-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Phil Henshaw wrote: > OK, pushes and pulls, in directions chosen by a 'controller'. Does that > include looking at the subjects of control to see how they find it > easiest and hardest to respond? In other words is the thing you call > 'control' just as easily a complex system learning process?
Yes. In fact, I tend to believe in the "law" of requisite variety and would say that a controller for a complex system must, itself, be complex at least in the sense that it contains a complex model of the regulated system. But, it's important to state that the complexity of the control system can be high and need _not_ be a function of the complexity of the system it controls. Since I'm putting forth an unjustified thesis (a.k.a. hypothesis), I'm not really making detailed claims about the control systems being measured. I'm merely trying to justify taking the data in the first place. And part of the justification for taking the data can be toy models arguing for/against the hypothesis. Just to keep it straight, the hypothesis is that there's an IPL between the extent and number of variables controlled by any given control system. And just to reiterate, _if_ that turned out to be true, then I have an ethical dilemma w.r.t. particular variables that come under the heading of "healthcare", "abortion", etc. > I guess bending my mind to directly think about the distributed 'process > ecologies' of complex systems, leaves me to make occasional odd errors > in math... No, I do mean to be talking about Pareto distributions and > the inverse power law family or relationships. I gathered as much. But I just wanted to make it clear. > I think my point would be that outside perspectives are highly naturally > subjective in a hidden way, causing there to be a big difference between > inside and outside views. Your premise seems to be that your observer > is all seeing. Well, to some extent I want it to be. On the one hand, if we had the budget to take the data (even if only with the maximum scale set at something like city ordinances and a minimum scale set at some small number of human attributes), we'd have to settle on some concrete measures that will, by definition, be limited in what they measure. And all subsequent observations would be similarly limited. So, any feasible observation or experiment will be practically limited. But, I have in mind a limit process where _if_ we executed some large number of observations (from neighborhood association, village, town, city, county, state, all the way up to the feds or perhaps the globe), then I imagine the whole gamut would show the IPL. (This statement is partially circular because invariance to scale is part of the hypothesis.) And in that limit, then, yes, I'm suggesting the accumulated measures are "all seeing". > For a real outside observer of any independent cell of > relationships, the relationships are not participated in and the > existence of the system they are part of is thus completely invisible. > It's only when the observer steps inside the system, getting into the > loop, that they suddenly become aware of the whole other world of > relationships it represents. We see this over and over, that systems > develop in secret from us and then our awareness of them bursts into our > attention. I think that's a direct effect of systems developing as > truly independent cells of relationships. I can see the picture you're drawing and agree in the abstract. But, I still don't know how this applies to the dilemma. Sorry for being dense. > Wouldn't it be nice to have a heuristics machine to convert pure syntax > in to meaningful gobbely gook for any particular inside view...! LoL! Thanks for that joke. It's the first laugh I've had today. > I'm not sure how, but this might connect with the structural dilemma > that nature's design is deceptive because we all think the world we see > is the one that's there, and we all see different ones, partly because > of the inverse power law distributions of network connections as I was > describing to Bill. Yes, it certainly is related. Any control has a "surface" of levers and measures by which it manipulates the controlled system. That surface is limited to and a function of the controller. It's the controller's "world view". And to the extent that the controller consists of humans or human artifacts, it embodies the world views of those humans. And those humans _do_ tend to think that their world view is _true_. And when world views conflict, the opportunity is there to revise the conflicting world views; but, that opportunity is often lost on those who hold the world view. This is especially acute where the world views are fossilized into laws, rules, or policy. And it's worsened by the design by committee feature of most policy setting bodies. Indeed, the world view embodied by a policy is probably _not_ held by any of the members of the committee that created the policy, making the policy even more removed from reality than the original world views of the humans on the committee. But, I don't think this point is critical to finding and using a hypothetical IPL between the extent and objectives of a controller (policy + enforcer). It might become critical in the resolution of any conflict that IPL would present with an ethical standing, however. And if that's your point, then I'm starting to get it. Thanks for sticking with it. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Know ten things. Say nine. -- unknown -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG4GPaZeB+vOTnLkoRAl97AJ4qpqnNn/rQf1KMu4JGSU7paHApRQCdH5Df 2mkaETatgPu9a//vaH6VgPA= =so80 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ 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
