Subject: [NECSI] Crude Look at the Whole? Date: 7-8 June 1999
[Mark White]
>I simply meant that extermination "halts" the process of "option space exploration", not
>that extermination isn't one of the options of some prior condition-set.
But a given extermination doesn't halt life's option space exploration. Extermination is integral to the evolutionary process, recycling the molecular resources that sustain the process in successful lineages. Death is the great teacher, as evolutionary biologists say.
>And though this kind of remark seems trivial...
Not so much trivial as wrong.
>I'm concerned for the moment with your use of the word "need" in context with >self-organization, though.
Then you should address self-organization directly, rather than toss up a complexity word salad that just dances all around the point.
>...(A crude look at the whole is) hard, but not at all "too hard". In fact, I would say it's
> already been accompished. ;~)
Say what you wish, but evidence speaks louder than opinions.
Mark White
http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/7891
============
Mark White wrote:
> >I simply meant that extermination "halts" the process of "option space exploration", not
> >that extermination isn't one of the options of some prior condition-set.
> But a given extermination doesn't halt life's option space exploration.
> Extermination is integral to the evolutionary process, recycling the
> molecular resources that sustain the process in successful lineages. Death
> is the great teacher, as evolutionary biologists say.
> >And though this kind of remark seems trivial...
> Not so much trivial as wrong.
First off ... cut me some slack here. My remark was not "wrong". Extermination absolutely halts the future option spaces for the system which is exterminated, not for systems or "life" in general. You conflated my remark about a specific application with the rest of the domain that remains functioning. Death only 'teaches' the survivors, and even then, only if they have the systemic ability to incorporate the implications of the event information. Death per se 'teaches' nothing ... it only limits or expands options-available, which those and future systems which are present can function in.
> >I'm concerned for the moment with your use of the word "need" in context with
> >self-organization, though.
> Then you should address self-organization directly, rather than toss up a
> complexity word salad that just dances all around the point.
A little caustic, wouldn't you say, eh? I address "self-organization" VERY directly. I bring to this forum the notion that fractal 'emergence' and autocatalysis and autopoeisis may not be the only mechanisms of 'complexity', and that indeed there may be alternative ways of interpreting them. YOU nor ME nor any complex system boot-strapped its own existence in the universe. Simple, recursive, binary communication between agent-organizations are the minimum sufficient phenomena necessary to bind entities into behavioral coordination ...
complexity. This recursion is at the very core of fractal functions, and is their foundation. (see my NECSI 1 paper on the InterJournal site http://www.interjournal.org (#166), and my commentary of a paper by Hut, Goodwin, Kauffman (#170).)
The universe is architectured in a heirarchy in which there are many distinct "option-space" domains (embedded topologies)... and it is the interaction between them ... where they interface according to certain compatibilities .. that effect and produce "complexity".
If you want to delve into the conceptual meat of this a little better, I recommend the papers being given at the International Society for Systems Sciences conference the end of this month.
ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/isss1999/entropy.htm
ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/isss1999/oldnew.htm
Both papers have distinctive graphics which should held make my commentaries and
remarks more easily comprehendable. A 'crude look', as it were.
> >...(A crude look at the whole is) hard, but not at all "too hard". In fact, I would say it's
> > already been accompished. ;~)
> Say what you wish, but evidence speaks louder than opinions.
> Mark White
I use evidence, totally and absolutely. There is no other source from which to derive any gestalt. Benj. Whorf (1936; 1956) "Language. Thought and Reality" makes that very clear. Even my personal 'opinion' that the most important aspect of human interaction is that of 'tolerance', stems from observations of systems behaviors. Apparently you took my previous post as a personal insult of some sort when no such thing was intended or implied.
The only viewpoint that I steadfastly and openly challenge is Godel's Incompleteness theorems. (Not for what they are, as far as they state a certain case, under certain conditions, but for the fact that they axiomatically omit crucial relational information, and are therefore self-defeating ... can only result in the conclusion of "systemic limitations". Ie. they are correct under the conditions established, but not applicable to systems in general, the way as
is being popularly done these days.) This in fact is just what Don Mikulecky is trying to get across with his pushing of Robert n's ideas.
I perceive ourselves as being VERY competent at divining a "crude look at the whole". I was not rebuffing you, by my remark. Simply: Godel Limits/Bounds are NOT the principle factors in defining "system", nor do they imply a limit in human comprehension - in contemplation of gestalts, paradigms, patterns, contexts-within-contexts.
Ceptual Philosopher
"...and the dreamer shall awaken .."
