> Sorry if I appeared flip, Owen. No worries, didn't even notice.
I hope I'm not exhibiting a stuck bit here, but I'm seeing seeing more folks writing about similar formalisms. A real mind blower for me is reading Brian Green's The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality http://tinyurl.com/g3p6h For our discussion, he has a long and interesting discussion of entropy, and how it relates to time-symmetry paradoxes in physics. He even does a good explanation of why the early universe, even though very uniform, was extraordinarily low entropy. Similarly he shows why black holes, even with a presumed huge density at the singularity, are of the highest entropy. This keeps up, I'll be talking complexity babble with Steve! Wow. -- Owen Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net On Aug 16, 2006, at 10:59 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote: > Sorry if I appeared flip, Owen. > > The book is a short one of about 100 pages / 16 short chapters > adapted from > Joe's 1993 lectures in France. It deals more with computational > complexity or > information-based complexity which is loosely related to our > general use of the > term Complexity. > > I would be up for a reading group around the book that tried to get > a better > understanding of the relationship of the two worlds. If we get > sufficiently far, > perhaps Joe could give a lecture and disabuse of any progress we > think we've > made :-) > > As a flip aside, I think there is a might be a way to apply > computational > complexity to define/measure boundary conditions in agent-based > models. In the > case of the ant foraging abm, I think of the roles of the nests and > food sources > as injecting information into the system and are a the potential > source of > order. The rate at which they inject these bits of information may > be a measure > of how 'far-from-equilibrium' the system is. Ie, every time step, > the nest and > food patches are testing if any ants are at their location and > flipping their > behavioral bit between food-seeking to nest-seeking. I'm wondering > if you can > tie the computational complexity of that action and the gradient > following > behavior of the ants to the macroscopic order you see in the ant > path creation. > Just wild-hair speculation... > > -S > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Owen Densmore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 10:10 AM >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Complexity and Information - Cambridge >> University Press >> >> DOH! Sorry Pamela, I entirely missed the fact that J. F. Traub was >> *your* J. F. Traub! I just bought the book, btw. >> >> For the rest of FRIAM, here's Joe's web site: >> http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~traub/ >> >> -- Owen >> >> Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net >> >> >> On Aug 16, 2006, at 8:27 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote: >> >>> Owen, >>> >>>> Looks quite interesting and I was surprised it hasn't been >> discussed >>>> before. >>> >>> We just discussed this last week. It's on my bookshelf. Ask >> Pamela if >>> she's interviewed the guy. :-) >>> >>> -S >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: Owen Densmore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>> Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 8:19 AM >>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam >>>> Subject: [FRIAM] Complexity and Information - Cambridge University >>>> Press >>>> >>>> Has anyone read this? >>>> http://tinyurl.com/pbxm9 >>>> or >>>> http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp? >>>> isbn=0521485061 >>>> >>>> Looks quite interesting and I was surprised it hasn't been >> discussed >>>> before. >>>> >>>> -- Owen >>>> >>>> Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> 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 >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 ============================================================ 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
