Parker wrote: >> >> I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that we can >> drill into that has ultimate reality. >> > But there are a lot of things that can be controlled very effectively > and with predictable failure rates. But the question is How are they controlled? I think the answer is with multiple models, by parallax. A single model is never valid (sound), as Miles points out. Multiple models are required for validity and, hence, control and prediction. I'd go even further to claim that the more complex the system, the more models required to effectively model it. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 15:27:45 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:27:45 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail.com> On Sep 16, 2009, at 11:22 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Miles Parker wrote: >> >> I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that we can >> drill into that has ultimate reality. > But there are a lot of things that can be controlled very > effectively and with predictable failure rates. Good. I was expecting we were on the same page on that one, but given the discussion at Swarmfest I'm not sure how many people -- including "scientists" who should know better -- still believe in such. Still... prediction is a funny word. Because you know, you can only predict what has already happened. And control is only effective until it isn't. Which as a consequence of that, always happens at the worst possible time. ;) >> I'm not being [...] nihilistic > Are they arresting people for that now? Let me know.. :-) You'll be the um... first to know. From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 15:49:29 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:49:29 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: <4AB1386D.5000600@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <4AB1386D.5000600@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: On Sep 16, 2009, at 12:11 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > But the question is How are they controlled? I think the answer is > with > multiple models, by parallax. A single model is never valid > (sound), as > Miles points out. Multiple models are required for validity and, > hence, > control and prediction. I'd go even further to claim that the more > complex the system, the more models required to effectively model it. I would heartily agree -- and as the name of this group is "Applied Complexity" -- that that is sound practical advice. Curious if you are also arguing that *in general*, say validity(M1) > validity(M2) where M1 and M2 are sets of models and M1@ > M2@, or M1 ? M2? I think but am not sure that I am interpreting your parallax argument correctly. Do you mean that literally, or as a kind of heuristic? Does it assume a known or knowable state-space? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Wed Sep 16 16:35:22 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:35:22 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: 042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail.com References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail .com> Message-ID: <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> Miles: "I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that we can drill into that has ultimate reality." Marcks: "But there are a lot of things that can be controlled very effectively and with predictable failure rates." Miles: "Good [we agree]... [but] I'm not sure how many people -- including "scientists" who should know better -- still believe in such." -- It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't know better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I think it is much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff they do, and they do it better, if they think they are REALLY doing it. Albeit, it may be fun to predict where a cannon ball is going to land, or what the orbit of the planets will be, but if people didn't think they were finding out something "real" about "gravity" I doubt the activity would have been as engaging. For an example in a science that seems less useful to me: It always amazes me that social and personality psychologists can go around thinking that the things they study are "real"... extroversion, emotional intelligence, in-group preference, etc.... Yet, I also have the feeling that if they for one moment thought as I did, that they were (at best) just playing a strange prediction game, the whole enterprise would suddenly grind to a halt. Ah, the time and money that would be saved. Of course, the social and personality psychologists would likely say the same thing about my work, reinforcing my point: I to go about my work just fine, at least in part, because (barring the occasional metaphysical spaz) I go about my day to day business with the firm belief that I am REALLY studying things. When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software usability, threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't most of them think they are talking about something real? Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wimberly3 at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 17:40:14 2009 From: wimberly3 at earthlink.net (Frank Wimberly) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:40:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> Message-ID: <001101ca3716$46fbb670$d4f32350$@net> Isn't that the postmodernist position? Frank -----Original Message----- From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Miles Parker Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 12:04 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) I would put it more strongly and say that it is "entirely not subject neutral". I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that we can drill into that has ultimate reality. I'm not being cute, or deep, or nihilistic, ;) but I really don't think that this is simply a matter of reducing to the absurd either. Or if it is, then we are showing that the very act of reduction is itself absurd. Once we begin with that kind of understanding of the profound limitations of conceptual knowledge then we can begin to do real science. (I am thinking quite seriously about writing a book that catalogs material and concepts simply as an exercise in loosing our affection for seeing things as "really real".) On Sep 16, 2009, at 7:41 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/16/2009 06:49 AM: >> Miles Parker wrote: >>> What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? Context? >>> >> Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding >> how to >> reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. > > I.e. it's not entirely subject neutral. ============================================================ 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 17:41:51 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:41:51 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <4AB1386D.5000600@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB15B9F.2080808@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Miles Parker circa 09-09-16 12:49 PM: > I would heartily agree -- and as the name of this group is "Applied > Complexity" -- that that is sound practical advice. Curious if you are > also arguing that *in general*, say > > validity(M1) > validity(M2) > > where M1 and M2 are sets of models and M1@ > M2@, or M1 ??? M2? I'm not sure what that last symbol is (???); but I do NOT assert that any set of models that's larger than any other set of models is more valid merely because it's larger. Rather, I assert that more models are required to represent a complex system than a simple system. And adding another (valid) model to a set of (valid) models of a system increases the accuracy of the set. It's important that each model be validated against some aspect (use case) of the system, of course. Adding an invalid model would probably -- but not necessarily -- decrease the validity of the whole set. Also, it's necessary for the models to be validated against different aspects of the system. I.e. just adding another model that validates against an identical aspect as another model already in the set probably won't increase the validity of the whole set (by much anyway). > I think but am not sure that I am interpreting your parallax argument > correctly. Do you mean that literally, or as a kind of heuristic? Does > it assume a known or knowable state-space? I mean it literally. It does not assume a known or knowable _mechanism_. It does assume known or knowable phenomena (which is a fancy way of saying that we have to have concrete _measurement_ operators we apply to the model and the system for validation). Much of this is spelled out in excruciating detail in our newest paper: http://www.springerlink.com/content/v6q24gw11l037351/ Sorry for the plug.... I didn't intend for the conversation to go this way. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:09:31 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:09:31 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909161509g204ae88apf258bc553ef5a3e5@mail.gmail.com> Well, now I can't resist. Eric, you said, When people on this list talk about ... etc., don't most of them think they are talking about something real? Since you used the word would you mind clarifying what distinction you are making between what is "real" and what people only believe is "real." Or are you saying that the word "real" doesn't mean anything at all -- in which case why are you using it? By the way, you may be interested in this discussion of "scientific realism." Here's how it begins. Scientific realists hold that the characteristic product of successful scientific research is knowledge of largely theory-independent phenomena and that such knowledge is possible (indeed actual) even in those cases in which the relevant phenomena are not, in any non-question-begging sense, observable. According to scientific realists, for example, if you obtain a good contemporary chemistry textbook you will have good reason to believe (because the scientists whose work the book reports had good scientific evidence for) the (approximate) truth of the claims it contains about the existence and properties of atoms, molecules, sub-atomic particles, energy levels, reaction mechanisms, etc. Moreover, you have good reason to think that such phenomena have the properties attributed to them in the textbook independently of our theoretical conceptions in chemistry. Scientific realism is thus the common sense (or common science) conception that, subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, we are justified in accepting the most secure findings of scientists "at face value." And here's how it ends. Scientific realism is, by the lights of most of its defenders, the sciences' own philosophy of science. Considerations of the significant philosophical challenges which it faces indicate that it can be effectively defended only by the adoption of a *meta*philosophical approach which is also closely tied to the science, *viz*., some version or other of philosophical naturalism. Here's a brief description of philosophical naturalism . In its broadest and strongest sense, naturalism is the metaphysical position that "nature is all there is, and all basic truths are truths of nature."[1]All things and powers commonly regarded as supernatural, for example, God, souls and witchcraft, are asserted to be nonexistent. This position is commonly referred to as *metaphysical naturalism*, or sometimes as *ontological naturalism*. What is your position on these issues? -- RussA On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Miles: "I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing > that we can drill into that has ultimate reality." > > Marcks: "But there > are a lot of things that can be controlled very effectively and with > predictable failure rates." > > Miles: "Good [we agree]... [but] I'm not > sure how many people -- including "scientists" who should know better -- still > believe in such." > > -- > > It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't know > better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I think it is > much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff they do, and they do > it better, if they think they are REALLY doing it. Albeit, it may be fun to > predict where a cannon ball is going to land, or what the orbit of the > planets will be, but if people didn't think they were finding out something > "real" about "gravity" I doubt the activity would have been as engaging. > > For an example in a science that seems less useful to me: It always amazes > me that social and personality psychologists can go around thinking that the > things they study are "real"... extroversion, emotional intelligence, > in-group preference, etc.... Yet, I also have the feeling that if they for > one moment thought as I did, that they were (at best) just playing a strange > prediction game, the whole enterprise would suddenly grind to a halt. Ah, > the time and money that would be saved. > > Of course, the social and personality psychologists would likely say the > same thing about my work, reinforcing my point: I to go about my work just > fine, at least in part, because (barring the occasional metaphysical spaz) I > go about my day to day business with the firm belief that I am REALLY > studying things. > > When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic > organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software usability, > threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't most of them think > they are talking about something real? > > Eric > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:10:21 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:10:21 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence Seminar--BritishEmergence) In-Reply-To: <001101ca3716$46fbb670$d4f32350$@net> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <001101ca3716$46fbb670$d4f32350$@net> Message-ID: <7DCC19EC-CE4B-4080-9A07-337243C3014A@gmail.com> Hi Frank! On Sep 16, 2009, at 2:40 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > Isn't that the postmodernist position? It does happen to coincide -- which is why I suggested that litcrit would be a good thing to teach to future scientists-- I'm not claiming it's original. :) In fact, the basic point of view is much older, richer and non-nihilistic than that. See Nagarjuna, et. al. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-truths_doctrine For the book, I was thinking of discussing more or less informally why they can be show to be "not existent, not non-existent..." and then why they still matter / are useful, if used with an appreciation for their inherent empty qualities. I'm not sure if it's a silly idea or not. I'd appreciate any feedback either here or privately. > > Frank > > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] > On Behalf > Of Miles Parker > Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 12:04 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] comm. (was Re: FW: Re:Emergence > Seminar--BritishEmergence) > > > I would put it more strongly and say that it is "entirely not subject > neutral". I think if we look honestly there is not a single thing that > we can drill into that has ultimate reality. I'm not being cute, or > deep, or nihilistic, ;) but I really don't think that this is simply a > matter of reducing to the absurd either. Or if it is, then we are > showing that the very act of reduction is itself absurd. Once we begin > with that kind of understanding of the profound limitations of > conceptual knowledge then we can begin to do real science. > > (I am thinking quite seriously about writing a book that catalogs > material and concepts simply as an exercise in loosing our affection > for seeing things as "really real".) > > On Sep 16, 2009, at 7:41 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > >> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09/16/2009 06:49 AM: >>> Miles Parker wrote: >>>> What is different about scientific discourse? Is it intent? >>>> Context? >>>> >>> Scientific writing aims to facilitate the reader in understanding >>> how to >>> reproduce a result. It must be subject neutral. >> >> I.e. it's not entirely subject neutral. > > > ============================================================ > 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 From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:20:12 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:20:12 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail .com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <0F908D07-5AAF-491B-8B76-9E83C7E1C076@gmail.com> On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't > know better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I > think it is much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff > they do, and they do it better, if they think they are REALLY doing > it. Albeit, it may be fun to predict where a cannon ball is going > to land, or what the orbit of the planets will be, but if people > didn't think they were finding out something "real" about "gravity" > I doubt the activity would have been as engaging. I think that's a really neat way to think about it. I'm sure that it is helpful to a lot of people, and in fact as the reference I sent makes clear, it would actually be impossible to accomplish anything without some ability to conceptualize things as if they were real, or certainly to communicate them. On the other hand, the belief that such things are real has lead to all sorts of mischief -- including scientific materialism itself, but also see say classical economics. > > When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic > organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software > usability, threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't > most of them think they are talking about something real? Put me into the "No" category. Except that I will say that emergence and complexity might be the closest thing to something that is "real", i.e. pervasive and permanent. But I better leave it at that. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 18:21:19 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:21:19 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail .com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 09-09-16 01:35 PM: > When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic > organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software usability, > threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't most of them think they > are talking about something real? I'm sure we do think it's real AT THE TIME... in the context... during execution of the use case. What's that famous quote by Steven Hawking? ... something like: "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." There's another quote by someone... perhaps Fitzgerald? ... perhaps previously quoted by Nick? "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." I would suggest this is just an inevitable outcome of a relatively accurate model of the world (if my previous assertion is true that multiple models are required to model a complex system). Often, those models will be contradictory ... more precisely, the _mechanisms_ that implement the behavior of those models will be contradictory. But the phenomena need not be contradictory. You just have to be smart enough to know when to switch from using one model to using another. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:26:21 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:26:21 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <0F908D07-5AAF-491B-8B76-9E83C7E1C076@gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <0F908D07-5AAF-491B-8B76-9E83C7E1C076@gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909161526u4fec8143w51b85370fa78f94b@mail.gmail.com> So Miles, Since you and Eric seem to be in basic agreement, I'd be interested in your answer to the questions I posed for Eric. -- Russ On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Miles Parker wrote: > > On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > > It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't know > better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I think it is > much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff they do, and they do > it better, if they think they are REALLY doing it. Albeit, it may be fun to > predict where a cannon ball is going to land, or what the orbit of the > planets will be, but if people didn't think they were finding out something > "real" about "gravity" I doubt the activity would have been as engaging. > > > I think that's a really neat way to think about it. I'm sure that it is > helpful to a lot of people, and in fact as the reference I sent makes clear, > it would actually be impossible to accomplish anything without some ability > to conceptualize things as if they were real, or certainly to communicate > them. On the other hand, the belief that such things are real has lead to > all sorts of mischief -- including scientific materialism itself, but also > see say classical economics. > > > When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic > organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software usability, > threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't most of them think > they are talking about something real? > > > Put me into the "No" category. > > Except that I will say that emergence and complexity might be the closest > thing to something that is "real", i.e. pervasive and permanent. But I > better leave it at that. > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:29:20 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:29:20 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> I guess you too Glenn. It seems to have become fashionable to act disparagingly toward the notion of "real." What do you intend to substitute for it? -- Russ On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:21 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 09-09-16 01:35 PM: > > When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic > > organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software usability, > > threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't most of them > think they > > are talking about something real? > > I'm sure we do think it's real AT THE TIME... in the context... during > execution of the use case. What's that famous quote by Steven Hawking? > ... something like: "I have noticed even people who claim everything is > predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they > cross the road." > > There's another quote by someone... perhaps Fitzgerald? ... perhaps > previously quoted by Nick? "The test of a first rate intelligence is > the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and > still retain the ability to function." > > I would suggest this is just an inevitable outcome of a relatively > accurate model of the world (if my previous assertion is true that > multiple models are required to model a complex system). Often, those > models will be contradictory ... more precisely, the _mechanisms_ that > implement the behavior of those models will be contradictory. But the > phenomena need not be contradictory. You just have to be smart enough > to know when to switch from using one model to using another. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:31:47 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:31:47 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail .com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <48B2A94D-AE9F-4015-8C58-B629F0AC1118@gmail.com> > > On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >> It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't >> know better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I >> think it is much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff >> they do, and they do it better, if they think they are REALLY doing >> it. Albeit, it may be fun to predict where a cannon ball is going >> to land, or what the orbit of the planets will be, but if people >> didn't think they were finding out something "real" about "gravity" >> I doubt the activity would have been as engaging. > > I think that's a really neat way to think about it. I'm sure that it > is helpful to a lot of people, and in fact as the reference I sent > makes clear, it would actually be impossible to accomplish anything > without some ability to conceptualize things as if they were real, > or certainly to communicate them. On the other hand, the belief that > such things are real has lead to all sorts of mischief -- including > scientific materialism itself, but also see say classical economics. Oh, and predicting "where a cannonball is going to land". Somehow I wish that scientists were a little less adept at that sort of thing, and in fact we might even become deliberately poor at such tasks if we gain an appreciation of the broader context of complex interaction, i.e. including flesh and bone. Or better, we might see it as part of our responsibility to impress upon others the potential impact. Scientist do this of course, i.e. Union of Concerned Scientists but it would be nice if that were the rule rather than the exception. As a more "real world" example, take the development of a new antibiotic or vaccine. If I am driven purely by a local imperative to cure a particular disease, or increase hog yields, and see that problem as "real", while the much more complex problem of pathogenic adaptation is "not real" -- because I don't know how to conceptualize it properly! -- that's a problem for everyone else. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 18:34:28 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:34:28 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161526u4fec8143w51b85370fa78f94b@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <0F908D07-5AAF-491B-8B76-9E83C7E1C076@gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909161526u4fec8143w51b85370fa78f94b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7DCA17E8-6B27-4E59-AE3F-8D426AB31032@gmail.com> LOL. What was the question? :D On Sep 16, 2009, at 3:26 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > So Miles, > > Since you and Eric seem to be in basic agreement, I'd be interested > in your answer to the questions I posed for Eric. > > -- Russ > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Miles Parker > wrote: > > On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >> It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't >> know better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I >> think it is much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff >> they do, and they do it better, if they think they are REALLY doing >> it. Albeit, it may be fun to predict where a cannon ball is going >> to land, or what the orbit of the planets will be, but if people >> didn't think they were finding out something "real" about "gravity" >> I doubt the activity would have been as engaging. > > I think that's a really neat way to think about it. I'm sure that it > is helpful to a lot of people, and in fact as the reference I sent > makes clear, it would actually be impossible to accomplish anything > without some ability to conceptualize things as if they were real, > or certainly to communicate them. On the other hand, the belief that > such things are real has lead to all sorts of mischief -- including > scientific materialism itself, but also see say classical economics. > >> >> When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, >> intrinsic organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, >> software usability, threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, >> etc., don't most of them think they are talking about something real? > > > Put me into the "No" category. > > Except that I will say that emergence and complexity might be the > closest thing to something that is "real", i.e. pervasive and > permanent. But I better leave it at that. > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 19:01:13 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:01:13 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB16E39.7030005@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-16 03:29 PM: > I guess you too Glen. Just a note about these sorts of forums... you don't need to call out each person. If you post a question to the list, you're implicitly (perhaps unintentionally) inviting answers from everyone on the list. > It seems to have become fashionable to act disparagingly toward the > notion of "real." What do you intend to substitute for it? I don't substitute anything for "real". I am a soft agnostic. Reality may be knowable; but I don't know it. All I can do is _approach_ it via parallax. In that sense, it's a bit like a horizon. It doesn't really have to exist in order to be useful. Hence, all statements of existence are speculation, conjecture, hypothesis, or thesis. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Wed Sep 16 19:14:22 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:14:22 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 03:29:20PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > I guess you too Glenn. > > It seems to have become fashionable to act disparagingly toward the notion > of "real." What do you intend to substitute for it? > > -- Russ > > I too, am in the camp that cannot fathom what "real" could possibly mean. For me, science is about studying phenomenological consistency - we cannot live in any old world, we cannot, for instance, live in a world incompatible with our presence in that world, ie the Anthropic Principle. But just because phenomenology is consistent, does not make it real. There is no ontological commitment here. In fact, I tend to believe that other phenomenologically consistent worlds that are inconsistent with our own also exist "out there" in the same sense as our own. The total sum of which adds up to nothing (in a resultant sense), which requires little, if any ontological commitment. I have no problem studying our own patch of phenomenology. It means something to us, even if the in global scheme of things (if there could be such a viewpoint), it is fundamentally absurd. And if Glen can make a plug, then I can too. The above is discussed in considerable more detail in my book "Theory of Nothing", which of course is already known to the list. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From robert at holmesacosta.com Wed Sep 16 19:07:54 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:07:54 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Beware Flash cookies In-Reply-To: References: <857770150909150600y4ff7cae2hcf40c095f705b8b2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <857770150909161607s5e3c8ac4o6053972924429e3a@mail.gmail.com> Not the friendliest control panel is it? I ended up turning off local storage (under Global Storage Settings) and setting other sites use of my cam and mic to "Always Ask" (under Global Privacy and Global Security Settings) -- R On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: > What settings did you use at the adobe site? It wasn't very clear to me > what they all meant! And my first visit ended up having the settings > program go nuts and I had to kill it. > > In the bigger picture, Javascript (including the flash libraries) is part > of the evolution of the browser being the desktop. Apparently > Javascript/Flash is the way the mic and camera are made available today. I > *want* the mic and camera to be included, but would like it to be innocuous. > This may not be possible. > > The W3C seems to have a lot of web standards, and the Javascript world is > standardized under ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association). > Couldn't they together specify the way the mic/camera are managed? > > In the even larger picture: it seems to me that all languages, not just > Javascript, should have a web subset that falls under sandbox or similar > standardization. Why not allow, for example, Python etc to be valid browser > languages. And I don't mean as simple applet-like extensions/plugins. But > something that can manage the DOM itself, that is literally integrated into > the browser itself. And thus also able to deal with the mic/camera. > > Chrome is said to be looking into this. > > -- Owen > > > > On Sep 15, 2009, at 7:00 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > > Flash has it's own version of cookies that not many people know about and >> are hard to delete. See >> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/ >> >> If you want to delete them or stop them getting dropped on your computer >> you actually need to use a control panel on the Adobe site: >> http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html#118539 >> >> -- Robert >> > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 19:08:47 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:08:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: {give me back my damned thread} Message-ID: <380-22009931623847580@earthlink.net> .. will meet at downtown subscription, thursday, at 4pm to discuss McLaughlin's Rise and Fall of British Emergentism. Anybody is welcome to sit in, but if you havent read the article, you cant talk for the first 45 minutes. n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Wed Sep 16 19:37:04 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:37:04 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909142202x22a32654ua45b0588b055ef22@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009921543052750@earthlink.net> <20090915045501.GI6250@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909142202x22a32654ua45b0588b055ef22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090916233704.GC20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Meaning is definitely there. From the meaning that humans give the the biological world: ever noticed how there are many words for some species (eg dogs or horses), but hardly any covering other major groups of species (eg ants or beetles). Where there are explicit distinctions made, there tends to be meaning, whether beneficial or pest. Of course there is biological meaning to most species, albeit not so sophisticated. Most species will classify others into friend, foe or neutral, for instance. One of the biggest meanings is self-meaning. I am because I can be. This leads to heritable qualities, which is the raw stuff of evolution. Without meaning, there is no evolution - just random drift, or noise. Without meaning, there is no complexity or emergence either. Sorry I don't have to time to say more, and I'm sure there are others who can put it more eloquently. It is one of the strands of my book "Theory of Nothing", but not a major focus of it. Cheers On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02:04PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > Dear Russ S, > > I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured > in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that? > > -- Russ A > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish wrote: > > > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now > > :). Serves me right, I guess. > > > > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > > something to somebody. > > > > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational > > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system > > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the > > system arranged completely at random). > > > > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to > > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity > > extended to others. > > > > Cheers > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > Russ, > > > > > > I agree with > > > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > > representative of emergence.) > > > > > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: Russ Abbott > > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > > > > > > > Owen, > > > > > > Here's how I would start. > > > > > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or > > 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a > > structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One > > of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. > > I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as > > referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. > > > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > > representative of emergence.) > > > > > > That raises a few questions. > > > > > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create > > structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: > > static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce > > emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much > > more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent > > phenomena like biological and social entities.) > > > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work > > according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more > > difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the > > entities being structured.) > > > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is > > that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities > > exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is > > continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from > > equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > > > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My > > answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about > > the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the > > energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the > > mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming > > language one is using.) > > > > > > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore > > wrote: > > > > > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > > > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > > > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > > field within chaos.] > > > > > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in > > formalizing it. > > > > > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error > > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > > > > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at > > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > > > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > > > > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > > "emergence". > > > > > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > > > > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > > > > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > > for identifying chaotic systems. > > > > > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for > > success. > > > > > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > > > > > -- 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 > > > > -- > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 19:32:09 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:32:09 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> Both RussS and GlennR responded to my question about the disparagement of "real" mainly by talking about phenomenology, ontology, and epistemology. I wasn't asking about any of those. I was asking whether you really don't believe there is such a thing as reality -- whether or not we can preceive it, conceptualize it, or know about it. I can't even imagine what it would mean to answer a question like "Is there reality?" in the negative. -- RussA On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, russell standish wrote: > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 03:29:20PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > I guess you too Glenn. > > > > It seems to have become fashionable to act disparagingly toward the > notion > > of "real." What do you intend to substitute for it? > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > I too, am in the camp that cannot fathom what "real" could possibly > mean. For me, science is about studying phenomenological consistency - > we cannot live in any old world, we cannot, for instance, live in a > world incompatible with our presence in that world, ie the Anthropic > Principle. > > But just because phenomenology is consistent, does not make it > real. There is no ontological commitment here. In fact, I tend to > believe that other phenomenologically consistent worlds that are > inconsistent with our own also exist "out there" in the same sense as > our own. The total sum of which adds up to nothing (in a resultant > sense), which requires little, if any ontological commitment. > > I have no problem studying our own patch of phenomenology. It means > something to us, even if the in global scheme of things (if there > could be such a viewpoint), it is fundamentally absurd. > > And if Glen can make a plug, then I can too. The above is discussed in > considerable more detail in my book "Theory of Nothing", which of > course is already known to the list. > > > Cheers > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 16 19:45:00 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:45:00 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909161645q6ac573b3qc78c3a1a433eafb3@mail.gmail.com> Have you ever hit your thumb with a hammer? I don't mean just taking a little girlie swipe at it, I mean NAILING the sucker. That's real, man. Even little brains can wrap themselves around the reality of "This *really* hurts." Ok, back to deep discussions of phenomenology, ontology, and epistemology. Really. I'm heading out the door to another dimensional reality; one that involves beer, saxophones, and blues. --Doug On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Both RussS and GlennR responded to my question about the disparagement of > "real" mainly by talking about phenomenology, ontology, and epistemology. I > wasn't asking about any of those. I was asking whether you really don't > believe there is such a thing as reality -- whether or not we can preceive > it, conceptualize it, or know about it. I can't even imagine what it would > mean to answer a question like "Is there reality?" in the negative. > > -- RussA > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, russell standish wrote: > >> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 03:29:20PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: >> > I guess you too Glenn. >> > >> > It seems to have become fashionable to act disparagingly toward the >> notion >> > of "real." What do you intend to substitute for it? >> > >> > -- Russ >> > >> > >> >> I too, am in the camp that cannot fathom what "real" could possibly >> mean. For me, science is about studying phenomenological consistency - >> we cannot live in any old world, we cannot, for instance, live in a >> world incompatible with our presence in that world, ie the Anthropic >> Principle. >> >> But just because phenomenology is consistent, does not make it >> real. There is no ontological commitment here. In fact, I tend to >> believe that other phenomenologically consistent worlds that are >> inconsistent with our own also exist "out there" in the same sense as >> our own. The total sum of which adds up to nothing (in a resultant >> sense), which requires little, if any ontological commitment. >> >> I have no problem studying our own patch of phenomenology. It means >> something to us, even if the in global scheme of things (if there >> could be such a viewpoint), it is fundamentally absurd. >> >> And if Glen can make a plug, then I can too. The above is discussed in >> considerable more detail in my book "Theory of Nothing", which of >> course is already known to the list. >> >> >> Cheers >> -- >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> Mathematics >> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au >> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 19:53:00 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:53:00 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 16, 2009, at 4:32 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Both RussS and GlennR responded to my question about the > disparagement of "real" mainly by talking about phenomenology, > ontology, and epistemology. I wasn't asking about any of those. I > was asking whether you really don't believe there is such a thing as > reality -- whether or not we can preceive it, conceptualize it, or > know about it. I can't even imagine what it would mean to answer a > question like "Is there reality?" in the negative. I think I notice a subtle but key shift in how you've put this question. The real issue is as Russell put's it -- "can one fathom what real could possibly mean"? I can't see how. It's easy to confuse "imagine" with "conceptualize". More subtly, our conceptualizations always inform and constrain our imagination. And imagination is by definition a projection. So if we want to understand how there could both be a reality, not be a reality, etc.. we can only experience it and there isn't a particular formula for that. On Sep 16, 2009, at 4:01 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > I don't substitute anything for "real". I am a soft agnostic. > Reality > may be knowable; but I don't know it. This may be obvious, but I would take a harder line. I think it is possible to demonstrate the reality is not knowable in the sense that I think we mean. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 16 20:00:42 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:00:42 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB17C2A.7020507@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-16 04:32 PM: > Both RussS and GlennR I can't take it anymore! ;-) ... only a single "n". I posit that you miss that sort of thing because you have two S's and two T's at the ends of your names. > responded to my question about the disparagement of > "real" mainly by talking about phenomenology, ontology, and epistemology. I didn't respond that way. I told you that I don't _know_ and don't care whether there's a "reality" out there or not. I also don't know or care whether reality is knowable or not. That statement is pragmatic, not phenomenological, ontological, or epistemological. Of course, I'm not a scientist. > I can't even imagine what it would > mean to answer a question like "Is there reality?" in the negative. That's simple. To answer that question at all is a spiritual or religious belief. And I'm pretty sure you can imagine having a spiritual belief, right? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From owen at backspaces.net Wed Sep 16 20:03:36 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:03:36 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: {give me back my damned thread} In-Reply-To: <380-22009931623847580@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009931623847580@earthlink.net> Message-ID: .. and if you'd like to talk and don't have the book, here's the chapter: http://backspaces.net/temp/BritEmergentism.pdf -- Owen On Sep 16, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > ... will meet at downtown subscription, thursday, at 4pm to discuss > McLaughlin's Rise and Fall of British Emergentism. Anybody is > welcome to sit in, but if you havent read the article, you cant talk > for the first 45 minutes. > > n > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > From marcus at snoutfarm.com Wed Sep 16 20:10:22 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:10:22 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009931642429146@earthlink.net> <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><042014A4-E7C7-4E78-A753-C9DE194842D2@gmail .com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <4AB17E6E.9030801@snoutfarm.com> ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Yet, I also have the feeling that if they for one moment thought as I > did, that they were (at best) just playing a strange prediction game, > the whole enterprise would suddenly grind to a halt. Ah, the time and > money that would be saved. > If it were easy to make reliable predictions from limited data using nothing but machine learning algorithms, and for many kinds of problems, I'd agree with that. But finding the right signals and models can be hard. Simply removing a personal psychological stake in the ontological status of the semantics doesn't necessarily make it any easier or harder. For example, one might not bother think about why a model works and fail to gain further important insights. On the other hand, investing in understanding lots of details of a model that doesn't work is also bad; a modeler should be prepared to avoid further similar work. Marcus From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Wed Sep 16 21:12:43 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:12:43 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0ECDC.7030300@snoutfarm.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 04:32:09PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > Both RussS and GlennR responded to my question about the disparagement of > "real" mainly by talking about phenomenology, ontology, and epistemology. I > wasn't asking about any of those. I was asking whether you really don't > believe there is such a thing as reality -- whether or not we can preceive > it, conceptualize it, or know about it. I can't even imagine what it would > mean to answer a question like "Is there reality?" in the negative. > > -- RussA It means much the same thing as to answer the question "Is there a god?" in the negative. If asked that question in a thinking environment, I might respond "Probably not your God". The point is that the term reality is hopelessly confused, with many people meaning completely different things by it. Take Doug's thumb. Doug's hammered thumb is purely phenomenological. The thumb is a collection of protons, neutrons and electrons, the former two are collections of quarks. The thumbs properties do not depend much on the properties of the elementary particles, but rather on the electromagnetic forces keeping them together. The thumb is actually 99.9...% hard vacuum! The seeming solidity of it is due to electromagnetism. What hurts then? Is it the thumb? Is it the neuron that was stimulated by the thumb? Is it the brain that has processed those signals. The consciousness that emerges from the activity of the brain. What is really going on here? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 21:36:18 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:36:18 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <4905BAFF-4D62-4D5D-B86B-896973749FEF@gmail.com> <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> "What's really going on" is a good question. It presumes that something is going on, which is my point. I raised the issue to begin with because of what seemed to me to be a disparagement of the notion of reality. I find it hard to believe that GlenR (one "n". Sorry) doesn't "care whether there's a 'reality' out there or not." But even that statement implies there is an "in here and an out there" which again is my point, namely there is. Actually I find it hard to put into words the assertion that reality is. I feel driven to Buddhist-like phrases such as "is-ness." But I don't want to go there either because I don't see being aware of reality at all a religious or spiritual thing. It's just reality. And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't understand the connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) God, if there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what is. And I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any sort of empirical investigation or verification. -- RussA On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 6:12 PM, russell standish wrote: > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 04:32:09PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Both RussS and GlennR responded to my question about the disparagement of > > "real" mainly by talking about phenomenology, ontology, and epistemology. > I > > wasn't asking about any of those. I was asking whether you really don't > > believe there is such a thing as reality -- whether or not we can > preceive > > it, conceptualize it, or know about it. I can't even imagine what it > would > > mean to answer a question like "Is there reality?" in the negative. > > > > -- RussA > > It means much the same thing as to answer the question "Is there a god?" in > the negative. If asked that question in a thinking environment, I > might respond "Probably not your God". > > The point is that the term reality is hopelessly confused, with many > people meaning completely different things by it. > > Take Doug's thumb. Doug's hammered thumb is purely phenomenological. > The thumb is a collection of protons, neutrons and electrons, the > former two are collections of quarks. The thumbs properties do not > depend much on the properties of the elementary particles, but rather > on the electromagnetic forces keeping them together. The thumb is > actually 99.9...