Frank Herbert, "Dune"
=========Mark White wrote:
> >First off ... cut me some slack here.
> How much slack will you be needing? When you write "The arrogance of the power brokers, or
> educationally rich, to think that accumulated power or knowledge affords privileged "knowing" is
> the typical state of affairs that humanity is hopefully growing out of and beyond", you make me
> think you'll want lots of it.
Hahahahahhahaha.. :-))))))) ROFL! now I see what happened and why you reacted. Ok, here's the situation: I am standing here, arms outstretched, hands open and exposed where you can see that I'm holding no weapon. I am not financially or educationally deprived ... I AM NOT A SOCIALIST. I live a satisfying and productive life, and have had a significant amount of influence in many venues. I don't 'want' what you think I want. The only thing I want 'lots of' is general improvement in the capacity of every person to be active competent contributors to the future of this world. Not necessarily 'manipulators' mind you ... contributors.
Guaranteed, by the year 2050, I'll be long gone, out of here, a whisp of a memory ... maybe. But if I can stir one or a few individuals into making decisions in their social-impacting lives ... that they might not have considered or made, had I not existed in this world, then I'll have succeeded in adding a portion to the collective wisdom of our species and of our world. And maybe, just maybe, those future choices ... which won't even become situational options for decades or centuries or more ... will resonate like the still small voice, like the butterfly's wing, and sway the momentum of human evolution ever so slightly in the eons beyond that.
Accumulation of wealth is an absoute necessity, as far as I can tell. It's the negentropicly accumulated loci of energies which drive some special option spaces forward, make them accessible. Is that the role I want to play during my life ... hell, no! Is that the concern of many of the people at the helm and edges of Complexity Studies ... hell, yes! And those concerns are crucial. I wish every one of them God speed! It's just real damn important that the roles they
play and the achievements they make are in the best long-termed perspective. Ergo: moi!
Follow this reasoning: If "option spaces" and behaviors spaces are recognized as being SO fundamentally important (my own 1973 work being at least one of the citable commentaries in that regard ; Kauffman's "Origin" being another, and his recent foray into "adjacent possibles"; others, too) then why in the world are all/most complexity mathematicians trying to nail down the 'complete set of equations which will describe in absolute and perfect terms, the complete behavior of system such-and-such' ?!?!?!
The effort is being made to void out any and all variant behaviors ... predict system perform- ance with such a high degree of perfection that, well, if you had such equations and could apply them to the open market (before somebody else did, of course), why, YOU could get ahead of the curve,YOU could get that time-frame edge, sell higher, buy cheaper, know when the bell was going to ring announcing the curve changing from bear to bull or vice versa, and YOU could make all the money. Competive advantage in predicting certaintive performance.
We're working to establish a mathematical architecture which goes absolutely against the fundamental property of Complex Systems ... the ability to adapt and change in the face of alternative environmental conditions and events.
What's needed is a mathematics that itself is designed with flexibility ... more than being able to plug in alternative values for specified parameters. Right off the bat, I'd recommend that fractal functions be addended to, with 'fatigue' equations drawn from biological studies of muscle and neural tissue. (Clue ... why did this last fiscal year's run of day-trader control finally fizzle? Because of 'fundamentals' in the market place? No way!!! It fizzled because as a group, they got burnt out. Can you imagine the total anxiety of being a day-trader .. each day every day all your life ?!?!? They fried their collective attention focussing high anxiety minds/brains/bodies. The market rush lasted just as long as their somatic staminas did. The, bye-bye, fellas. Thanks for the thrill.
And Adam Smith stepped up to the podium again ... "bad money will drive out good money" ... cheap on-line brokering (the bad-money, devalued currency of trade) will now eventually replace the good-money (high fee charging brokers) which came as a corollary result.
But was there one special interest private hush-hush fractal or derivitive computer program designed to guide some special interest or corporate finance group's investments which included the biological parameter of how long one human or a group of humans could stay glued to a computer terminal and continue to day-trade with stamina and alertness ... or maintain the desire to do this ... trying to guess, counter guess, and out-guess all the other day traders in the world, day in, day out ?!?!?!
:-)))) Well, I've got my own obvious opinion about that. The financial winners are feeling lucky that they didn't lose. The losers ain't talking, And the market-encouragers, are simply smiling, and going on with planetary re-construction. (A toast to you, dear friends!)
{plus I foresee some interesting changes in the computer programs for the next go-round})
Mark, I appreciate the 'endless slack'. Let's hope complexity mathematics affords that to itself as well.
