[FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

Steven A Smith sasmyth at swcp.com
Thu May 25 23:54:51 EDT 2017 

Nick-

Just to be contrarian, I have to ask how much the heat, humidity and 
mosquito-flux of MA "shaped" the mood of your response?  I would still 
be tempted to suggest that those factors "informed" your mood and 
therefore response more than to have "shaped" them...

Just sayin'

  - Steve


On 5/25/17 9:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> Nick -
>
> I'm sorry to break into your travel plans/recovery with my (ab)use of 
> language.
>
> Unfortunately I do not remember any such admonishment in the past but 
> am happy to take it in the moment.  I can tell that this is one of 
> your hot-buttons...  maybe right up there with dangling participles or 
> conflation of "it's" and "its" or "there", "they're" and "their"?
>
> I agree that "inform" is a much too fancy word for the simple act of 
> "shaping".  As a sometimes poet, I am quite happy to use the simplest 
> or most apt word in a given situation.
>
> That said, I suppose I will *try* to defend my use of the word 
> "inform" in this context.  My working definition of "inform" in this 
> context is "to provide qualitatively unspecified input to".
>
> Going mildly against Glen's gripe with vagueness, I would claim that 
> "inform" is more apt than "shape" in this case and chosen partly FOR 
> it's vagueness.   I tend to reserve "shape" for geometric and 
> topological structures.  While weather (in this case) has geometric 
> structures, it is highly dynamic by nature...  I am not sure that you 
> would say that the complex feedback control system in an internal 
> combustion engine "shapes" the dynamical characteristics of said 
> engine, though perhaps one could say they "shape" the torque and power 
> curves (the curves, not the dynamics themselves)?
>
> I'm mostly happy with restricting the use of "inform" to systems which 
> provide "information"... in this case, the biological entities 
> implicated in "shaping" the weather system being information inputs to 
> the weather system?
>
> In a simple algorithmic formulation, I suppose what I intended by 
> "inform" was "to provide inputs relevant to" without specifying the 
> types of inputs.  In this case, mostly adjustments to opacity, heat 
> absorption/radiation/dispersion, and humidity.
>
> I will concede that "inform" is a bit vague and high-faluting but 
> won't as easily concede that "to shape" would be any more appropriate. 
>   Perhaps we could find a yet better term?
>
>     "the implication that the complexity of weather systems was more
>     than incidentally dependent on the biological systems that */might
>     shape/*them"
>
> doesn't really do it for me either?  Do you not agree that "shape" has 
> strong geometric (or possibly topological) connotations which are at 
> best coincidental to the subject of weather?
>
> Grrr,
>  - Steve
>
> On 5/25/17 9:08 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>
>> Steve,
>>
>> I have just arrived in MA in the Mosquito Infested Swamp and opened 
>> your message.  Now I realize that this message is part of a high 
>> minded correspondence on profound matters, and that you have EVERY 
>> reason to have forgotten yourself.  But STILL I want to remind you 
>> that you promised me years ago NEVER AGAIN to use the word "inform" 
>> where the word "shape" would do as well or better.  Now, having said 
>> this, it is now my duty to crawl backwards through this high-minded 
>> correspondence and try to ACTUALLY have something USEFUL to say about 
>> it.  You would think that you high-minded folks at FRIAM would at 
>> least give an old guy a few days to TRAVEL.
>>
>> "Inform" indeed!  Soon you'll be informing putty.  With what 
>> information will you provide that putty, as you are “informing” it.  
>> I informed the putty with my finger so that it lay smoothly against 
>> the window pane.  I informed my friend that it was time to leave for 
>> the Friam meeting; he was like putty in my hands.
>>
>> Grrr
>>
>> 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 Steve
>> Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 2:27 PM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>> <friam at redfish.com>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?
>>
>> 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 inform/*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 
>> <mailto: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
>>
>> > ============================================================
>>
>> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
>>
>> > at St. John's College to unsubscribe
>>
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>>
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>>
>> >
>>
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>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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