[FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

Thu Jun 8 00:34:42 EDT 2017

Russ, 

Thanks for continuing to press on this. 

Before Roger C., went to Sea in Boston Harbor, he gave me a wonderful History of Chemistry, which I valiantly read from cover to cover.  Of course, I understood very little of it, but I brought it with me to the Mosquito Infested Swamp, and I plan to have another go, this summer.  

One of the points of the Lipton and Thompson article that I pressed on Glen is that recursive (reflexive?) explanations – explanations that  mention the explanandum in the explanans but are not strictly circular -- may serve as place holders for the real thing as scientists home in on it.  So, “the aids vector” could have served as a recursive explanation for AIDS before folks knew whether that vector was a virus or a bacterium.  That sort of sounds like what you are saying.  

But if one allows recursive explanations, one has to be absolutely clear that they are explanations only up to a point, and beyond that point they are assertions of ignorance.  So, before an audience of South Africans a decade ago, “AIDS is caused by the AIDS vector” would have been an explanation, because South Africans denied at that time that aids was caused by any vector.  Before an American scientific audience at that time, it would simply have been a declaration of ignorance.  

And I still don’t think that lets you-guys off the hook  of identifying the citadel you intend to assault before you bring up your siege engines and your catapults.  

Nick  

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 11:49 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

Seems backwards to me. Another example is atomic weight as characterizing elements. (I'm afraid I don't remember the details of the story.) Before we understood isotopes scientists were confused that different samples of what seemed like the same element had different weights. If an element type is characterized by its atomic weight, which was the original inclination, that would have produced wrong categories. Element types are defined by the number of protons in the nucleus, independent of the number of neutrons, which is what fouls up the atomic weight approach. But if you pushed scientists to commit to a definition of element type too early that would have fouled everything up. It was only after we understood more about the phenomena we were trying to categorize that we were able to come up with an appropriate definition. 

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 6:03 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Russ, 

You have a knack for lining things up for me: i.e., putting them in ways that maximize my ability to make the distinctions I want to make.  You wrote: 

Nick, it's my understanding that "species" is not well defined in biology. Yet we tend to use the term and don't get ourselves in too much trouble. "Complex system" is probably a similarly undefined by useful pseudo-category.

Well, “species” is a wonderful example of the very problem of “painting ourselves into a corner” that I want to talk about.  So, in Darwin’s time, the the notion of species as a kind was not in dispute.  The question was, How did these kinds come about, and Darwin theorized that they came  about not through creation but through diversifying natural selectionl  This view became so orthodox that in time the species was DEFINED as a reproductivelly isolated population. This lasted only until people began to notice that some creatures became very different without being reproductively isolated (“ring” species) and some reproductively isolate populations did not produce different species (I think this was mice in large midwestern chicken barns, but I don’t remember for sure) .  Then there was that wonderful example on the Galapagos Islands, where the finches speciated every 4 – 8 years depending on El Nino.   It’s been a while since I have had anybody to talk to about this, but I get the impression that the matter stands approximately there.  To my knowledge, nobody has ever worked with the plain phenomological fact that animals seem to be sort of arrayed in sorts.  This discontinuity in character possession is the fact that, once we give up on God, needs explaining.  Why do animals come in ‘sort-of sorts”?   And what is the role of natural selection, reproductive isolation, and other factors in contributing to this sortiness.  But without a formal definition of “sortiness” and perhaps also a mathematical description, the work of answering that question can’t go forward. 

What may be subject to challenge here is my assumption that a science cannot usefully go forward without explit descriptoins of the phenomena it is hoping to explain because its practioners never know if they are talking about the same thing.  So their explanatory hypothises are confounded with descrptive vicissitudes.  

I don’t know what the troll business was about.  I asked Owen and he hasn’t answered yet.  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 8:00 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

Notwithstanding the trolls, lurking trolls, and meta-trolls, let me address the issue.

My sense is that the term "complex system" was used to refer to systems that seemed to have properties that were not common in other (physics-based) systems. I don't think the term was ever intended to characterize a class of systems in a formal sense. It was more an informal way of saying that some system probably won't yield to traditional analysis. 

That raises two questions. (1) What are those properties that systems we (informally) call complex posses that other systems don't. (2) Do we want to want to define the term "complex system" formally, e.g., the way mathematician define a group, so that we might, perhaps, prove theorems about systems that satisfy the definition?

My answers are: (1) Yes, it's useful to try to pin down the properties that tend to make systems resistant to traditional analysis. (2) No. "Complex System" is not a formally defined type (or as philosophers say "kind") in the way a mathematical group is. Nick, it's my understanding that "species" is not well defined in biology. Yet we tend to use the term and don't get ourselves in too much trouble. "Complex system" is probably a similarly undefined by useful pseudo-category.

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 2:08 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

I guess there’s stuff to pick apart there, but a troll would make me feel compelled to do so from a place of poor footing.  How is Russ’ post an instance of that?    Or is this a meta troll?

