[FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Russ Abbott]

Nick,

When you suggested a hurricane as an example of a complex system I replied
that a hurricane is interesting because it's a non-biological system (and
not a human artifact) that uses energy that it extracts from outside itself
to maintain its structure. That's an interesting and important
characteristic. Biological systems do that also, Maturana & Varela, but I
don't see that as sufficient to grant it the quality of being a complex
system.

-- Russ

On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 9:06 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Thanks, Glen,
>
>
>
> Larding below:
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 11:34 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?
>
>
>
> Although you're repeating what I'd said earlier about relying on a more
> vernacular sense of "complex", we have to admit something you've yet to
> acknowledge.
>
> *[NST==>I missed this, and going back through the thread, I have not found
> it.  Can you reproduce it for me without too much strain?  <==nst] *
>
>  (I realize that the things I've said in this thread have been mostly
> ignorable.  So, it's reasonable that they've been missed.)  First, circular
> reasoning is used all the time in math.
>
> *[NST==>I am not talking about tautology, here: x is x.  I am talking
> about circular explanation: x is the cause of x.  Surely you would agree
> that having defined X as whatever is caused by Y, I have not added much to
> our store of knowledge concerning what sorts of things Y causes.  But you
> are correct, not all circular explanations are entirely vicious/vacuous, of
> course. It depends on the assumptions the discussants bring to the table.
> See,
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychology_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations<==nst
> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychology_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations%3c==nst>]*
>
>  So, it is not the bug-a-boo logicians claim it to be.  Again, Maturana &
> Varela, Rosen, Kaufmann, et al have all used it to valid and sound effect.
>
> *[NST==>I would be grateful for a passage from any of these folks where
> strictly circular reasoning is used to good effect. <==nst] *
>
>
>
> Second, your "interact more closely with one another than they do with
> entities outside the set" is nothing but _closure_.
>
> *[NST==>Well, if that is how one defines closure, then I am bound to
> agree.  Then, it’s not clear to me what the function of “nothing but” is,
> in your sentence.  But reading through your earlier posts (petri dish)
> suggests that for you closure is absolute; for me, systematicity is a
> variable and we would have to have some sort of a mutual understanding of
> where along that dimension we start calling something a system. <==nst] *
>
> Or if I can infer from the lack of response to my broaching the term, we
> could use "coherence" or some other word.
>
> *[NST==>Yes, but coherence, for me, carries more richness than what I was
> grasping for.  For you, perhaps not.  I guess “coherence” is ok.  <==nst] *
>
>  And that means that your working definition is not naive.
>
> *[NST==>Huh?  You mean I don’t get to be in charge of whether I am naïve,
> or not?  Are you some kind of behaviorist?  <==nst] *
>
>  It does rely on an intuition that many of us share.
>
> *[NST==>Bollox!  It relies on the plain meaning of the word (he said
> grumpily).  <==nst] *
>
>   But in order for you to know what you're talking about, you have to
> apply a bit more formality to that concept.
>
> *[NST==>This thread isn’t coherent for me.  Somebody asks if natural
> systems can be complex.  This is a lot of intricate talk which I frankly
> didn’t follow but which seemed to suggest that only symbol systems could be
> complex.  But I could detect no definition of complexity to warrant that
> restriction.  So I offered a definition of complexity (which may have been
> the same as yours – forgive me), offered an example of a natural complex
> system, a hurricane, and came to the conclusion that indeed, some natural
> systems are complex.  To my knowledge, nobody has addressed that claim.
> But I have been traveling, my eye sight sucks, and I may have missed it.
> If anybody has addressed this claim, could somebody direct me to a copy of
> their post.  I would be grateful. <==nst] *
>
>
>
> *Perhaps Steve Smith, who has often rescued me when I have made these
> messes in the past, could gently point out to me my error.  *
>
>
>
> *Top temperature today 49 degrees.  90’s predicted for next week. I am
> ready. *
>
>
>
> *Best to you all, *
>
>
>
> *Nick *
>
>
>
>
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>
>
> On 06/06/2017 07:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> > Dear Eric and Steve, and the gang,
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > When I first moved to Santa Fe on Sabbatical 12 years ago, I was merely
> 67, and there was a chance, just a chance, that I might become expert
> enough in complexity science and model programming  to deal with you guys
> on a somewhat equal footing.  But that never happened, and, now, it is too
> late.  I am amazed by the intricacy of your discussion and the broad reach
> of your thought.  There is really little more than I can do then wish you
> all well, and back out of the conversation with my head bowed and my hat
