[FRIAM] Automata with FFT

[glen]

Such efforts seem so inherently metaphorical it's difficult for me to approach a concrete conversation. For example, I have a couple of biologist friends, one meso (bugs) and one macro (ungulates), who thought I was being contrarian when I challenged their assertion that biodiversity in urban areas was *obviously* lower than that of natural areas like forests. Of course, I admit my ignorance up front. Maybe they are. But it's just not obvious to me.

Since then, they've presented (meso and macro) arguments that justify their position. It does seem obvious that urban areas trend to more adaptable animals like coyotes and raccoons and less so to, say, deer. The bugs are more interesting. Meso guy found some articles that show "species" diversity in urban areas is roughly the same as natural areas. But phylogenetic diversity is clearly lower in urban areas. That seems counter intuitive to me. It's a cool result.

My main point when I originally expressed skepticism, though, was about microbial diversity. Is it possible that bug-layer and microbe-layer (including what lives in/on large animals like rats and humans) diversity makes up for lower diversity in large-layers?

I *feel* that projects like Chan's could help with this question since it seems prohibitively expensive to sample and test enough microbial populations of urban and wild areas, especially if we include intra-animal populations. I'm just not sure *how* they could help.

On 9/24/22 03:38, David Eric Smith wrote:
> It’s funny; I know Bert.
> 
> One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work at Google in Tokyo.
> 
> A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS
> https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish <https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish>
> is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, though I have only a glancing exposure to how those two together are trying to frame the problems.  Because Bert has come at it more from the ALife/engineering approach, and Will’s interests run more in the direction of proving capabilities of broad classes of systems, often interested in their aggregation as categories  (and also about the role of simulation as a replacement for proof in systems that produce complicated enough state spaces), it should be a productive and interesting collaboration.  I don’t know how engaged others are in the Google group on this specific project, because I am too far outside that loop.
> 
> Eric
> 
>> On Sep 23, 2022, at 4:03 PM, Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com <mailto:jonzingale at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.05433.pdf <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.05433.pdf>


-- 
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