% hard vacuum! The seeming solidity of it is due to > electromagnetism. > > What hurts then? Is it the thumb? Is it the neuron that was stimulated > by the thumb? Is it the brain that has processed those signals. The > consciousness that emerges from the activity of the brain. What is > really going on here? > > > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gary at NaturesVisualArts.com Wed Sep 16 23:11:51 2009 From: gary at NaturesVisualArts.com (Gary Schiltz) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:11:51 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] Keyboards [Was: Re: comm.] In-Reply-To: <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: The construction sounds nice, but what's with that whole glob of keys on the right side, making you reach several inches further to get to the mouse? You know, the ones with numbers on them? I ain't no freekin' accountant, I want my numbers on the top row, above the "Q W E R T Y" keys just like on my old Royal manual typewriter. And CAPS LOCK to the left of the pinkie? Puhleeze! Enough to give an Emacs junkie pinkie tendonitis. :-) :-) Now here is a real keyboard for Unix & Emacs geeks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Hacking_Keyboard (available at http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/ haphackeyser.html) Been banging away on mine for quite a few years now. ;; Gary On Sep 15, 2009, at 8:33 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Douglas Roberts wrote: >> Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. > ooh I've got a `daskeyboard' for my birthday with IBM clicky-clicky > keys and no labels on any of them. Nice. From marcus at snoutfarm.com Thu Sep 17 00:00:09 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:00:09 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Keyboards [Was: Re: comm.] In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFA59F.1050504@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFD0BA.3070601@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFD866.8050502@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB1B449.7010105@snoutfarm.com> Gary Schiltz wrote: > And CAPS LOCK to the left of the pinkie? Puhleeze! Enough to give an > Emacs junkie pinkie tendonitis. Yeah, creating a new frame (C-x 52) involves arm muscles, but it does demonstrate touch typing. I mean the real number row, not the glob of keys on the right side! From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 16 23:59:40 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:59:40 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009941735940115@earthlink.net> Hey, folks. I am trying to keep this thread for discussions of MacLaughlin's chapter. You want to talk about realism/idealism, get your own damn thread. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/17/2009 1:37:04 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > Meaning is definitely there. From the meaning that humans give the the > biological world: ever noticed how there are many words for some > species (eg dogs or horses), but hardly any covering other major groups of > species (eg ants or beetles). Where there are explicit distinctions > made, there tends to be meaning, whether beneficial or pest. > > Of course there is biological meaning to most species, albeit not so > sophisticated. Most species will classify others into friend, foe or > neutral, for instance. > > One of the biggest meanings is self-meaning. I am because I can > be. This leads to heritable qualities, which is the raw stuff of > evolution. Without meaning, there is no evolution - just random drift, > or noise. Without meaning, there is no complexity or emergence either. > > Sorry I don't have to time to say more, and I'm sure there are others > who can put it more eloquently. It is one of the strands of my book > "Theory of Nothing", but not a major focus of it. > > Cheers > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02:04PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Dear Russ S, > > > > I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured > > in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that? > > > > -- Russ A > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish wrote: > > > > > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now > > > :). Serves me right, I guess. > > > > > > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > > > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > > > something to somebody. > > > > > > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational > > > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system > > > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the > > > system arranged completely at random). > > > > > > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to > > > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity > > > extended to others. > > > > > > Cheers > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > Russ, > > > > > > > > I agree with > > > > > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > > > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > > > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > > > representative of emergence.) > > > > > > > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > > > > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > > From: Russ Abbott > > > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > > > > > > > > > > Owen, > > > > > > > > Here's how I would start. > > > > > > > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or > > > 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a > > > structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One > > > of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. > > > I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as > > > referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. > > > > > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > > > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > > > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > > > representative of emergence.) > > > > > > > > That raises a few questions. > > > > > > > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create > > > structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: > > > static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce > > > emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much > > > more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent > > > phenomena like biological and social entities.) > > > > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work > > > according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more > > > difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the > > > entities being structured.) > > > > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is > > > that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities > > > exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is > > > continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from > > > equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > > > > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My > > > answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about > > > the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the > > > energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the > > > mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming > > > language one is using.) > > > > > > > > > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > > > > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > > > > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > > > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > > > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > > > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > > > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > > > field within chaos.] > > > > > > > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > > > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > > > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in > > > formalizing it. > > > > > > > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > > > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > > > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error > > > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > > > > > > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > > > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > > > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at > > > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > > > > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > > > > > > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > > > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > > > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > > > "emergence". > > > > > > > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > > > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > > > > > > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > > > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > > > > > > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > > > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > > > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > > > for identifying chaotic systems. > > > > > > > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > > > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > > > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for > > > success. > > > > > > > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > > > > > > > -- 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 > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ============================================================ > > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Thu Sep 17 00:38:55 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:38:55 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <30891EDE-D156-4EAB-9A9B-E6D51F8A0137@gmail.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't understand the > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) God, if > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what is. And > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any sort of > empirical investigation or verification. > > -- RussA > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both terms are really superfluous to doing science. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Thu Sep 17 00:55:10 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:55:10 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <4AB0F913.7040702@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the word nonsense? I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss the word *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? -- Russ_A On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish wrote: > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't understand > the > > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) God, > if > > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what is. > And > > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are > > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any sort > of > > empirical investigation or verification. > > > > -- RussA > > > > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many > conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there > seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both > terms are really superfluous to doing science. > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Thu Sep 17 03:14:29 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:14:29 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb 2) Elementary particles 3) Force Fields 4) A universal dovetailer (Schmidhuber's Great Programmer) 5) Platonia of mathematical forms 6) Kant's noumenon 7) Standish's Nothing (aka Library of Babel) 8) Real in the sense I am real (RITSIAR) ... and that's just what I pulled out of my head in a brief moment. The ... indicates that there are many, many, more subtle variants. Most of these versions of reality are incompatible with each other. The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the word > nonsense? > > I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss the word > *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? > > -- Russ_A > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish wrote: > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > > > > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't understand > > the > > > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) God, > > if > > > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what is. > > And > > > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are > > > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any sort > > of > > > empirical investigation or verification. > > > > > > -- RussA > > > > > > > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many > > conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there > > seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both > > terms are really superfluous to doing science. > > > > -- > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > ============================================================ > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Thu Sep 17 03:16:59 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:16:59 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909170016k498b91b6je3ec05e06f18d803@mail.gmail.com> I didn't say I had a definition. In fact, I said that I was having a very hard time putting words to it. But does that mean that one should give up on it? We can't do much with consciousness (or the term I prefer, subjective experience) either, but I'm not willing to dismiss it as virtually meaningless. Please remember that my participation in the discussion came after Eric, Miles, and Glen [one 'n'], seemed very dismissive of reality. That seemed quite strange to me. Our current inability to get our arms/head/words around something isn't automatically grounds to dismiss it. Most of what we have figured out about the world started out as very poorly formulated. -- Russ_A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:14 AM, russell standish wrote: > You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: > > 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb > 2) Elementary particles > 3) Force Fields > 4) A universal dovetailer (Schmidhuber's Great Programmer) > 5) Platonia of mathematical forms > 6) Kant's noumenon > 7) Standish's Nothing (aka Library of Babel) > 8) Real in the sense I am real (RITSIAR) > ... > > > and that's just what I pulled out of my head in a brief moment. The > ... indicates that there are many, many, more subtle variants. Most of > these versions of reality are incompatible with each other. > > The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is > virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the word > > nonsense? > > > > I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss the > word > > *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? > > > > -- Russ_A > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish < > r.standish at unsw.edu.au>wrote: > > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > > > > > > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't > understand > > > the > > > > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) > God, > > > if > > > > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what > is. > > > And > > > > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are > > > > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any > sort > > > of > > > > empirical investigation or verification. > > > > > > > > -- RussA > > > > > > > > > > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many > > > conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there > > > seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both > > > terms are really superfluous to doing science. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Thu Sep 17 03:26:39 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:26:39 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909170016k498b91b6je3ec05e06f18d803@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909170016k498b91b6je3ec05e06f18d803@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909170026k4ad5d6f4n2a3629db662a1a65@mail.gmail.com> Perhaps an even better example is *emergence*. As Nick's reading group is in the process of finding out, there have been (and in some circles still are) lots of often incompatible and virtually meaningless definitions of that term . But we didn't give up and it, and we now know what it means -- or what we should use it to mean. What had been a mystery has been solved. -- Russ_A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > I didn't say I had a definition. In fact, I said that I was having a very > hard time putting words to it. But does that mean that one should give up on > it? We can't do much with consciousness (or the term I prefer, subjective > experience) either, but I'm not willing to dismiss it as virtually > meaningless. > > Please remember that my participation in the discussion came after Eric, > Miles, and Glen [one 'n'], seemed very dismissive of reality. That seemed > quite strange to me. Our current inability to get our arms/head/words around > something isn't automatically grounds to dismiss it. Most of what we have > figured out about the world started out as very poorly formulated. > > -- Russ_A > > > > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:14 AM, russell standish > wrote: > >> You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: >> >> 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb >> 2) Elementary particles >> 3) Force Fields >> 4) A universal dovetailer (Schmidhuber's Great Programmer) >> 5) Platonia of mathematical forms >> 6) Kant's noumenon >> 7) Standish's Nothing (aka Library of Babel) >> 8) Real in the sense I am real (RITSIAR) >> ... >> >> >> and that's just what I pulled out of my head in a brief moment. The >> ... indicates that there are many, many, more subtle variants. Most of >> these versions of reality are incompatible with each other. >> >> The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is >> virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. >> >> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: >> > Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the word >> > nonsense? >> > >> > I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss the >> word >> > *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? >> > >> > -- Russ_A >> > >> > >> > >> > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish < >> r.standish at unsw.edu.au>wrote: >> > >> > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: >> > > > >> > > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't >> understand >> > > the >> > > > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) >> God, >> > > if >> > > > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what >> is. >> > > And >> > > > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who >> are >> > > > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any >> sort >> > > of >> > > > empirical investigation or verification. >> > > > >> > > > -- RussA >> > > > >> > > >> > > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many >> > > conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there >> > > seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both >> > > terms are really superfluous to doing science. >> > > >> > > -- >> > > >> > > >> > > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> > > Mathematics >> > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au >> > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> > > >> > > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > >> >> > ============================================================ >> > 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 >> >> -- >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> Mathematics >> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au >> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Thu Sep 17 03:28:39 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:28:39 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Non-Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: BTW, I was wondering how faith popped into the subject line above. I'm not sure what faith has to do with any of this...? On Sep 17, 2009, at 12:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Please remember that my participation in the discussion came after > Eric, Miles, and Glen [one 'n'], seemed very dismissive of reality. > That seemed quite strange to me. Our current inability to get our > arms/head/words around something isn't automatically grounds to > dismiss it. Most of what we have figured out about the world started > out as very poorly formulated. This is the heart of the issue. One of the key doctrines of the "faith of science", i.e. scientism, is that everything is reducible. I'm (not alone in) claiming that nothing is ultimately reducible, therefore explaining systematically and then communicating the true nature of reality is simply not possible. I believe we can demonstrate that this is the case in a positive sense, in the same way that we can demonstrate incompleteness. It doesn't really make sense to say that we might discover our way out of this. To me the key aspect goes beyond the inability to conjure a shared or consistent version of reality, to the understanding that *any* conception of reality is demonstrably impossible. Here is the mind twister -- this includes "our" theory of reality. Any basis you can think of to show that you exist, or indeed that any internal or external phenomenon exist, is false. On the other hand, there does seem to be self-awareness of some kind, so that we cannot say that we don't exist. If we then simply say, "reality is whatever context this self-awareness occurs in" then that is self-referential, but I don't have a particular problem with it. On Sep 17, 2009, at 12:14 AM, russell standish wrote: > You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: > > 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb > 2) Elementary particles > 3) Force Fields ... > The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is > virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. I'm curious what such a qualification would look like? -Miles > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: >> Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the >> word >> nonsense? >> >> I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss >> the word >> *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? >> >> -- Russ_A >> >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish > >wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: >>>> >>>> And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't >>>> understand >>> the >>>> connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous >>>> sentence.) God, >>> if >>>> there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of >>>> what is. >>> And >>>> I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who >>>> are >>>> sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from >>>> any sort >>> of >>>> empirical investigation or verification. >>>> >>>> -- RussA >>>> >>> >>> The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many >>> conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, >>> there >>> seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both >>> terms are really superfluous to doing science. >>> >>> -- >>> >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >>> Mathematics >>> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au >>> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> > >> ============================================================ >> 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Thu Sep 17 04:22:08 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:22:08 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Non-Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: References: <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <20090917082208.GJ20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:28:39AM -0700, Miles Parker wrote: > > On the other hand, there does seem to be self-awareness of some kind, so > that we cannot say that we don't exist. If we then simply say, "reality is > whatever context this self-awareness occurs in" then that is > self-referential, but I don't have a particular problem with it. > > On Sep 17, 2009, at 12:14 AM, russell standish wrote: > >> You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: >> >> 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb >> 2) Elementary particles >> 3) Force Fields > ... >> The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is >> virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. > > I'm curious what such a qualification would look like? > RITSIAR is one such qualification. And it is rather similar to what you were talking about in the previous para. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From epc2 at psu.edu Thu Sep 17 09:55:20 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:55:20 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: AC27387E-B826-4540-B152-89AB809CAE9D@gmail.com References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu> <4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> Trying to reply in a single inquiry to all emails in the thread: Actually, I thought I was defending the real! Miles had suggested that scientists should know better than to believe in the real, and I was saying "quite the opposite". I argued that it serves scientists well to believe that what they are studying is real (hence the reference to faith). For example: People who study personality believe that the word "personality" refers to a real phenomenon, a real happening in the world. At the least, they routinely convince me that they think it is real. This is the standard, lay use of the word "real", which conforms reasonably well to many (but not all) philosophical specifications of the term. Now I do not believe in "personality", at least not in the way those researchers do, but most of them don't believe in "perception" the way I think perception works. What goes on at the higher levels is a war over what is "real". In Science (with a capital S), we like to think that will be decided on the merits of empirical evidence (which again necessitates belief in the real). I get the impression that if any researchers, in psychology, chemistry, physics, art, history of Europe, etc., stopped believing they were studying something real, the whole enterprise would fall apart. Given that many of these endeavors do, in the long run, produce useful things, it would be sad to see them go. Thus, there is good reason for scientists to have faith in the reality of what they are studying. I remember old-timers (heh, heh, heh) telling me stories about the initial release of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. My understanding is that a reasonable percentage (say 5-15%) of scientists simply could not go about their business after reading Kuhn. This because the book, on some level, shattered their ability to believe what they were doing was real. Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Thu Sep 17 10:31:38 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:31:38 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909170731h65b8c0a0s31b5911a96317212@mail.gmail.com> Eric, your message confused me. You start out by saying that you thought you were "defending the real." Yet as I read it your message is entirely about what people believe -- their "faith" as you say. How would your position apply, for example, to the "scientific" study of astrology by "scientists" who had faith in astrology? How would it distinguish between astrology and astronomy -- or would it distinguish between the two? I don't understand where you are coming from. -- Russ_A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 6:55 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Trying to reply in a single inquiry to all emails in the thread: > > Actually, I thought I was defending the real! Miles had suggested that > scientists should know better than to believe in the real, and I was saying > "quite the opposite". > > I argued that it serves scientists well to believe that what they are > studying is real (hence the reference to faith). For example: People who > study personality believe that the word "personality" refers to a real > phenomenon, a real happening in the world. At the least, they routinely > convince me that they think it is real. This is the standard, lay use of the > word "real", which conforms reasonably well to many (but not all) > philosophical specifications of the term. > > Now I do not believe in "personality", at least not in the way those > researchers do, but most of them don't believe in "perception" the way I > think perception works. What goes on at the higher levels is a war over what > is "real". In Science (with a capital S), we like to think that will be > decided on the merits of empirical evidence (which again necessitates belief > in the real). I get the impression that if any researchers, in psychology, > chemistry, physics, art, history of Europe, etc., stopped believing they > were studying something real, the whole enterprise would fall apart. Given > that many of these endeavors do, in the long run, produce useful things, it > would be sad to see them go. Thus, there is good reason for scientists to > have faith in the reality of what they are studying. > > I remember old-timers (heh, heh, heh) telling me stories about the initial > release of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. My understanding is > that a reasonable percentage (say 5-15%) of scientists simply could not go > about their business after reading Kuhn. This because the book, on some > level, shattered their ability to believe what they were doing was real. > > Eric > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Thu Sep 17 13:52:05 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:52:05 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909170731h65b8c0a0s31b5911a96317212@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> <15fe0a4a0909170731h65b8c0a0s31b5911a96317212@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB27745.3020609@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Thu Sep 17 14:33:49 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:33:49 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <4AB27745.3020609@swcp.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> <15fe0a4a0909170731h65b8c0a0s31b5911a96317212@mail.gmail.com> <4AB27745.3020609@swcp.com> Message-ID: Out of curiosity: have you read any of the Emergence book? Out of a naive desire to see if there was anything to the philosophic side of things, I started in on it (there is a digital copy if you'd like .. and we posted the first chapter earlier). I'm not moved by the first chapter. 23 more to go. I find myself puzzled by the philosophic approach .. at least until it achieves its goal of posing an interesting question that we poor mechanical constructive folks can tackle. (This is from Glen's great post a while back which contains: Because philosophy is a frontier, wilderness activity, where prior work is less important than solving some case specific, imminent, problem. See: http://n2.nabble.com/Analytic-philosophy-Wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia-td3235494.html) So I now look at the philosophic approach being one of mining for great questions. A distortion, I realize, but at least functional/ constructive for me. Does Feyerabend's work satisfy? -- Owen On Sep 17, 2009, at 11:52 AM, Steve Smith wrote: > ... >> >> I remember old-timers (heh, heh, heh) telling me stories about the >> initial release of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. My >> understanding is that a reasonable percentage (say 5-15%) of >> scientists simply could not go about their business after reading >> Kuhn. This because the book, on some level, shattered their ability >> to believe what they were doing was real. >> >> Eric > I have heard anecdotes of the same result among Mathematicians when > Godel's Incompleteness theorem came out... up to that time, many > mathematicians were quite happy to spend their entire lives trying > to prove (or disprove) this or that with the conviction that this or > that actually could be proven (or disproven). But apparently, when > faced with the *proven* possibility that the problem they had > dedicated thier lives (or just a decade or two) to might not be > amenable to mathematical proof, some of them lost heart. > > I was trained as a Mathematician and Physicist but never really > practiced as either, though the skills and perspectives of both > disciplines proved hugely useful. I personally remember the huge > seduction in Physics of believing that the things we might model and > test by experiment were *real*... that somehow because I could > measure a specific quantity to a certain degree of accuracy and that > I could set up a given set of conditions and with an uncanny degree > of predictability, specific phenomena could be observed, that this > *defined* an objective reality. > > Until Maxwell, *Aether* was real... and not long before that > *Phlogiston* and the Absolutes of *Space and Time* didn't dissolve > (at least become Relative) until Einstein and even he rolled his > eyes at the accepted (God and his Dice) implications of Quantum > Theory. > > I'm not sure where to weigh in on the word game of whether "Reality" > has any meaning. Like the ultra-rational-villian character in The > Princess Bride who kept uttering "Inconceivable!" at every turn who > was finally corrected by his sidekick with "boss, I don't think that > word means what you think it means!"... I suspect that we (subtly?) > misuse the term "reality" all of the time. > > I came to embrace this wonderful paradox in science... but it may be > another facet of my general "morbid fascination" with the human > condition: > > Science offers the most obvious/best hope for measuring/defining an > objective reality, yet its very methods are defined to *not* ever be > able to yield conclusive, unquestionable, will-hold-forever, cannot- > be-questioned results. All scientific results are, by definition, > contingent. > > Various other approaches to defining or apprehending "reality" do > not have this problem... they are quite capable of (seem to be > defined around) making unequivocal, conclusive statements that need > never be rescinded or revised. While they may reference factual > observations and logical chains of reasoning, they are not bound by > them. Just read any creationist or intelligent design literature > and you will see this odd split. > > Mysticism and its variants (sadly, most commonly encountered in our > culture through "newage" or "westernized eastern philosophy") may > offer a useful complement to the variations of logical positivism > associated with western scientific thought, but I'm still at a loss > to find the bridge. There may be no bridge, but something more like > a juxtaposition or complex orbit. > > Popular culture (in this era) seems quite enamored with mathematics, > science, etc... such things have become quite popular (perhaps > nearly as much as during the age of Enlightenment (at least among > gentlemen). But that does not mean that the average person > actually invests themselves in the scientific perspective beyond a > superficial level. They may want to associate themselves with it > and enjoy the fruits of its utility, but not engage in it's > practice. I do not know the numbers but most here recognize that > they were in the minority in grammar school and even in college... > that only a small fraction of our peers were interested in the > disciplines of mathematics and science. How many times have we > heard "I don't do math" or "I'm not good at Science"> > > We could, dismissively, say that "we the elite" were the few with > the intelligence and/or dedication to master these disciplines and > all others are merely lazy or stupid. Or we could acknowledge that > there might be something more fundamental going on. But I'm not > sure what that is. And I'm not sure this group is going to discuss > it... because it is somewhat confrontational to our own identities. > We identify at different levels with rational thought and objective > reality... and it is hard to contemplate anything that confronts > these two very much. I think the current squabble over the use of > the term "reality" shows how hard this is to think about. > > I am forever thankful to Paul Feyerabend's work in the Philosophy of > Science (Scientific Anarchism) for providing the question of > whether or how Scientific Thought (and Method) can resolve itself > with Humanitarian perspectives and his questioning of some of the > self-serving mythos that Science applies to itself (see Against > Method, 1975). > > In direct confrontation to many of the personalities on this list > (some whom I consider personal friends), Feyerabend lamented the > lack of philosophical grounding of the new crop of post WWII > Physicists (including notably, Richard Feynman). I myself suffer > from a significant lack of such grounding, despite actually being > interested in and often in pursuit of the same. I appreciate > those others on this list who seem to share their own variations of > this awareness, starting with those who speak up against the > collective but extending to those who remain quiet in their > reservations and questions. > > The fact that like the iconic arcade game "Whack-a-Mole" , these > "philosophical questions" keep raising their unkempt heads on this > list gives me hope. I know it often feels like so much unnecessary > noise, but I think there are legitimate reasons that it doesn't go > away. While I cannot participate in most/many of the discussions > (notably, Nick's Emergence Salon) for practical reasons, I am very > happy to be within earshot of all the happy babble (I mean this > fondly and respectfully, not dismissively). > > - Steve > > > - Steve > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Thu Sep 17 14:42:26 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:42:26 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <4AB27745.3020609@swcp.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com> <20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com> <20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com> <20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> <15fe0a4a0909170731h65b8c0a0s31b5911a96317212@mail.gmail.com> <4AB27745.3020609@swcp.com> Message-ID: <4AB28312.8060300@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Steve Smith circa 09-09-17 10:52 AM: > Science offers the most obvious/best hope for measuring/defining an > objective reality, yet its very methods are defined to *not* ever be > able to yield conclusive, unquestionable, will-hold-forever, > cannot-be-questioned results. All scientific results are, by > definition, contingent. _Very_ well said, Steve. Thanks for that little essay. And in light of that well-stated position, I'll go back to this: Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-16 06:36 PM: > I find it hard to believe that GlenR (one "n". Sorry) doesn't "care > whether there's a 'reality' out there or not." But even that > statement implies there is an "in here and an out there" which again > is my point, namely there is. It just does not _matter_ to my behavior that there _be_ an objective reality. That such a thing _exists_ is totally irrelevant to what I do or don't do. What matters is the constraints on or extents of my behavior. We speak about an objective reality as a convenient fictional _medium_ for reconciling (making consistent) all the various behavior constraints and extents. But that's all we use that fictional construct ("reality") for. It's just a linguistic or cognitive _hook_ onto which we hang the consistency between various, otherwise independent, behaviors. If you want to phrase it another way, we can say "existence is not a property". It doesn't matter (which is why I don't care) whether something _exists_ or not. What matters is the constraints and allowances that "thing" provides for our behavior. And in that context, the statement "I don't care whether or not there is a 'reality' out there or not" does NOT imply there _is_ an "in here and an out there". It only implies that I don't treat existence as an ontological property. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com Thu Sep 17 16:02:00 2009 From: sorvig at santafe-newmexico.com (Kim Sorvig) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:02:00 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hey Nick - An historical query: Is British Emergence related to the British Invasion? Kim ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:00 AM Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22 Send Friam mailing list submissions to friam at redfish.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to friam-request at redfish.com You can reach the person managing the list at friam-owner at redfish.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson) 2. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Russ Abbott) 3. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson) 4. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Roger Critchlow) 5. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (russell standish) 6. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Owen Densmore) 7. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson) 8. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Russ Abbott) 9. FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson) 10. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Nicholas Thompson) 11. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (russell standish) 12. Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (Russ Abbott) 13. Re: 3D Modeling Software (siddharth) 14. Beware Flash cookies (Robert Holmes) 15. concrete study (was Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) (glen e. p. ropella) 16. Re: FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence (glen e. p. ropella) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:22:04 -0600 From: "Nicholas Thompson" Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: Friam at redfish.com Cc: brianmc at rci.rutgers.edu Message-ID: <380-22009911423224728 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" All, I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they? Can anybody help me with this paradox???? I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:38:56 -0700 From: Russ Abbott Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: nickthompson at earthlink.net, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909141638g26bffd55j669b3536c2981b2e at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think. It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > All, > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out > of > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, > and > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, > to > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, > will > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:55:59 -0600 From: "Nicholas Thompson" Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: Russ.Abbott at GMail.com Cc: Friam at redfish.com Message-ID: <380-22009921515559557 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Russ, To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views of the same subject in mind at the same time. I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a night-shrouded bay. Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources in this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that is, to compare and contrast it with other opinions. But hey, I am an academic and a humanist: what would you expect me to believe Don't let that woman out of your sight!! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think. It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they? Can anybody help me with this paradox???? I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:48:55 -0600 From: Roger Critchlow Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: nickthompson at earthlink.net, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Cc: brianmc at rci.rutgers.edu Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909141948g4f06def7t2f7f8b66cbe142b6 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according to emergent or resultant rule sets. The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples of biology. Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast, operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces, same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly complicated configurations of nuclei. The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for inheritance. But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists, as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct: configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the one sense they really cared about. -- rec -- On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > All, > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central assertions > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out > of > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on to > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, > and > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus, > to > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, > will > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:39:14 +1000 From: russell standish Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <20090915033913.GG6250 at NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very "configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole professional life. It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as complexity researchers, would we be interested in that? Cheers On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote: > As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations > are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according > to emergent or resultant rule sets. > > The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They > believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result > of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew > it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the > answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather > than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety > of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating > according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it > wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the > result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples > of biology. > > Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated > configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast, > operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and > statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces, > same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but > they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons > packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly > complicated configurations of nuclei. > > The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the > last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for > inheritance. > > But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists, > as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct: > configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding > chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that > happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically > distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and > electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the > resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the > Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the > one sense they really cared about. > > -- rec -- > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > All, > > > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we > > are > > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.? One of the central > > assertions > > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out > > of > > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.? He goes on > > to > > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] > > the > > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > > concerned, seem enormously implausible."? (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > > > Now here is my problem:? everything that I understand about contemporary > > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, > > and > > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.??Thus, > > to > > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > > dramatically MORE plausible.? If all the consequences of the folding and > > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of > > "configurational > > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, > > will > > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:43:02 -0600 From: Owen Densmore Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <9269991A-CE54-4D92-BE3E-A3D125FD5DEB at backspaces.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within chaos.] Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in formalizing it. Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined "emergence". I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying chaotic systems. It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for success. You see why I included Chaos Envy? -- Owen ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:54:23 -0600 From: "Nicholas Thompson" Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: "friam" Message-ID: <380-22009921535423282 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Dear Russ II, One of the things I hope to find out by discussing actual texts is whether it IS the same as vitalism. I don't think so. Another reason to spend a week on the british emergentists is because of their partial ressemblence to Authors like Juarerro and Rosen whom some of us do take seriously. It's hard to believe in top-down causality without endorsing many of the positions taken by these folks. And, remember, we are only spending a week on the B.E's; next week it's on to John Searle! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/15/2009 5:39:14 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > >From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the > same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very > "configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by > emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is > used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole > professional life. > > It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely > rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as > complexity researchers, would we be interested in that? > > Cheers > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote: > > As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations > > are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according > > to emergent or resultant rule sets. > > > > The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They > > believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result > > of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew > > it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the > > answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather > > than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety > > of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating > > according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it > > wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the > > result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples > > of biology. > > > > Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated > > configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast, > > operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and > > statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces, > > same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but > > they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons > > packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly > > complicated configurations of nuclei. > > > > The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the > > last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for > > inheritance. > > > > But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists, > > as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct: > > configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding > > chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that > > happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically > > distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and > > electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the > > resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the > > Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the > > one sense they really cared about. > > > > -- rec -- > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson > > wrote: > > > All, > > > > > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are > > > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions > > > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of > > > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to > > > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the > > > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] > > > concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). > > > > > > Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary > > > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and > > > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to > > > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem > > > dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and > > > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational > > > forces" then what the dickens are they? > > > > > > Can anybody help me with this paradox???? > > > > > > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will > > > forward any remarks he may have back to you. > > > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:18:06 -0700 From: Russ Abbott Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909142118x49d7ca7u5343b9818d85ac17 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Owen, Here's how I would start. I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) That raises a few questions. 1. What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.) 2. How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the entities being structured.) 3. Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) 4. Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming language one is using.) -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > field within chaos.] > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success > in > formalizing it. > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand > error > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves > at > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > "emergence". > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > for identifying chaotic systems. > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough > for > success. > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:22:46 -0600 From: "Nicholas Thompson" Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: friam at redfish.com Message-ID: <380-22009921542246591 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Oh, gosh! I hope it was clear to every reader that when I wrote: I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody felt singled out. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Nicholas Thompson To: Russ.Abbott at GMail.com Cc: Friam at redfish.com Sent: 9/14/2009 7:55:58 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Russ, To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views of the same subject in mind at the same time. I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a night-shrouded bay. Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources in this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that is, to compare and contrast it with other opinions. But hey, I am an academic and a humanist: what would you expect me to believe Don't let that woman out of your sight!! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think. It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23). Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they? Can anybody help me with this paradox???? I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:30:52 -0600 From: "Nicholas Thompson" Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: friam at redfish.com Message-ID: <380-22009921543052750 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Russ, I agree with I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence Owen, Here's how I would start. I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) That raises a few questions. What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.) How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the entities being structured.) Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming language one is using.) -- Russ On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within chaos.] Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in formalizing it. Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined "emergence". I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying chaotic systems. It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for success. You see why I included Chaos Envy? -- 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:55:01 +1000 From: russell standish Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: nickthompson at earthlink.net, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <20090915045501.GI6250 at NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now :). Serves me right, I guess. I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means something to somebody. And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the system arranged completely at random). While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity extended to others. Cheers On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Russ, > > I agree with > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > Owen, > > Here's how I would start. > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or > 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like > a structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. > One of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global > constraints. I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one > understands global as referring to the entity being structured and not the > world at large. > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > That raises a few questions. > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create > structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: > static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They > produce emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones > are much more open and depend on the entities being organized. They > produce emergent phenomena like biological and social entities.) > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work > according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more > difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the > entities being structured.) > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is > that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities > exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is > continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from > equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My > answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry > about the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it > hides the energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in > software using the mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) > the programming language one is using.) > > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore > wrote: > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > field within chaos.] > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success > in formalizing it. > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand > error calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves > at a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation, > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > "emergence". > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > for identifying chaotic systems. > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it, > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough > for success. > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > -- 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:02:04 -0700 From: Russ Abbott Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group , nickthompson at earthlink.net Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909142202x22a32654ua45b0588b055ef22 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Dear Russ S, I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that? -- Russ A On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish wrote: > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now > :). Serves me right, I guess. > > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > something to somebody. > > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the > system arranged completely at random). > > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity > extended to others. > > Cheers > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Russ, > > > > I agree with > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > > > This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think. > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Russ Abbott > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > > > > Owen, > > > > Here's how I would start. > > > > I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or > 'configuration chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like > a > structured collection of matter where the structure itself is important. > One > of my friends likes to talk about that sort of thing as global > constraints. > I think that's a fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as > referring to the entity being structured and not the world at large. > > > > I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured > entity from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" > phenomena. (That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as > representative of emergence.) > > > > That raises a few questions. > > > > What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create > structure? (My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: > static and dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They > produce > emergent phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much > more open and depend on the entities being organized. They produce > emergent > phenomena like biological and social entities.) > > How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones > > work > according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more > difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the > entities being structured.) > > Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is > that for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities > exist at equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is > continually imported from outside. That's why they are "far from > equilibrium." They must import energy to keep themselves together.) > > Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My > answer is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry > about > the energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the > energy issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using > the > mechanisms for construction built into (and on top of) the programming > language one is using.) > > > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore > wrote: > > > > [This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was: > > Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity > > I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of > emergence, we would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and > how they achieved amazing results in a short time, and how we could > similarly attempt formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look > at the "edge of chaos" idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a > field within chaos.] > > > > Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name > > by > Bedau and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of > Complexity: its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success > in > formalizing it. > > > > Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very > simple weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years > passed with many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand > error > calculations, nor did he understand the limitations of computation. > > > > Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent > flow, the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in > common: divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves > at > a near random distance from each other after short periods of time. > > See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory > > > > Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile > > formation, > flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not > divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined > "emergence". > > > > I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, > Layapunov and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity. > > > > Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the > core similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex". > > > > The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of > divergence and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial > success brought the Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric > for identifying chaotic systems. > > > > It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize > > it, > hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to > ABM, simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough > for > success. > > > > You see why I included Chaos Envy? > > > > -- 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 > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:26:29 +1000 From: siddharth Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 3D Modeling Software To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <85e945bd0909150026y2e1a5155r567019d0f4ba77fc at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Rhino is pretty standard nowadays - http://www.rhino3d.com / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_3D Stable, powerful, versatile, some great plug-ins...(nope, not an ad!) Worth a shot.. It used to be free intially, you could still download the Evaluation version and muck around... (What 3D-modeling needs are you specifically looking at?) On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: > I'm looking at 3D modeling software, and would like help deciding on which > system to use. > > A few requirements: > - Not too expensive .. $150 fine, but certainly not the pro tools at > $1000+ > - Has a book or two at least that make it easy to learn > - Can import/export standard files so can be used with other programs. > - Reasonable feature set: easy to create meshes, texture maps, rendering > (Animation/Game Engine not required .. export/import can help there) > - Run on both Mac/Windows > > As usual, wikipedia has some pointers to jog your memory if need be: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics_software > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_3D_computer_graphics_software > > Are any of you experienced with a 3D modeling system that you could give a > brief review of? > > -- 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 14 Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:00:16 -0600 From: Robert Holmes Subject: [FRIAM] Beware Flash cookies To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <857770150909150600y4ff7cae2hcf40c095f705b8b2 at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Flash has it's own version of cookies that not many people know about and are hard to delete. See http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/ If you want to delete them or stop them getting dropped on your computer you actually need to use a control panel on the Adobe site: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html#118539 -- Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 15 Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:10:48 -0700 From: "glen e. p. ropella" Subject: [FRIAM] concrete study (was Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <4AAFA068.3060705 at agent-based-modeling.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Russell's on to something, here. What RussA refers to as "structure" is predicate or operator dependent. (I don't go as far as Russell and boil it all down to meaning. Meaning is just one kind of operator.) There is no such thing as an "unstructured component". Hence, there is no such thing as a "structured entity from unstructured components". But there are operators that apply to the components and that do not apply to the collection of components and vice versa. So, the structure of the collection can (usually will) be different from the structure of the components. As for Owen's pragmatic approach, I'd constrain the areas of convergence studied even more (way tighter than ABM). I'd recommend picking 3 concrete examples and work particularly with them. Systems with components such that: 1) the operators apply equally well with the system as with the components (like the systems RussA was trying to find a word for recently), 2) the operators don't, in general, apply to both systems and their components, but that can be tweaked so that they do apply, and 3) the set of operators on the systems and the set of operators on the components are disjoint. (1) represents trivial (or no) emergence. (2) represents weak emergence. and (3) represents strong emergence. Of course, perhaps we can't formalize any systems+components so that we realize (3). But failing to find that 3rd concrete example would be a learning experience. Thus spake russell standish circa 09/14/2009 09:55 PM: > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means > something to somebody. > > [...] > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> I agree with >> >> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/14/2009 09:18 PM: >>> I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a >>> structured entity from unstructured components--as the >>> commonality among "emergent" phenomena. (That's why I like the >>> notion of level of abstraction as representative of emergence.) >> >> This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I >> think. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ------------------------------ Message: 16 Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:33:03 -0700 From: "glen e. p. ropella" Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Message-ID: <4AAFA59F.1050504 at agent-based-modeling.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 The lack of depth you point out is the dominant feature of online discussion, at least in every online forum I've experienced over the past 28 years. (Some people have told me it's _my_ personal problem and not a feature of online comm at all. I ignore them, of course. [grin]) I think the reason for the shallowness of the interaction is because people can be (mis-)quoted, verbatim, and have their own words thrown back at them. Very few people listen to what the writer is _trying_ to say. They just listen to what they infer from the writing. Listening to what the writer is trying to say involves things like 1) paraphrasing what they wrote by writing it anew in one's own words, 2) reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some fractioned piece of it, and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, are difficult and expensive for online comm. If any one person invests too much energy in exploring another person's opinion, they a) can appear to hold that opinion themselves and b) can dynamically be convinced of that opinion, perhaps without realizing it. In f2f, that happens smoothly and naturally ... then after a few days, the different opinions either smush together or spread apart. But (without recording equipment) nobody can effectively add friction to the process by quoting the other before or after any incremental evolution or refinement of their opinion. (And, of course, most people end up with a fuzzy-headed "sameness" or "otherness" sense of the opinions of the other people, without any real, crisp, distinctions at all.) Hence, in online comm. (without a robust offline substrate) we find that most people emphatically assert their individuality and focus on contrast rather than comparison. If, however, a group of people who have robust offline relationships augment their conversations with online comm, the dynamic is much more cohesive.... except when the sporadic "foreigner" pokes his head in with contributions that lack the more robust context. ;-) That's just my opinion, of course. Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/14/2009 09:22 PM: > I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in > the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty > representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. > > > that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the > contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at > me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody > felt singled out. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Friam mailing list Friam at redfish.com http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com End of Friam Digest, Vol 75, Issue 22 ************************************* From doug at parrot-farm.net Thu Sep 17 22:56:18 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:56:18 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Keyboards [Was: Re: comm.] In-Reply-To: References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFE300.406@snoutfarm.com> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909171956i32b1d4c0v8c9361cb7ebd41a2@mail.gmail.com> Me, touch-typing on a keyboard where I can't cheat by looking at the keys? Well, that would be one way to guarantee less traffic from me on the FRIAM list. And as Marcus suggests: it would make finding M-C-\ a lot more difficult... On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: > The construction sounds nice, but what's with that whole glob of keys on > the right side, making you reach several inches further to get to the mouse? > You know, the ones with numbers on them? I ain't no freekin' accountant, I > want my numbers on the top row, above the "Q W E R T Y" keys just like on my > old Royal manual typewriter. And CAPS LOCK to the left of the pinkie? > Puhleeze! Enough to give an Emacs junkie pinkie tendonitis. > > :-) :-) > > Now here is a real keyboard for Unix & Emacs geeks: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Hacking_Keyboard > (available at http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeyser.html) > > Been banging away on mine for quite a few years now. > > ;; Gary > > On Sep 15, 2009, at 8:33 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > >> Douglas Roberts wrote: >> >>> Stupid new soft keyboard. I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. >>> >> ooh I've got a `daskeyboard' for my birthday with IBM clicky-clicky keys >> and no labels on any of them. Nice. >> > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 17 23:32:39 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:32:39 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) Message-ID: <380-22009951833239175@earthlink.net> All, I have stayed out of this so far because it just seems so NUTTY. (Look who's talking! When Thompson think's you're nutty you have a real problem.). But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes a reality, including those I have been reading here. As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest least contorted beginning is to assume realism. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/17/2009 9:14:29 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean: > > 1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb > 2) Elementary particles > 3) Force Fields > 4) A universal dovetailer (Schmidhuber's Great Programmer) > 5) Platonia of mathematical forms > 6) Kant's noumenon > 7) Standish's Nothing (aka Library of Babel) > 8) Real in the sense I am real (RITSIAR) > ... > > > and that's just what I pulled out of my head in a brief moment. The > ... indicates that there are many, many, more subtle variants. Most of > these versions of reality are incompatible with each other. > > The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is > virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the word > > nonsense? > > > > I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss the word > > *reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion? > > > > -- Russ_A > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish wrote: > > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote: > > > > > > > > And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't understand > > > the > > > > connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous sentence.) God, > > > if > > > > there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of what is. > > > And > > > > I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who are > > > > sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from any sort > > > of > > > > empirical investigation or verification. > > > > > > > > -- RussA > > > > > > > > > > The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many > > > conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly, there > > > seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both > > > terms are really superfluous to doing science. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 From milesparker at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 00:02:00 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:02:00 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <380-22009951833239175@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009951833239175@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <73056DC8-BC71-4898-BF91-2A87838AEBF5@gmail.com> On Sep 17, 2009, at 8:32 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes a > reality, including those I have been reading here. Even mine? ;( > > As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest least > contorted beginning is to assume realism. I'm not sure I understand -- why not simply start from experience and awareness? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 18 00:02:59 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:02:59 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence Message-ID: <380-2200995184259622@earthlink.net> The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number. I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize what we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was accomplished for me. I hope others in the group will correct me, particularly any who are not in Santa FE but who have joined us in our reading from afar. McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19 century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, etc., demonstrated that there were no configurational forces. When we explain the properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the molecules, electrons etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that arise from the configuration of the particles. Elementary Newtonian forces are all we need. But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the Emergentists. After all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of the composition of causes. Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, but nobody has yet asserted that all causes are forces. Returning to my example of the triangle made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the strength of the triangle (by comparison with the relative weakness of the parallelogram), we need not appeal to any special forces, no "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire". On the other hand, if you would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos that is strong, you better get at least one triangle into it. In that sense, the triangular configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the structural rigidity (and perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE of the rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause. In short, McLaughlin does not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all that is needed for a robust emergentism. Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 00:27:30 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:27:30 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-2200995184259622@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200995184259622@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909172127y56779074vd4be6266067e86c4@mail.gmail.com> It seems to me that "cause" is an extraordinarily slippery word. I'm involved with a group of people who are looking into "Causality in Complex Systems." One of the things I did while in Australia this summer was attend one or our workshops. After thinking quite a bit about causality and after arguing with a professional Philosopher about what philosophers mean by causality, I've decided to give up using that term. Instead, what I'm interested in are explanations. Even that is a difficult term to define clearly. But it seems a lot less dangerous than *causality*. Nick can *explain *why a triangle is rigid -- although I am taken by the notion of an "elan triangulaire". But to come up with a "cause" for the rigidity of a triangle? In my view that's just asking for trouble. It's important to acknowledge, though, that Nick's explanation will presumably be predicated on the presumption that the each of the one-by-two sides is itself rigid. What about explaining that? (That's another example of how levevls of abstraction build on other levels of abstraction.) -- Russ_A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number. > > I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize > what we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was > accomplished for me. I hope others in the group will correct me, > particularly any who are not in Santa FE but who have joined us in our > reading from afar. > > McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19 > century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, > etc., demonstrated that there were no configurational forces. When we > explain the properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the > molecules, electrons etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that > arise from the configuration of the particles. Elementary Newtonian forces > are all we need. But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the > Emergentists. After all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of > the composition of causes. Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, > but nobody has yet asserted that all causes are forces. Returning to my > example of the triangle made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the > strength of the triangle (by comparison with the relative weakness of the > parallelogram), we need not appeal to any special forces, no "triangular > stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire". On the other hand, if you would make > a structure with hinges and one-by-twos that is strong, you better get at > least one triangle into it. In that sense, the triangular configuration of > the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the structural rigidity (and > perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE of the rigidity., in > any sense that I understand cause. In short, McLaughlin does not deny the > existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all that is needed > for a robust emergentism. > > Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Fri Sep 18 00:40:23 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:40:23 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <73056DC8-BC71-4898-BF91-2A87838AEBF5@gmail.com> References: <380-22009951833239175@earthlink.net> <73056DC8-BC71-4898-BF91-2A87838AEBF5@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090918044023.GD17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 09:02:00PM -0700, Miles Parker wrote: > > I'm not sure I understand -- why not simply start from experience and > awareness? Exactly. But then some people call that reality. Others call it delusion. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 18 00:42:10 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:42:10 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, Searle and Wimsatt Message-ID: <380-22009951844210713@earthlink.net> All, For those who are following the seminar, we will read Searle (Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness) and Wimsatt (Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence). I originally thought we would do only Searle, forgetting how short it was. We need to do more than ten pages a week if are going to make any headway in the book in 13 weeks. Just by way of introduction, I hate the Searle (which I think is a pile of hopeless blather) and love the Wimsatt (which has become the foundation for all of my thinking about emergence). My philosophical mentors tell me that they both are among the finest philosophers that we might read on any subject and any respect that I might earn with my mentors from liking Wimsatt is countered by my disparagement of Searle. The Searle article will grist in the mill of those of you who feel that consciousness is something special and the Wimsatt article grist in the mill of those of you who feel that emergence is commonplace. I wish I could draw more of you on the list into an exploration of these texts.. Here, for instance, is a snippet from the Searle article to tempt Russ Abbot:t "I think ... that we ought to be amazed by the fact that evolutionary processes produced nervous systems capable of causing and sustaining subjective conscious states. But ... once the existence of (subjective, qualitative) consciousness is granted (and no sane person can deny its existence, though many pretend to do so), then there is nothing strange, wonderful, or mysterious about its irreducibility. " All the best, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 18 00:51:08 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:51:08 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence Message-ID: <380-2200995184518837@earthlink.net> Russ, inter alia, The emergentists liked, we are told, to rail against the reification of causes. Cause is, after all, just a name for the fact that y usually follows x AND that contingency fits with some ontology we share about how the world works. I have been punished for thinking in my [metaphorical] head whenever people say x causes y that x forces y, so I am feeling cautious about causality right now. But still, what words are we going to substitute? That wasnt a rhetorical question. What words ARE we going to substitute? thanks for your comments, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/17/2009 10:27:51 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence It seems to me that "cause" is an extraordinarily slippery word. I'm involved with a group of people who are looking into "Causality in Complex Systems." One of the things I did while in Australia this summer was attend one or our workshops. After thinking quite a bit about causality and after arguing with a professional Philosopher about what philosophers mean by causality, I've decided to give up using that term. Instead, what I'm interested in are explanations. Even that is a difficult term to define clearly. But it seems a lot less dangerous than causality. Nick can explain why a triangle is rigid -- although I am taken by the notion of an "elan triangulaire". But to come up with a "cause" for the rigidity of a triangle? In my view that's just asking for trouble. It's important to acknowledge, though, that Nick's explanation will presumably be predicated on the presumption that the each of the one-by-two sides is itself rigid. What about explaining that? (That's another example of how levevls of abstraction build on other levels of abstraction.) -- Russ_A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number. I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize what we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was accomplished for me. I hope others in the group will correct me, particularly any who are not in Santa FE but who have joined us in our reading from afar. McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19 century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, etc., demonstrated that there were no configurational forces. When we explain the properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the molecules, electrons etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that arise from the configuration of the particles. Elementary Newtonian forces are all we need. But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the Emergentists. After all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of the composition of causes. Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, but nobody has yet asserted that all causes are forces. Returning to my example of the triangle made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the strength of the triangle (by comparison with the relative weakness of the parallelogram), we need not appeal to any special forces, no "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire". On the other hand, if you would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos that is strong, you better get at least one triangle into it. In that sense, the triangular configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the structural rigidity (and perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE of the rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause. In short, McLaughlin does not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all that is needed for a robust emergentism. Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 18 00:53:19 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:53:19 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) Message-ID: <380-2200995184531914@earthlink.net> Wait a minute! They cannot call it a dilusion because "dilusion" presupposes a state of affairs that IS -- i.e., a reality. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/18/2009 6:40:23 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 09:02:00PM -0700, Miles Parker wrote: > > > > I'm not sure I understand -- why not simply start from experience and > > awareness? > > Exactly. But then some people call that reality. Others call it > delusion. > > Cheers > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 00:57:46 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:57:46 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, Searle and Wimsatt In-Reply-To: <380-22009951844210713@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009951844210713@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909172157t1424c7c4k175a998941bc27e3@mail.gmail.com> Well, you already know my position on reducibility, namely that it's a mistaken quest. Everything -- other than whatever turns out to be primitive, if indeed anything turns out to be primitive -- is explainable. That is, we will eventually figure out how it is implemented. But implementation is generally not what people think of as reducibility. Of course that answer ignores the specific question of subjective experience -- which may be what Nick had in mind when he thought about me. -- Russ-A On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > All, > > For those who are following the seminar, we will read Searle (Reductionism > and the Irreducibility of Consciousness) and Wimsatt (Aggregativity: > Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence). I originally thought we would > do only Searle, forgetting how short it was. We need to do more than ten > pages a week if are going to make any headway in the book in 13 weeks. > > Just by way of introduction, I hate the Searle (which I think is a pile of > hopeless blather) and love the Wimsatt (which has become the foundation for > all of my thinking about emergence). My philosophical mentors tell me that > they both are among the finest philosophers that we might read on any > subject and any respect that I might earn with my mentors from liking > Wimsatt is countered by my disparagement of Searle. The Searle article > will grist in the mill of those of you who feel that consciousness is > something special and the Wimsatt article grist in the mill of those of you > who feel that emergence is commonplace. > > I wish I could draw more of you on the list into an exploration of these > texts.. Here, for instance, is a snippet from the Searle article to tempt > Russ Abbot:t > > "I think ... that we ought to be amazed by the fact that evolutionary > processes produced nervous systems capable of causing and sustaining > subjective conscious states. But ... once the existence of (subjective, > qualitative) consciousness is granted (and no sane person can deny its > existence, though many pretend to do so), then there is nothing strange, > wonderful, or mysterious about its irreducibility. " > > All the best, > > Nick > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 18 01:06:35 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:06:35 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) Message-ID: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> Well, I think so (emoticon for nervous smile). How can you even write to me without presupposing my existence. And as Holt points out, the route to pointing out that I am just a figment of your imagination requires the reality of something called an imagination. Holt argued "Mind here" was a more complex statement than "world there" because the former presupposes the latter but not the reverse. Contra Descartes, I am not aware of a mind, I am aware of a world. Only after some heavy lifting can I separate a mind out from the rest of the world. I mean, which do you think a baby discovers first: his world or his mind? Nick n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Miles Parker To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/17/2009 10:02:04 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) On Sep 17, 2009, at 8:32 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes a reality, including those I have been reading here. Even mine? ;( As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest least contorted beginning is to assume realism. I'm not sure I understand -- why not simply start from experience and awareness? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Fri Sep 18 01:46:06 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:46:06 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <380-2200995184531914@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200995184531914@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20090918054606.GE17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:53:19PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Wait a minute! They cannot call it a dilusion because "dilusion" > presupposes a state of affairs that IS -- i.e., a reality. Yes, I would imagine that the people shouting illusion or delusion do assume some different sort of reality. That was mostly my point - the term is ill defined, and not of much practical use AFAICS, except for fueling endless philosophical debates like this one. > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: russell standish > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Date: 9/18/2009 6:40:23 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 09:02:00PM -0700, Miles Parker wrote: > > > > > > I'm not sure I understand -- why not simply start from experience and > > > awareness? > > > > Exactly. But then some people call that reality. Others call it > > delusion. > > > > Cheers > > > > -- > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 18 01:40:11 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:40:11 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) Message-ID: <380-22009951854011148@earthlink.net> Oh. Sorry. I got confused which side you are on. so you agree that Idealism is incoherent. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/18/2009 7:46:06 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:53:19PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Wait a minute! They cannot call it a dilusion because "dilusion" > > presupposes a state of affairs that IS -- i.e., a reality. > > Yes, I would imagine that the people shouting illusion or delusion do assume > some different sort of reality. That was mostly my point - the term is > ill defined, and not of much practical use AFAICS, except for fueling > endless philosophical debates like this one. > > > > > N > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > From: russell standish > > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > Date: 9/18/2009 6:40:23 PM > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 09:02:00PM -0700, Miles Parker wrote: > > > > > > > > I'm not sure I understand -- why not simply start from experience and > > > > awareness? > > > > > > Exactly. But then some people call that reality. Others call it > > > delusion. > > > > > > Cheers > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ============================================================ > > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 18 12:22:02 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:22:02 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/17/2009 10:06 PM: > How can you even write to me without presupposing my existence. Because that is what we _do_. We talk to each other. And we've been talking to each other long _before_ we ever had the biologically based ability to _presuppose_ your existence. Thought is a consequence of action, not vice versa. I don't have to presuppose _anything_ in order to eat or walk or write to you. This whole paradigm you and other "realists" push about how important _thinking_ is to life is just nonsense. Thought is not required for life. And as such, I do not require a belief in the existence of reality in order to live, which includes making a living, drinking beer, yapping with yahoos on mailing lists, etc. Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/17/2009 08:32 PM: > But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes > a reality, including those I have been reading here. The problem you have, here, is that nobody is _attacking_ realism. You believe in it? Fine. Believe in it. I certainly don't care. You believe in whatever you want to believe in. It doesn't matter. We'll all keep DOING what we DO regardless of what you believe. What we believe is irrelevant. It's what we DO that matters.* And that's the point. As for me, personally, I laid out my apathy towards the fictional concept of the existence of an external reality because RussA ASKED us to lay it out. He then goes on to claim he has trouble believing my answer ... as if I have some reason to lie or as if I'm too stupid to know myself ... or as if it matters whether he believes me. [grin] Who's attacking what, here? I'm certainly not attacking realism. If it makes you happy and allows you to DO what you DO, then fine. Believe in it. Believe in a flying spaghetti monster for all I care. (I also fully support my mom's conviction to Catholicism.) What matters is that you continue to ACT ... to DO. It doesn't matter what you believe. > As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest > least contorted beginning is to assume realism. No. The _simplest_ least contorted beginning is to accept the observations that life lives regardless of belief. No intention need be imputed. Pond scum swims around. Do we have to impute that they believe in the existence of external reality in order to swim around? Ha! Of course not. You'll probably, like so many others, claim that we're so very different from pond scum. But when pressed, you won't be able to clarify precisely and accurately the mechanisms that make us so very different. (You may even invoke the useless term "emergence" in the process. ;-) You can bluster and preach about how we're different just like the way my mom believes dogs don't have souls; but in the end, we're not different. We swim around, eat, mate, and e-mail each other because we're _alive_, not because we believe in flying spaghetti monsters. * This is true in science as well as law. We don't make scientific discoveries based on what we believe; we make them based on what we DO. We don't throw people in jail for what they believe; we throw them in jail based on what they DO. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From rec at elf.org Fri Sep 18 12:25:30 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:25:30 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence In-Reply-To: <380-2200995184259622@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200995184259622@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909180925h2eea47acta953ec728fbb70e8@mail.gmail.com> Maybe we should read Mill, the chapter on the composition of causes is only 5 pages: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27942/27942-h/27942-h.html#toc53 -- rec -- On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number. > > I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize > what we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was > accomplished for me.? I hope others in the group will correct me, > particularly any who are not in Santa FE but who have joined us in our > reading? from afar. > > McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19 > century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, > etc., demonstrated that there were no configurational forces.?? When we > explain the properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the > molecules, electrons etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that > arise from the configuration of the particles.? Elementary Newtonian forces > are all we need.? But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the > Emergentists.? After all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of > the composition of causes.? Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, > but nobody has yet asserted that all causes are forces.?? Returning to my > example of the triangle made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the > strength of the triangle (by comparison with the relative weakness of the > parallelogram), we need not appeal to any special forces,&n bsp; no > "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire".? On the other hand, if you > would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos that is strong, you > better get at least one triangle into it.? In that sense, the triangular > configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the structural > rigidity (and perhaps?a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE of the > rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause.? In short, McLaughlin does > not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all > that is needed for a robust emergentism. > > Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > From milesparker at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 12:45:06 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:45:06 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <20090918054606.GE17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <380-2200995184531914@earthlink.net> <20090918054606.GE17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <1F48057B-0329-4451-A4C4-D7DEE0818510@gmail.com> On Sep 17, 2009, at 10:46 PM, russell standish wrote: > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:53:19PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> Wait a minute! They cannot call it a dilusion because "dilusion" >> presupposes a state of affairs that IS -- i.e., a reality. > > Yes, I would imagine that the people shouting illusion or delusion > do assume > some different sort of reality. That was mostly my point - the term is > ill defined, and not of much practical use AFAICS, except for fueling > endless philosophical debates like this one. Right. I realized that as Glen points out this discussion -- as so many do -- got side-tracked into the narrow alley of defending or "attacking" a single rather silly claim "reality exists". Here is how I would put my claim: "Reality is not -- and cannot be -- what people take to be real." On Sep 17, 2009, at 10:06 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Well, I think so (emoticon for nervous smile). > > How can you even write to me without presupposing my existence. And > as Holt points out, the route to pointing out that I am just a > figment of your imagination requires the reality of something called > an imagination. Holt argued "Mind here" was a more complex > statement than "world there" because the former presupposes the > latter but not the reverse. Contra Descartes, I am not aware of a > mind, I am aware of a world. Only after some heavy lifting can I > separate a mind out from the rest of the world. I mean, which do > you think a baby discovers first: his world or his mind? This all seems like so much dualistic flabber-jabber to me. i.e. these folks presuppose an objective material world and then count it as an argument in their favor that "you" can't have an disagreement with "them" without entering into such a world. As the baby example reveals. What does it say about the underlying point of view that one presumes that it is possible for one to be discovered before the other. In fact, interdependence -- characterized as dependent arising -- is the only explanation that makes any sense at all to me. On Sep 17, 2009, at 9:57 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Well, you already know my position on reducibility, namely that it's > a mistaken quest. Everything -- other than whatever turns out to be > primitive, if indeed anything turns out to be primitive -- is > explainable. That is, we will eventually figure out how it is > implemented. How can you explain something without taking into account everything that might affect it? And as things are affected (cause happens) across scales and types, how could you hope to isolate "anything"? The only way that this reading could be correct is if there indeed did turn out to be a primitive, which is impossible. So, we'll never figure any of this out to complete satisfaction-- thank god. -Miles From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 12:53:46 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:53:46 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> Glen, You and Nick (and I) actually agree that thought is not necessary for us to eat, walk, etc. We do it whether or not we think that we do it. It seems to me that you are supposing that Nick (and I) are saying something different. We're not. What I'm saying (and what I imagine Nick is saying) is that once one starts to think about it, it makes no sense to deny reality, not that our thought is necessary for reality. Furthermore, I would add (and I don't know what Nick thinks about this), that we are thiking beings and that we almost can't help ourselves from thinking. Consequently (in my view), we can't honestly say that we have no opinion about reality. We can hardly help ourselves. It's part of human nature to look around, observe, and conclude. That's one way in which we are different from pond scum. So since (again in my view) one can't help but have an opinion about reality (at least once someone poses the question), it makes no sense to me to then deny it -- or even to deny having an opinion. We just aren't built that way. Admittedly that's a somewhat different question, and it's possible that we can not have an opinion about issues like that. But I doubt it. It's like looking at the sky (with no clouds) and denying that one has an opinion about its color. It's hard for me to believe that one can do that. But as I said, perhaps it's possible. -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 9:22 AM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/17/2009 10:06 PM: > > How can you even write to me without presupposing my existence. > > Because that is what we _do_. We talk to each other. And we've been > talking to each other long _before_ we ever had the biologically based > ability to _presuppose_ your existence. > > Thought is a consequence of action, not vice versa. I don't have to > presuppose _anything_ in order to eat or walk or write to you. This > whole paradigm you and other "realists" push about how important > _thinking_ is to life is just nonsense. Thought is not required for > life. And as such, I do not require a belief in the existence of > reality in order to live, which includes making a living, drinking beer, > yapping with yahoos on mailing lists, etc. > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/17/2009 08:32 PM: > > But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes > > a reality, including those I have been reading here. > > The problem you have, here, is that nobody is _attacking_ realism. You > believe in it? Fine. Believe in it. I certainly don't care. You > believe in whatever you want to believe in. It doesn't matter. We'll > all keep DOING what we DO regardless of what you believe. What we > believe is irrelevant. It's what we DO that matters.* > > And that's the point. > > As for me, personally, I laid out my apathy towards the fictional > concept of the existence of an external reality because RussA ASKED us > to lay it out. He then goes on to claim he has trouble believing my > answer ... as if I have some reason to lie or as if I'm too stupid to > know myself ... or as if it matters whether he believes me. [grin] > Who's attacking what, here? I'm certainly not attacking realism. If it > makes you happy and allows you to DO what you DO, then fine. Believe in > it. Believe in a flying spaghetti monster for all I care. (I also > fully support my mom's conviction to Catholicism.) What matters is that > you continue to ACT ... to DO. It doesn't matter what you believe. > > > As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest > > least contorted beginning is to assume realism. > > No. The _simplest_ least contorted beginning is to accept the > observations that life lives regardless of belief. No intention need be > imputed. Pond scum swims around. Do we have to impute that they > believe in the existence of external reality in order to swim around? > Ha! Of course not. > > You'll probably, like so many others, claim that we're so very different > from pond scum. But when pressed, you won't be able to clarify > precisely and accurately the mechanisms that make us so very different. > (You may even invoke the useless term "emergence" in the process. ;-) > You can bluster and preach about how we're different just like the > way my mom believes dogs don't have souls; but in the end, we're not > different. We swim around, eat, mate, and e-mail each other because > we're _alive_, not because we believe in flying spaghetti monsters. > > > * This is true in science as well as law. We don't make scientific > discoveries based on what we believe; we make them based on what we DO. > We don't throw people in jail for what they believe; we throw them in > jail based on what they DO. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 12:59:36 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:59:36 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909180959p63976933i86b0a79b98c32c14@mail.gmail.com> And by the way, when I say one can't help but have an opinion about the color of the sky I'm really saying that one can't help but have an opinion about one's experience of seeing the sky. Certainly one can ask whether it even makes sense to say that the sky has a color, and if so how would one measure it, etc. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying that one can hardly help but have an opinion about having experienced the sky having a blue color when one looks at it. I don't know whether that clarifies things or not. -- Russ On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > Glen, You and Nick (and I) actually agree that thought is not necessary for > us to eat, walk, etc. We do it whether or not we think that we do it. It > seems to me that you are supposing that Nick (and I) are saying something > different. We're not. What I'm saying (and what I imagine Nick is saying) > is that once one starts to think about it, it makes no sense to deny > reality, not that our thought is necessary for reality. > > Furthermore, I would add (and I don't know what Nick thinks about this), > that we are thiking beings and that we almost can't help ourselves from > thinking. Consequently (in my view), we can't honestly say that we have no > opinion about reality. We can hardly help ourselves. It's part of human > nature to look around, observe, and conclude. That's one way in which we are > different from pond scum. So since (again in my view) one can't help but > have an opinion about reality (at least once someone poses the question), it > makes no sense to me to then deny it -- or even to deny having an opinion. > We just aren't built that way. Admittedly that's a somewhat different > question, and it's possible that we can not have an opinion about issues > like that. But I doubt it. It's like looking at the sky (with no clouds) and > denying that one has an opinion about its color. It's hard for me to believe > that one can do that. But as I said, perhaps it's possible. > > -- Russ A > > > > > On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 9:22 AM, glen e. p. ropella < > gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > >> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/17/2009 10:06 PM: >> > How can you even write to me without presupposing my existence. >> >> Because that is what we _do_. We talk to each other. And we've been >> talking to each other long _before_ we ever had the biologically based >> ability to _presuppose_ your existence. >> >> Thought is a consequence of action, not vice versa. I don't have to >> presuppose _anything_ in order to eat or walk or write to you. This >> whole paradigm you and other "realists" push about how important >> _thinking_ is to life is just nonsense. Thought is not required for >> life. And as such, I do not require a belief in the existence of >> reality in order to live, which includes making a living, drinking beer, >> yapping with yahoos on mailing lists, etc. >> >> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/17/2009 08:32 PM: >> > But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes >> > a reality, including those I have been reading here. >> >> The problem you have, here, is that nobody is _attacking_ realism. You >> believe in it? Fine. Believe in it. I certainly don't care. You >> believe in whatever you want to believe in. It doesn't matter. We'll >> all keep DOING what we DO regardless of what you believe. What we >> believe is irrelevant. It's what we DO that matters.* >> >> And that's the point. >> >> As for me, personally, I laid out my apathy towards the fictional >> concept of the existence of an external reality because RussA ASKED us >> to lay it out. He then goes on to claim he has trouble believing my >> answer ... as if I have some reason to lie or as if I'm too stupid to >> know myself ... or as if it matters whether he believes me. [grin] >> Who's attacking what, here? I'm certainly not attacking realism. If it >> makes you happy and allows you to DO what you DO, then fine. Believe in >> it. Believe in a flying spaghetti monster for all I care. (I also >> fully support my mom's conviction to Catholicism.) What matters is that >> you continue to ACT ... to DO. It doesn't matter what you believe. >> >> > As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest >> > least contorted beginning is to assume realism. >> >> No. The _simplest_ least contorted beginning is to accept the >> observations that life lives regardless of belief. No intention need be >> imputed. Pond scum swims around. Do we have to impute that they >> believe in the existence of external reality in order to swim around? >> Ha! Of course not. >> >> You'll probably, like so many others, claim that we're so very different >> from pond scum. But when pressed, you won't be able to clarify >> precisely and accurately the mechanisms that make us so very different. >> (You may even invoke the useless term "emergence" in the process. ;-) >> You can bluster and preach about how we're different just like the >> way my mom believes dogs don't have souls; but in the end, we're not >> different. We swim around, eat, mate, and e-mail each other because >> we're _alive_, not because we believe in flying spaghetti monsters. >> >> >> * This is true in science as well as law. We don't make scientific >> discoveries based on what we believe; we make them based on what we DO. >> We don't throw people in jail for what they believe; we throw them in >> jail based on what they DO. >> >> -- >> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 13:18:43 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:18:43 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909180959p63976933i86b0a79b98c32c14@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909180959p63976933i86b0a79b98c32c14@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 18, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > And by the way, when I say one can't help but have an opinion about > the color of the sky I'm really saying that one can't help but have > an opinion about one's experience of seeing the sky. Certainly one > can ask whether it even makes sense to say that the sky has a color, > and if so how would one measure it, etc. That's not what I'm talking > about. I'm saying that one can hardly help but have an opinion about > having experienced the sky having a blue color when one looks at it. > I don't know whether that clarifies things or not. Now, this really is the heart of the matter. One certainly can experience without forming an opinion. Granted, that can take a lot of practice. But a world in which all phenomenon could only be appreciated through our learned, parochial biases would for me feel very fruitless and almost scary. From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 18 13:27:36 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:27:36 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB3C308.4060403@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-18 09:53 AM: > Glen, You and Nick (and I) actually agree that thought is not necessary for > us to eat, walk, etc. We do it whether or not we think that we do it. It > seems to me that you are supposing that Nick (and I) are saying something > different. We're not. What I'm saying (and what I imagine Nick is saying) > is that once one starts to think about it, it makes no sense to deny > reality, not that our thought is necessary for reality. And I find that ridiculous. What has changed "once one starts to think about it"??? Nothing. You still act the way you act, regardless. What galls me is this "it makes no sense" part. Makes no sense to whom? You? Are you claiming that things must make sense to _you_ in order for them to happen? So, although you may _think_ you're saying the same thing I am, you most definitely are not. You're saying that (by some magic) your belief matters to your actions. And I'm saying it doesn't. Actions don't have to "make sense". Now, there are some amongst us (you seem to be one of them) who _desire_ things to make sense to them or else they have trouble believing them. Fine. Do whatever you need to do in your own brain to make sense of your experiences. If you need to believe in a convenient fiction (e.g. external reality, God, whatever), do it. But don't claim that we're all wrong or confused if we don't believe the same way you believe. > Furthermore, I would add (and I don't know what Nick thinks about this), > that we are thiking beings and that we almost can't help ourselves from > thinking. I agree. But it doesn't mean that what we think is True. > Consequently (in my view), we can't honestly say that we have no > opinion about reality. We can hardly help ourselves. It's part of human > nature to look around, observe, and conclude. Wrong. We *can* have "no opinion" because what you mean by "no opinion" is "no _single_ opinion". I actually have _lots_ of opinions about reality, DEPENDING on the context, as I explained before ad nauseum. And I actually believe that every thinking creature has context-dependent opinions, even you. Again, however, there are some of us with a mental illness who _insist_ on reducing every opinion they have down to a _single_ opinion that applies across the board to all contexts they or anyone else shall ever experience. This is akin to the psychological symptom of "delusions of grandeur". The rest of us just accept that we have multiple, sometimes contradictory opinions, and go about our day without chewing our nails off about it. As I quoted before: "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." -- Steven Hawking. I'll throw in another of my favorites: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large -- I contain multitudes.)" -- Walt Whitman > That's one way in which we are different from pond scum. Oh? You think the pond scum doesn't also have "opinions"?!? Can you define "opinion" crisply enough to prove that? I suspect not without making a billion questionable assumptions and launching another endless philosophical/metaphysical debate about "intention". > So since (again in my view) one can't help but > have an opinion about reality (at least once someone poses the question), it > makes no sense to me to then deny it -- or even to deny having an opinion. > We just aren't built that way. I agree that we are built to hold opinions (and I think in some sense pond scum also hold opinions). But I disagree that we are built to reconcile and over-generalize all our concepts so that each concept is unique and consistent with all other concepts in our heads. In fact, I believe we are built to maintain _multiple_ (often contradictory) models of the various contexts we experience. > Admittedly that's a somewhat different > question, and it's possible that we can not have an opinion about issues > like that. But I doubt it. It's like looking at the sky (with no clouds) and > denying that one has an opinion about its color. It's hard for me to believe > that one can do that. But as I said, perhaps it's possible. I have many opinions about sky color. I do not have a _single_ opinion about sky color. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 18 13:36:38 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:36:38 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200995185635880@earthlink.net> <4AB3B3AA.4010604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909180953q54f3d59bqc8bf49894118672d@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909180959p63976933i86b0a79b98c32c14@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB3C526.7010607@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Miles Parker circa 09-09-18 10:18 AM: > Now, this really is the heart of the matter. One certainly can > experience without forming an opinion. Granted, that can take a lot of > practice. But a world in which all phenomenon could only be appreciated > through our learned, parochial biases would for me feel very fruitless > and almost scary. Well, I might disagree with you on this point. I think the technique you're claiming allows you to experience a context without forming an opinion is really the ability to experience a context and form _multiple_ opinions. Often this is called empathy. Let's say someone knocks my beer over in a bar, which makes me very mad because it was a $7 imperial stout of which they only brew 1 batch per year.... let's say... ;-) Now, my first opinion is that I should jump up and elbow them in the nose. But after a few microseconds (depending on how many beers I've had), my second opinion is from his point of view... I've knocked over others' beers at various times and didn't believe I should be elbowed in the nose. And given a few more moments, I may form many more opinions... perhaps he's drinking a Budweiser and needs to be elbowed in the nose because he has no taste in beer and probably thinks my beer is as crappy as his, which means nobody really cares if it gets knocked over! This ability to form many hypothetical models of any given aspect can eventually _seem_ like not forming any opinion. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From owen at backspaces.net Sat Sep 19 13:47:12 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:47:12 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] In Silico Liver Message-ID: <1F6A6BAB-D31B-4FDB-A808-745267F87D91@backspaces.net> Glen: could you say a bit about the In Silico Liver and your work with it? -- Owen From gregortroll at gmail.com Sat Sep 19 14:01:11 2009 From: gregortroll at gmail.com (James Steiner) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:01:11 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Keyboards [Was: Re: comm.] In-Reply-To: <681c54590909171956i32b1d4c0v8c9361cb7ebd41a2@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-22009921542246591@earthlink.net> <4AAFF9FE.8060600@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB01333.4030409@snoutfarm.com> <4AB02893.90704@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB03B61.5050902@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909151816l47036a25n124394fc2cec5853@mail.gmail.com> <681c54590909151817w7b38323g4dc3d547a5e6d9d7@mail.gmail.com> <4AB04072.2040601@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909171956i32b1d4c0v8c9361cb7ebd41a2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5ec674320909191101l20659837i41d2086c29006dfa@mail.gmail.com> I won't use a keyboard that hasn't got the backslash in the right place. Over the enter key, where it belongs, and my my pinkie can find it. Also, I use the navigation keys (home, end, etc) ALL THE TIME, so they have to be there. ~~James On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:56 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Me, touch-typing on a keyboard where I can't cheat by looking at the keys? > Well, that would be one way to guarantee less traffic from me on the FRIAM > list. > > And as Marcus suggests:? it would make finding M-C-\ a lot more difficult... > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Gary Schiltz > wrote: >> >> The construction sounds nice, but what's with that whole glob of keys on >> the right side, making you reach several inches further to get to the mouse? >> You know, the ones with numbers on them? I ain't no freekin' accountant, I >> want my numbers on the top row, above the "Q W E R T Y" keys just like on my >> old Royal manual typewriter. And CAPS LOCK to the left of the pinkie? >> Puhleeze! Enough to give an Emacs junkie pinkie tendonitis. >> >> :-) :-) >> >> Now here is a real keyboard for Unix & Emacs geeks: >> >> ? ?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Hacking_Keyboard >> ? ?(available at http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeyser.html) >> >> Been banging away on mine for quite a few years now. >> >> ;; Gary >> >> On Sep 15, 2009, at 8:33 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: >>> >>> Douglas Roberts wrote: >>>> >>>> Stupid new soft keyboard. ?I miss the old clicky-clicky IBM ones. >>> >>> ooh I've got a `daskeyboard' for my birthday with IBM clicky-clicky keys >>> and no labels on any of them. ? Nice. From jfromm at t-online.de Sat Sep 19 14:03:42 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:03:42 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology (was Re:FW:Re:Re:WTF: Faith and Science (was comm.)) In-Reply-To: <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu><4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com><15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com><20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com><20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com><20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com><20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <32B170C37E644C5DB92EEE3CFFAA7FC6@Toshiba> It is true, many terms in Psychology and Sociology are abstract and "unreal". You mentioned personality, extroversion, emotional intelligence, in-group preference,.. For social systems, many abstract concepts like power and freedom become concrete, observable and measurable phenomena if we consider them as Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) or CAS, and model them in a suitable way http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=Agent_interaction_pattern The situation is maybe similar for a "psychological system". If we decompose the brain into different parts and neural subsystems, then we can possibly map computational processes in the "cognitive architecture" on the corresponding psychological phenomena. Maybe ABM can be helpful here, too. I would really like see an ABM of self-consciousness.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_architecture -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: ERIC P. CHARLES To: friam Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:55 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) [..] I argued that it serves scientists well to believe that what they are studying is real (hence the reference to faith). For example: People who study personality believe that the word "personality" refers to a real phenomenon, a real happening in the world. At the least, they routinely convince me that they think it is real. This is the standard, lay use of the word "real", which conforms reasonably well to many (but not all) philosophical specifications of the term. Now I do not believe in "personality", at least not in the way those researchers do, but most of them don't believe in "perception" the way I think perception works. What goes on at the higher levels is a war over what is "real". In Science (with a capital S), we like to think that will be decided on the merits of empirical evidence (which again necessitates belief in the real). I get the impression that if any researchers, in psychology, chemistry, physics, art, history of Europe, etc., stopped believing they were studying something real, the whole enterprise would fall apart. Given that many of these endeavors do, in the long run, produce useful things, it would be sad to see them go. Thus, there is good reason for scientists to have faith in the reality of what they are studying. From milesparker at gmail.com Sat Sep 19 16:17:26 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:17:26 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology (was Re:FW:Re:Re:WTF: Faith and Science (was comm.)) In-Reply-To: <32B170C37E644C5DB92EEE3CFFAA7FC6@Toshiba> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com> <1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu><4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com><15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com><20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com><20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com><20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com><20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu> <32B170C37E644C5DB92EEE3CFFAA7FC6@Toshiba> Message-ID: <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> Here's an interesting question, or perhaps it simply draws us back to the same general problem. Can we say that social or psychological phenomenon are any more or less "real" than say that of physical systems? By corollary, can we say that theories from observations of such system's phenomenon are in general less valid? I can think of at least one way of answering yes, but I'm not sure that it is correct or even wether I like it or not. I think it is a consequence of Glen's thoughts on model validity -- I'm still muling that as it deserves reflection: I don't know what I "know", and from there how I feel about it yet. (These scare quotes are getting tiresome, but I can't think of anyway other way to all out their poorly defined or indefinable qualities.) All of the statements below be challenged, of course. Given: a) Social and psychological systems are inherently more complex than so-called physical systems. b) Our understanding of a given system increases as we add models that are novel and valid. c) Increasingly complex systems require increasing numbers of models in order to show that they are valid. d) A theory is or rests on some model or set of models. .: 1) More models are needed to describe a psychological or social system than for a physical system. Assume: e) The set of models for a given system are of equivalent sophistication, parsimony, scope (size?) and validity. .: 2) In a very general sense, we should regard theories of social and psychological systems as less valid, or... 3) relatively more effort will be required to establish the validity of a social or psychological theory . As I say, I'm not sure that I agree with the premises and am not necessarily at all happy with the conclusion, but on the other hand 3) does seem to dock with public and scientific intuition about the relative quality of our insights into social and physical systems: i.e. quite poor compared to physical systems. In other words, the conclusion is probably not earth-shattering and perhaps not even controversial. On the other hand, if we take that against our apparent or assumed level of understanding or predictive capacity with respect to the (speaking dualistically now :)) interaction between our mind and the world, we might actually evaluate a mental model as more valid than that of a model of the physical world. For example, if a caveman hits himself on the finger with a hammer (or a rock, say), he will take the theory that hammers hurt fingers as more valid than the theory of relativity. Modus tollens, this might challenge Glen's hypothesis. Sorry for the ramble.. On Sep 19, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > It is true, many terms in Psychology and Sociology > are abstract and "unreal". You mentioned personality, > extroversion, emotional intelligence, in-group preference,.. > For social systems, many abstract concepts like > power and freedom become concrete, observable and > measurable phenomena if we consider them as Multi-Agent > Systems (MAS) or CAS, and model them in a suitable way > http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=Agent_interaction_pattern > > The situation is maybe similar for a "psychological > system". If we decompose the brain into different > parts and neural subsystems, then we can possibly map > computational processes in the "cognitive architecture" > on the corresponding psychological phenomena. Maybe > ABM can be helpful here, too. I would really like > see an ABM of self-consciousness.. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_architecture > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: ERIC P. CHARLES > To: friam > Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:55 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > [..] I argued that it serves scientists well to believe that what > they are studying is real (hence the reference to faith). For > example: People who study personality believe that the word > "personality" refers to a real phenomenon, a real happening in the > world. At the least, they routinely convince me that they think it > is real. This is the standard, lay use of the word "real", which > conforms reasonably well to many (but not all) philosophical > specifications of the term. > > Now I do not believe in "personality", at least not in the way those > researchers do, but most of them don't believe in "perception" the > way I think perception works. What goes on at the higher levels is a > war over what is "real". In Science (with a capital S), we like to > think that will be decided on the merits of empirical evidence > (which again necessitates belief in the real). I get the impression > that if any researchers, in psychology, chemistry, physics, art, > history of Europe, etc., stopped believing they were studying > something real, the whole enterprise would fall apart. Given that > many of these endeavors do, in the long run, produce useful things, > it would be sad to see them go. Thus, there is good reason for > scientists to have faith in the reality of what they are studying. > > > ============================================================ > 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 From jfromm at t-online.de Sun Sep 20 07:03:48 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:03:48 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu><4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com><15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com><20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com><20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com><20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com><20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu><32B170C37E644C5DB92EEE3CFFAA7FC6@Toshiba> <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> Message-ID: <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> In Physics, energy, mass, force and momentum are abstract terms, too, but they have a concrete mathematical meaning. We model physical processes as interactions among variables. Unless we don't use mathematical equations like F=ma, the terms remain unreal, abstract and vague. In Sociology and Psychology it is much harder to describe the systems with mathematical equations. Instead of using equations, it is more useful to explain the systems by ABM, as Macy and Willer describe in their article "FROM FACTORS TO ACTORS: Computational Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling". It would be interesting to try a shift from factors to actors in Psychology as well. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Parker" To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 10:17 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology (was Re:FW:Re:Re:WTF: Faith andScience (was comm.)) > > Here's an interesting question, or perhaps it simply draws us back to the > same general problem. Can we say that social or psychological phenomenon > are any more or less "real" than say that of physical systems? > From jfromm at t-online.de Sun Sep 20 10:20:30 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:20:30 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus Message-ID: What happend with all the victims of the H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it possible that a bit of the hype was generated and exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? The swine flu vaccine has recently been approved and bought by governments around the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. Somehow, the hype was largest when the vaccine was under development and nearly finished. This makes me wonder if it is possible that the pharmaceutical industry generates the threat of a possible pandemic to make money, just as the industrial-military complex is able to generate the threat of WMDs to create revenue. A ministry of defense which triggers a war and a ministry of health which causes a pandemic - this sounds like George Orwell. Is our fate in the hand of evil global corporations? -J. From gregortroll at gmail.com Sun Sep 20 10:29:47 2009 From: gregortroll at gmail.com (James Steiner) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:29:47 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ec674320909200729p4cba6c0emcc01707533e7ad07@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Is our fate in the hand of evil global corporations? Yes. From pamela at well.com Sun Sep 20 10:37:34 2009 From: pamela at well.com (Pamela McCorduck) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:37:34 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43B0D42E-F064-443E-A14C-E75294B55ADA@well.com> But Jochen asks a serious question--well, several serious questions, but the one I mean is, what happened to all the victims? Mass die-off? A nasty week and it was all over? Why don't we know? "I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." Steve Martin From epc2 at psu.edu Sun Sep 20 11:05:58 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:05:58 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: B8A8BC4CE3824173BF54C767A6908D7D@Toshiba References: Message-ID: <1253459158l.585964l.0l@psu.edu> Jochen, I have been wondering that as well. I keep having flashbacks to the imminent demise of the technological world at the stroke of midnight, new years eve, Y2K. Certainly there is a pandemic in the limited technical sense that the disease has spread globally. However, the implied meaning of the term (taken advantage of by politicians, some scientists, and the drug industry) of something that will kill many, many people seem not to have materialized. It may yet, I suppose. The level of near-panic, and the resources spent pre-planning, at Penn State is quite impressive. They are acting like it is polio, or the pneumonic plague. I'm sure some industry sale's rep will retire happily off of our vaccine purchases alone. Of course, when all is said and done the "evil global corporations" will be vindicated either way. If a bunch of people die, then the evil corporations will say how right they were in warning us and emphasize that we should give them more money next time. Alternatively, if few die, then the evil corporations will say how good it was we bought their vaccines and did every thing they said (also demonstrating the effectiveness of my elephant repellent necklace). Orwell would definitely understand. Eric On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 10:20 AM, "Jochen Fromm" wrote: > What happend with all the victims of the >H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it possible that >a bit of the hype was generated and >exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry >itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? >The swine flu vaccine has recently been >approved and bought by governments around >the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. >Somehow, the hype was largest when the >vaccine was under development and nearly >finished. > >This makes me wonder if it is possible >that the pharmaceutical industry generates >the threat of a possible pandemic to make >money, just as the industrial-military complex >is able to generate the threat of WMDs >to create revenue. A ministry of defense which >triggers a war and a ministry of health which >causes a pandemic - this sounds like George >Orwell. Is our fate in the hand of evil global >corporations? > >-J. > > > > > >============================================================ >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 > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gary at NaturesVisualArts.com Sun Sep 20 11:36:43 2009 From: gary at NaturesVisualArts.com (Gary Schiltz) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:36:43 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <1253459158l.585964l.0l@psu.edu> References: <1253459158l.585964l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <4032CF93-FEEF-4049-A4FD-943AB2541750@NaturesVisualArts.com> Having been a Java hacker on a multimillion dollar "Y2K remediation" project for two years from 1997-1999, I've often wondered how much of the whole thing was hyperbole, and how much was real. According to Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y2K), about $300 billion US was spent worldwide on the effort. Just as with H1N1, the dire predictions never materialized, but it is far from clear whether or not this was becasue of the effort and capital spent. Same with the massive military spending in the 1980s: did the Soviet Union fall because of it, or simply because some critical mass of something had been reached? Sounds like some good candidates for a bit of Agent Based Modeling, but then history seems much harder to model than to rewrite. ;; Gary On Sep 20, 2009, at 10:05 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Jochen, > I have been wondering that as well. I keep having flashbacks to the > imminent demise of the technological world at the stroke of > midnight, new years eve, Y2K. > > Certainly there is a pandemic in the limited technical sense that > the disease has spread globally. However, the implied meaning of the > term (taken advantage of by politicians, some scientists, and the > drug industry) of something that will kill many, many people seem > not to have materialized. It may yet, I suppose. The level of near- > panic, and the resources spent pre-planning, at Penn State is quite > impressive. They are acting like it is polio, or the pneumonic > plague. I'm sure some industry sale's rep will retire happily off of > our vaccine purchases alone. > > Of course, when all is said and done the "evil global corporations" > will be vindicated either way. If a bunch of people die, then the > evil corporations will say how right they were in warning us and > emphasize that we should give them more money next time. > Alternatively, if few die, then the evil corporations will say how > good it was we bought their vaccines and did every thing they said > (also demonstrating the effectiveness of my elephant repellent > necklace). > > Orwell would definitely understand. > > Eric > > > On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 10:20 AM, "Jochen Fromm" > wrote: > What happend with all the victims of the > H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it possible that > a bit of the hype was generated and > exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry > itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? > The swine flu vaccine has recently been > approved and bought by governments around > the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. > Somehow, the hype was largest when the > vaccine was under development and nearly > finished. > > This makes me wonder if it is possible > that the pharmaceutical industry generates > the threat of a possible pandemic to make > money, just as the industrial-military complex > is able to generate the threat of WMDs > to create revenue. A ministry of defense which > triggers a war and a ministry of health which > causes a pandemic - this sounds like George > Orwell. Is our fate in the hand of evil global > corporations? > > -J. > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Sun Sep 20 11:59:28 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:59:28 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ Honestly, the naivet? on this list still sometimes surprises me. H1N1 is real, It is a pandemic: a brand new flu virus that has never before circulated in the human population. It has not (yet) mutated into a more deadly form, like the 1918 strain, but it still kills people. So does seasonal influenza. The current circulating H1N1 could mutate into a more lethal strain, just as the 1918 variant did. It has not done so yet. Sure, the big, evil drug industry corporate entities are going to make a huge amount of money off of H1N1. Yawn. The Bechtel Corporation is making a huge amount of money off of LANL. Yawn. The insurance companies in the United States make a huge amount of money off of the health care industry. Yawn. --Doug On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > What happend with all the victims of the H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it > possible that a bit of the hype was generated and exaggerated by the > pharmaceutical industry itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? The > swine flu vaccine has recently been approved and bought by governments > around the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. Somehow, the > hype was largest when the vaccine was under development and nearly > finished. > > This makes me wonder if it is possible > that the pharmaceutical industry generates > the threat of a possible pandemic to make money, just as the > industrial-military complex is able to generate the threat of WMDs to create > revenue. A ministry of defense which triggers a war and a ministry of health > which causes a pandemic - this sounds like George Orwell. Is our fate in the > hand of evil global corporations? > > -J. > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gregortroll at gmail.com Sun Sep 20 13:21:33 2009 From: gregortroll at gmail.com (James Steiner) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:21:33 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <43B0D42E-F064-443E-A14C-E75294B55ADA@well.com> References: <43B0D42E-F064-443E-A14C-E75294B55ADA@well.com> Message-ID: <5ec674320909201021v2cfbeed5u4382e9b165691d2d@mail.gmail.com> Why don't you ask the victim's families what happened to them? http://www.modbee.com/local/story/854819.html "H1N1 virus claims 6th victim in Stanislaus County Flu strain appears widespread in area" On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Pamela McCorduck wrote: > But Jochen asks a serious question--well, several serious questions, but the > one I mean is, what happened to all the victims? Mass die-off? A nasty week > and it was all over? Why don't we know? From jfromm at t-online.de Sun Sep 20 14:04:25 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:04:25 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <67AF8848A6194BBF9CFE6022A99AF596@Toshiba> Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1, although H1N1 itself is known since 1976. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza#1976_U.S._outbreak And there are large pharmaceutical companies who are very interested in informing the public how dangerous H1N1 is. Hoffmann-La Roche produces Tamiflu and has an extra page about influenza (http://www.roche.com/roche-influenza.htm). Novartis produces a H1N1 vaccine, and has an extra page for it, too: http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/swine-flu/ GlaxoSmithKline makes the anti-flu drug Relenza and produces a special H1N1 vaccine. These are Number 4, 5 and 6 of the big pharmaceutical companies. Producing these drugs and vaccines is a good thing. But what if they exaggerate a bit too much in marketing? It would not be evil to influence governments using lobbyists (e.g. in the WHO), just selfish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies I think marketing can be very problematic, if a company produces military or pharmaceutical products, because it often distorts the truth. A bit of the "Communist threat" in the McCarthy area was probably exaggerated by lobbyists of the industrial-military complex, too. A statement like "we need more bombs because the communits threaten us" sounds like "we need more vaccines because swine-flu is threaten us". -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 5:59 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ Honestly, the naivet? on this list still sometimes surprises me. H1N1 is real, It is a pandemic: a brand new flu virus that has never before circulated in the human population. It has not (yet) mutated into a more deadly form, like the 1918 strain, but it still kills people. So does seasonal influenza. The current circulating H1N1 could mutate into a more lethal strain, just as the 1918 variant did. It has not done so yet. Sure, the big, evil drug industry corporate entities are going to make a huge amount of money off of H1N1. Yawn. The Bechtel Corporation is making a huge amount of money off of LANL. Yawn. The insurance companies in the United States make a huge amount of money off of the health care industry. Yawn. --Doug From robert at holmesacosta.com Sun Sep 20 14:13:35 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:13:35 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <857770150909201113t24218a02r3de7105a754a00d8@mail.gmail.com> You're suggesting that we read real, authoritative reports? That's not really in the spirit of this list Doug... -- R On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical > H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: > > http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ > ... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Sun Sep 20 14:27:02 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:27:02 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <67AF8848A6194BBF9CFE6022A99AF596@Toshiba> References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> <67AF8848A6194BBF9CFE6022A99AF596@Toshiba> Message-ID: <681c54590909201127q79c8af9dh3e10b7aebaf2fce1@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1, > although H1N1 itself is known since 1976. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza#1976_U.S._outbreak > *Well, no kidding. There is a huge financial opportunity for the drug companies, and a huge readership opportunity for the media. Exactly why is the hype a surprise?* > > And there are large pharmaceutical companies > who are very interested in informing the public > how dangerous H1N1 is. Hoffmann-La Roche produces > Tamiflu and has an extra page about influenza > (http://www.roche.com/roche-influenza.htm). > Novartis produces a H1N1 vaccine, and has an extra > page for it, too: http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/swine-flu/ > GlaxoSmithKline makes the anti-flu drug Relenza and > produces a special H1N1 vaccine. > *Again, no kidding. And again, where is the surprise factor? * > > These are Number 4, 5 and 6 of the big > pharmaceutical companies. Producing these > drugs and vaccines is a good thing. But what > if they exaggerate a bit too much in marketing? > It would not be evil to influence governments > using lobbyists (e.g. in the WHO), just selfish. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies > > I think marketing can be very problematic, if > a company produces military or pharmaceutical > products, because it often distorts the truth. > A bit of the "Communist threat" in the McCarthy > area was probably exaggerated by lobbyists > of the industrial-military complex, too. A statement > like "we need more bombs because the communits > threaten us" sounds like "we need more vaccines > because swine-flu is threaten us". > *Finally, and again: no kidding. Please tell me where the surprise factor is that a big deal is being made of H1N1. Hype factor aside, H1N1 is real, it kills people, there is no (or little) natural herd immunity to it yet. It is a true pandemic. If you get exposed to it, you will probably get it. Some people will die from it in plus/minus the same proportion as those who die from contracting seasonal influenza. ***Plus/minus seasonal influenza mortality rates that is, unless or until the current circulating H1N1 strain mutates to a more lethal variant, as happened in 1918. If this occurs you will *really* start to hear some hype. * > > -J. > *--Doug* > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 5:59 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus > > Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical > H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: > > http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ > > Honestly, the naivet? on this list still sometimes surprises me. H1N1 is > real, It is a pandemic: a brand new flu virus that has never before > circulated in the human population. It has not (yet) mutated into a more > deadly form, like the 1918 strain, but it still kills people. So does > seasonal influenza. The current circulating H1N1 could mutate into a more > lethal strain, just as the 1918 variant did. It has not done so yet. > > Sure, the big, evil drug industry corporate entities are going to make a > huge amount of money off of H1N1. > > Yawn. > > The Bechtel Corporation is making a huge amount of money off of LANL. > > Yawn. > > The insurance companies in the United States make a huge amount of money > off of the health care industry. > > Yawn. > > --Doug > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rec at elf.org Sun Sep 20 14:28:42 2009 From: rec at elf.org (Roger Critchlow) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:28:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <67AF8848A6194BBF9CFE6022A99AF596@Toshiba> References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> <67AF8848A6194BBF9CFE6022A99AF596@Toshiba> Message-ID: <66d1c98f0909201128s6f492ea5g125e6854cf063758@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1, > although H1N1 itself is known since 1976. Probably longer than that. H1N1 simply means the virus contains the first identified hemagglutinin (H1) and neuraminidase (N1) variants. There have been and will be many different strains of influenza named H1N1. This one wasn't any fun, I spent four days lying around watching video, reading, and sleeping, because standing up and walking around were not advisable. -- rec -- From doug at parrot-farm.net Sun Sep 20 15:45:47 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:45:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <66d1c98f0909201128s6f492ea5g125e6854cf063758@mail.gmail.com> References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> <67AF8848A6194BBF9CFE6022A99AF596@Toshiba> <66d1c98f0909201128s6f492ea5g125e6854cf063758@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909201245x602dd94dm7a9cf63dac623c39@mail.gmail.com> Want some more media hype? This time from the UN: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/swine-flu-costs-un-report Is the hype justified? We'll see. If the virus does not mutate into a more lethal form, this level of hype might not have been justfiied, even though the characteristics of the currently circulating variant of H1N1is not yet fully understood. If it does mutate into a more lethal form, there will be hype galore. BTW, it appears that some of the readers on this list do not fully understand how complex the influenza virus is, and how many opportunities there are for mutations. Take a quick look at the pictures of the sequence evolutions of these virus strains for a tiny bit of insight. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v422/n6930/fig_tab/nature01509_F1.html As Roger points out, the descriptor "H1N1" covers a lot of territory. --Doug On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > > Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1, > > although H1N1 itself is known since 1976. > > Probably longer than that. H1N1 simply means the virus contains the > first identified hemagglutinin (H1) and neuraminidase (N1) variants. > There have been and will be many different strains of influenza named > H1N1. > > This one wasn't any fun, I spent four days lying around watching > video, reading, and sleeping, because standing up and walking around > were not advisable. > > -- rec -- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Sun Sep 20 16:43:21 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:43:21 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <5ec674320909201021v2cfbeed5u4382e9b165691d2d@mail.gmail.com> References: <43B0D42E-F064-443E-A14C-E75294B55ADA@well.com> <5ec674320909201021v2cfbeed5u4382e9b165691d2d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <960AA094-9F89-4DC7-BDDD-527291A44FA5@gmail.com> "Doctors are seeing patients with symptoms such as vomiting or difficulty breathing. And those struck with H1N1 generally are younger than the target population of the seasonal flu." That's not good.. plug time for me.. it's just a toy model, not really H1N1 per se, but I think it might be interesting pedagocially and I'd appreciate any feedback about that. http://milesparker.blogspot.com/2009/05/agent-based-model-for-influenza-h1n1.html (there are three follow on articles.) What I'd really like to add is some kind of multi-scale model with viruses and mutation. On Sep 20, 2009, at 10:21 AM, James Steiner wrote: > Why don't you ask the victim's families what happened to them? > > http://www.modbee.com/local/story/854819.html > > "H1N1 virus claims 6th victim in Stanislaus County > Flu strain appears widespread in area" > > > > On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Pamela McCorduck > wrote: >> But Jochen asks a serious question--well, several serious >> questions, but the >> one I mean is, what happened to all the victims? Mass die-off? A >> nasty week >> and it was all over? Why don't we know? > > ============================================================ > 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 From doug at parrot-farm.net Sun Sep 20 21:17:16 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:17:16 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: <857770150909201113t24218a02r3de7105a754a00d8@mail.gmail.com> References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> <857770150909201113t24218a02r3de7105a754a00d8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909201817j94a98d5s7c5039e700d8194c@mail.gmail.com> I stand duly chastened, Robert. On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Robert Holmes wrote: > You're suggesting that we read real, authoritative reports? That's not > really in the spirit of this list Doug... > > -- R > > On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical >> H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: >> >> http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ >> ... > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Sun Sep 20 22:02:53 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:02:53 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus In-Reply-To: 681c54590909201817j94a98d5s7c5039e700d8194c@mail.gmail.com References: <681c54590909200859t6be21472wa895d2b93db632f7@mail.gmail.com> <857770150909201113t24218a02r3de7105a754a00d8@mail.gmail.com><681c545909092 01817j94a98d5s7c5039e700d8194c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1253498573l.856206l.0l@psu.edu> Doug / Robert, In at least minor defense of the original poster (and my reply): We all know that people are sick, and we DO know that some people have died. However, the fall out thus far is not in proportion to the current level of panic or rhetoric involved, and no where near the level of panic or rhetoric that dominated the airwaves for a long time after the initial outbreaks. I know, because my quaint suburban street doesn't look anything like the end of a George Romero movie. While the problem still might escalate, a deadly mutation might occur, etc., many of us on the sidelines are still trying to figure out what the current fuss is about. Frankly, in the last two months I have sat in many meetings and read many memos where people describe the (somewhat more rational) current estimates of the "imminent dangers". All the advice we are being given is good advice, but it would be good advice in ANY year. The current estimates, sounds to me a lot like normal flu season. Normal flu season is, on a national level, a major concern, as lots of people do die every year... but it's about the same every year, and hence on some level very mundane. The only noticeable difference, as presented, is the demographic likely to be effected. That difference, at least somewhat, justifies increased concern on a college campus. However, it still doesn't seem to warrant quarantine beds (14 on standby), and the other extreme measures we are talking about (e.g., discussion of shutting down the entire campus). So, we are not idiots. We are just making comment / inquiry regarding a strange cultural phenomenon. Eric On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 09:17 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > >I stand duly chastened, Robert. > > >>On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Robert Holmes <<#>> wrote: >You're suggesting that we read real, authoritative reports? That's not really in the spirit of this list Doug... > >-- R > >> >>On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Douglas Roberts <<#>> wrote: > > > >>Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: > > > >... > > >============================================================ > >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > > > > > > >-- >Doug Roberts ><#> ><#> >505-455-7333 - Office >505-670-8195 - Cell > ============================================================ >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 > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 20 23:28:58 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:28:58 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] A slight extension of the NetLogo flocking demo Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909202028k7bf5a6f8t5b038b744a370f93@mail.gmail.com> I decided to play around a bit with the NetLogo flocking demo. In the modified version you can watch the flock form from the perspective of one of the birds -- making the flock itself look more or less static. A few statistics are gathered showing how uniform the flock becomes. To run it, download NetLogoand open the attached file. A bit more information is included in the Information tab. -- Russ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FlockingStatic.nlogo Type: application/octet-stream Size: 21629 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 21 16:19:16 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:19:16 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] In Silico Liver In-Reply-To: <1F6A6BAB-D31B-4FDB-A808-745267F87D91@backspaces.net> References: <1F6A6BAB-D31B-4FDB-A808-745267F87D91@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <4AB7DFC4.9050107@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09-09-19 10:47 AM: > Glen: could you say a bit about the In Silico Liver and your work with it? I wrote the ISL with Tony Hunt (and his colleagues at UCSF) as the domain expert. It was intended to be a first example of a model developed using my parallax modeling method. For these publications, we call the method the FURM (Functional Unit Representation Method). It requires: a) >= 3 models all run in co-simulation, b) all models submit to the same observables, comparable via a similarity measure, c) model observables are discrete (or discretized continuous), and d) models are designed for an extended lifecycle. The 3 models we chose for the ISL are the data model (linearly interpolated from wet-lab data of in situ perfused rat livers), the reference model (an extended convection dispersion - ECD - model composed of signals meant to represent physical and biological compartments like catheters, extra- and intra-cellular spaces, etc. and converted back to the time domain with the inverse laplace xform), and an articulated (agent-based) model. The ref and art models provide media for the two different types of hypotheses: situational/phenomenal (data-centric) and mechanistic, respectively. The ECD was originally implemented and validated by others using commercial OTS (opaque tools preventing deep reproducibility). So, our focus is on the articulated model, though we did re-implement the ECD model using g++ to make it completely transparent. For the art model, depending on how you slice it, there are 9 layers: 6 levels (experimenter, model, trial/lobule, sinusoidal segment - SS, cell, solute) and 3 aspects: liver output fraction, SS output (individual molecules), and deep tracing (can track every model-relevant object). Structurally, the art model consists of a number of monte carlo trials executed by the experiment agent. Each monte carlo trial represents a lobule of the liver, and consists of a directed graph of SSs. Solute molecules (e.g. a drug) flow from the portal vein through the SS graph and out the central (hepatic) vein. An SS consists of several concentric, cylindrical grids, wrapped around a core queue. The core in the center represents laminar blood flow. The innermost grid represents a more viscous flow. The next grid (ESpace) contains the endothelial cells through which solute has to pass to reach the space of Disse (DisseSpace). There can be many grids wrapped outside the ESpace. The outermost grid is the DisseSpace, which indexes the hepatocytes. Solute wanders through these spaces until it encounters a cell (endothelial or hepatocyte), at which point the cell can take it in or not. Inside the cells are binders that sequester and release solute. Binders inside hepatocytes _may_ metabolize the solute and metabolic product is released either into bile or back into the cell. The output fraction for each monte carlo trial (lobule) is tracked over time and averaged together with that of the other trials to derive a whole liver output fraction. That average is compared via the similarity measure to that from the ref and data models, giving a degree of similarity. Let's see... did I leave anything out? Oh yes, the agents are the ExperAgent that executes the experiments, the models, the SSs, and the cells. Molecules are merely reactive objects. It distributes over MPI in two ways: a) group level where the parameter vector is tweaked for each processor, which then runs several monte carlo trials or b) experiment level where each monte carlo trial is farmed out to a processor and the master node aggregates the data. Of course, all this is spelled out in excruciating detail in our papers along with the rhetoric for why we think this degree of effort is necessary for scientific M&S. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 21 18:22:38 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:22:38 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu><4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com><15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com><20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com><20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com><20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com><20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu><32B170C37E644C5DB92EEE3CFFAA7FC6@Toshiba> <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> Message-ID: <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> Although I agree that much of the "complexity" we see in social and psychological systems (SoPS) is fundamentally related to the formalization (or lack thereof) of the languages used to formulate the questions and hypothetical models of the systems' mechanisms, I don't think this is where the complexity really comes from. I think the (lack of) formalization we see in SoPS comes primarily from the incommensurability between their mechanisms and the operators applied to them. Questions about physical systems are formulated at nearly the same level and in nearly the same language as is used to formulate the purported mechanisms for those systems. The degree of formalization is high because we've reduced the language of mechanisms and questions down to continuous (or discretized continuous) spacetime, fields, particles and their properties, etc. In contrast, in SoPS, it is too difficult to use that same language to express the questions and system mechanisms. The logical depth is too great to formulate, say, "anger" in terms of, say, quarks. So, we hunt around for languages with which to express SoPS, born of partially-baked "ontologies" from Freud, Jung, Hobbes, Locke, Keynes, Maslow, etc. But the apparent complexity is not just (or at all, in my opinion) a consequence of the not-fully-formal languages. It's a consequence of using different languages for the questions/measures from that used for the mechanisms. The degree of mismatch between the language in which the operator is formulated and the language in which the hypothetical mechanisms are formulated is what leads to the apparent complexity. I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some parts of the cycle.*+ So, even once we get all SoPS languages formalized (to the extent we have non-well-founded set theory formalized), as long as we don't reduce it all to a kind of "bottom turtle" language (which may not even be possible), they'll exhibit complexity. I.e. multiple models are required for complex systems because "complex" means "formulated in multiple models". [grin] Ha! Justificationists Unite! [*] Note that this is subtly different from Russell Standish's definition of "emergence", which doesn't seem to require the circularity. However, I'm not quite a Rosenite in that I believe circularity (causal closure) is necessary but not sufficient. The lexical mismatch is also necessary. [+] Also note that the concept of "level" doesn't apply, here, either, as in Russ Abbott's "solution" to the problem of "emergence", because it involves an impredicative definition where the macro generates the micro and the micro generates the macro. ... or, similarly, interfaces implement implementations implement interfaces... ;-) Thus spake Jochen Fromm circa 09-09-20 04:03 AM: > In Physics, energy, mass, force and momentum are abstract > terms, too, but they have a concrete mathematical meaning. > We model physical processes as interactions among > variables. Unless we don't use mathematical equations > like F=ma, the terms remain unreal, abstract and vague. > > In Sociology and Psychology it is much harder to > describe the systems with mathematical equations. > Instead of using equations, it is more useful to explain > the systems by ABM, as Macy and Willer describe > in their article "FROM FACTORS TO ACTORS: > Computational Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling". > > It would be interesting to try a shift from factors to actors > in Psychology as well. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Mon Sep 21 19:02:49 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:02:49 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <20090921230249.GK17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 03:22:38PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with > complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators > formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the > language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of > applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is > the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that > doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of > the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some > parts of the cycle.*+ > > [*] Note that this is subtly different from Russell Standish's > definition of "emergence", which doesn't seem to require the > circularity. However, I'm not quite a Rosenite in that I believe > circularity (causal closure) is necessary but not sufficient. The > lexical mismatch is also necessary. > It is true that I don't see causal loops as necessary for emergence. I suspect they might be sufficient though, provided they are non-trivial (cannot be collapsed). I recognise my definition of emergence is probably the most liberal definition that still means something. Stronger emergent concepts exist, of course, such as Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. One trouble you will have is that not everybody accepts causal loops, ie they would posit that all causal loops can be explained by (reduced to) a non-loop structure with the causal direction coming from the lowest levels. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 21 19:10:20 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:10:20 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <20090921230249.GK17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090921230249.GK17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <4AB807DC.9050505@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM: > Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > One trouble you will have is that not everybody accepts causal loops, > ie they would posit that all causal loops can be explained by (reduced > to) a non-loop structure with the causal direction coming from the > lowest levels. Yeah, all justificationist gobbledygook has that type of trouble, including my justificationist gobbledygook. [grin] But, what matters is what I achieve by thinking this way, not how many people think like me. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Mon Sep 21 20:20:08 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:20:08 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB807DC.9050505@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090921230249.GK17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <4AB807DC.9050505@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <20090922002008.GN17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 04:10:20PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM: > > Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. > > Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". > As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, whereas I would prefer to reclaim the term for a perfectly well-defined technical meaning. Your approach is not wrong, per se. For instance I've given up attempting to assign a meaning to the term "realism" (from our other thread :). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Mon Sep 21 21:07:07 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:07:07 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <20090922002008.GN17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com> <344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090921230249.GK17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <4AB807DC.9050505@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090922002008.GN17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <4AB8233B.2060901@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 05:20 PM: > I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say > a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". > > BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it > is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I > do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which > makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then > complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). I could live with the idea that emergence is a measure of complexity (which is what I infer from "a complex system exhibits emergence"). I don't treat complexity, in itself, as a measure, though. Complexity is a property (scaled at least from simple to complex). And there are measures that attempt to estimate the complexity of a system. It's important the measures of complexity need not be _metrics_; but they can be. So the co-domain of a measure of complexity can be qualitative, hyperspatial, discrete, continuous, whatever. > I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to > give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new > term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, Well, almost, except I've seen a lot more work on measures of complexity than I have measures of emergence. So, there's at least some footing there. And I believe my defn (and yours) could leverage that work to some extent, except I don't see the need for "emergence" as a term when we have complexity and measures of complexity. If emergence were just a (particular type of) measure of complexity, then even if it's weren't as useless as I find it, it's usefulness would be minimal and specific, which would actually make me happy. 8^) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From nickthompson at earthlink.net Mon Sep 21 22:36:05 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:36:05 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology Message-ID: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> One standard explanation for the "failure to thrive" of sociological and psychological explanations is their intentionality. Here, intentionality takes on a slightly different meaning than it usually does on this list. An utterance is "intentional" in this new sense if it contains a proposition as the object of a verb of mentation. Intentional explanations are of the form, "Jones avoided center al park because he thought there were bears in it." Notice that the truth of the nested proposition has no bearing on the truth of the explanation. Nothing about the state of central park or its wildlife has any bearing (sorry). This feature of intentional explanations blocks a familiar kind of scientific progress in which an explanation is made richer by empirical elaboration. Take for instance, "the London epidemic of 18-- was caused by cholera. We now learn that cholera is a water-born disease. We can now say, given the truth of the cholera assertion, that "the London epidemic was caused by a waterborne disease. This move, called "substitutio salve veritate", (substitution preserving truth), cannot be done with intentional explanations. It does us no good, for instance, to do research on bears and learn that they are large omnivorous mammals. We cannot infer that Jones avoided central park because he thought there were large omnivorous mammals in it because the truth of that assertion depends solely on Jones beliefs, not on the truth of the matter. The idea is that such intentionality in sociological and psychological explanations forever blocks their linkage to the more fundamental and general explanations of biology, chemistry, and physics. Nick Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/22/2009 2:20:08 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology > > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 04:10:20PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM: > > > Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > > > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > > > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > > > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. > > > > Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". > > As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > > > > I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say > a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". > > BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it > is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I > do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which > makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then > complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). > > I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to > give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new > term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, whereas I > would prefer to reclaim the term for a perfectly well-defined > technical meaning. Your approach is not wrong, per se. For instance > I've given up attempting to assign a meaning to the term "realism" > (from our other thread :). > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 From russ.abbott at gmail.com Mon Sep 21 23:21:06 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:21:06 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> Lots of replies since Glen's first message, but I'd like to go back to that and ask for clarification. Glen wrote: Questions about physical systems are formulated at nearly the same level and in nearly the same language as is used to formulate the purported mechanisms for those systems. The degree of formalization is high because we've reduced the language of mechanisms and questions down to continuous (or discretized continuous) spacetime, fields, particles and their properties, etc. I don't think that's true about biology, meteorology, geology, etc. Am I misunderstanding you? In contrast, in SoPS, it is too difficult to use that same language to express the questions and system mechanisms. The logical depth is too great to formulate, say, "anger" in terms of, say, quarks. So, we hunt around for languages with which to express SoPS, born of partially-baked "ontologies" from Freud, Jung, Hobbes, Locke, Keynes, Maslow, etc. As in biology, meteorology, geology, etc. No? Clarification would be appreciated. But the apparent complexity is not just (or at all, in my opinion) a consequence of the not-fully-formal languages. It's a consequence of using different languages for the questions/measures from that used for the mechanisms. The degree of mismatch between the language in which the operator is formulated and the language in which the hypothetical mechanisms are formulated is what leads to the apparent complexity. Do you have an example? I'm not following you. Didn't Freud, for example, use the same language for both the questions and the claimed mechanisms? I'm not defending Freud, but I'm not clear why you are saying he didn't do what you want. I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some parts of the cycle.*+ Again, I'm confused. Is that complexity or just bad science? I thought you said it was the latter. So, even once we get all SoPS languages formalized (to the extent we have non-well-founded set theory formalized), as long as we don't reduce it all to a kind of "bottom turtle" language (which may not even be possible), they'll exhibit complexity. What would a collection of formalized SoPS languages look like? What would even one look like? Can you explain with something like an example? I realize that you are saying it hasn't happened yet, but I don't understand what it would look like if it did happen. An example would help. Are you saying that you want everything in an SoPS expressed in terms of quarks? If not, then what? I'm just not following you. -- RussA On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > One standard explanation for the "failure to thrive" of sociological and > psychological explanations is their intentionality. Here, intentionality > takes on a slightly different meaning than it usually does on this list. > An utterance is "intentional" in this new sense if it contains a > proposition as the object of a verb of mentation. Intentional explanations > are of the form, "Jones avoided center al park because he thought there > were bears in it." Notice that the truth of the nested proposition has no > bearing on the truth of the explanation. Nothing about the state of > central park or its wildlife has any bearing (sorry). This feature of > intentional explanations blocks a familiar kind of scientific progress in > which an explanation is made richer by empirical elaboration. Take for > instance, "the London epidemic of 18-- was caused by cholera. We now > learn that cholera is a water-born disease. We can now say, given the > truth of the cholera assertion, that "the London epidemic was caused by a > waterborne disease. This move, called "substitutio salve veritate", > (substitution preserving truth), cannot be done with intentional > explanations. It does us no good, for instance, to do research on bears > and learn that they are large omnivorous mammals. We cannot infer that > Jones avoided central park because he thought there were large omnivorous > mammals in it because the truth of that assertion depends solely on Jones > beliefs, not on the truth of the matter. > > The idea is that such intentionality in sociological and psychological > explanations forever blocks their linkage to the more fundamental and > general explanations of biology, chemistry, and physics. > > Nick > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: russell standish > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > friam at redfish.com> > > Date: 9/22/2009 2:20:08 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology > > > > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 04:10:20PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > > Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-21 04:02 PM: > > > > Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just > > > > like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong > > > > emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page > > > > 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. > > > > > > Except I'm not defining "emergence", here. I'm defining "complexity". > > > As I've said, "emergence" seems like a useless concept to me. > > > > > > > I would say the two terms in essence mean the same thing. I would say > > a "complex system" is one that exhibits "emergence". > > > > BTW, I technically use the term complexity to refer to a measure - it > > is a numerical quantity, usually closely related to information. But I > > do recognise that it could be used to describe a quality - ie that which > > makes a complex system complex. If the first sentence is true, then > > complexity would be the quality of exhibiting emergence :). > > > > I think the difference between our approaches is you would prefer to > > give up emergence to the the obfuscating mysterians, and invent a new > > term "complexity" for the concept, or similarly related, whereas I > > would prefer to reclaim the term for a perfectly well-defined > > technical meaning. Your approach is not wrong, per se. For instance > > I've given up attempting to assign a meaning to the term "realism" > > (from our other thread :). > > > > -- > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfromm at t-online.de Tue Sep 22 01:48:27 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:48:27 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <4AB12CDE.6070909@snoutfarm.com><1253133322l.516258l.0l@psu.edu><4AB164DF.7000804@agent-based-modeling.com><15fe0a4a0909161529n4ee34891vb91a4226678e1378@mail.gmail.com><20090916231422.GB20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161632nba2432eq893c87feeec4b0ca@mail.gmail.com><20090917011243.GF20013@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909161836l4404a143if68d6eb4c18e640d@mail.gmail.com><20090917043855.GA17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><15fe0a4a0909162155ka733232reb57ea50b16a932d@mail.gmail.com><20090917071429.GB17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au><1253195720l.1118240l.0l@psu.edu><32B170C37E644C5DB92EEE3CFFAA7FC6@Toshiba> <04ADFA16-CAC7-422B-9E32-677E3E370457@gmail.com><344F145290844222A3ABE512D1773B9B@Toshiba> <4AB7FCAE.1010100@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <878FE86781034D45861D4E2E9C4D4362@Toshiba> Yes, the theories in Psychology and Sociology are structured around people and their ideas: We have the Psychology of Freud, the Psychology of Jung, the Psychology of Skinner, etc. And there is the Sociology of Weber, the Sociology of Marx, the Sociology of Goffman, etc. In order to create a complex theoretical framework, these reseachers have constructed domain specific languages to explain a certain aspect of their science. They divided their complex research object into different parts to explain them. Freund for example invented the id, ego and super-ego model to describe the interactions of body, self-consciousness and culture. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "glen e. p. ropella" To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:22 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology > > In contrast, in SoPS, it is too difficult to use that same language to > express the questions and system mechanisms. The logical depth is too > great to formulate, say, "anger" in terms of, say, quarks. So, we hunt > around for languages with which to express SoPS, born of partially-baked > "ontologies" from Freud, Jung, Hobbes, Locke, Keynes, Maslow, etc. > From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 13:08:18 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:08:18 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/21/2009 08:21 PM: > Lots of replies since Glen's first message, but I'd like to go back > to that and ask for clarification. Glen wrote: > > Thus spake glen e. p. ropella circa 09/21/2009 03:22 PM: >> Questions about physical systems are formulated at nearly the same >> level and in nearly the same language as is used to formulate the >> purported mechanisms for those systems. The degree of >> formalization is high because we've reduced the language of >> mechanisms and questions down to continuous (or discretized >> continuous) spacetime, fields, particles and their properties, etc. >> > > I don't think that's true about biology, meteorology, geology, etc. > Am I misunderstanding you? Well, that's right about biology. I don't consider it physics. However, I don't know enough about meteorology and geology to have a strong opinion. It seems that even if they're not reducible, yet, they soon will be. > Do you have an example? I'm not following you. Didn't Freud, for > example, use the same language for both the questions and the claimed > mechanisms? I'm not defending Freud, but I'm not clear why you are > saying he didn't do what you want. I doubt it. From what I know (which is very little... but if I were afraid of my own ignorance, I'd simply remain ignorant ;-), Freud didn't do much experimentation at all. It seems mostly to consist of the analysis (i.e. imputation) of case studies. Rigorous formalization of questions (but not necessarily mechanisms) requires something like the scientific method, especially reproducibility of experiments. And that means that his use cases, questions, measures, observational methods, etc. are at best ill-formed and at worst, arbitrary. To be sure, _if_ the analysis crowd has made any progress at formalizing the questions and in formalizing the mechanisms (as Jochen summarized), then some sort of comparison can be done to determine how commensurate they are. But my ignorant guess is that both the mechanisms (id, ego, etc.) and the questions ("why do you suck your thumb under stress") are at least fuzzy, if not otherwise incommensurate. To determine how incommensurate they really are would take a meta-psychologist... a psychologist who studies methods of psychology. And I'm certainly not that. >> I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with >> complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system >> operators formulated with intra-system languages that are >> incommensurate with the language of the most fundamental >> mechanisms, where the result of applying these operators is part of >> the mechanism. So, complexity is the result of intra-system >> operators formulated in a language that doesn't match the language >> expressing the mechanism, producing a part of the mechanism, i.e. a >> causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some parts of the >> cycle.*+ > > Again, I'm confused. Is that complexity or just bad science? I > thought you said it was the latter. You're tossing me a red herring with the "bad science" thing. I'm not talking about bad science. I'm speculating that ontological complexity comes about through self-producing causal cycles where the operators applied by one part of a system to another part of the system do not match the mechanisms of the other part of the system. More precisely: Let S = S1 * S2 be a system with two parts. Let O : S2 -> R1 be an operator applied by S1 to S2 that results in some abstracted, lossy, representation of the mechanism of S2 (used as part of the mechanism of S1). And let T : S2 -> R2 be a concrete, non-lossy, accurate representation of S2. Now let C : S -> R be an operator applied to the whole system S where R is an accurate representation of S. C ~ R2-R1. I.e. the complexity of the system is proportional to the difference between R2 and R1. I.e. the more mismatch we have between links in the cyclic causal chains of the system, the more complex the system. This is ontological complexity, not the complexity in the questions we ask of the system. >> So, even once we get all SoPS languages formalized (to the extent >> we have non-well-founded set theory formalized), as long as we >> don't reduce it all to a kind of "bottom turtle" language (which >> may not even be possible), they'll exhibit complexity. > > What would a collection of formalized SoPS languages look like? What > would even one look like? Can you explain with something like an > example? I realize that you are saying it hasn't happened yet, but I > don't understand what it would look like if it did happen. An example > would help. Sure. The iterated prisoner's dilemma is a great example where social interactions are crisp and clear. Note that I'm not suggesting the IPD captures _all_ social interactions. I'm just using it as an example of a social dynamic (a game) that has formal mechanisms and many formalized questions. If this sort of thing could be done for _all_ social and psychological interactions, even if it's an infinite collection of piecewise formalized mechanisms but collectively incoherent, it would be possible to compare the languages of the questions to the languages of the mechanisms. When the questions are commensurate with the mechanisms, the systems are simple. When they are incommensurate, the systems are complex. To complexify the IPD, we could insert an evaluation method by one of the prisoners. Let's say, rather than basing his decision on his expectation of whether or not the other guy will defect, he bases it on... say, the price of tea in China. The incommensurability between the operator applied (tea prices) and the mechanism adds ontological complexity to the system. > Are you saying that you want everything in an SoPS expressed in terms > of quarks? If not, then what? I'm just not following you. No. I'm not saying I _want_ anything. ;-) I'm saying that complexity comes about due (in part) to a mismatch between operators and mechanisms. The hypothetical mechanism for physical systems (including quarks) is so totally incommensurate with the questions we ask of, say, politics, that there's definitely going to be epistemological complexity to any experiment performed. I.e. if you tried to ask political questions about a system consisting of quarks, you're going to get very complex observations.... probably indecipherable and perhaps meaningless. So, it would be a bit stupid to try to form a political question over a system constructed from quarks. Rather, if you want less epistemologically complex observations, you formulate your question in as close to the same language as you formulate your mechanism. If the two languages are too close, you get a trivial (simple, tautological) result. So, what you want for experimentation is to formulate your questions in a slightly different language. E.g. you ask economic questions of a political system or vice versa. (Note that I wouldn't suggest that the questions be formulated in a "higher level" language than the mechanism, just a different one.) It's important to note the difference between epistemological and ontological complexity. Ontological complexity comes about through both causal cycles and operator/mechanism mismatches _within_ the system, itself. Epistemological complexity comes about through (at least) a mismatch between experiments executed over the system and the mechanism of the sytem, itself. However, with merely the mismatch, you might really be seeing epistemological complication, not complexity. Perhaps experiments where asking the question must modify the system is required for (real or strong) epistemological complexity. In any case, there's more clarity for my speculation, which I can't really back up with anything more than justificationist gobbledygook. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 13:34:55 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:34:55 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake glen e. p. ropella circa 09-09-22 10:08 AM: > To complexify the IPD, we could insert an evaluation method by one of > the prisoners. Let's say, rather than basing his decision on his > expectation of whether or not the other guy will defect, he bases it > on... say, the price of tea in China. The incommensurability > between the operator applied (tea prices) and the mechanism adds > ontological complexity to the system. Oops. I changed the operator from an internal one to an external one (price of tea in China) at the last minute and, thereby, screwed it up. [grin] It's got the mismatch between languages but not the cyclic cause. Since the domain of the operator is not inside the game, it doesn't really add complexity to the system. Sorry. A better example operator would be one based on the current system.... like how often the cop blinks. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 22 13:52:34 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:52:34 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Since the domain of the operator is not inside the game, it > doesn't really add complexity to the system. > > Wouldn't conversations about synchronicity be more fun anyway? :-) Marcus From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 14:15:13 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:15:13 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-22 10:52 AM: > Wouldn't conversations about synchronicity be more fun anyway? :-) Mos def. From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 15:23:26 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:23:26 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> I still don't understand what you're getting at. let's try again. You said, I don't consider [biology] physics. Would you tell me why that is important. Biology isn't physics. Is the fact that you don't consider it physics a criticism of biology? Are you saying biology should be physics? I'm missing the point. However, I don't know enough about meteorology and geology to have a strong opinion. It seems that even if they're not reducible, yet, they soon will be. At some level everything is reducible. (You may find it strange that I say that, but I'm actually a reductionist. What I think is missing about reductionism is the reality of higher level entities. But let's get back to what you are saying.) Given that everything is reducible, then what? Economics is ultimately reducible. One can trace everything that happens in the realm of economics (or any other realm) to fundamental forces and particles. Paper money is made of atoms and molecules. Electronic transmissions are based on physics. But so what? It seems impossible to express economic laws in terms of fundamental physics. Economic concepts just don't exist at the level of fundamental physics. The same is true of biology. There is no concept of evolution--in the Darwinian sense--at the level of fundamental physics. This issue was illustrated by an early paper by Fodor who asked how one can explicate Gresham's law (bad money drives out good) in terms of particle physics. So what are you suggesting be done? Or am I still missing your point? -- RussA On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:15 AM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-22 10:52 AM: > > Wouldn't conversations about synchronicity be more fun anyway? :-) > > Mos def. > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 22 15:27:04 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:27:04 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> Nah. Let's go with philosophy. Again. --Doug On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > glen e. p. ropella wrote: > >> Since the domain of the operator is not inside the game, it >> doesn't really add complexity to the system. >> >> > Wouldn't conversations about synchronicity be more fun anyway? :-) > > Marcus > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Tue Sep 22 16:03:24 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:03:24 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB92D8C.60804@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 16:04:59 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:04:59 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 12:23 PM: > Would you tell me why that is important. Biology isn't physics. Is the > fact that you don't consider it physics a criticism of biology? Are you > saying biology should be physics? I'm missing the point. Wow. OK. Physics has one language for its hypothetical mechanisms and biology uses a totally different language. That's what I'm saying. > So what are you suggesting be done? Or am I still missing your point? You are totally missing my point. Economics is expressed in a language that is different from the language we use to express physics. The language of biology is also different from that of physics. I'm not suggesting anything be done. I'm defining complexity in response to Miles' conjecture that SoPS may be more complex than physical systems and in response to Jochen's suggestion that part of the reason for the apparent complexity of SoPS lies in the informality of the languages used to describe them. Here's a recap: Miles: Let SoPS be more complex than physical systems. Miles: .: Adequate explanation of SoPS requires more models than that of physical systems. Miles: .: More effort is required to explain SoPS than physical systems. Jochen: Perhaps SoPS are no more complex than physical systems, it's just that they haven't arrived at formalisms for them, yet. Me: SoPS are NOT necessarily more complex than physical systems, not (solely) due to informality, but because complexity is a result of circular causality and lexical mismatch. That's it. That's the end of it. That's all there is to it. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 16:28:03 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:28:03 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 09-09-22 12:27 PM: > Nah. Let's go with philosophy. Again. Hm. Which is worse? Yahoos who have a tendency to wax philosophical or yahoos who continually, insistently, repeat the same vapid objection to philosophy over and over and over despite the lack of effect? What's the definition of "insanity" again? [grin] -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From marcus at snoutfarm.com Tue Sep 22 16:33:11 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:33:11 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB92D8C.60804@swcp.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92D8C.60804@swcp.com> Message-ID: <4AB93487.3030800@snoutfarm.com> Steve Smith wrote: > I'm enough of a "wishful thinker" to not discount possible > extra-causal connections, but I also believe that such phenomena as > our own coveted "emergence" and the ever-popular "parallel evolution" > (which are based in causality) explain *most* and could explain *all* > of the phenomena described by Synchronicity and *not* dismissable > simply as Confirmation Bias > . Did Pauli mean parallel evolution (grouping by meaning, where meaning is not subjective), or did he actually buy into the idea of the collective unconscious influencing how things unfold in nature? Marcus From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 22 16:36:16 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:36:16 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> Good question! Let's see what my random philosophy generator has to say about this: *It is plain that we have not simply lost an infinite horizon of approximations for phenomenology; we retain it, however, by a freely actualizable return to experiences. * Ah, yes: fine stuff. ;-} --Doug On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:28 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 09-09-22 12:27 PM: > > Nah. Let's go with philosophy. Again. > > Hm. Which is worse? Yahoos who have a tendency to wax philosophical or > yahoos who continually, insistently, repeat the same vapid objection to > philosophy over and over and over despite the lack of effect? > > What's the definition of "insanity" again? [grin] > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 16:49:22 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:49:22 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 1:04 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > > Me: SoPS are NOT necessarily more complex than physical systems, not > (solely) due to informality, but because complexity is a result of > circular causality and lexical mismatch. > > That's it. That's the end of it. That's all there is to it. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Tue Sep 22 16:49:45 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:49:45 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB93487.3030800@snoutfarm.