> clasped to my chest.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Before I leave this conversation, I would like to offer the dubious
> benefits of what expertise I do have, which concerns the perils of circular
> reasoning.  I come by that expertise honestly, through years of struggling
> with the odd paradox of evolutionary biology and psychology, that neither
> field seems every to quite get on with the business of explaining the
> design of things.  When George Williams famously defined adaptation as
> whatever natural selection produces he forever foreclosed to himself and
> his legions of followers, the possibility of saying what sort of a world an
> adapted world is, what the products of natural selection are like.  One of
> you has pointed out that this is an old hobby horse with me, and suggested,
> perhaps, that it's time to drag the old nag to the glue factory.  But I
> intend to give it one last outing.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > So, I have a question for you all:  Do you guys know what you are
> talking about?!  Now I DON’T mean that how it sounds.  I don’t mean to
> question your deep knowledge of the technology and theory of complexity.
> Hardly.  What I do mean to ask is if,  perhaps, you may sometimes lose
> sight of the phenomenon you are trying to explain, the mystery you hope to
> solve.  Natural selection theory became so sophisticated, well-developed
> and intricate that its practitioners lost track of the phenomenon they were
> trying to account for, the mystery they were trying to solve.  We never
> developed a descriptive mathematics of design to complement our elaborate
> explanatory mathematics of natural selection.  Until we have such a
> descriptive system, natural selection theory is just a series of ad hoc
> inventions, not a theory subject to falsification but  “a metaphysical
> research program” as Popper once famously said, which can always be
> rejiggered to be correct.   Is there a risk of an analogous problem in
> complexity science?  You will have to say.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > So, I will ask the question again:  Do you guys know what you are
> talking about?!  What is complexity??  If the answer you give is in terms
> of the deeply technical, causal language of your field, there is a danger
> that you have lost sight of what it is you are trying to account for.  And
> here a little bit of naivety could be very helpful. Naivety is all I have
> to offer, I will offer it.  Whatever complexity might be, it is the
> opposite of simplicity, no?  It is in that spirit that I propose a working
> definition of complexity with which to explore this thread’s question:
> “Are any non-biological systems complex?”
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > An object is any collection or entity designated for the purposes of
> conversation.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > A system is a set of objects that interact more closely with one another
> than they do with entities outside the set.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > A system is complex if the objects that compose it are themselves
> systems.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Only when complex systems have been clearly defined, is it rational to
> ask the question, “Are any natural systems complex?”  Now you may not like
> my definition, but I think you will agree that once it is accepted, the
> answer to the question is clearly, “Yes!”
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >                 Take hurricanes.  Is a hurricane composed of
> thunderstorms?  Clearly, Yes.  Are thunderstorms themselves systems. This
> is a bit less clear, because the boundaries among thunderstorms in a
> hurricane may be a bit hazy, but if one thinks of a thunderstorm as a
> convective cell -- a column of rising air and its related low level inflow
> and high level outflow – then a thunderstorm is definitely a system, and a
> hurricanes are made up of them.  Hurricanes may also display an
> intermediate system-level, a spiral band, which consists of a system of
> thunderstorms spiraling in toward the hurricane’s center.  Thus, a
> hurricane could easily be shown to be a three-level complex system.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Notice that this way preceding saves all the intricate explanatory
> apparatus of complexity theory for the job of accounting for how hurricanes
> come about. Now we can ask the question, What kinds of energy flows (insert
> correct terminology, here) occur in all complex systems?   Notice also,
> that this procedure prevents any of us from importing his favorite
> explanation for complex systems into their definition, guaranteeing the
> truth of the explanation no matter what the facts might be, and rendering
> the theory vacuous.  .
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > One last comment.  When I wrote that perhaps we might inquire of the
> system whether it is complex or not, I left myself wide open to be
> misunderstood.  I meant only to say, that it is the properties of the
> system, itself, not its causes, that should determine the answer to the
> question.  Remember that, in all matters, I am a behaviorist.  If I would
> distrust your answer concerning whether you are hungry or not, I certainly
> would not trust a systems answer concerning whether it is complex or not.
>
>
>
> --
>
> ␦glen?
>
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