Hi Richard,
Yes, your explanation was crystal clear.
I would rephrase our current state as saying that instead of having a
non-standard definition of complex, you actually have a seriously
non-standard definition of explain . . . .
I would strongly suggest that you consider switching to and using the
word predict (or something similar) rather than the word explain. It is
really unhelpful that your definition below parses to something that
provably incorrect according to what I believe is the majority definition
of
explain.
Richard > First, the strict definition of a complex system is that it has
some observable behavior that can only be explained by a theory that is too
large for us to discover
How about something like the strict definition of a complex system is
that it has some observable behavior that cannot be easily derived from
theory.
= = = = = = =
So, let me jump to the case of the braiding effects in Saturn's rings. The
last I heard (and I hope I am not out of date on this), people could only
'explain' these by doing computer simulations in which there were
particles and planets and little moons. When you have this combination,
you observe (in the simulations) something like braiding. So the braiding
is a high-level regularity, and the explanation is .... well, the only
explanation is that a simulation does the same kind of thing. Nobody did
an analysis of the basic Newtonian equation and said "I predict that
braiding effects will occur when there are rings and little moons". As
far as I know, we do not expect such an analysis to be possible.
The fundamental problem with your using explain and explanation this way
is that what you're arguing is really merely "not-explain" (which is not
restrictive), not a positive definition (which would be much more useful).
= = = = = = =
My belief is that you actually brought the whole complexity argument
down on yourself because of a bad definition of complexity because of a bad
definition of explain.
My whole argument with you (F-14 and all) was because I didn't grok your
version of complexity -- which turned out to be identical to what most
people use. I'm really surprised that you didn't say anything when I said
to someone else the following:
<start quote>
Richard's definition of complexity is *NOT* the standard Santa Fe Institute
type sense.
Richard: A system is deemed "complex" if the smallest size of a theory that
will explain that system is so large that, for today's human minds, the
discovery of that theory is simply not practical. Notice that this
definition does not imply that there any such systems in the real world, it
just says that *if* the theory size were ever to go off the scale *then*
the
system would (by definition) be complex.
Santa Fe is quite sure that there are complex systems out there and by
their
examples, since there is no one acknowledged definition, I would say that
intelligence is necessarily complex in their sense.
<end quote>
Mark
P.S. I'll answer your answer to my second e-mail next . . . . (hopefully
soon but possibly not til tomorrow ;-)
-------------------------------------------
agi
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