[FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

Thu May 25 17:48:39 EDT 2017

Much joy and merriment to you and yours on your vacation.

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 3:14 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think the weather example rests on the likelihood that we could have
> complex weather without biology.
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 1:26 PM Steve <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>> And I agree completely with the idea of zooming in (enough) to be at
>> least hunting subSnarks on a domain composed almost entirely of Snarks...
>> ((Or Snarkbait?)
>>
>> Beating the dead snark, I was mildly perturbed by the implication that
>> the complexity of weather systems was more than incidentally dependent on
>> the biological systems that might infiorm them (transpiration from forest
>> or savannah, light absorption by algae, methane from cattle and termites,
>> etc)
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> > On May 25, 2017, at 1:39 PM, glen ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > I agree completely.  But if we look carefully at Russ' question:
>> >
>> >> On 05/24/2017 11:00 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
>> >> Can we think of anything that is non-biological, non-human, and not a
>> biological or human artifact that would qualify as an agent based system?
>> >
>> > And we consider the previous comments about biology creeping into
>> (even!) weather patterns and climate, and whether complexity is invariant
>> through the reduction to physics ... and we can even extend that to
>> something like Smolin's fecund universe, etc ad forever, it becomes clear
>> that we're hunting the snark.  And I suppose the wisdom of traditions like
>> Buddhism and such, as well as the falsification/selection approach of
>> critical rationalism, _strongly_ suggest to us what Harley Davidson tells
>> us on a regular basis: The journey is the destination.
>> >
>> > So, rather than talk about the elusive snark, why not talk explicitly
>> about the journey ... the workflow, the tools, the thing(s) right in front
>> of our face/hands?  E.g. topological insulators don't look at all plectic
>> to me.  So, I'd be very interested to hear why y'all think they are.  (By
>> using "plectic", I'm admitting that I don't understand quantum physics; so
>> sure, they're mysterious... but how are they complex in the way we're using
>> the term, here?)
>> >
>> > But I'm more interested in well-defined concepts of agents than I im in
>> well-defined concepts of complex systems.  So, what type of agents are we
>> talking about?  Kauffman's "thermodynamic agents"?  Zero intelligence
>> agents?  BDI-capable agents?  Etc.  These concrete details would put us
>> squarely inside the journey and outside the destination.
>> >
>> >
>> >> On 05/25/2017 12:21 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> >> MY point (at least, not trying to speak for others) was/is that
>> "interesting", "life", and "complexity" might very well be highly
>> superposed or even "conjugated" (to introduce an extremely overloaded
>> technical term).
>> >>
>> >> I suppose to disambiguate, I believe that "Life" is a subset of
>> "Complex Systems" and life in the larger sense of ALife is a larger subset
>> of complex systems, though probably still a *proper* subset? The outer
>> bounds of he vagueness of "Life" convolved with the inner bounds of
>> vagueness of Complex Systems might allow them to become identical?  The
>> question of "Interesting" seems to be sharpened (or is it dulled?) by the
>> subjectivity of the term...  I suppose "interesting" is usually defined by
>> being simultaneously "familiar enough to be relevant" and "unfamiliar
>> enough to be novel".  Since we are LIfe ourselves, it seems likely that we
>> find *life itself* at least relevant and as we expand the definition of
>> Life it becomes more novel and interesting, up to embracing all of
>> "complexity"... to the extent that the Alife movement expanded the
>> consideration from biological life to proto-life and quasi-life, I'm
>> tempted to claim that *they* would include *all* of complex systems...
>> >> admitting that the specific boundaries of all the above *are* vague.
>> >>
>> >> To re-iterate, I think there IS good evidence to consider "complex
>> systems" and "life" as highly related and it seems obvious that they would
>> be "interesting", though I suppose there should be things outside of that
>> domain which are also obviously "interesting". Agency is another hairball
>> to sort through and I won't attempt much except that in MY definition of
>> Life, "Agency" is one of the qualities of proto-life.   To that extent, it
>> would seem that complex systems composed *of* entities with agency are as
>> likely as any "biological system" to exhibit complexity, etc.
>> >>
>> >> As for "Russ clarifying his question", I think this can be a
>> rhetorical device?   It has always seemed to me that Science really
>> degenerates to "asking the right question" where when properly formulated,
>> the "answer becomes obvious"... in some sense, I think THIS is what passes
>> for elegance, the holy grail of scientific theory?
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > ☣ glen
>> > ============================================================
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>> >
>>
>> ============================================================
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>
>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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