[FRIAM] new math of complexity

[steve smith]

Steve writes:
>
>     < She starts out with simple Materialist/Vitalist contrasts but
>     alludes (nearly) to Marcus latest snark: /"//Simulate from first
>     principles: https://www.vasp.at/ >/
>
>     What’s odd is this idea there is something about nature that can’t
>     be described in a repeatable way, such that a digital computer
>     could simulate it, in principle.    Paradoxically, to defend that
>     idea, one would have to describe an experiment that could
>     illustrate counter examples -- concepts that could not be said. 
>      It is obfuscation by construction.
>
Absolutely "in principle"...

and wonderfully "concepts that could not be said" returns us to the 
domain of "effing the ineffable"...

What I'm fascinated with in the case of this work (assembly theory in 
general?) is the (potential/aspirational/proposed) qualitative 
difference between things which are possible vs things which are 
probable and perhaps a whole pantheon of subclassifications of types or 
orders of (contingent) probability (might be something like Buddhist 
"conditioned phenomena" and "dependent origination).

I think I take her point to be that there are things expressible in 
nature (specifically "life" in this case) which have not been and will 
not be described in a repeatable way until they are... and that there 
are informational (fully deterministic) processes which don't exist 
until they do.  To wit: Molecular formation and then chemical reactions 
which couldn't exist until they could (physical regimes below plasma) 
and pre-biotic organic chemistry dressing the stage for proto-biological 
processes to become A) possible and B) likely and C) 
in-some-sense-inevitable.   The autocatalysis and autopoesis of 
self-organizing systems (at all levels of abstraction and complexity) 
being salient I think.

I'd not claim that the most complicated (and complex) systems in 
existence can't be simulated en-silico (more aptly en-digitalia?) but 
rather that as each new phase of organization of matter and energy that 
emerges as the universe unfolds is "non-prestateable"...  only that it 
is unlikely (different than entirely impossible) that the complexity 
(and therefore mean-time-to-discovery/expression/autocatalysis).

While evolutionary processes of life seem to have 
achieved/discovered/emerged "eyes" (sight organs) several (11?) times,  
so much (all) of life (and other complex adaptive systems) occurs at the 
tip of the current scaffolding in place.

This topic explodes (flying off in all directions at once as I am wont 
to do) out into the questions implied in daveW's work on evolution V 
engineering (in Business Systems).  My understandiing of assembly theory 
is at best nascent/formative/inchoate so I won't try to push it any 
further here.   I suspect that there are several here who have a better 
grasp on assembly theory and perhaps their own nascent thoughts about 
these questions (probability V possibility) and information-theoretic 
measures of emergent complexity than I do...  perhaps I am just "tossing 
a word salad" here (to mix metaphors win a way Doug Roberts would be proud)?

ericS, jonZ, REC, SG, yourself and gepr all come to mind (I know there 
are more I'm not naming) as folks who have been raising and fighting 
dogs in very salient domains for their whole career.  Me, I mostly just 
bet on them.

- Steve

>
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoomhttps://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIChttp://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru presenthttps://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>    1/2003 thru 6/2021http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20240614/8b20967a/attachment.html>