,
Ceptual Philosopher
===========
>Hahahahahhahaha.. :-))))))) ROFL! now I see what happened and why you reacted.
Just a little misunderstanding, but you can see how it could happen. And now, we can talk about really important stuff -- robot traders that never get tired.
>It's just real damn important that the roles they play and the achievements they make are in
>the best long-termed perspective. Ergo: moi!
There's so much more to the whole than you or I imagine, Jamie -- even more than Gell Mann imagines, and that's a lot. That's what fills the long-term perspective with so many surprises.
>Follow this reasoning: If "option spaces" and behaviors spaces are recognized as being SO
>fundamentally important... then why... are all/most complexity mathematicians trying to
>nail down the 'complete set of equations which will describe in absolute and perfect terms,
>the complete behavior of system such-and-such' ?!?!?!
One of the attendees to an early artificial life conference said that the mathematicians were already beginning to turn up, so it was time to move on. I'm not dogmatically anti-mathematical -- agreeing with Holland that, once theoretical understanding is achieved, it can take your much farther than rules of thumb -- but I can sympathize with the fellow, coming as I do from a field -- financial economics -- with elaborate mathematical models having nothing to do with what actually goes on in finance, since they're based on faulty assumptions about how people and complex systems behave. We've got a lot more spadework to do on the assumptions (my specialty), and a lot more spadework to do in the mathematics (not my specialty), and that is the case in most CAS applications.
>The effort is being made to void out any and all variant behaviors ... predict system
>performance with such a high degree of perfection that, well, if you had such equations and
>could apply them to the open market ... YOU could make all the money. Competive
>advantage in predicting certaintive performance.
Of course, you don't need perfection, just an edge.
>We're working to establish a mathematical architecture which goes absolutely against the >fundamental property of Complex Systems ... the ability to adapt and change in the face of >alternative environmental conditions and events.
That's the difference between dynamic systems and adaptive systems -- the adaptive systems change their own environmental conditions and events.
>What's needed is a mathematics that itself is designed with flexibility ... more than being able to plug in alternative values for specified parameters.
A mathematical default hierarchy.
>Right off the bat, I'd recommend that fractal functions be addended to, with 'fatigue'
>equations drawn from biological studies of muscle and neural tissue. (Clue ... why did this
>last fiscal year's run of day-trader control finally fizzle? Because of 'fundamentals' in the
>market place? No way!!! It fizzled because as a group, they got burnt out... The market
>rush lasted just as long as their somatic staminas did. Then, bye-bye, fellas. Thanks
>for the thrill.
The system adapts, though. My partners are working on artificially-intelligent agents who day-trade, but don't suffer the adrenaline, cocaine, alcohol, sex, or other addictions that human day traders are prey to. You can bet we're not the only ones, either. When will the thrill go away? Never. And computers can trade far faster than humans can even follow the action.
>And Adam Smith stepped up to the podium again... "bad money will drive out good
>money"...
Ah, Jamie, you're at it again. That's Gresham's Law, stated a full two centuries before the good Dr. Smith came along. And evolution involves extinctions, and precludes many possibilities. But have fun here! It's just casual conversation, and you're a good guy.
>...cheap on-line brokering (the bad-money, devalued currency of trade) will now eventually
>replace the good-money (high fee charging brokers) which came as a corollary result.
Lowering transactions costs isn't the problem, it's the volatility-enhancing continuous auction. If exchanges went back to call auctions, they would have a lot less volume, and less income for the market makers, but prices would track fundamentals a lot better.
>But was there one special interest private hush-hush fractal or derivative computer
>program designed to guide some special interest or corporate finance group's investments
>which included the biological parameter of how long one human or a group of humans
>could stay glued to a computer terminal and continue to day-trade with stamina and
>alertness ... or maintain the desire to do this ... trying to guess, counter guess, and out-guess
>all the other day traders in the world, day in, day out ?!?!?!
Quite possibly, but our AI agents, or regulatory reform, or any of a number of plausible factors, could change that computer program's whole game.
>:-)))) Well, I've got my own obvious opinion about that. The financial winners are feeling
>lucky that they didn't lose. The losers ain't talking, And the market-encouragers, are simply
>smiling, and going on with planetary re-construction. (A toast to you, dear friends!) {plus I
>foresee some interesting changes in the computer programs for the next go-round})
And everyone subsequent go-round!
>Mark, I appreciate the 'endless slack'. Let's hope complexity mathematics affords that to
>itself as well.
They may not need endless slack, but they could need slack for a good long while waiting for a complexity Carnot.
Mark White
http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/7891
