Marcus, I wouldn't want to put a too much of a damper on your enthusiasm. I do think there's some cause for excitement over the insight government could gain by inquiring into complex systems with new tools, but modeling the general dynamics of events is SO far beyond our present capabilities I wonder if you're thinking straight. It's not that I wouldn't want to help author the rules for a grant competition for designing the institute you propose. Integrating interdisciplinary methods and data takes a lot of discipline. It's just that the problems I listed before are far from trivial and I have a long list of others that are as bad or worse.
It's not a safe bet to say we'd even get anywhere with a global model of events in a hundred years. The bubbling pot of world human interest is not going to reveal itself any time soon. It's like the guys intending to download the brain. What are they going to do when they find out there are chemical synapses, or that the electrical synapses seem to communicate timing rather than data??? How the hell you going to download that stuff, it's just music!! Even if black magic gave you all the motions of all the molecules I don't think it would help you in the slightest, except in a medical way perhaps, with what they were doing! There's a larger system there, that I don't think can exist except as itself. I'm just saying there are huge disconnects all over and the most productive approach is to have a ball finding them. One of the coolest ones for constructing a general model of events from research data, from my point of view, is that your data collectors actually would not be able to distinguish between the abstract patterns they invent in their own minds and the physical patterns of the world. When they come back and tell you what they measured, you won't really know what they're talking about. Just try it, count the number of fanatics who are a threat to motherhood and apple pie. All your data collector can efficiently do is look at you sullenly and assure you they did the exact same thing they did yesterday and if that's not good enough then get someone else. That new person will of course do it differently. Or, to take the problem of individual differences seriously, try something that has actually been given long and careful study. Try predicting the repeat offences of individual criminals. It's not possible. We sense natural systems exist, we feel them as if they're waves washing over us, but we don't know why some people get wet and others don't and, basically, can't see what's happening. What we should do first is learn how to identify them. It's quite difficult. Imagine we lived with them for millions of years and only noticed they existed last week. Nearly all stories are actually about them, but all we see is dense fog. I think the key is to distinguish between those that are inside our own brains and those that are not. It's a clear cut distinction, but surprisingly difficult. I think it's that physical worlds have structure and imaginary worlds are projections. What excites me is the idea of taking old and familiar statistical methods, (interpolation and differencing and regression) and jazzing them up a little to reveal natural system events as individuals that can then be localized and looked at from all sides by other means... Before we try to model these things, I think we really need to learn to see them. It's hard to see them. Still, there are a variety of non-linear patterns that are uniquely associated with emerging complex organization. Growth is key because that catches them as they begin, but there are many other things as well. I'm sure there are many kinds of markers that can both serve to identify and localize. Then... all you'd need are the six wise men to feel up the elephant without getting kicked, and tell you what it is!!! :,) Phil > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > OK, so let's take half the defense budget and spend it on Bucky's > > 'livingry' rather than weaponry. How much you need? It certainly > > couldn't be more of a waste than spending it threaten fanatic > > community groups to obtain nuclear weapons... > > > > Half the U.S. defense budget is $209 billion and half of Homeland > Security is $15 billion. Together $50 billion is being spent on > domestic defense. > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/budget06/budg et06Agencies.html > > For starters pull an amount of 1% of the scale of the > domestic defense budget from the larger defense budget. \ > That would be $500 million > dollars. Plenty to buy the best supercomputers and a team of a few > dozen project managers, political scientists, intelligence > experts, and > modelers. Take say $100 million to reimburse the CIA and NSA > for their > time on data collection. > > I'd still have some major doubts about the adequacy of > present modeling > > assumptions. No one seems to have recognized that growth > systems are > > locally invented compounding instabilities to themselves > yet, or that > > natural system networks are mostly linked opportunistically > rather than > > deterministically, or that the variables of our > relationship statements > > generally refer to things that keep changing definition with little > > notice. I don't think it's an easy problem. > > > I agree there is a lot that can't be modeled effectively > without heavy > data collection and lots of focused attention. And some social > phenomena are probably too fleeting to capture and the precedents too > silent. But consider elections in this country. Usually it > is pretty > clear how things will go once some exit polls are taken. > I'm thinking > of how to study the demographics of change as a function of > military and > civil violence, occupation, propaganda and relief efforts. > Situations > where known perturbations have been made to the system, and then an > effort is made to model how those perturbations can be used > to predict > rates and intensity of near and medium term disruptive events. > Insurgency, say, must have some common properties and unfold in ways > that are a function of the number of young people prepared to die, > explosives, technology, and money available and so forth. I imagine > such models not so much for precise prediction on the ground, > but to be > developed over a long periods to fit abstract scenarios. To help > planners understand social risk as well as direct tactical risk. > > I know some programs like this are already underway, but it's > unclear to > me the degree of funding. > > Marcus > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
