Hey Phil, Phil Henshaw wrote: > Martin, >> Hey Phil, >> >> If I understand you correctly, I think you're very right. The >> information we have about the world is behavior and >> appearances, and for >> most interesting things the mechanism is completely hidden >> from us. We >> can observe inputs and outputs, but not the source code. We can see >> fuel go in and motion come out, but can't see the engine, let alone >> anything else. > > The trickiest piece is proving in a comprehendable and comprehensive way > that anything has any actual inside structure, largely invisible from > the outside.
Well, I'd argue something slightly different. We need a model of what's going on inside, but that's not the same as recovering what's actually going on inside. In fact, a high level model may be more useful and important than a low level one. For example, I can come up with the concept of pressure, temperature and volume for a gas without discovering molecules. I can do all kinds of useful and interesting things knowing only about pressure, temperature and volume, like make air conditioners and refrigerators, and have no idea whether gas is continuous or made of molecules. As another example, there tends to be more traffic on the roads during morning and evening rush hour. This is an emergent phenomenon, and would be hard to prove starting from a wiring diagram of the human brain, plus whatever else about the environment you'd need to know. So I don't see the job so much as recovering the actual structure that's inside, but discovering regularities in the observables. - Martin ============================================================ 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