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92D8C.60804@swcp.com> <4AB93487.3030800@snoutfarm.com> Message-ID: <4AB93869.8030003@swcp.com> Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Steve Smith wrote: >> I'm enough of a "wishful thinker" to not discount possible >> extra-causal connections, but I also believe that such phenomena as >> our own coveted "emergence" and the ever-popular "parallel evolution" >> (which are based in causality) explain *most* and could explain *all* >> of the phenomena described by Synchronicity and *not* dismissable >> simply as Confirmation Bias >> . > Did Pauli mean parallel evolution (grouping by meaning, where meaning > is not subjective) Parallel Evolution was *my* example... sorry to be ambiguous. And I mean the phenomena of "solutions" evolving with similar structure when faced with the same "problem"... such as fins on fish and flippers on water-mammals, or the multiple times that eyes (lensed photosensitive tissue directly connected to the neural system) have evolved independently. What they have in common is the underlying building blocks, the problem to solve (i.e. swimming or seeing) and similar constraints (i.e. viscosity of water, strength of muscle and bone, frequency spectra available, etc.) > or did he actually buy into the idea of the collective unconscious > influencing how things unfold in nature? You mean Morphogenesis and Morphic Resonance ala Rupert Sheldrake? I don't believe so... though that is another motley crue I am fascinated by. It may be morbid fascination, but fascination nonetheless. They naturally draw the interest of the Mystics as well. My interest in all of this is to find a middle way... not dismissing it completely out of hand, yet not swallowing it hook, line and sinker. I'm not sure how much middle ground that leaves... but it is still of interest to me. Even after reading a lot of their correspondence, I'm not clear on why Pauli was not more critical of the general area. He was clearly interested/fascinated and seemed to hold his balance in this same middle ground that I seek. - Steve From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 16:52:39 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:52:39 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> Sorry. Pressed "Send" by mistake. On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 1:04 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > > Me: ... complexity is a result of circular causality and lexical mismatch. > > That's it. That's the end of it. That's all there is to it. > OK. I don't understand what you mean by either *circular causality* or *lexical mismatch*. Can you provide concrete examples of each. -- Russ A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Tue Sep 22 16:58:24 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:58:24 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Tue Sep 22 17:03:15 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:03:15 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB93B93.9000304@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 22 17:12:03 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:12:03 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909221412o1c3358d3n3355279e69fcc285@mail.gmail.com> Yeah, I know. I'm that good. ;-o On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Douglas Roberts wrote: > > Good question! > > Let's see what my random philosophy generator has to say about this: > > *It is plain that we have not simply lost an infinite horizon of > approximations for phenomenology; we retain it, however, by a freely > actualizable return to experiences. * > > Holy shiite Doug! You are our *Reluctant Oracle *after all! > > I think you've hit upon the fundamental answer to all of our questions, > philosphical (synchronicity vs emergence and epistimology vs cosmology), > technological (what is the bestest language for OO or ABM development), > psychological (variations on homunculus talk), mathematical (is solving > Goldbach's conjecture fundamentally more important than Fermat's last > theorem?), and practical (is it too late for coffee yet too early for beer? > And in what Time Zone?) > > All of these FRIAM discussions do seem to be about *infinite horizons* and > somebody always demands that we *return to experiences*. > > Amazing... Synchronicity *and* Morphic Resonance all rolled into one! > > ;-} Steve > > > Ah, yes: fine stuff. > > ;-} > > --Doug > > On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:28 PM, glen e. p. ropella < > gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > >> Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 09-09-22 12:27 PM: >> > Nah. Let's go with philosophy. Again. >> >> Hm. Which is worse? Yahoos who have a tendency to wax philosophical or >> yahoos who continually, insistently, repeat the same vapid objection to >> philosophy over and over and over despite the lack of effect? >> >> What's the definition of "insanity" again? [grin] >> >> -- >> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > > ------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 17:13:04 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:13:04 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 01:52 PM: > OK. I don't understand what you mean by either *circular causality* or *lexical > mismatch*. Whew! OK. By "circular causality", I mean that a thing is caused by another thing that is caused by itself. Abstractly, let E1, E2, and E3 be events such that E1 causes E2, and E3 causes E3, and E3 causes E1. Of course, you may object that an event can only occur once in the time stream and so E3, having occurred after E2 cannot cause E1. But there are cases for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Current_topics A more acceptable conception of it comes in the form of non-well-founded sets and impredicative definitions where an object is _defined_ in terms of a quantification over the whole set to which that object belongs, or more simply, a set can be a member of itself. More flaky conceptions of it are autopoiesis and Rosen's closure to efficient cause. A more practical conception of it is co-evolution. By "lexical mismatch", I mean that two languages are different (at least) in terms of their vocabulary. So, a formal system with a set of symbols {x,y,z} is lexically distinct from a formal system with a set of symbols {x,y,p}. It should be clear that sentences formed in the former may not have an equivalent in the latter. Lexical mismatch is the simplest form. There can also be differences in grammar and/or axioms, which would lead to a linguistic mismatch, which may also contribute to complexity. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 18:12:06 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:12:06 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> Let's do one at a time. *Circular causality:* Why do you say that retrocausality is a source of complexity? It's certainly a weird notion if it exists, but what does it have to do with complexity? How about flocking, a nice simple example of what is called a complex system. I see no retrocausality here. Would you suggest a concrete example of a complex system whose complexity (not just quantum weirdness) has to do with retrocausality. *Lexical mismatch:* Why is that a cause of complexity? Just becasue the langauge of say, group theory and calculus are lexically mismatched, what does that have to do with the complexity of anything? If on the other hand you are saying that, for example, the language of economics and the language of particle physics are lexically mismatched, I would agree. That, in fact, is part of my paper on reductionism, namely that terms for phenomena involving "higher level" entities don't exist at "lower levels." The examples of evolution in biology and Gresham's law in economics are lexically mismatched with the language of particle physics. So it sounds like you are agreeing with me. But in your original note you specifically said you were disagreeing with me. -- Russ A On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:13 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 01:52 PM: > > OK. I don't understand what you mean by either *circular causality* or > *lexical > > mismatch*. > > Whew! OK. By "circular causality", I mean that a thing is caused by > another thing that is caused by itself. Abstractly, let E1, E2, and E3 > be events such that E1 causes E2, and E3 causes E3, and E3 causes E1. > Of course, you may object that an event can only occur once in the time > stream and so E3, having occurred after E2 cannot cause E1. But there > are cases for it: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Current_topics > > A more acceptable conception of it comes in the form of non-well-founded > sets and impredicative definitions where an object is _defined_ in terms > of a quantification over the whole set to which that object belongs, or > more simply, a set can be a member of itself. > > More flaky conceptions of it are autopoiesis and Rosen's closure to > efficient cause. A more practical conception of it is co-evolution. > > By "lexical mismatch", I mean that two languages are different (at > least) in terms of their vocabulary. So, a formal system with a set of > symbols {x,y,z} is lexically distinct from a formal system with a set of > symbols {x,y,p}. It should be clear that sentences formed in the former > may not have an equivalent in the latter. Lexical mismatch is the > simplest form. There can also be differences in grammar and/or axioms, > which would lead to a linguistic mismatch, which may also contribute to > complexity. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 17:18:45 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:18:45 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB93F35.6080808@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 09-09-22 01:36 PM: > *It is plain that we have not simply lost an infinite horizon of > approximations for phenomenology; we retain it, however, by a freely > actualizable return to experiences. * I _finally_ understand your domain name "parrot-farm.net"! ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From owen at backspaces.net Tue Sep 22 18:50:46 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:50:46 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: Very nice summary. One thing I've noticed in most of the modeling I've done is that Game Theory matches social interactions best, while Physics (constraints, physics, ...) matches physical interactions best. Examples: Crowd dynamics is fairly easily done with a blend of simple games (tit-for-tat, frustration, and so on) while modeling water traffic on the Venice canals works best with GIS (constraints on a graph, mass of the boats, etc). So at least part of the difference between SoPS and Physical modeling is in the formal domain that matches it best. -- Owen On Sep 22, 2009, at 2:04 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 12:23 PM: >> Would you tell me why that is important. Biology isn't physics. Is >> the >> fact that you don't consider it physics a criticism of biology? >> Are you >> saying biology should be physics? I'm missing the point. > > Wow. OK. Physics has one language for its hypothetical mechanisms > and > biology uses a totally different language. That's what I'm saying. > >> So what are you suggesting be done? Or am I still missing your point? > > You are totally missing my point. Economics is expressed in a > language > that is different from the language we use to express physics. The > language of biology is also different from that of physics. > > I'm not suggesting anything be done. I'm defining complexity in > response to Miles' conjecture that SoPS may be more complex than > physical systems and in response to Jochen's suggestion that part of > the > reason for the apparent complexity of SoPS lies in the informality of > the languages used to describe them. > > Here's a recap: > > Miles: Let SoPS be more complex than physical systems. > > Miles: .: Adequate explanation of SoPS requires more models than > that of > physical systems. > > Miles: .: More effort is required to explain SoPS than physical > systems. > > Jochen: Perhaps SoPS are no more complex than physical systems, it's > just that they haven't arrived at formalisms for them, yet. > > Me: SoPS are NOT necessarily more complex than physical systems, not > (solely) due to informality, but because complexity is a result of > circular causality and lexical mismatch. > > That's it. That's the end of it. That's all there is to it. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 18:51:08 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:51:08 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 03:12 PM: > *Circular causality:* Why do you say that retrocausality is a source of > complexity? It's certainly a weird notion if it exists, but what does it > have to do with complexity? How about flocking, a nice simple example of > what is called a complex system. I see no retrocausality here. Would you > suggest a concrete example of a complex system whose complexity (not just > quantum weirdness) has to do with retrocausality. You asked for examples of "circular causality". Retrocausality is an example of "circular causality". In my opinion flocking behavior is not (ontologically) complex. Another example of circular causality is co-evolution, where species adapt to compensate for each others' adaptations. > *Lexical mismatch:* Why is that a cause of complexity? Just becasue the > langauge of say, group theory and calculus are lexically mismatched, what > does that have to do with the complexity of anything? If on the other hand > you are saying that, for example, the language of economics and the language > of particle physics are lexically mismatched, I would agree. That, in fact, > is part of my paper on reductionism, namely that terms for phenomena > involving "higher level" entities don't exist at "lower levels." The > examples of evolution in biology and Gresham's law in economics are > lexically mismatched with the language of particle physics. So it sounds > like you are agreeing with me. But in your original note you specifically > said you were disagreeing with me. Right. I disagree with your reliance on _level_. The mismatched languages (and complexity) don't require the concept of _level_. I've explained this to you both here and privately. I'm running out of ways to say the same thing. I also disagree with your assumption that everything is reducible. And I also speculate that circular causality is necessary, which you do not. So, I disagree with you in those 3 ways. What does lexical mismatch have to do with complexity? Well, I've explained that, too. But I'll try again. a) lexical mismatch is necessary but not sufficient for the generation of ontological complexity. Circular causality is also required. b) lexical mismatch results in ontological complexity when one part of the system applies an operator, formulated in a language that is different from that in which the mechanism is formulated. The part of the system that is applying the operator uses the inaccurate/abstracted results of the operator as part of its mechanism (as when a bunny rabbit misinterprets the behavior of a wolf). Hence, both languages participate in the construction of the system as a whole. Complexity means "plaited", consisting of interwoven parts. The two languages (constructing the system) are the interwoven parts. If you only use a _single_ language and all elements in the system can be reduced to that single language, then it is a simple (not complex) system. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Tue Sep 22 20:06:36 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:06:36 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <20090923000636.GO17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 03:51:08PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > What does lexical mismatch have to do with complexity? Well, I've > explained that, too. But I'll try again. a) lexical mismatch is > necessary but not sufficient for the generation of ontological > complexity. Circular causality is also required. b) lexical mismatch > results in ontological complexity when one part of the system applies an > operator, formulated in a language that is different from that in which > the mechanism is formulated. > > The part of the system that is applying the operator uses the > inaccurate/abstracted results of the operator as part of its mechanism > (as when a bunny rabbit misinterprets the behavior of a wolf). Hence, > both languages participate in the construction of the system as a whole. > > Complexity means "plaited", consisting of interwoven parts. The two > languages (constructing the system) are the interwoven parts. If you > only use a _single_ language and all elements in the system can be > reduced to that single language, then it is a simple (not complex) system. > I still don't follow why circular causality is required, although it is an interesting class of systems. So long as the two languages are lexically mismatched, that suffices, as there are behaviours (eg flocking) inexpressible in the reduced language. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 20:37:00 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:37:00 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <20090923000636.GO17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090923000636.GO17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <4AB96DAC.1010501@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-22 05:06 PM: > I still don't follow why circular causality is required, although it > is an interesting class of systems. So long as > the two languages are lexically mismatched, that suffices, as there > are behaviours (eg flocking) inexpressible in the reduced language. Well, remember that this is all speculation on my part. I could easily be wrong about all this. However, the reason I think circular causality is necessary is because if the construction is built up from a single, consistent language, then all one need do is show that the other language is isomorphic to the first (or find a new language where that's the case) and any apparent "complexity" is proven illusory. However, if the system is constructed with mismatched languages, in the first place, then it's no simple task to find a 3rd language that is isomorphic to the composition of the languages from which the system is constructed. I.e. for "strong" or "real" complexity, we need something that is _constructed_ with mismatched languages, not merely constructed with a single coherent one and operated on by another. And the only way to construct a system with mismatched languages is to embed one (different, mismatched) language inside another ... i.e. for one part of the system to use the results of an (inaccurate) operator as part of its mechanism. All this boils down to is that circular systems are not reducible beyond the elements of the circle. And if the circle is expressed in a single, consistent language, then the circle can be formulated nicely and isn't complex, which is why we need the language mismatch. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From russ.abbott at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 20:53:23 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:53:23 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909221753m327c6521gc6d5b7d70494c75a@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 3:51 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09-09-22 03:12 PM: > > You asked for examples of "circular causality". Retrocausality is an > example of "circular causality". > Are you saying that retrocausality (if it even exists) is necessary for complexity or that retrocausality (if it even exists) is sufficient for complexity? > In my opinion flocking behavior is not (ontologically) complex. > Then your notion of complexity differs from how the word is generally used in the field of complex systems. Flocking is one of the prototypical examples of a complex system. It is a (macro) phenomenon produced by the interaction of (micro) individuals. If you are going to dismiss that then what's the point of this discussion? > Another example of circular causality is co-evolution, where species > adapt to compensate for each others' adaptations. > Then virtually everything qualifies as circular causality. Is there anything in the world that is not to one extent or another affected by what it does? To take one of the oldest examples of this sort of thing, by your definition a thermostat and the heating/cooling device it controls would be a complex system. I don't think that comports with the usual notion of complex system. What is not complex under this definition? > Right. I disagree with your reliance on _level_. The mismatched > languages (and complexity) don't require the concept of _level_. I've > explained this to you both here and privately. I'm running out of ways > to say the same thing. > Then please stop saying the same thing. I'm running out of ways to say that when I use the term "level" I'm not referring to a stratified structure. (I used the terms "micro" and "macro" above. Is that any better?) As you may know, one of my favorite examples is a gecko, which uses quantum phenomena to adhere to vertical surfaces. I've used the term "higher level" for geckos even though their phenomenology is directly dependent on "lowest level" phenomena. So instead of level perhaps the term "composed entity" would work better. Substitute "composed entity" for "higher level entity" and "component out of which a composed entity is composed" for "lower level entity" and lets stop getting distracted by this non-issue. > > I also disagree with your assumption that everything is reducible. And > I also speculate that circular causality is necessary, which you do not. > So, I disagree with you in those 3 ways. > Can you give me an example of something that is non-reducible? Let's exclude quantum weirdness since no one really understand that. Besides, if there are physical primitives, then they are not reducible. Give me your example of a macro non-reducible phenomenon. > > What does lexical mismatch have to do with complexity? Well, I've > explained that, too. But I'll try again. a) lexical mismatch is > necessary but not sufficient for the generation of ontological > complexity. I've pointed out that you are apparently agreeing with me about what you call lexical mismatch. As I've said a number of times, the laws of economics and evolution cannot be expressed using the language of fundamental physics. Do you mean something different than that? If not you are agreeing with me. If you do mean something different from that, what is it? (And please give a concrete example instead of talking about generic "operators." Give an example of the operators you are thinking of.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From milesparker at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 21:04:11 2009 From: milesparker at gmail.com (Miles Parker) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:04:11 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <6C586300-3CDD-4435-B06D-80A7922146E0@gmail.com> On Sep 22, 2009, at 1:04 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > Me: SoPS are NOT necessarily more complex than physical systems, not > (solely) due to informality, but because complexity is a result of > circular causality and lexical mismatch. > > That's it. That's the end of it. That's all there is to it. > Yes, you're challenging my warrant and pretty persuasivly. (But I think there are some scale issues that could be relevant.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Tue Sep 22 22:37:53 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:37:53 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB96DAC.1010501@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090923000636.GO17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <4AB96DAC.1010501@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <20090923023753.GQ17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 05:37:00PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > Thus spake russell standish circa 09-09-22 05:06 PM: > > I still don't follow why circular causality is required, although it > > is an interesting class of systems. So long as > > the two languages are lexically mismatched, that suffices, as there > > are behaviours (eg flocking) inexpressible in the reduced language. > > Well, remember that this is all speculation on my part. I could easily > be wrong about all this. However, the reason I think circular causality > is necessary is because if the construction is built up from a single, > consistent language, then all one need do is show that the other > language is isomorphic to the first (or find a new language where that's > the case) and any apparent "complexity" is proven illusory. However, if > the system is constructed with mismatched languages, in the first place, > then it's no simple task to find a 3rd language that is isomorphic to > the composition of the languages from which the system is constructed. > > I.e. for "strong" or "real" complexity, we need something that is > _constructed_ with mismatched languages, not merely constructed with a > single coherent one and operated on by another. > > And the only way to construct a system with mismatched languages is to > embed one (different, mismatched) language inside another ... i.e. for > one part of the system to use the results of an (inaccurate) operator as > part of its mechanism. > > All this boils down to is that circular systems are not reducible beyond > the elements of the circle. And if the circle is expressed in a single, > consistent language, then the circle can be formulated nicely and isn't > complex, which is why we need the language mismatch. > Its sometimes worth discussing examples. A thermodynamic system is described by its therodynamic state, which has amongst its properties entropy. Entropy has the peculiar property of almost always increasing in time, name the second law of thermodynamics governs it evolution. Thermodynamic language is obviously lexically mismatched with the Newtonian language of particles, positions and momenta, which describe a time reversible system. How do I create a language that can embed both thermodynamics and newtonian mechanics? It seems impossible to me, given their incommensurability. Second, where are there causal loops in this example? I can't see any. Therefore, is a thermodynamic system complex according to GEPR? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 23:32:47 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:32:47 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <15fe0a4a0909221753m327c6521gc6d5b7d70494c75a@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221753m327c6521gc6d5b7d70494c75a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AB996DF.7010009@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 09/22/2009 05:53 PM: > If you are going to dismiss that then > what's the point of this discussion? None. I'm done. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Tue Sep 22 23:53:13 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:53:13 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <20090923023753.GQ17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <4AB91431.10604@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221223j1afe4487of2e6103cac98f2ca@mail.gmail.com> <4AB92DEB.8090102@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221349p35ed09cen6bf5aafe95f65677@mail.gmail.com> <15fe0a4a0909221352j79e09ea4qa7b7590e73bd2990@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93DE0.6090909@agent-based-modeling.com> <15fe0a4a0909221512j5fdf31q1a9a1621031110d2@mail.gmail.com> <4AB954DC.2000001@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090923000636.GO17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> <4AB96DAC.1010501@agent-based-modeling.com> <20090923023753.GQ17849@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <4AB99BA9.9090907@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake russell standish circa 09/22/2009 07:37 PM: > Thermodynamic language is obviously lexically mismatched > with the Newtonian language of particles, positions and momenta, which > describe a time reversible system. It's not clear to me that they're lexically mismatched. The lexicon in both cases consists of points in real cartesian space, force, mass, momenta, etc. The difference, I suppose lies in thermodynamics being statistical aggregates of the base language? What is it in thermodynamics that can't be formulated in the same language as Newtonian dynamics? Note that I'm not asking what assumptions, written in the language, apply under reversible versus irreversible systems. I'm asking what can't be written in terms of the same language? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From jfromm at t-online.de Wed Sep 23 15:55:25 2009 From: jfromm at t-online.de (Jochen Fromm) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:55:25 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com><681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> Message-ID: Doug has found the fundamental answer to all of our questions by synchronous morphic resonance? Whow. Maybe his parrot farm is just a nickname for a huge subterranean data center which dwarfs Google's latest and biggest versions? I am impressed. -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: Steve Smith To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:58 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology I think you've hit upon the fundamental answer to all of our questions, philosphical (synchronicity vs emergence and epistimology vs cosmology), technological (what is the bestest language for OO or ABM development), psychological (variations on homunculus talk), mathematical (is solving Goldbach's conjecture fundamentally more important than Fermat's last theorem?), and practical (is it too late for coffee yet too early for beer? And in what Time Zone?) All of these FRIAM discussions do seem to be about infinite horizons and somebody always demands that we return to experiences. Amazing... Synchronicity *and* Morphic Resonance all rolled into one! ;-} Steve From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 23 16:12:13 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:12:13 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909231312m3554cbd8g38ff65edeb72e3c2@mail.gmail.com> That's right. And I am now permitted to share the answer with you: 42 . No, no. Don't thank me, thank that other master of synchronicity: Douglas Adams . ;-} --Doug On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Doug has found the fundamental answer to all of our questions by > synchronous morphic resonance? Whow. Maybe his parrot farm is just a > nickname for a huge subterranean data center which dwarfs Google's latest > and biggest versions? I am impressed. > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Steve Smith > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:58 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology > > I think you've hit upon the fundamental answer to all of our questions, > philosphical (synchronicity vs emergence and epistimology vs cosmology), > technological (what is the bestest language for OO or ABM development), > psychological (variations on homunculus talk), mathematical (is solving > Goldbach's conjecture fundamentally more important than Fermat's last > theorem?), and practical (is it too late for coffee yet too early for beer? > And in what Time Zone?) > > All of these FRIAM discussions do seem to be about infinite horizons and > somebody always demands that we return to experiences. > > Amazing... Synchronicity *and* Morphic Resonance all rolled into one! > > ;-} Steve > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Wed Sep 23 16:51:10 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:51:10 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909231312m3554cbd8g38ff65edeb72e3c2@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <681c54590909231312m3554cbd8g38ff65edeb72e3c2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909231351o3a95f47aseafa087601f481a6@mail.gmail.com> I know most of you don't care about this any more, but one more clarification anyway. Glen has criticized the use of the term *level*. When I use it, I'm really reaferring to a level of abstraction, not what one might think of as a "level of reality" as if there were stratified levels of reality, which is not my position. -- Russ A On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > That's right. And I am now permitted to share the answer with you: > > 42 > . > > No, no. Don't thank me, thank that other master of synchronicity: Douglas > Adams > . > > ;-} > > --Doug > > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > >> Doug has found the fundamental answer to all of our questions by >> synchronous morphic resonance? Whow. Maybe his parrot farm is just a >> nickname for a huge subterranean data center which dwarfs Google's latest >> and biggest versions? I am impressed. >> >> -J. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: Steve Smith >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:58 PM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology >> >> I think you've hit upon the fundamental answer to all of our questions, >> philosphical (synchronicity vs emergence and epistimology vs cosmology), >> technological (what is the bestest language for OO or ABM development), >> psychological (variations on homunculus talk), mathematical (is solving >> Goldbach's conjecture fundamentally more important than Fermat's last >> theorem?), and practical (is it too late for coffee yet too early for beer? >> And in what Time Zone?) >> >> All of these FRIAM discussions do seem to be about infinite horizons and >> somebody always demands that we return to experiences. >> >> Amazing... Synchronicity *and* Morphic Resonance all rolled into one! >> >> ;-} Steve >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > droberts at rti.org > doug at parrot-farm.net > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Wed Sep 23 17:47:09 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:47:09 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <15fe0a4a0909212021q3380c8b4i3bbc97fbea507b8c@mail.gmail.com> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com><681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> Message-ID: <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Jochen Fromm circa 09-09-23 12:55 PM: > Maybe his parrot farm is just a > nickname for a huge subterranean data center which dwarfs Google's > latest and biggest versions? I am impressed. I figured it was named parrot-farm to indicate that it's a huge server farm with each machine (parrot) running an eddington typewriter ... perhaps the parrots even compete to find the best gobbledygook to fit the query? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 23 18:12:14 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:12:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> Hey, don't knock it! Fully half of my parrots (14 at present) are *way* smarter than I am. I'm not embarrassed by this, it is simply one of life's many humbling facts. Further, I contend that one cannot fully appreciate alien intelligence until you've had an African Grey calmly look you in the eye, then casually reach down and BITE THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR THUMB and then (still) calmly look you in the eye again and say, "Ow, Butthead." --Doug On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 3:47 PM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Jochen Fromm circa 09-09-23 12:55 PM: > > Maybe his parrot farm is just a > > nickname for a huge subterranean data center which dwarfs Google's > > latest and biggest versions? I am impressed. > > I figured it was named parrot-farm to indicate that it's a huge server > farm with each machine (parrot) running an eddington typewriter ... > perhaps the parrots even compete to find the best gobbledygook to fit > the query? > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Wed Sep 23 18:40:23 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:40:23 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90482.2040706@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90ABF.6030806@agent-based-modeling.com> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 23 18:49:41 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:49:41 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909231549n1e2d5492mcbc95c46a9305f64@mail.gmail.com> Steve, Steve, Steve: How many times do I need to explain this to you? Jamesons is *highly*volatile -- it quickly evaporates if you're careless about where you leave the bottle (like within arm's reach, for example). I knew there was something odd last time you held out the tumbler and asked > for two fingers and the bottle of Jamesons went empty before I got to that > measure... odd that. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 23 21:52:41 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:52:41 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909231852m671aa8fdla105ee76e5ceb04@mail.gmail.com> Steve, Have you ever noticed that after either you or I posts something to FRIAM, it gets ominously quiet for an awkward, uncomfortable interim? Kinda nice, isn't it? Academics obviously aren't used to having their envelops pushed. ;-] On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pamela at well.com Wed Sep 23 22:18:03 2009 From: pamela at well.com (Pamela McCorduck) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:18:03 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: <681c54590909231852m671aa8fdla105ee76e5ceb04@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> <681c54590909231852m671aa8fdla105ee76e5ceb04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: We're all asking ourselves where the Jameson's went. That's why we're quiet. On Sep 23, 2009, at 9:52 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Steve, > > Have you ever noticed that after either you or I posts something to > FRIAM, it gets ominously quiet for an awkward, uncomfortable interim? > > Kinda nice, isn't it? Academics obviously aren't used to having > their envelops pushed. > > > ;-] > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > ============================================================ > 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 "I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." Steve Martin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Wed Sep 23 22:25:40 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:25:40 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> <681c54590909231852m671aa8fdla105ee76e5ceb04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909231925l3af86624ma217d7aae60bc82e@mail.gmail.com> Alimentary, my dear McCorcduck. Alimentary. On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote: > We're all asking ourselves where the Jameson's went. That's why we're > quiet. > > > On Sep 23, 2009, at 9:52 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > Steve, > > Have you ever noticed that after either you or I posts something to FRIAM, > it gets ominously quiet for an awkward, uncomfortable interim? > > Kinda nice, isn't it? Academics obviously aren't used to having their > envelops pushed. > > > ;-] > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > >> >> ============================================================ > 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 > > > "I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a > bunch of blank paper." > > Steve Martin > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From birch at chimptek.com Wed Sep 23 22:30:18 2009 From: birch at chimptek.com (Birchard Hayes) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:30:18 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200992222365783@earthlink.net> <4AB90EE2.9000509@snoutfarm.com> <681c54590909221227l77729394q7de17b6ddf44a6d1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93353.3050704@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909221336m60226c4enf41d664f927e9af1@mail.gmail.com> <4AB93A70.9040202@swcp.com> <4ABA975D.4060903@agent-based-modeling.com> <681c54590909231512pae25183he86109a0468acff8@mail.gmail.com> <4ABAA3D7.90709@swcp.com> <681c54590909231852m671aa8fdla105ee76e5ceb04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8A8C59A4-72B0-4C14-93A3-9652436245DC@chimptek.com> Actually, I was looking for mine ... Birch -- "Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment." - Buckminster Fuller **** Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply **** ***** an endorsement of western industrial civilization ***** On Sep 23, 2009, at 8:18 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote: > We're all asking ourselves where the Jameson's went. That's why > we're quiet. > > > > On Sep 23, 2009, at 9:52 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> Steve, >> >> Have you ever noticed that after either you or I posts something to >> FRIAM, it gets ominously quiet for an awkward, uncomfortable interim? >> >> Kinda nice, isn't it? Academics obviously aren't used to having >> their envelops pushed. >> >> >> ;-] >> >> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Steve Smith >> wrote: >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 > > "I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing > but a bunch of blank paper." > > Steve Martin > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 23 22:32:01 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:32:01 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology Message-ID: <380-2200994242321488@earthlink.net> Doug, My envelope is just find. But I do think I have been well paid back for my verbosity. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/23/2009 7:54:12 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology Steve, Have you ever noticed that after either you or I posts something to FRIAM, it gets ominously quiet for an awkward, uncomfortable interim? Kinda nice, isn't it? Academics obviously aren't used to having their envelops pushed. ;-] On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Steve Smith wrote: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Wed Sep 23 23:33:56 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:33:56 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Message-ID: <380-2200994243335649@earthlink.net> All, the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS. The readings are Searle's REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE both from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE. I think the chief challange of our discussions will be trying to figure out the degree to which the two authors agree. I was startled on second reading at the degree to which they agree on what constitutes emergence. SEARLE "...some other system features cannot be figured out just from the compositoin of the elements and environmental relationws; they have to be explained in terms of the causal interactions among the elements. Let's call these 'causally emergent system features.'" WIMSAT " An emergent property is --roughly-- a system property which is dependent upon the mode of organization of the system's parts". These two definitions are by no means the same, but both allow for emergence to be a common place. The two seem also to have similar views of what constitutes reduction. Searle goes to the trouble to explicate five different kinds of reduction, but in the end, he lights on "causal reduction", in part because it often leads to the other kinds. SEARLE : A causal reduction has taken place when "the causal powers of the reduced entity [i.e., the macro-level entity] are shown to be entirely explainable in thers of the causal powers of the reducing phenomena [i.e., the micro-level phenomena]" Odd that he changes from entity to phenomena in mid definition, but I am supposed to be avoiding editorial comment here. WIMSAT: .... a reductive explanation of a behavior or a property of a system is one showing it to be mechanistically explainable in terms of the properties of and interactions among the parts of the system." A lot would seem to hang on the word "mechanistically" here, so I looked it up in web dictionary of philosophical terms. maintained by garth kemerling: mechanism Belief that science can explain all natural phenomena in terms of the causal interactions among material particles, without any reference to intelligent agency or purpose. As employed by Descartes and Hobbes, mechanism offered an alternative to the scholastic reliance on explanatory appeals to final causes. Is there anybody out there who is reading along with us???? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fseibel at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 18:15:38 2009 From: fseibel at gmail.com (Fred Seibel) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:15:38 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Something for the more pragmatic members of Friam Message-ID: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> My son Peter's book "Coders at Work" is out and currently #7 overall at Amazon. "Coders at Work" is a book of Q&A with fifteen of the leading lights of the of software industry. You can see the full list at http://www.codersatwork.com Peter has also put up a little essay on his blog at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/blog/ on the topic of the number of women included in the list--only one-- that I am sure many on Friam would find interesting. Best Fred -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stephen.guerin at redfish.com Thu Sep 24 19:00:20 2009 From: stephen.guerin at redfish.com (Stephen Guerin) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:00:20 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Something for the more pragmatic members of Friam In-Reply-To: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> References: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0B862B46-7491-4FA3-A7AE-DA589DE701F3@redfish.com> It just fell to #8...hopefully with my recent purchase it is back to #7 soon :-) Congratulations to Peter, Fred! -Stephen --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... stephen.guerin at redfish.com (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ lava3d.com On Sep 24, 2009, at 4:15 PM, Fred Seibel wrote: > My son Peter's book "Coders at Work" is out and currently #7 overall > at Amazon. > > "Coders at Work" is a book of Q&A with fifteen of the leading > lights of the of software industry. > > You can see the full list at http://www.codersatwork.com > > Peter has also put up a little essay on his blog at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/blog/ > on the topic of the number of women included in the list--only one-- > that I am sure many on Friam would find interesting. > > Best > Fred > > ============================================================ > 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 From plissaman at comcast.net Thu Sep 24 19:12:23 2009 From: plissaman at comcast.net (plissaman at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:12:23 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [FRIAM] Help, Please! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <259045859.3880491253833943692.JavaMail.root@sz0006a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Wanted: a hands-on computer consultant for MATLAB, for pay!? My place in SF or yours.? ASAP for invited scientific paper.? Please reply by e-mail. Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA tel:(505)983-7728 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Jochen Fromm" Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ABMs and Psychology Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:55:25 +0200 Size: 2127 URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Thu Sep 24 21:03:30 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:03:30 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle In-Reply-To: <380-2200994243335649@earthlink.net> References: <380-2200994243335649@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4ABC16E2.6010609@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/23/2009 08:33 PM: > the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS. The readings are Searle's REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS > and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE both from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE. Yay! I finally got my copy. Next week I'll be able to yap at y'all in context. ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gary at NaturesVisualArts.com Thu Sep 24 21:25:57 2009 From: gary at NaturesVisualArts.com (Gary Schiltz) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:25:57 -0500 Subject: [FRIAM] Something for the more pragmatic members of Friam In-Reply-To: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> References: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1B09801E-0550-405C-880E-1C2C85FA913D@NaturesVisualArts.com> Peter is quite a good writer. I worked through most of his online book "Practical Common Lisp" and really enjoyed it - see www.gigamonkeys.com/book . ;; Gary On Sep 24, 2009, at 5:15 PM, Fred Seibel wrote: > My son Peter's book "Coders at Work" is out and currently #7 overall > at Amazon. > > "Coders at Work" is a book of Q&A with fifteen of the leading > lights of the of software industry. > > You can see the full list at http://www.codersatwork.com > > Peter has also put up a little essay on his blog at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/blog/ > on the topic of the number of women included in the list--only one-- > that I am sure many on Friam would find interesting. > > Best > Fred -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Thu Sep 24 21:48:46 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:48:46 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Something for the more pragmatic members of Friam In-Reply-To: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> References: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ABC217E.7040306@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 24 21:48:49 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:48:49 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Message-ID: <380-22009952514849111@earthlink.net> Great, Glen, I will set up a thread, Emergence Seminar, IV: Chapter 8, Bedau. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/24/2009 7:04:51 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/23/2009 08:33 PM: > > the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS. The readings are Searle's REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS > > and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE both from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE. > > Yay! I finally got my copy. Next week I'll be able to yap at y'all in > context. ;-) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Thu Sep 24 21:57:58 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:57:58 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, IV; Bedau on weak emergence. Message-ID: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> Dear All, We had a good meeting, at least 8 of us, even tho we lost Michel, who went back to Paris. The first time it didnt actually RAIN duirng the meeting, so we were able to sit outside. For next week we will be reading the Mark Bedau chapter on weak emergence. I think I have already established that Bedau has a pdf of a version of this article on his website. Ping me if you need a better reference. At least one person has promised to join us from the diaspora. Please put discussion of this chapter -- and ONLY discussion of this chapter -- in this thread. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Fri Sep 25 09:08:10 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:08:10 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: 380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> Greetings, This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, Eric P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Fri Sep 25 10:20:01 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:20:01 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <681c54590909250720s7c8ddc26ga1cce6502a94d55f@mail.gmail.com> Groan. What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to that already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by trying to force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? --Doug On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Greetings, > This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's > television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. > > As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which > promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed > it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up > with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater > was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". > > > I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this > situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't > the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". > > Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, > > Eric > > P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! > > = > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 25 10:39:35 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:39:35 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Message-ID: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> Eric, I like the example. Thank you. Doug I stipulate that you don't like this topic. But wait a minute! You responded to the thread!? That's odd! If interested, the reading this week is the aforementioned Bedau. Best, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/25/2009 8:22:04 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Groan. What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to that already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by trying to force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? --Doug On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Greetings, This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, Eric P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 10:54:20 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:54:20 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909250754k45e8b4efw8aa9312d2fa5a527@mail.gmail.com> Eric, I think it's a fine example. It's an example of static emergence--the same sort of thing that happens when one puts sodium and chlorine together to get salt; the same sort of thing that happens when one puts carbon atoms together to get a diamond; the same sort of thing that happens when one puts lumber, nails, drywall, copper piping, etc. together to get a house, etc. In all those cases emergence is the result of building a static structure of separate elements. Emergence is static when the structure is at an energy equilibrium within an energy well--i.e., the structure doesn't require the continual importation of energy to persist. Deconstruction of the emergent entity does require the addition of energy. In the case of the sweater, for example, energy is needed to unravel the string. The sweater is well enough knit together that it won't fall apart on its own but must be pulled apart. -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Eric, > > I like the example. Thank you. > > Doug > > I stipulate that you don't like this topic. But wait a minute! You > responded to the thread!? That's odd! > > If interested, the reading this week is the aforementioned Bedau. > > Best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Douglas Roberts > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/25/2009 8:22:04 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > Groan. > > What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to that > already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by trying to > force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? > > --Doug > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >> Greetings, >> This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's >> television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. >> >> As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which >> promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed >> it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up >> with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater >> was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". >> >> >> I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this >> situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't >> the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". >> >> Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, >> >> Eric >> >> P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! >> >> = >> > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Fri Sep 25 10:57:00 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:57:00 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <681c54590909250757r4e83971bv9906903641a5e234@mail.gmail.com> Call it a morbid fascination with how other seem to *really* seem to enjoy word games, Nick. But the question was genuine: what possible gain (in your opinion, of course) will come out of this? Where's the added value? What's the benefit about attempting to talk about emergence in the context of unraveling a sweater? --Doug On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Eric, > > I like the example. Thank you. > > Doug > > I stipulate that you don't like this topic. But wait a minute! You > responded to the thread!? That's odd! > > If interested, the reading this week is the aforementioned Bedau. > > Best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Douglas Roberts > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/25/2009 8:22:04 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > Groan. > > What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to that > already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by trying to > force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? > > --Doug > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >> Greetings, >> This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's >> television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. >> >> As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which >> promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed >> it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up >> with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater >> was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". >> >> >> I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this >> situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't >> the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". >> >> Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, >> >> Eric >> >> P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! >> >> = >> > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 25 10:59:12 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:59:12 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <4ABCDAC0.80006@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 09/25/2009 06:08 AM: > I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this > situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't > the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate what (some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about whether or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT asking for OUR opinions. If so, I can't respond until I've a) read the book at least once and b) modeled each author at least to the extent that I'd be willing to simulate them. That's a tall order! I doubt I'll ever be motivated or incentivized to do that. But if you ask again in, say, a month, maybe I'll have a different answer. ;-) I _may_, however, be able to simulate what Robert Rosen might say. The knitter is the efficient cause of the sweater. And, hence, the sweater is NOT closed to efficient cause. Hence, the sweater is not a complex system. And, if we assume all complex systems exhibit emergence, then he would say the sweater is NOT emergent (except perhaps if we expand the "system" to include the actors which constitute the efficient cause, of course). -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 25 11:06:36 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:06:36 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <681c54590909250757r4e83971bv9906903641a5e234@mail.gmail.com> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> <681c54590909250757r4e83971bv9906903641a5e234@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ABCDC7C.8080603@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 09/25/2009 07:57 AM: > But the question was genuine: what possible gain (in your opinion, of > course) will come out of this? Where's the added value? What's the benefit > about attempting to talk about emergence in the context of unraveling a > sweater? I don't think there is any value of us expressing our own opinions, here. But I do think there is value in us trying to simulate what _others_ might say. In fact, I think it would have been _very_ easy to predict Douglas Roberts' response. ;-) I vacillate between thinking it's good to be easily simulable vs. bad to be easily simulable. Those who value consistency would obviously _like_ others to be able to simulate them. But those who value creativity would probably not like to be easily simulable. So, I'd be interested to know if others could simulate me to an extent which was validatable. (Not validatable against my own perception of myself, of course, but against others' "data" about me.) I think there's plenty of practical value to being able to simulate what others would say in response to a given question, if for no other reason than it would help us design better models that we could then sell to executives in, say, pharmaceutical companies. [grin] -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From rjcord1 at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 11:29:56 2009 From: rjcord1 at gmail.com (Robert Cordingley) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:29:56 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4ABCE1F4.8060601@gmail.com> Knot to needle you put I think you are throwing pearls before twine. Robert Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Eric, > > I like the example. Thank you. > > Doug > > I stipulate that you don't like this topic. But wait a minute! You > responded to the thread!? That's odd! > > If interested, the reading this week is the aforementioned Bedau. > > Best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu ) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Douglas Roberts > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > *Sent:* 9/25/2009 8:22:04 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > Groan. > > What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to > that already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by > trying to force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? > > --Doug > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES > wrote: > > Greetings, > This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a > children's television show, and thought I would send a query > to the group. > > As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, > which promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By > the time they noticed it was just one long string. They then > followed the string back, ending up with a large ball of > string. They had the string, which is all the sweater was; but > of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the > sweater". > > I was wondering how the different authors in the book would > describe this situation. In particular, it would seem natural > to say that the string isn't the sweater BECAUSE the sweater > is "emergent". > > Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, > > Eric > > P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! > > = > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Fri Sep 25 11:33:10 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:33:10 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <4ABCE1F4.8060601@gmail.com> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> <4ABCE1F4.8060601@gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909250833s3de7077boc2e7e0a849c4416e@mail.gmail.com> Oh, thanks. Just when I had begun to lose the thread of this conversation. On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Robert Cordingley wrote: > > Knot to needle you put I think you are throwing pearls before twine. > > Robert > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Eric, > > I like the example. Thank you. > > Doug > > I stipulate that you don't like this topic. But wait a minute! You > responded to the thread!? That's odd! > > If interested, the reading this week is the aforementioned Bedau. > > Best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Douglas Roberts > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/25/2009 8:22:04 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > Groan. > > What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to that > already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by trying to > force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? > > --Doug > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >> Greetings, >> This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's >> television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. >> >> As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which >> promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed >> it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up >> with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater >> was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". >> >> >> I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this >> situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't >> the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". >> >> Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, >> >> Eric >> >> P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! >> >> = >> > ------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > 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 > -- Doug Roberts droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From doug at parrot-farm.net Fri Sep 25 11:39:26 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:39:26 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <4ABCDC7C.8080603@agent-based-modeling.com> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> <681c54590909250757r4e83971bv9906903641a5e234@mail.gmail.com> <4ABCDC7C.8080603@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909250839k2c98ed77g5ac51b6017eb9c4f@mail.gmail.com> Demonstrating predictability in the presence of one's enemies would be a bad thing. Fortunately, we're all friends here. --Doug On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 9:06 AM, glen e. p. ropella < gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote: > Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 09/25/2009 07:57 AM: > > But the question was genuine: what possible gain (in your opinion, of > > course) will come out of this? Where's the added value? What's the > benefit > > about attempting to talk about emergence in the context of unraveling a > > sweater? > > I don't think there is any value of us expressing our own opinions, > here. But I do think there is value in us trying to simulate what > _others_ might say. In fact, I think it would have been _very_ easy to > predict Douglas Roberts' response. ;-) > > I vacillate between thinking it's good to be easily simulable vs. bad to > be easily simulable. Those who value consistency would obviously _like_ > others to be able to simulate them. But those who value creativity > would probably not like to be easily simulable. So, I'd be interested > to know if others could simulate me to an extent which was validatable. > (Not validatable against my own perception of myself, of course, but > against others' "data" about me.) > > I think there's plenty of practical value to being able to simulate what > others would say in response to a given question, if for no other reason > than it would help us design better models that we could then sell to > executives in, say, pharmaceutical companies. [grin] > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Fri Sep 25 11:52:43 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:52:43 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: 681c54590909250757r4e83971bv9906903641a5e234@mail.gmail.com References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net><681c54590909250757r4e83971bv99069036 41a5e234@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1253893963l.454744l.0l@psu.edu> Responding genuinely to your question: 1) It seemed like a more mundane and familiar example than most examples discussed on the list. That is, while it takes considerable schooling to teach people that salt is composed of sodium and chloride arranged in a particular way, everyone easily recognizes that the sweater is composed of yarn arranged in a particular way. 2) I too agree that the word "emergence" has a bit of voodoo to it, especially in normal usage. However, it seems useful (if not necessary) to have SOME way of talking about how the sweater is more than just the yarn it is composed of. It would be a very sad world if we could not readily refer to phenomenon except by way of their constituent elements. It would be a sad world if we did not have some way of making sense of that referring. The currently fashionable language may indeed not be ideal, but that can only be determined (I naively assert) by discussing it critically. 3) Personally, like you, I am not terribly interested in having a normative discussion of emergence (i.e., how, based on deep philosophical grounds SHOULD we be using the term, technically speaking). I've had them before, I know how they go, little excitement left for me. However, I am quite interested in discussing what we do naturally, figuring out how to describe what we naturally do, and figuring out the costs and benefits both of what we do and different methods of describing what we do. The term "emergence" is one in a long line of ways of trying to "get at" a certain set of obvious empirical phenomenon (i.e., things we experience). To pick a few older examples, surely "emergence" holds some advantage over terms like "vital energy" or "spirit". No? Satisfactory answer? Remotely? Eric On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 10:57 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > > >Call it a morbid fascination with how other seem to really seem to enjoy word games, Nick. > >But the question was genuine: what possible gain (in your opinion, of course) will come out of this? Where's the added value? What's the benefit about attempting to talk about emergence in the context of unraveling a sweater? > >--Doug > > >>On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Nicholas Thompson <<#>> wrote: > > > >> >> >>Eric, >> > >>I like the example. Thank you. >> > >>Doug >> > >>I stipulate that you don't like this topic. But wait a minute! You responded to the thread!? That's odd! >> > >>If interested, the reading this week is the aforementioned Bedau. >> > >>Best, >> > >>Nick >> >> >>Nicholas S. Thompson >>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>Clark University (<#>) >> >> >> >> > > >> >> >> >> > >>----- Original Message ----- >> >From: Douglas Roberts >> >To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > >> >Sent: 9/25/2009 8:22:04 AM > >> >Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > >> > >Groan. > >What possible gain will come of trying to add yet more baggage to that already overloaded, mythical, magical "emergence" word by trying to force-fit the process of knitting a sweater on to it? > >--Doug > >>On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > > >> >Greetings, >This morning, I saw an interesting emergence problem on a children's television show, and thought I would send a query to the group. > >As is prone to happen, a character received a knitted sweater, which promptly caught on something and began to unravel. By the time they noticed it was just one long string. They then followed the string back, ending up with a large ball of string. They had the string, which is all the sweater was; but of course, they did not in any reasonable sense have "the sweater". > >I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". > > >Hopefully that example is of interest to more than just me, > >Eric > >P.S. Look Nick, I maintained your thread dominance request! > > > >= > > > > > > > > >============================================================ > >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > > > > > > >-- >Doug Roberts ><#> ><#> >505-455-7333 - Office >505-670-8195 - Cell > ============================================================ >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 > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From epc2 at psu.edu Fri Sep 25 11:58:17 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:58:17 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: 4ABCDAC0.80006@agent-based-modeling.com References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu><4ABCDAC0.80006@agent-based-modeling.com> Message-ID: <1253894297l.442564l.0l@psu.edu> Thus spoke Glen: "Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate what (some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about whether or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT asking for OUR opinions. " Yeah, that was the idea! Regarding Rosen: I am intrigued that the answer was entirely in terms of the cause, rather than the entity itself. Thanks! Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 12:03:57 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:03:57 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <1253894297l.442564l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> <4ABCDAC0.80006@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253894297l.442564l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909250903ybc85d0epfd2f23afff68a2ff@mail.gmail.com> Eric, I took your initial question as having been asked in good faith. And I answered in good faith. It seems to me that you owe me a response to my answer. Did it satisfy your question? If not, why not? -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Thus spoke Glen: > > > "Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate what > (some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about whether > or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT asking for OUR > opinions. " > > Yeah, that was the idea! > Regarding Rosen: I am intrigued > that the answer was entirely in terms of the cause, rather than the entity > itself. > > Thanks! > > Eric > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Fri Sep 25 12:13:42 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:13:42 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, IV; Bedau on weak emergence. Message-ID: [Note: the thread got broken so I'm deliberately starting a new one that hopefully keeps both its new thread ID header and its old subject line. Anyone not understanding thread breaking and thread highjacking can ask and I'd describe the technical details.] I'd like to take the thread back for its original purpose, OK? The idea of the seminar is simple: we're trying to *understand* the various authors in the book. Not to belittle them or the concept. I started out quite skeptical .. I really think there is a good definition of Emergence but that these guys hadn't a change in hell of stating it. And yes, I believe it to lie within the domain of mathematics. But, mainly due to good will of the participants and skillful management by Nick who's done this for ages, I find I'm enjoying the seminar very much. Better yet, we're getting some traction how *we'd* like to define Emergence, at least in the much less limited domain of "complexity". If Friamers would like to read along, we have a digital version you can use to see if you'd like to plunge in, get the book, and discuss the week's reading. Our last week's reading was two chapters, Searle and Wimsatt: Ch 3 Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness John Searle Ch 5 Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence William C. Wimsatt Frank W read/presented the first, I did the second. Next week is: Ch 8 Downward Causation and Autonomy in Weak Emergence Mark A. Bedau ..presented by Chip Garner. -- Owen On Sep 24, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Dear All, > > We had a good meeting, at least 8 of us, even tho we lost Michel, > who went back to Paris. The first time it didnt actually RAIN > duirng the meeting, so we were able to sit outside. > > For next week we will be reading the Mark Bedau chapter on weak > emergence. I think I have already established that Bedau has a pdf > of a version of this article on his website. Ping me if you need a > better reference. > > At least one person has promised to join us from the diaspora. > > Please put discussion of this chapter -- and ONLY discussion of this > chapter -- in this thread. > > Nick From epc2 at psu.edu Fri Sep 25 12:15:24 2009 From: epc2 at psu.edu (ERIC P. CHARLES) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:15:24 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: 15fe0a4a0909250903ybc85d0epfd2f23afff68a2ff@mail.gmail.com References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> <4ABCDAC0.80006@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253894297l.442564l.0l@psu.edu><15fe0a4a0909250903ybc85d0epfd2f23afff68a2f f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1253895324l.532484l.0l@psu.edu> Good lord man, it is still morning! Russ, Yours was a completely satisfying answer! At least in so much as it showed how the sweater example would be treated within one system of dealing with emergence. Yet, it cannot completely satisfy my inquiry, because the original was not about any particular individual's way of thinking about things, but about the breadth of established ways. I am hoping that additional answers (such as that given by Glen) will appear, that I may better understand (read, be able to describe in my own terms) how such a mundane example is handled by different systems. In particular, I ask the question publicly, because I am interested in other people's understanding of the alternatives. Eric P.S. I feel guilty already. I'm trying hard not to post more than once a day on any of my lists and already I am up to four on this one! Let no one else feel slighted if their post does not receive a reply until some time tomorrow, maybe even Sunday. Rest assured that I am reading them throughtout the day and dwelling upon them. On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 12:03 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > > >Eric, > >I took your initial question as having been asked in good faith. And I answered in good faith. It seems to me that you owe me a response to my answer. Did it satisfy your question? If not, why not? > >-- Russ A > > > > >>On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > > >>Thus spoke Glen: > > >"Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate what >(some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about whether >or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT asking for OUR >opinions. " > > >Yeah, that was the idea! >Regarding Rosen: I am intrigued >that the answer was entirely in terms of the cause, rather than the entity >itself. > >Thanks! > >Eric > > > >============================================================ > >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > > > > > ============================================================ >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 > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 12:52:17 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:52:17 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <1253895324l.532484l.0l@psu.edu> References: <380-22009952515758631@earthlink.net> <1253884090l.880644l.0l@psu.edu> <4ABCDAC0.80006@agent-based-modeling.com> <1253894297l.442564l.0l@psu.edu> <1253895324l.532484l.0l@psu.edu> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909250952l70ac10cdie0763199cefdde82@mail.gmail.com> I guess it's fine to ask how different people would define a particular word. But it seems to me that unless one's purpose is the study of history, the more important question is how best to define/use a word -- that is, what is the most useful way to frame a concept. It sometimes seems to me that many people prefer to think of emergence as some sort of mysterious concept rather than to try to come to a clear understanding of what the best way is to understand and use the term. In his book on the Periodic TableEric Scerri noted that people originally thought that atomic elements were characterized by their atomic weight. That was close, but what really characterizes elements are their atomic number, not their atomic weight. Once it became clear that atomic number was the right way to think about how elements are characterized, discussions of using atomic weight for that characterization may be of historical value, but they are not useful to understanding the concept -- and prolonging that discussion is counter-productive. -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 9:15 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > Good lord man, it is still morning! > > Russ, > Yours was a completely satisfying answer! At least in so much as it showed > how the sweater example would be treated within one system of dealing with > emergence. Yet, it cannot completely satisfy my inquiry, because the > original was not about any particular individual's way of thinking about > things, but about the breadth of established ways. I am hoping that > additional answers (such as that given by Glen) will appear, that I may > better understand (read, be able to describe in my own terms) how such a > mundane example is handled by different systems. In particular, I ask the > question publicly, because I am interested in other people's understanding > of the alternatives. > > Eric > > P.S. I feel guilty already. I'm trying hard not to post more than once a > day on any of my lists and already I am up to four on this one! Let no one > else feel slighted if their post does not receive a reply until some time > tomorrow, maybe even Sunday. Rest assured that I am reading them throughtout > the day and dwelling upon them. > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 12:03 PM, *Russ Abbott *wrote: > > Eric, > > I took your initial question as having been asked in good faith. And I > answered in good faith. It seems to me that you owe me a response to my > answer. Did it satisfy your question? If not, why not? > > -- Russ A > > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES > > wrote: > >> Thus spoke Glen: >> >> >> "Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us >> to simulate what >> (some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would >> say about whether >> or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are >> NOT asking for OUR >> opinions. " >> >> >> Yeah, that was the >> idea! >> Regarding Rosen: I am intrigued >> that the answer was entirely in >> terms of the cause, rather than the entity >> itself. >> >> Thanks! >> >> Eric >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 athttp://www.friam.org > > Eric Charles > > Professional Student and > Assistant Professor of Psychology > Penn State University > Altoona, PA 16601 > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Fri Sep 25 13:58:30 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:58:30 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099525143935500@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4ABD04C6.2030108@swcp.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Fri Sep 25 14:05:03 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:05:03 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, IV; Bedau on weak emergence. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4ABD064F.9000605@swcp.com> Owen Densmore wrote: > [Note: the thread got broken so I'm deliberately starting a new one > that hopefully keeps both its new thread ID header and its old subject > line. Anyone not understanding thread breaking and thread highjacking > can ask and I'd describe the technical details.] Yes, but can you weave a sweater out of these threads? And if we wake up one day and realize that the FRIAM list has actually spontaneously *become* a sweater, would we call it Emergence? > I'd like to take the thread back for its original purpose, OK? I think I'm channeling Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams here... sorry. Carry on! - Steve From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 25 16:09:24 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:09:24 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Message-ID: <380-22009952520924946@earthlink.net> Glenn, is THIS: I _may_, however, be able to simulate what Robert Rosen might say. The knitter is the efficient cause of the sweater. And, hence, the sweater is NOT closed to efficient cause. Hence, the sweater is not a complex system. And, if we assume all complex systems exhibit emergence, then he would say the sweater is NOT emergent (except perhaps if we expand the "system" to include the actors which constitute the efficient cause, of course). of the form: All swans are white This bird is white This bird is a swan ? Nick ps: Re Rosen; were you around two summers ago when I was beating my gums into plough shares trying to understand Rosen's Life Itself? I am hoping to get back to Rosen as one of the people who has a highly restricted view of emergence and who is also highly enthusiastic about downward causation. Who, in fact, is trying to create a formalism -- DENSMORE ALERT-- to describe such. n PS: Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/25/2009 9:00:30 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 09/25/2009 06:08 AM: > > I was wondering how the different authors in the book would describe this > > situation. In particular, it would seem natural to say that the string isn't > > the sweater BECAUSE the sweater is "emergent". > > Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate > what (some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about > whether or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT > asking for OUR opinions. > > If so, I can't respond until I've a) read the book at least once and b) > modeled each author at least to the extent that I'd be willing to > simulate them. That's a tall order! I doubt I'll ever be motivated or > incentivized to do that. But if you ask again in, say, a month, maybe > I'll have a different answer. ;-) > > I _may_, however, be able to simulate what Robert Rosen might say. The > knitter is the efficient cause of the sweater. And, hence, the sweater > is NOT closed to efficient cause. Hence, the sweater is not a complex > system. And, if we assume all complex systems exhibit emergence, then > he would say the sweater is NOT emergent (except perhaps if we expand > the "system" to include the actors which constitute the efficient cause, > of course). > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 25 16:15:57 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:15:57 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Message-ID: <380-220099525201557801@earthlink.net> Eric, Those of us who are concerned for your career development (e.g., tenure) are NOT reassured to learn you have broken your vow to limit your postings to one a day. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: ERIC P. CHARLES To: Russ Abbott Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/25/2009 10:16:18 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Good lord man, it is still morning! Russ, Yours was a completely satisfying answer! At least in so much as it showed how the sweater example would be treated within one system of dealing with emergence. Yet, it cannot completely satisfy my inquiry, because the original was not about any particular individual's way of thinking about things, but about the breadth of established ways. I am hoping that additional answers (such as that given by Glen) will appear, that I may better understand (read, be able to describe in my own terms) how such a mundane example is handled by different systems. In particular, I ask the question publicly, because I am interested in other people's understanding of the alternatives. Eric P.S. I feel guilty already. I'm trying hard not to post more than once a day on any of my lists and already I am up to four on this one! Let no one else feel slighted if their post does not receive a reply until some time tomorrow, maybe even Sunday. Rest assured that I am reading them throughtout the day and dwelling upon them. On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 12:03 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: Eric, I took your initial question as having been asked in good faith. And I answered in good faith. It seems to me that you owe me a response to my answer. Did it satisfy your question? If not, why not? -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Thus spoke Glen: "Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate what(some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about whetheror not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT asking for OURopinions. "Yeah, that was the idea!Regarding Rosen: I am intriguedthat the answer was entirely in terms of the cause, rather than the entityitself. Thanks!Eric ============================================================ 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 listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 25 17:55:08 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:55:08 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Message-ID: <380-22009952521558549@earthlink.net> Russ, I have been looking for a book for many years that does the same kind of presentation of chemistry for the general reader that many mathematics and biology books do. Is The Periodic Table that book? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: ERIC P. CHARLES Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 9/25/2009 10:53:51 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group I guess it's fine to ask how different people would define a particular word. But it seems to me that unless one's purpose is the study of history, the more important question is how best to define/use a word -- that is, what is the most useful way to frame a concept. It sometimes seems to me that many people prefer to think of emergence as some sort of mysterious concept rather than to try to come to a clear understanding of what the best way is to understand and use the term. In his book on the Periodic Table Eric Scerri noted that people originally thought that atomic elements were characterized by their atomic weight. That was close, but what really characterizes elements are their atomic number, not their atomic weight. Once it became clear that atomic number was the right way to think about how elements are characterized, discussions of using atomic weight for that characterization may be of historical value, but they are not useful to understanding the concept -- and prolonging that discussion is counter-productive. -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 9:15 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Good lord man, it is still morning! Russ, Yours was a completely satisfying answer! At least in so much as it showed how the sweater example would be treated within one system of dealing with emergence. Yet, it cannot completely satisfy my inquiry, because the original was not about any particular individual's way of thinking about things, but about the breadth of established ways. I am hoping that additional answers (such as that given by Glen) will appear, that I may better understand (read, be able to describe in my own terms) how such a mundane example is handled by different systems. In particular, I ask the question publicly, because I am interested in other people's understanding of the alternatives. Eric P.S. I feel guilty already. I'm trying hard not to post more than once a day on any of my lists and already I am up to four on this one! Let no one else feel slighted if their post does not receive a reply until some time tomorrow, maybe even Sunday. Rest assured that I am reading them throughtout the day and dwelling upon them. On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 12:03 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: Eric, I took your initial question as having been asked in good faith. And I answered in good faith. It seems to me that you owe me a response to my answer. Did it satisfy your question? If not, why not? -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Thus spoke Glen: "Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us to simulate what(some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would say about whetheror not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are NOT asking for OURopinions. "Yeah, that was the idea!Regarding Rosen: I am intriguedthat the answer was entirely in terms of the cause, rather than the entityitself. Thanks!Eric ============================================================ 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 listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 18:11:05 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:11:05 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <380-22009952521558549@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009952521558549@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909251511o79745cd5y50c328e105e95ee5@mail.gmail.com> Eric Scerri is a good guy. His interests are in the philosophy of chemistry. I don't know if his book is what you are looking for though. Probably not. It's goal is not to make chemistry intelligible to the general public. It's a history of the periodic table. But it's self-consciously a history of ideas. It isn't wondering what it is that distinguishes one element from another. It knows that we already have the answer to that, and it simply traces how we got there. -- Russ A On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Russ, > > I have been looking for a book for many years that does the same kind of > presentation of chemistry for the general reader that many mathematics and > biology books do. Is The Periodic Table that book? > > N > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *ERIC P. CHARLES *Cc: *The Friday Morning Applied > Complexity Coffee Group > *Sent:* 9/25/2009 10:53:51 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > I guess it's fine to ask how different people would define a particular > word. But it seems to me that unless one's purpose is the study of history, > the more important question is how best to define/use a word -- that is, > what is the most useful way to frame a concept. It sometimes seems to me > that many people prefer to think of emergence as some sort of mysterious > concept rather than to try to come to a clear understanding of what the best > way is to understand and use the term. > > In his book on the Periodic TableEric Scerri noted that people originally thought that atomic elements were > characterized by their atomic weight. That was close, but what really > characterizes elements are their atomic number, not their atomic weight. > Once it became clear that atomic number was the right way to think about how > elements are characterized, discussions of using atomic weight for that > characterization may be of historical value, but they are not useful to > understanding the concept -- and prolonging that discussion is > counter-productive. > > -- Russ A > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 9:15 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >> Good lord man, it is still morning! >> >> Russ, >> Yours was a completely satisfying answer! At least in so much as it showed >> how the sweater example would be treated within one system of dealing with >> emergence. Yet, it cannot completely satisfy my inquiry, because the >> original was not about any particular individual's way of thinking about >> things, but about the breadth of established ways. I am hoping that >> additional answers (such as that given by Glen) will appear, that I may >> better understand (read, be able to describe in my own terms) how such a >> mundane example is handled by different systems. In particular, I ask the >> question publicly, because I am interested in other people's understanding >> of the alternatives. >> >> Eric >> >> P.S. I feel guilty already. I'm trying hard not to post more than once a >> day on any of my lists and already I am up to four on this one! Let no one >> else feel slighted if their post does not receive a reply until some time >> tomorrow, maybe even Sunday. Rest assured that I am reading them throughtout >> the day and dwelling upon them. >> >> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 12:03 PM, *Russ Abbott *wrote: >> >> Eric, >> >> I took your initial question as having been asked in good faith. And I >> answered in good faith. It seems to me that you owe me a response to my >> answer. Did it satisfy your question? If not, why not? >> >> -- Russ A >> >> >> >> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES >> > wrote: >> >>> Thus spoke Glen: >>> >>> >>> "Just to be clear, you're asking for (at least one of) us >>> to simulate what >>> (some or all of) the authors in Bedau & Humphreys would >>> say about whether >>> or not the sweater emerges from the thread? I.e. you are >>> NOT asking for OUR >>> opinions. " >>> >>> >>> Yeah, that was the >>> idea! >>> Regarding Rosen: I am intrigued >>> that the answer was entirely in >>> terms of the cause, rather than the entity >>> itself. >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> Eric >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> 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 athttp://www.friam.org >> >> Eric Charles >> >> Professional Student and >> Assistant Professor of Psychology >> Penn State University >> Altoona, PA 16601 >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gepr at agent-based-modeling.com Fri Sep 25 18:48:29 2009 From: gepr at agent-based-modeling.com (glen e. p. ropella) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:48:29 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group In-Reply-To: <380-22009952520924946@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009952520924946@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4ABD48BD.4050905@agent-based-modeling.com> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-09-25 01:09 PM: > Glenn, OK. Shirley you're just messing with me, Nik. ;-) > is THIS: > >> I _may_, however, be able to simulate what Robert Rosen might say. The >> knitter is the efficient cause of the sweater. And, hence, the sweater >> is NOT closed to efficient cause. Hence, the sweater is not a complex >> system. And, if we assume all complex systems exhibit emergence, then >> he would say the sweater is NOT emergent (except perhaps if we expand >> the "system" to include the actors which constitute the efficient cause, >> of course). > > of the form: > > All swans are white > This bird is white > This bird is a swan > > ? Yes, except that I misspoke (surprise surprise). I meant to say "if we assume that _only_ complex systems exhibit emergence, then RR would say the sweater is NOT emergent." So, it would be of the form: Only swans are white. This object is white. .: This object is a swan. I think this is just the contrapositive. But remember that my simulation added that last part. RR didn't talk about "emergence" as far as I'm aware. > ps: Re Rosen; were you around two summers ago when I was beating my gums > into plough shares trying to understand Rosen's Life Itself? I am hoping > to get back to Rosen as one of the people who has a highly restricted view > of emergence and who is also highly enthusiastic about downward causation. > Who, in fact, is trying to create a formalism -- DENSMORE ALERT-- to > describe such. Yes. I was here. I'm not an expert on Rosen.... I'm probably not even a competent pseudo-expert. But I enjoy yapping uselessly about how we might make his work useful. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com From mhbarron at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 20:01:13 2009 From: mhbarron at gmail.com (michael barron) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:01:13 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Help, Please! In-Reply-To: <259045859.3880491253833943692.JavaMail.root@sz0006a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <259045859.3880491253833943692.JavaMail.root@sz0006a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: Peter Lissaman: I saw you request for a Matlab consultant. I might be interested is looking at you project. I have done some Mathlab on several DSP/FPGA and a classified data base (LANL) for DTRA. I would like to talk to you, and maybe we can get together soon. I live in Santa Fe, and do a lot of consulting work. Please send me a E mail, and then we can talk on the phone or get together. regards michael barron santa fe, nm cell phone (505) 577-7306 On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 5:12 PM, wrote: > > Wanted: a hands-on computer consultant for MATLAB, for pay! My place in SF > or yours. ASAP for invited scientific paper. Please reply by e-mail. > Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures > > Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. > > 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA > tel:(505)983-7728 > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 25 21:50:53 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:50:53 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Message-ID: <380-22009962615053200@earthlink.net> All, As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. Unfortunately, I read it a third time. I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his position. (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro and micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, but I dont think anybody has so far.) (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant on the arrangement of the micro entities. (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity (duh!). (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a definition of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among levels. Back to the old drawing board. n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > All, > > > > the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS.? The > > readings are Searle's?? REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS > > and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE both > > from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE. > > > > I think the chief challange of our discussions will be trying to figure out > > the degree to which the two authors agree.? I was startled on second reading > > at the degree to which they agree on what constitutes emergence. > > > > SEARLE "...some other system features cannot be figured out just from the > > compositoin of the elements and environmental relationws; they have to be > > explained in terms of the causal interactions among the elements.? Let's > > call these 'causally emergent system features.'" > > > > WIMSAT " An emergent property is --roughly-- a system property which is > > dependent upon the mode of organization of the system's parts". > > > > These two definitions are by no means the same, but both allow for emergence > > to be a common place. > > > > ?The two seem also to have similar views of what constitutes reduction. > > Searle goes to the trouble to explicate five different kinds of reduction, > > but in the end, he lights on "causal reduction", in part because it often > > leads to the other kinds. > > > > SEARLE :? A causal reduction has taken place when "the causal powers of the > > reduced entity [i.e., the macro-level entity] are shown to be entirely > > explainable in thers of the causal powers of the reducing phenomena [i.e., > > the micro-level phenomena]"? Odd that he changes from entity to phenomena in > > mid definition, but I am supposed to be avoiding editorial comment here. > > > > WIMSAT:? .... a reductive explanation of a behavior or a property of a > > system is one showing it to be mechanistically explainable in terms of the > > properties of and interactions among the parts of the system."? A lot would > > seem to hang on the word "mechanistically" here, so I looked it up in web > > dictionary of philosophical terms. maintained by garth kemerling: > > > > mechanism > > > > Belief that science can explain all natural phenomena in terms of the causal > > interactions among material particles, without any reference to intelligent > > agency or purpose. As employed by Descartes and Hobbes, mechanism offered an > > alternative to the scholastic reliance on explanatory appeals to final > > causes. > > > > Is there anybody out there who is reading along with us???? > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > From nickthompson at earthlink.net Fri Sep 25 22:00:43 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:00:43 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group Message-ID: <380-2200996262043970@earthlink.net> Glen, (sorry I fell for the double n on my previous message). GLEN HATH WROTH: Yes. I was here. I'm not an expert on Rosen.... I'm probably not even > a competent pseudo-expert. But I enjoy yapping uselessly about how we > might make his work useful. END WROTHING BY GLEN There are two kinds of people on this list. Those who think that the Emperor's New Clothes is a children's story and those who think that it is Parable Direct from God concerning the important role that non-experts can play in scientific discourse. I am in the latter category. Besides, can you imagine how long it would take to collect a passell of Rosen experts to talk about Rosen? