Derek Zahn wrote:
Me:
> Can you give me some examples where engineering
> has produced complex devices (in the sense of complex
> that Richard means)?
Mark:
> Computers. Anything that involves aerodynamics.
Richard, is this correct? Are human-engineered airplanes complex in the
sense you mean?
Generally speaking, no, not in a substantial enough way.
Which means that there is a certain amount of unpredictability in some
details, and there are empirical factors that you need to use (tables of
lift coefficients, etc.), but beyond these empirical factors there is
little impact of the complexity.
The amount of complexity is almost trivial, compared with a system in
which all the components are interacting with memory, development,
nonlinearity, etc etc etc.
Don't forget that ALL systems are complex if you push them far enough,
so it makes no sense to ask "is system X complex?". You can only ask
how much complexity, and what role it plays in the system.
Richard Loosemore
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agi
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