[FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Nick Thompson]

SG,

 

There are now THREE issues lurking here between us. 

 

IS THE CRITERION FOR A SYSTEM ARBITRARY: You say yes; I say no.  We’ve already covered that ground. 

 

IS A HURRICANE A SYSTEM:  For me, that is the question of whether the collection of thunderstorms we call a hurricane interact with one another more than they interact with their collective surroundings.  Another way to put this question is in terms of redundancy.  If we were to go about describing the movements of the thunderstorms of a hurricane, would we get a simpler, less redundant description if we referred their movements to the center of the hurricane.  I think the answer to this question is clearly YES. 

 

IS A HURRICANE COMPLEX?  For me, complexity means “multi-layered” .  So, a complex system is one composed of other systems.  A hurricane is a system of thunderstorms which themselves are a system of thermals (handwaving, here).  Thus a hurricane is at least a three-level system.  So, yes.  It is complex. 

 

SS, am I splitting hairs or playing at language?  Absolutely not.  Or if I am, shoot me now before I do more harm. What we are arguing about here is whether complexity science actually has a wet edge, or whether you are painting yourselves into a corner.   I gather that you, and most of the folks on this list want to define complex in terms of its dynamics.  In other words you want to define Complexity-sub-SG as the causes of complexity-sub-NST. My suspicion is that this kind of definition will lead you into a devastating circularity loop, similar to the circularity loop that follows when people define adaptation as whatever natural selection produces.  Being in a circularity loop is like participating in a square dance; it’s lots of fun, and you work up a sweat, but you don’t actually get anywhere. It is circular reasoning, I suspect, that gives complexity talk some of the aura of a cult.  

 

Now, circularity in scientific reasoning is not quite the anti-heuristic poison I have always taken it to be.  Much interesting research has been done within the circular adaptionist frame work of contemporary evolutionary psychology, for instance;  I don’t know complexity science well enough to say, but the success of Simtable is evidence enough to me of its creativity.  But, I would argue, that despite all this scientific activity, not much progress has been made concerning the fundamental question of the selective origins of natural design.  In a similar way, hearing you guys argue, I wonder if much progress has been made on the question of what conditions make possible the spontaneous progressive layering of natural systems.   Or if it has been done, it has been done by people who did not define complexity in terms of its processes, but rather in terms of its products. 

 

Eric Smith?  

 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2017 1:11 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

 

 Nick asks:

Is a hurricane a “complex system”? 

 

It depends. What is your metaphor (model) of a hurricane? 

 

If I wanted to understand how a hurricane forms, I might model dissipative structure formation in the presence of temperature and pressure gradients. I would call this a complex system.

 

If I needed to add a hurricane track simulation to our Simtable, for the purposes of how my customers would use it for emergency planning, it would probably be enough to model its track as a random walker biased by global winds and a curve parameter to represent the Coriolis effect. I would not call this a complex system.

 

 

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