[FRIAM] IS: Ruminations from the M.I. S. WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

[Steven A Smith]

> You all be glad to know that I have been in New England for the last three days and have yet to see the sun. The green is overpowering.
My father, who emigrated to the west from KY after WWII referred to this 
as "so green, it hurts your eyes!"
> Apparently, they had a record-breakingly warm February here followed by and equally record-breakingly cold March which has resulted in in an eruption of ticks.  Yes, folks, this year, even the ticks have ticks.
I hear it is this way in the upper midwest/great-lakes region as well.
>   
>
>    While I was traveling, you all suddenly had a burst of Complexity Talk, which I am now trying to recapture.
...
>   Many of my ilk have died for the lack of good, fresh, passionate argument to submit to a Journal.
I am sympathetic with your desire to capture/render some of these 
informal/semi-formal discussions in a more formal form, but believe that 
a good portion of the back and forth here is _mere_ collective 
brainstorming.   In this particular round-robin, I see Russ having had a 
very specific (but not completely exposed) idea about the boundary 
region between life and non-biological complex systems, which he posed 
as a challenge.

A number of us threw down in various forms, mostly trying to answer his 
specific question, or in my case asking him if he wasn't really noticing 
that there may be no clear boundary between life and non-biological 
complex systems... suggesting that it is our definition of "life itself" 
which deserves a constant expanding.   I think Glen's listing of 
precedents for this question, roughly from Rosen to Kauffman was another 
way of suggesting that, though I've been wrong about what Glen means before.

I am also a firm believer that what we often do (when we do it well) in 
this type of forum is to refine a question until it may (or may not) 
have a simple or obvious (but non-trivial?) answer.

I think the residue of the discussion, as refactored by Stephen Guerin 
is still a very much alive horse worth beating, or at least leading to 
water.

I am afraid that what is needed is not a better mechanical *threading* 
tool to preserve these discussions (I can easily sort my inbox by 
subject/date and recover the thread (and others could do the same on the 
archive)).   Merely capturing the discussion as it was 
generated/played-out does not achieve more than the baseline of what you 
want I think.   There may be automatic semantic processing tools which 
could help to tie all of this together into something more structured 
than a series of "he said/he said" arcs.   There are complex references 
within this corpus and much richer references to the larger corpus of 
writing on the topic(s) (complexity science, life, etc.)

It feels as if what you are wishing for is an automated "editor" in the 
broadest sense, including the role of curator and summarizer. Or maybe 
just the tools to aid a human in that process.   I know you have talked 
this up many times and it often falls dead or gets you a round of 
razzing, so I don't want to instigate that.  I don't know how often your 
role has been as an editor of others' technical work, but is it fair to 
say that is where you are looking for leverage?
>   
>
> Also, while I am in a reflective mood, it is probably time for me to apologize to Steve S. for my rhetorical snark.  Actually, his use of in form is normative.
I didn't mind your snark at all, it was a good excuse to engage with 
you, if only in a simple riposte.   I do think that the use of language 
is important and our current (ab)uses at the highest levels of 
government and politics(for example) which play off the most base 
(mis)uses by the populist populace (aka unwashed masses) makes it feel 
ever more urgent.
>   (I have seen dictionaries that make his usage the FIRST usage.)  So actually, I have NO normative leg to stand on.  To bulk up my critique of his use of the word, I have to build a much bigger argument concerning the use of words that have two meanings in place of words that have but one in the hope of avoiding two-close scrutiny of the meaning being conveyed.  But even that argument is shaky, because SS could say, I meant EXACTLY what I said.  I MEANT to say that something ... some speech, some idea, some event ... shaped the inside of something.
I WILL cop to a propensity of deliberate use of slightly unfamiliar 
words or familiar words in unfamiliar contexts... I don't like to think 
I do it for simple effect, I like to think I *usually* do it to draw 
attention to the specificity of the usage.  In this case, I felt there 
were nuances suggested by "inform" over "shape" (as I've already 
argued... not arguing here... just illustrating).
>    And now, those of you who know me well, will see the actual source of my disgruttlement with his usage:  my behaviorism.  [OH GAWD, THOMPSON, DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS?]  For a behaviorist, the metaphor implied by "information" itself is profoundly dangerous because it appeals to the shape of something which we cannot see.  Even when we speak of informing somebody in the normative, everyday usage, we are obfuscating.  Speech influences behavior at least in some long-term global sense, or it does nothing at all.  (Yes, Frank, it's true! (};-)]  )
I do hope we can sit for many hours some day and for me to let you 
edjumicate me a little more on the broader implications of being a 
behaviorist.  I"d like to understand better how that informs (gak!) your 
worldview and the things you find it easier to discuss in a particular 
mode and the things you find more difficult to think around.
> Lord knows, I miss you all!  If anybody has the energy to summarize your recent complexity debate, I would be in your debt.
I doubt my summary is of the kind you want, more of a blow-by-blow than 
anything, but I do hope the discussion proceeds in a way that is useful 
to you.  Your own tradition of scholarship and un) questions of the rest 
of us.

I think Glen Biohazard's comment "without a secretary, there is no 
artifact"...  Are you therefore maybe asking for a "mechanical 
secretarial turk"?

Carry on!
  - Steve
>    
>
> 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 gepr
> Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2017 7:38 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>; Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?
>
> I've struggled to understand your point here. Are you saying that, eg, a phase diagram of a device like a refrigerator, with ice in the freezer part, jello in the fridge part, and coolant in the compressor:
>
> 1. violates a definition of 'space',
> 2. cannot exist,
> 3. reduces to a common, atomic, phase space, or 4. something else?
>
>
>
> On May 26, 2017 5:39:40 PM PDT, Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com> wrote:
>> We disagree on the use of systems and subsystems in the context of
>> phase space then. To me, there is one system and that system has a
>> phase space - There are not multiple subsystems in the phase space.
> --
> ⛧glen⛧
>
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