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 2:40 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

Troll

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:28 AM, Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com <mailto:russ.abbott at gmail.com> > wrote:

Nick,

When you say "This is a great test," I'm not sure what the "this" is. Would you mind saying what it is again.

In partial answer to your question about what's left to explain, let me quote a list of bullet points I recently wrote when writing about urban systems.

*	Urban systems are open (in the system sense of openness). They exchange materials and energy with the world beyond their boundaries. 

*	Urban systems are chaotic (in the formal sense). Small changes in initial conditions may produce very different results. 

*	Urban systems are path-dependent. 

*	Urban systems are subject to paradoxes and unintended consequences. 

*	Urban systems involve disproportionate causality. Small causes may produce large effects. 

*	Urban systems are adaptive and change through evolutionary processes. 

*	Urban systems typically involve multiple (and often large) numbers of agents or equivalent sources of energy. As discussed below, many of these are causally autonomous.

*	Urban systems are not in equilibrium. 

*	Urban systems must be sustainable, i.e., it remains within a range of relatively familiar or foreseeable states.

*	Urban systems must be resilient, with mechanisms to return to an acceptable state after a serious disruption. 

*	Urban systems must also remain flexible and vital with means to adapt to changing conditions. 

These tend to be qualities we attribute to (most?) complex systems. Do we want to say that all complex systems (most?) have these qualities? Do we want to ask how a complex system defined according to definition X necessarily develops these qualities or provably has them?

Is this what you are getting at?

-- Russ   

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 10:00 AM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Hi, Russ, 

Something Glen said suggests to me that my concerns about circularity are detracking this thread from its Higher Purpose.  I have therefore started a new thread.  

Thanks for providing this definition.  It really helps to mark my concern.  I would argue that what you are offering here is an explanation of complex systems, and that this definition actually begs the question of what is a complex system.  Yeah.  I know.  Where do I muster the arrogance to make such an assertion?  

Try this:  Let it be the case that you define complex systems in the way you have, what is left to be explained about  them?  In other words, if this is what complex systems ARE, what are you still curious about?  

If you take seriously the definition of complex system I have given (or some other non-explanatory definition), then your definition here becomes a [heuristic]  theory of complex systems.  It answers the question, How did complex systems come about?  What are the essential conditions for the occurrence of such systems.  And we can precede to ask ourselves, as an empirical matter, how many of these features are actually necessary (or sufficient) for a complex system to arise.  From my point of view, what complexity-folk always do is insist that discussants endorse a particularly explanatory metaphor BEFORE any question can be raised.  That would be like insisting that discussants endorse the proposition that natural selection explains evolution before we get to ask the question, What is evolution and how did it come about?  

This is a great test.  If I cannot convince you, and the others, to see any possible perils in the sort of definition you offer here, then you probably should just go back to “painting the floor” and leave me to rave in peace about the fact that there is no door in the corner you are so skillfully painting.  

Thanks for putting the matter so clearly.  Clarity is an absolute necessity for progress.  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 12:21 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

I didn't define complex system. (Actually, this thread is so long I may have offered one. I don't remember.)  

I take a complex system to be a system (do we need to define that? Presumably some collection of interacting entities around which one can draw a boundary that distinguishes the collection from its environment.) that has the following characteristics/capabilities.

*	It can acquire and store free energy, e.g., as fat biologically or stress geologically. The free energy is acquired from outside the system.
*	It does that in multiple (more or less) independent ways, (E.g., lots of "agents.")
*	Those reservoirs of free energy can be released by triggers. (E.g., there are switches that open and close the flow of energy from these reservoirs.)
*	The released energy flows in some cases act as triggers, i.e., they flip switches, to release other energy flows. 

I think that's the core of it. (I haven't attempted to develop a complete definition. I'm not sure it's worth doing.)

I would like an additional feature, although I'm unsure to what extent I would consider it necessary.

*	The system operates in part on the basis of symbols, i.e., information. (I'm not sure things other than biological systems and human artifacts do that, which is what probably prompted my question in the first place.)

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 9:05 AM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Russ, 

I seem to be missing some of the correspondence, and I apologize for that.  Thanks for updating me. 

So, did you also, in your post, offer a definition of “complex system” that excludes hurricanes?  

I am, as you would predict, a little troubled by your locution, “that uses energy.”  Seems somehow to suggest that the hurricane, as a system, exists in advance of the energy flows that make it happen.  The “use” metaphor – I use a hammer to hit a nail – implies that both me and the hammer exist before the use takes place.  If we use the hurricane as a metaphor for nail use, the nail and the hammer construct me to use them, or something like that.  That formulation is weird, also, but sufficient to make my point. 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2017 12:46 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

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 <mailto: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 <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 <mailto: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 <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychology_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations%3c==nst> <==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 

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?

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe  <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC  <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20170608/8987541f/attachment-0001.html>