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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>The book I ordered that was recommended by Marcus was on information theory as a mode of analysis for social sciences. So, I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to Rosen. But we’ll see. It should be here by Monday. I will let you know. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Rosen died in 1998. <i>Life Itself</i> seems to have been his last monograph, and it presents itself as a summary of his previous work. There are several posthumous publications, but these seem mostly to be republications of the works on which <i>LI</i> was based. So, <i>LI</i> might be your best shot. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Nicholas S. Thompson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Clark University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Friam [mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Kennison<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, October 25, 2018 4:13 PM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] On old question<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div id=divtagdefaultwrapper><p><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'>Hi Nick,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'>I'm thinking I should look at a newer book by Rosen and see if it seems. better than "Life Itself". Do you think that the book you ordered (I'm not certain what it was) would be good? Or, alternatively, what is the best recent book by Rosen?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'>--John <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><hr size=2 width="98%" align=center></div><div id=divRplyFwdMsg><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black'> Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> on behalf of Nick Thompson <<a href="mailto:nickthompson@earthlink.net">nickthompson@earthlink.net</a>><br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, October 24, 2018 3:38:32 PM<br><b>To:</b> 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] On old question</span> <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><div><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Thanks, Marcus, </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>I ordered the book. Time I revived old memory traces. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nick </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nicholas S. Thompson</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Clark University</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=xmsonormal><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=xmsonormal><b>From:</b> Friam [<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com">mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Marcus Daniels<br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, October 24, 2018 12:56 AM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="mailto:Friam@redfish.com">Friam@redfish.com</a>>; Roger Critchlow <<a href="mailto:rec@elf.org">rec@elf.org</a>><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] On old question<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Nick,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>It sounds like you are describing mutual information. This is ancient, but a nice overview of related topics:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Information-Theory-Qualitative-Quantitative-Applications/dp/0803921322">https://www.amazon.com/Information-Theory-Qualitative-Quantitative-Applications/dp/0803921322</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Marcus<o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=xmsonormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>From: </span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> on behalf of Nick Thompson <<a href="mailto:nickthompson@earthlink.net">nickthompson@earthlink.net</a>><br><b>Reply-To: </b>The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="mailto:Friam@redfish.com">Friam@redfish.com</a>><br><b>Date: </b>Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 12:22 AM<br><b>To: </b>Roger Critchlow <<a href="mailto:rec@elf.org">rec@elf.org</a>>, Friam <<a href="mailto:Friam@redfish.com">Friam@redfish.com</a>><br><b>Subject: </b>[FRIAM] On old question</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=xmsonormal>Dear Roger, and anybody else who wants to play, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>While waiting for my paper, <i>Signs and Designs</i>, to be rejected, I have gone back to thinking about an old project, whose working title has been “<i>A Sign Language</i>.” And this has led me back to Robert Rosen, whose <i>Life Itself</i> I bought almost 9 years ago and it has remained almost pristine, ever since. In the chapter I am now looking at, Rosen is talking about “organization.” Now, I have been thinking about organization ever since I read C. Ray Carpenter’s early work on primate groups back in the late 50’s. It seemed to me at the time, and it seems to me reasonable now, to define the organization of a set of entities as related in some way to the degree to which one can predict the behavior of one entity from knowledge about another. Now the relationship is not straightforward, because neither total unpredictability (every monkey behaves exactly the same as every other monkey in every situation) nor total unpredictability (no monkey behaves like any other monkey in ANY situation) smacks of great organization. The highest levels organization, speaking inexpertly and intuitively, seem to correspond to intermediate levels of predictability, where there were several classes of individuals within a group and within class predictability was strong but cross-class predictability was weak. On my account, the highest levels of organization involve hierarchies of predictability. Thus honey bees and ants are more organized than starling flocks, say. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>This is where the matter stood at the point that I came to Santa Fe and started interacting with you guys 14 years ago. You-all introduced me to a totally different notion of organization based – shudder – on the second law. But I have never been able to deploy your concept with any assurance. So, for instance, when I shake the salad dressing, I feel like I am disorganizing it, and when it reasserts itself into layers, I feel like it ought to be called more organized. But I have a feeling that you are going to tell me that the reverse is true. That, given the molecules of fat and water/acid, that the layered state is the less organized state. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Now this confusion of mine takes on importance when I try to read Rosen. He defines a function as the difference that occurs when one removes a component of a system. I can see no reason why the oil or the water in my salad dressing cannot be thought of components of a system and if, for instance, I were to siphon out the water from the bottom of my layered salad dressing, I could claim that the function of the water had been to hold the water up. This seems a rather lame notion of function. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Some of you who have been on this list forever will remember that I raised the same kind of worry almost a decade back when I noticed the drainage of water from a basin was actually <i>slowed </i>by the formation of a vortex. This seemed to dispel any notion that vortices are structures whose function is to efficiently dispel a gradient. It also violated my intuition from traffic flows, where I imagine that rigid rules of priority would facilitate the flow of people crossing bridges to escape Zozobra. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>It’s quite possible that my confusions in this matter are of no great general applicability, in which case, I look forward to being ignored. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Nick <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Nicholas S. Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology<o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal>Clark University<o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/">http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=xmsonormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>