I meant mechanically intricate (although technically 'mechanically' is -of course- the wrong word.) I don't want to be petty about this, but I have been talking about complexity for the past 8 years or so, and I am not likely to change my language over night. I did try to clarify my usage by writing "complexity in the general sense" in more than one place in the message.
I doubted that an accreditation of the SFI for the definition of complexity would have any standing in real-world, but Wikipedia says I am wrong. Well, technically, the SFI term is (according to Wikipedia) is "complex adaptive systems" or (CAS). So let's say that if we want to talk about SFI complexity we should refer to complex adaptive systems or CAS. Sorry if I seem a little petty about this, but my use of the concept of complexity -in the more general sense- could also involve some kind of manifestation of a complex adaptive system, although that is not a definite aspect of it. Jim Bromer On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 7:46 PM, David Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jim, > > I believe that terminology continues to thwart us. It appears that the term > 'complexity' as you're using it means 'mechanistically intricate' and not > 'Santa Fe Institute style complexity'. > > The term 'complexity' never should have been overloaded in the first place > (ugh), but since we must live with it, as a partial remedy I suggest that on > this list 'complexity' should refer ONLY to SFI-style complexity, while > things which are merely 'complicated' or 'mechanistically intricate' be > described as such (and, when the clarity would be beneficial, 'SFI-style > complexity' should be spelled out). > > IMO, SFI-style complexity is counterintuitive and nearly impossible to grok > without experiencing it with hands-on experimentation (typically via > computer modeling & simulation), something which very rarely happens in > everyday life, even for most scientists. > > My apologies if your intended use was actually 'SFI-style complexity' - the > meaning was unclear to me. > > -dave > ________________________________ > agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=108809214-a0d121 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