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/25/2009 4:49:49 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Inquiry to Emergence Group > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-09-25 01:09 PM: > > Glenn, > > OK. Shirley you're just messing with me, Nik. ;-) > > > is THIS: > > > >> I _may_, however, be able to simulate what Robert Rosen might say. The > >> knitter is the efficient cause of the sweater. And, hence, the sweater > >> is NOT closed to efficient cause. Hence, the sweater is not a complex > >> system. And, if we assume all complex systems exhibit emergence, then > >> he would say the sweater is NOT emergent (except perhaps if we expand > >> the "system" to include the actors which constitute the efficient cause, > >> of course). > > > > of the form: > > > > All swans are white > > This bird is white > > This bird is a swan > > > > ? > > Yes, except that I misspoke (surprise surprise). I meant to say "if we > assume that _only_ complex systems exhibit emergence, then RR would say > the sweater is NOT emergent." > > So, it would be of the form: > > Only swans are white. > This object is white. > .: This object is a swan. > > I think this is just the contrapositive. But remember that my > simulation added that last part. RR didn't talk about "emergence" as > far as I'm aware. > > > ps: Re Rosen; were you around two summers ago when I was beating my gums > > into plough shares trying to understand Rosen's Life Itself? I am hoping > > to get back to Rosen as one of the people who has a highly restricted view > > of emergence and who is also highly enthusiastic about downward causation. > > Who, in fact, is trying to create a formalism -- DENSMORE ALERT-- to > > describe such. > > Yes. I was here. I'm not an expert on Rosen.... I'm probably not even > a competent pseudo-expert. But I enjoy yapping uselessly about how we > might make his work useful. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 From ermendel at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 23:24:41 2009 From: ermendel at gmail.com (Eileen Mendel) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:24:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [FRIAM] Invitation to connect on LinkedIn Message-ID: <1542505463.2210329.1253935481419.JavaMail.app@ech3-cdn11.prod> LinkedIn ------------ The, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Eileen Accept Eileen Mendel's invite: https://www.linkedin.com/e/isd/762019952/v-vCfVvK/ ------ (c) 2009, LinkedIn Corporation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sasmyth at swcp.com Sat Sep 26 01:03:14 2009 From: sasmyth at swcp.com (Steve Smith) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:03:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Invitation to connect on LinkedIn In-Reply-To: <1542505463.2210329.1253935481419.JavaMail.app@ech3-cdn11.prod> References: <1542505463.2210329.1253935481419.JavaMail.app@ech3-cdn11.prod> Message-ID: <4ABDA092.1030208@swcp.com> oopsie! Don't you hate it when that happens? From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Sat Sep 26 02:35:52 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:35:52 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle In-Reply-To: <380-22009962615053200@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009962615053200@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20090926063551.GB4837@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > All, > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on the > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his > position. > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro and > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, but I > dont think anybody has so far.) > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant on > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity > (duh!). > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a definition > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among levels. > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > n > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sat Sep 26 03:24:47 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:24:47 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Message-ID: <380-22009962672447915@earthlink.net> So, Russ S, when you say, "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence." Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually a relationship between two different properties of the same object. I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts arranged in a double helix". Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me in someway. NIck Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > All, > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on the > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his > > position. > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro and > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, but I > > dont think anybody has so far.) > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant on > > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity > > (duh!). > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a definition > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among levels. > > > > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > > > n > > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From marcus at snoutfarm.com Sat Sep 26 14:25:05 2009 From: marcus at snoutfarm.com (Marcus G. Daniels) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:25:05 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Something for the more pragmatic members of Friam In-Reply-To: <1B09801E-0550-405C-880E-1C2C85FA913D@NaturesVisualArts.com> References: <3D9E1841-3154-4AAB-8AAF-2A5A88DB9F53@gmail.com> <1B09801E-0550-405C-880E-1C2C85FA913D@NaturesVisualArts.com> Message-ID: <4ABE5C81.9090903@snoutfarm.com> > My son Peter's book "Coders at Work" is out and currently #7 overall > at Amazon. > "Coders at Work" is a book of Q&A with fifteen of the leading lights > of the of software industry. A funny follow-up: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html From owen at backspaces.net Sat Sep 26 15:19:29 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:19:29 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] CMI Video Catalogue Message-ID: <1468B532-861F-4095-85D0-61F2E363B560@backspaces.net> I stumbled across yet another nifty set of videos on math/science: http://www.claymath.org/video/ I'm watching this because I've been reading his book on computation theory: Beyond Computation http://claymath.msri.org/sipser2006.mov BTW: If you are following MIT's open courseware project, any book you buy (amazon) through their links gives MIT up to 10% of the purchase price. Kinda nice way to give back to MIT. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-404JFall-2006/Readings/ -- Owen From r.standish at unsw.edu.au Sun Sep 27 04:44:58 2009 From: r.standish at unsw.edu.au (russell standish) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:44:58 +1000 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle In-Reply-To: <380-22009962672447915@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009962672447915@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20090927084458.GD4837@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > So, Russ S, > > when you say, > > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence." > > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually a > relationship between two different properties of the same object. > Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other Russ's eyebrows. > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > arranged in a double helix". > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me in > someway. > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't really get your point, queer or no :(. > NIck > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: russell standish > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > All, > > > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of > > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on > the > > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his > > > position. > > > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro > and > > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, > but I > > > dont think anybody has so far.) > > > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant > on > > > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity > > > (duh!). > > > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a > definition > > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among > levels. > > > > > > > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > > > > > n > > > > > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. > > > > -- > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ============================================================ > 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 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 27 12:53:19 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:53:19 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle In-Reply-To: <20090927084458.GD4837@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> References: <380-22009962672447915@earthlink.net> <20090927084458.GD4837@NotEnoughComponents.hpcoders.com.au> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909270953i4f157756y88d2b67811b295df@mail.gmail.com> It's been my position for a while that one of the misleading issues with emergence is that (as Russ S) says the emergent properties are simply not expressible in the language one uses to describe the micro elements. To take Fodor's original example again, there is no way to talk about Gresham's law (bad money drives out good) in the language of quantum mechanics -- because quantum mechanics doesn't have the concept of money, good or bad. If you want to call that incommensurability or lexical mismatch, I guess that's ok -- although I would recommend that one explain the problem rather than just labeling it. (It never was clear to me whether this was what Glen was getting at. We had a long private exchange and still didn't clear it up.) As you have heard me say before, the problem arises because a new level of abstraction creates and makes use of concepts that don't exist at the implementing level. That too is a fairly standard idea in computer science, although the concept of level of abstraction may not be as familiar to those outside our field. (This is Gutag's original 1997 article. This is the most relevant Wikipedia article. This is the NIST page. This is how Encyclopedia.comdescribes it. This is Dictionary.com'sdefinition.) So basically, the problem is less linguistic than ontological. There are new data types (e.g., money). That is an ontological issue. Money as an ontological category does not exist at the level of quantum mechanics. Of course one wants to talk about those new data types and their properties. The language one uses (to talk about,e.g., money) is necessarily different from the language one uses in describing the elements used to implement those new data type (e.g., the language of quantum mechanics). Perhaps more importantly, the new data types are defined independently of their implementation. That was the original point of Guttag's article, namely that the properties of stacks, lists, etc. can be specified without having to talk about any particular implementation -- and in fact that there can be multiple implementations, all of which will produce stacks, etc. that satisfy the direct, high level (if Glen won't object to my using the term "level") description. -- Russ A On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:44 AM, russell standish wrote: > On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > So, Russ S, > > > > when you say, > > > > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence." > > > > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually > a > > relationship between two different properties of the same object. > > > > Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the > presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language > that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally > say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term > for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other > Russ's eyebrows. > > > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be > a > > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the > emergent > > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > > arranged in a double helix". > > > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > > > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me > in > > someway. > > > > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't > really get your point, queer or no :(. > > > NIck > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > From: russell standish > > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied > Complexity > > Coffee Group > > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > All, > > > > > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > > > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of > > > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends > on > > the > > > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > > > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > > > > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with > his > > > > position. > > > > > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro > > and > > > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, > > but I > > > > dont think anybody has so far.) > > > > > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are > dependant > > on > > > > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > > > > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any > microentity > > > > (duh!). > > > > > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a > > definition > > > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among > > levels. > > > > > > > > > > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > > > > > > > n > > > > > > > > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sun Sep 27 13:40:40 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:40:40 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Message-ID: <380-220099027174040811@earthlink.net> Nick Thompson wrote > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > arranged in a double helix". > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > formed in triangles like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me in > someway. > To which Russ Standish replied: Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't really get your point, queer or no :(. To which Nick Thompson Replies: NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language. I meant "queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just meant that I was "unsettled, confused." Try to read around it. NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship between levels, of some sort, doesn't saying that "a wooden construction is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example? Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong". NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here? For instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably "interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you have to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have to talk about the relationship between the whole and its context. (To demonstrate that something is strong, something outside of it has to stress it.) So "strong because triangles" is actually a relationship between two interlevel relationships. NST-->Your comments focus our attention on Bedau's concept of nominal emergence, which is in this week's reading? Are you reading along with us? Wimsatt? Searle? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/27/2009 10:44:58 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > So, Russ S, > > > > when you say, > > > > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence." > > > > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually a > > relationship between two different properties of the same object. > > > > Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the > presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language > that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally > say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term > for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other > Russ's eyebrows. > > > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a > > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent > > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > > arranged in a double helix". > > > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > > > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me in > > someway. > > > > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't > really get your point, queer or no :(. > > > NIck > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > From: russell standish > > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > > Coffee Group > > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > All, > > > > > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > > > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of > > > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on > > the > > > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > > > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > > > > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his > > > > position. > > > > > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro > > and > > > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, > > but I > > > > dont think anybody has so far.) > > > > > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant > > on > > > > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > > > > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity > > > > (duh!). > > > > > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a > > definition > > > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among > > levels. > > > > > > > > > > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > > > > > > > n > > > > > > > > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 27 15:26:29 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:26:29 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle In-Reply-To: <380-220099027174040811@earthlink.net> References: <380-220099027174040811@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909271226v19ac6034odaa6df79d2abc8b2@mail.gmail.com> Why is it important to assume "that emergence involves a relationship between levels, of some sort"? Wordnet defines "emergence" as "the gradual beginning or coming forth." That doesn't necessarily imply a relatioship between levels. Admittedly I haven't read the Wimsett article. Does he defined emergence as a relationship between levels? All that notwithstanding, here is an attempt to characterize emergence as a relationship between levels. Mathematically a relation is a set of pairs. So if emergence is a relation(ship) it would be the set of pairs (of levels) that reflect emergence. For example, one element in that set of pairs might be (the level of) sticks paired with (the level of) triangles constructed out of sticks. (This second level is defined deliberately narrowly. Is that a problem?) Then it seems to make sense that that pair (level of sticks, level of stick triangles) is one element of the emergence relation. With that in mind, here's a possible definition of emergence as a relation. Emergence (as a relation) is defined to be: {(A, B) | A and B are levels, where a level is (at least) a set of elements & the elements in B have properties that the elements in A don't & the elements in B are composed of elements of A} Is that a fair partial formalization of emergence as a relation(ship) between levels? I'm not absolutely committed to it. I submit it as a draft definition. Does it work? It seems to work for sticks and stick triangles. -- Russ A On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Nick Thompson wrote > > > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be > a > > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent > > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > > arranged in a double helix". > > > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > > formed in triangles like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > > > You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me > in > > someway. > > > To which Russ Standish replied: > > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't > really get your point, queer or no :(. > > To which Nick Thompson Replies: > > NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language. I meant > "queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just > meant that I was "unsettled, confused." Try to read around it. > > NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote > again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship > between levels, of some sort, doesn't saying that "a wooden construction > is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example? > Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong". > > NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here? For > instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably > "interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you have > to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have > to talk about the relationship between the whole and its context. (To > demonstrate that something is strong, something outside of it has to stress > it.) So "strong because triangles" is actually a relationship between two > interlevel relationships. > > NST-->Your comments focus our attention on Bedau's concept of nominal > emergence, which is in this week's reading? Are you reading along with us? > Wimsatt? Searle? > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > [Original Message] > > From: russell standish > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group > > Date: 9/27/2009 10:44:58 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > > > On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > So, Russ S, > > > > > > when you say, > > > > > > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) > is > > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of > emergence." > > > > > > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is > actually a > > > relationship between two different properties of the same object. > > > > > > > Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the > > presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language > > that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally > > say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term > > for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other > > Russ's eyebrows. > > > > > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to > be a > > > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the > emergent > > > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > > > arranged in a double helix". > > > > > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > > > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is > round? > > > > > > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > > > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me > in > > > someway. > > > > > > > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't > > really get your point, queer or no :(. > > > > > NIck > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > > From: russell standish > > > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied > Complexity > > > Coffee Group > > > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM > > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > > All, > > > > > > > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > > > > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition > of > > > > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends > on > > > the > > > > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > > > > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > > > > > > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with > his > > > > > position. > > > > > > > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between > macro > > > and > > > > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that > statement, > > > but I > > > > > dont think anybody has so far.) > > > > > > > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are > dependant > > > on > > > > > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > > > > > > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any > microentity > > > > > (duh!). > > > > > > > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a > > > definition > > > > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among > > > levels. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > > > > > > > > > n > > > > > > > > > > > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > > Mathematics > > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > > 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 > > > > -- > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nickthompson at earthlink.net Sun Sep 27 17:01:14 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:01:14 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Message-ID: <380-22009902721114939@earthlink.net> Russ, this lead's us into the kind of territory that Owen Densmore would like to take us to.... formalism, mathematical formalism. I hope he responds. It will require some careful study on my part, so I wont try a response now. But, in the spirit of duelling definitions, let me just site the philosphical dictionary's definition of emergence. emergent property An irreducible feature (now commonly called supervenient) of a complex whole that cannot be inferred directly from the features of its simpler parts. Thus, for example, the familiar taste of salt is an emergent property with respect to the sodium and chlorine of which it is composed. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e.htm#emrg with a nod to Garth Kemerling Note the explicit reference to the part/whole relation. In general, the emergentist tradition has a committment to ontological levels. In fact, it is meant to be an explanation of the existence of such levels. that, of course, doesnt cover the emergence of a bean plant from its seed. I guess. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Cc: Russell Standish Sent: 9/27/2009 1:26:51 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle Why is it important to assume "that emergence involves a relationship between levels, of some sort"? Wordnet defines "emergence" as "the gradual beginning or coming forth." That doesn't necessarily imply a relatioship between levels. Admittedly I haven't read the Wimsett article. Does he defined emergence as a relationship between levels? All that notwithstanding, here is an attempt to characterize emergence as a relationship between levels. Mathematically a relation is a set of pairs. So if emergence is a relation(ship) it would be the set of pairs (of levels) that reflect emergence. For example, one element in that set of pairs might be (the level of) sticks paired with (the level of) triangles constructed out of sticks. (This second level is defined deliberately narrowly. Is that a problem?) Then it seems to make sense that that pair (level of sticks, level of stick triangles) is one element of the emergence relation. With that in mind, here's a possible definition of emergence as a relation. Emergence (as a relation) is defined to be: {(A, B) | A and B are levels, where a level is (at least) a set of elements & the elements in B have properties that the elements in A don't & the elements in B are composed of elements of A} Is that a fair partial formalization of emergence as a relation(ship) between levels? I'm not absolutely committed to it. I submit it as a draft definition. Does it work? It seems to work for sticks and stick triangles. -- Russ A On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Nick Thompson wrote > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > arranged in a double helix". > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > formed in triangles like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me in > someway. > To which Russ Standish replied: Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't really get your point, queer or no :(. To which Nick Thompson Replies: NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language. I meant "queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just meant that I was "unsettled, confused." Try to read around it. NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship between levels, of some sort, doesn't saying that "a wooden construction is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example? Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong". NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here? For instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably "interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you have to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have to talk about the relationship between the whole and its context. (To demonstrate that something is strong, something outside of it has to stress it.) So "strong because triangles" is actually a relationship between two interlevel relationships. NST-->Your comments focus our attention on Bedau's concept of nominal emergence, which is in this week's reading? Are you reading along with us? Wimsatt? Searle? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Date: 9/27/2009 10:44:58 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > So, Russ S, > > > > when you say, > > > > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence." > > > > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually a > > relationship between two different properties of the same object. > > > > Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the > presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language > that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally > say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term > for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other > Russ's eyebrows. > > > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a > > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent > > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts > > arranged in a double helix". > > > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are > > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? > > > > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers > > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me in > > someway. > > > > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't > really get your point, queer or no :(. > > > NIck > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > From: russell standish > > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > > Coffee Group > > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > All, > > > > > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two > > > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of > > > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on > > the > > > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. > > > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. > > > > > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his > > > > position. > > > > > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro > > and > > > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, > > but I > > > > dont think anybody has so far.) > > > > > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant > > on > > > > the arrangement of the micro entities. > > > > > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity > > > > (duh!). > > > > > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a > > definition > > > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among > > levels. > > > > > > > > > > > > Back to the old drawing board. > > > > > > > > n > > > > > > > > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence. > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > > Mathematics > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From russ.abbott at gmail.com Sun Sep 27 18:21:03 2009 From: russ.abbott at gmail.com (Russ Abbott) Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:21:03 -0700 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle In-Reply-To: <380-22009902721114939@earthlink.net> References: <380-22009902721114939@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <15fe0a4a0909271521x6626a81cyb4b8685d921bf227@mail.gmail.com> I'm not sure I get your point. First of all, it's not a very deeply thought out definition. As given, the example depends on subjective experience! (Tastes salty) But even so, everything in the definition typically applies to levels of abstraction as well as to the relational formalism I suggested. I explicitly required that the B elements be composed of A elements. So there's part-whole right there. Your comment that " the emergentist tradition has a commitment to ontological levels." is more to the point. But it has little to do with the definition you cite as far as I can see. You had asked about a relation between levels. So I defined one. Implicit in the definition is the notion that each level exists, i.e., is ontologically real. So I don't understand what you see as missing. In one of the messages to your smaller group I noted that the term *emergence *itself adds to the confusion. It seems to imply that the emergent phenomenon just happens, i.e., that there is no explanation for how it came to be, how it came to emerge. If you want to include such a "no explanation" property explicitly in the notion of emergence, then emergence does indeed become more mysterious -- by definition. But in fact there are well understood mechanisms that lead to the creation of emergent phenomena. Salt didn't just happen to come into existence. Salt exists for reasons explained by physics and chemistry. (Furthermore salt "tastes" salty is better understood to mean that a salt molecule fits the salt receptors in tongue. Then there is no subjective experience aspect to it.) So I would watch out for smuggling in (and wanting to retain) a mystery about how emergent phenomena come to be. I don't think you are going this far, but it almost sounds like you are saying (or at least hoping) that if it can be explained how an emergent phenomenon came about then it should no longer be considered emergent. Do you want emergence to include in its meaning that the emergent phenomenon just appeared (just emerged) with no way to explain it? -- Russ A On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 2:01 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > Russ, > > this lead's us into the kind of territory that Owen Densmore would like to > take us to.... formalism, mathematical formalism. I hope he responds. > > It will require some careful study on my part, so I wont try a response > now. > > But, in the spirit of duelling definitions, let me just site the > philosphical dictionary's definition of emergence. > > *emergent property* > > An irreducible feature > (now commonly called supervenient) > of a complex whole that cannot be inferred directly from the features of its > simpler parts. Thus, for example, the familiar taste of salt is an emergent > property with respect to the sodium and chlorine of which it is composed. > http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e.htm#emrg with a nod to Garth Kemerling > > Note the explicit reference to the part/whole relation. In general, the > emergentist tradition has a committment to ontological levels. In fact, it > is meant to be an explanation of the existence of such levels. that, of > course, doesnt cover the emergence of a bean plant from its seed. I > guess. > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott > *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group *Cc: *Russell Standish > *Sent:* 9/27/2009 1:26:51 PM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle > > Why is it important to assume "that emergence involves a relationship > between levels, of some sort"? > > Wordnet defines "emergence" as "the gradual beginning or coming forth." > That doesn't necessarily imply a relatioship between levels. > > Admittedly I haven't read the Wimsett article. Does he defined emergence as > a relationship between levels? > > All that notwithstanding, here is an attempt to characterize emergence as a > relationship between levels. > > Mathematically a relation is a set of pairs. So if emergence is a > relation(ship) it would be the set of pairs (of levels) that reflect > emergence. For example, one element in that set of pairs might be (the level > of) sticks paired with (the level of) triangles constructed out of sticks. > (This second level is defined deliberately narrowly. Is that a problem?) > Then it seems to make sense that that pair > > (level of sticks, level of stick triangles) > > is one element of the emergence relation. > > With that in mind, here's a possible definition of emergence as a relation. > > > Emergence (as a relation) is defined to be: > > {(A, B) | A and B are levels, where a level is (at least) a set of elements > & > the elements in B have properties that the elements in A don't > & > the elements in B are composed of elements of A} > > Is that a fair partial formalization of emergence as a relation(ship) > between levels? > > I'm not absolutely committed to it. I submit it as a draft definition. Does > it work? It seems to work for sticks and stick triangles. > > > -- Russ A > > > > On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Nicholas Thompson < > nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Nick Thompson wrote >> >> > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to >> be >> a >> > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the >> emergent >> > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts >> > arranged in a double helix". >> > >> > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are >> > formed in triangles like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? >> > >> > You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers >> > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to me >> in >> > someway. >> > >> To which Russ Standish replied: >> >> Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't >> really get your point, queer or no :(. >> >> To which Nick Thompson Replies: >> >> NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language. I meant >> "queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just >> meant that I was "unsettled, confused." Try to read around it. >> >> NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote >> again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship >> between levels, of some sort, doesn't saying that "a wooden construction >> is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example? >> Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong". >> >> NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here? For >> instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably >> "interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you >> have >> to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have >> to talk about the relationship between the whole and its context. (To >> demonstrate that something is strong, something outside of it has to >> stress >> it.) So "strong because triangles" is actually a relationship between >> two >> interlevel relationships. >> >> NST-->Your comments focus our attention on Bedau's concept of nominal >> emergence, which is in this week's reading? Are you reading along with >> us? >> Wimsatt? Searle? >> >> Nick >> >> >> >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> >> > [Original Message] >> > From: russell standish >> > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity >> Coffee Group >> > Date: 9/27/2009 10:44:58 PM >> >> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle >> > >> > On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> > > So, Russ S, >> > > >> > > when you say, >> > > >> > > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) >> is >> > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But >> > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of >> emergence." >> > > >> > > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is >> actually a >> > > relationship between two different properties of the same object. >> > > >> > >> > Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the >> > presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language >> > that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally >> > say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term >> > for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other >> > Russ's eyebrows. >> > >> > > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to >> be a >> > > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the >> emergent >> > > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts >> > > arranged in a double helix". >> > > >> > > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members >> are >> > > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is >> round? >> > > >> > > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers >> > > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem .... queer .... to >> me >> in >> > > someway. >> > > >> > >> > Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't >> > really get your point, queer or no :(. >> > >> > > NIck >> > > Nicholas S. Thompson >> > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> > > Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) >> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > [Original Message] >> > > > From: russell standish >> > > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied >> Complexity >> > > Coffee Group >> > > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM >> > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle >> > > > >> > > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> > > > > All, >> > > > > >> > > > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first >> two >> > > > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition >> of >> > > > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it >> depends >> on >> > > the >> > > > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. >> > > > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. >> > > > > >> > > > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with >> his >> > > > > position. >> > > > > >> > > > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between >> macro >> > > and >> > > > > micro entities. (I suppose somebody might challange that >> statement, >> > > but I >> > > > > dont think anybody has so far.) >> > > > > >> > > > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are >> dependant >> > > on >> > > > > the arrangement of the micro entities. >> > > > > >> > > > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any >> microentity >> > > > > (duh!). >> > > > > >> > > > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a >> > > definition >> > > > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among >> > > levels. >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > Back to the old drawing board. >> > > > > >> > > > > n >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) >> is >> > > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But >> > > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of >> emergence. >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> > > > Mathematics >> > > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au >> > > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> > > > >> > > >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > ============================================================ >> > > 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 >> > >> > -- >> > >> > >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> > Mathematics >> > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au >> > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> > >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Mon Sep 28 23:22:28 2009 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:22:28 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Slashdot Technology Story | Google SideWiki Brings Comments To Everyone Message-ID: <27503A48-CBA2-4946-A3E8-CB93C487E40B@backspaces.net> Cool! You can make comments on any page and anyone w/ SideWiki can read them. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/24/1556217/Google-SideWiki-Brings-Comments-To-Everyone?art_pos=10 I bet there are a lot of lousy comments, and billions of comment spam items. -- Owen From nickthompson at earthlink.net Tue Sep 29 00:16:17 2009 From: nickthompson at earthlink.net (Nicholas Thompson) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:16:17 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence Message-ID: <380-22009922941617736@earthlink.net> This week's reading is Mark Bedau's "Downward Casaton and Autonomy in Weak Emergence" "Weak" emrgence, Bedau makes clear in a footnote, is the only emergence worth having. It stands betwqeen "nomical emergence" (emergence in name only), which arises because the terms by which tha whole is described are incommensurate with the terms by which its parts are described, and "strong emergence", which is said to have irreducible causal powers but which Bedau thinks is "scientifically irrelevant". A property of a whole is weakly emergent if it cannot be derived from the properties of the parts except by simulation. For Friam list members, Bedau's chapter may be the most interesting so far because it makes extensive use of examples from the complexity literature. One problem we readers will have is deciding whether the designation "weak" refers to some distinct kinds of events in the world (and is therefore ontological) or whether it refers to the state of our explanatory skills (in which case it is epistemological). The distinction is important because we might expect ontological distinctions to survive indefinitely, whereas epistemological ones should be eliminated with the progress of science. Bedau seems to think his distinction is ontological, but his argument for that position seems a bit shabby. As before, we invite Friam readers to read along with us and to comment on this thread only if they have done the reading mentioned in the subject heading. Take care, everybody, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From victoria at toryhughes.com Tue Sep 29 07:46:10 2009 From: victoria at toryhughes.com (Victoria Hughes) Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:46:10 +0200 Subject: [FRIAM] Anathem- Message-ID: Neal Stephenson's latest tome, Anathem, may be of interest to those involved in the recycling conversations here... Tory From js at QRi.us Tue Sep 29 10:01:13 2009 From: js at QRi.us (joseph spinden) Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:01:13 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] In Liquid and Air, Scientists Find Order Among the Chaos - NYTimes.com In-Reply-To: <27503A48-CBA2-4946-A3E8-CB93C487E40B@backspaces.net> References: <27503A48-CBA2-4946-A3E8-CB93C487E40B@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <4AC21329.80200@QRi.us> Perhaps of interest to some in the group: Finding Order in the Apparent Chaos of Currents http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29chaos.html?em=&pagewanted=all JS > > From bdamer at digitalspace.com Tue Sep 29 11:28:54 2009 From: bdamer at digitalspace.com (Bruce Damer) Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:28:54 -0400 Subject: [FRIAM] EvoGrid in New York Times today In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0KQQ00JPGWO7WPG0@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> FRIAM folk, Today the EvoGrid project was featured in a wonderful article in the New York Times. Written by veteran science and tech reporter John Markoff it features some great quotes from Prof. Richard Gordon and George Dyson and two color images from the original EvoGrid movie. This will raise the visibility of the project tremendously. If you get the physical paper it is at the top of page 3 of Science Times in Section D. Online it is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29grid.html (please vote to recommend the article so we get a higher ranking ;-) The server side is getting ready for runs in October generating data out of GROMACS. What we need now is people who would be willing to build observers in BOINC (SETI at Home). Anyone on Friam interested in this please get in touch with me at bdamer at digitalspace.com Lets hope that this will help us find a philanthropist or other funding source or partner to allow us to expand the effort in 2010 and get the EvoGrid at Home portion online! bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robert at holmesacosta.com Tue Sep 29 18:20:24 2009 From: robert at holmesacosta.com (Robert Holmes) Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:20:24 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Wifi on AA1086 Message-ID: <857770150909291520t4265a7c4m3b8b708503df7eb7@mail.gmail.com> I'm claiming the prize for highest altitude Friam post. 35k feet on flight AA1086. Isn't technology cool? -- Robert From doug at parrot-farm.net Tue Sep 29 21:43:26 2009 From: doug at parrot-farm.net (Douglas Roberts) Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:43:26 -0600 Subject: [FRIAM] Wifi on AA1086 In-Reply-To: <857770150909291520t4265a7c4m3b8b708503df7eb7@mail.gmail.com> References: <857770150909291520t4265a7c4m3b8b708503df7eb7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <681c54590909291843w87ab708i30ea92b15cefae03@mail.gmail.com> I'm not sure, but I may have been higher than that last weekend: http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2009/09/saturdays-ullrfest.html --Doug On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Robert Holmes wrote: > I'm claiming the prize for highest altitude Friam post. 35k feet on > flight AA1086. Isn't technology cool? -- Robert > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From plissaman at comcast.net Tue Sep 29 23:49:38 2009 From: plissaman at comcast.net (plissaman at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:49:38 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [FRIAM] NYT Blather on Turbulence! In-Reply-To: <655483481.334461254282295581.JavaMail.root@sz0006a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <969193489.335381254282578489.JavaMail.root@sz0006a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> If you believe that article you will believe anything!? I was shocked that the?author refers to?Lagrangian reference systems without understanding or ever describing what he means (it's the most simple concept), blathers on about large scale high Reynolds Number Turbulence in Monterey Bay surface flow and ends with George Haller, who?when I discussed this with him personally last year was doing experiments in low Reynolds Number flow in about the "creeping" range.? That's viscous oil schmearing around beercan sized 2-D?circular prisms?at about 1 cm/sec.!??Not exactly the otter-haunted kelp-infested?shoreline of the Bay.?Also, none of this has anything to do with drag of bluff bodies (automobiles) as?George admitted to me, also that his stuff does not apply to turbulent flow, and that the last article on his work was also very deceptive. Nothing wrong with the work of anyone he mentions, just with the "science" writer himself! Gimme a break.? Reporters don't have to know the arcana of turbulence, but should submit their stuff for review to someone who does! Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA tel:(505)983-7728 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: