[FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[Stephen Guerin]

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Stephen.Guerin at Simtable.com <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
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On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 12:10 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> 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.
>

In my post, I said it is *not* arbitrary. It's a function of what the
researcher is trying to use it for or explain.


>
>
> 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.
>

Yes you could model the movement in a simpler way by modeling the movement
of the center point. And that was my second model of a hurricane as a
random walker biased by a global wind vector and Coriolis curve term. And I
said that was not a complex system.


>
>
> 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.
>

I agree about complex systems as having multiple layers - a macro scale and
a micro scale. I would say there's one system. If I was trying to model a
hurricane in my first example of an emergent vortex dissipating temperature
and pressure gradients, I would model the air with a combination of air
particles and patches of air - at LANL they would describe these as
particle in a box models or hybrid lagrangian and eulerian models. I would
not introduce thunderstorms at the micro level. But there's many ways to
skin a hurricane :-)

Some would say the micro level air particles and air cell components which
I would model as finite state machines (agents with a lower case "a") are
systems in their own right and have boundaries. I don't see the benefit of
calling them systems as their aren't multiple interacting components within
them. But don't feel like arguing too hard here.

>
>
> Eric Smith?
>
>
>
Yes, where are you Eric Smith <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIFJLMyUwrg>?
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