[FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

Steven A Smith sasmyth at swcp.com
Fri May 26 00:03:42 EDT 2017 

..

And in the spirit of beating a dead horse about the head and shoulders 
with a wet noodle made of well mixed metaphors, I offer the following 
scholarly support (I hope) for my preferred use of the term "to inform" 
in this case.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/717d/bc6f72b99e7bc13a971ccf8bce4d5b4db35e.pdf

- Sieve

On 5/25/17 9:54 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> 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
>>>
>>> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>>
>>> > FRIAM-COMIC 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> to unsubscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>> FRIAM-COMIChttp://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 unsubscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIChttp://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/20170525/e1f9c5c4/attachment.html>

More information about the Friam mailing list