MessageP.P.S. I found two new Chaitin's books on Complexity on his site: http://www.cs.umaine.edu/~chaitin/ --Mikhail ----- Original Message ----- From: Mikhail Gorelkin To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 1:44 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex
The answer is simple: everything is an observational attribute! I found that Yaneer's definition of complexity is... actually the Kolmogorov complexity (also known as descriptive complexity): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity. I like personally "Uncomputability of Kolmogorov complexity" and "Chaitin's incompleteness theorem" there. For me, it seems that "aggregation theory" is one aspect of this complexity. Robert, may you please send me a good reference to IMHO? Thanks, --Mikhail P.S. Hope, it's more readable :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Cordingley To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 12:03 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex Isn't the problem because 'complexity' is an observational attribute and not one that is intrinsic to the universe/domain? There will be no agreement until a formalism can show a connection with prior formalisms (IMHO). Yaneer's problem is that it depends on the language one uses. Suppose we meet an entirely superior (alien) race that communicates using much more compact information methods. Remember the encyclopedia (or the library of congress - you choose) on a stick story? One very precise measurement encoded the entire contents of the book(s). I was wondering if the problem might be in the name 'complexity' and that 'aggregation theory' might be a better name. Then I found this paper on "Spatial Aggregation Theory" that might be a missing link to Visualization? http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/yip96spatial.html Mind you, I'd need some help to get a thorough understanding of it. Any takers? Robert C Mikhail Gorelkin wrote: ...let's use this: the minimal description, which "works". ? --Mikhail ----- Original Message ----- From: Phil Henshaw To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:10 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex ...maybe a definition that to go with Yaneer's riddle, and that fits with all, is that any individual thing is complex beyond measure and any explanations are all comparatively very simple, differing among them only by whether they work or not. Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mikhail Gorelkin Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 10:31 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex It seems I found a more fundamental definition: "So, if you want to characterize the complexity of an object, think about how much you would have to write in order to describe it. Would it take a sentence, a paragraph, a few pages, a book, or many books? Count the number of characters in the description. This is complexity." --Yaneer Bar-Yam "Making things works. Solving complex problems in a complex world", p. 54. So, linear systems have simpler and shorter descriptions than non-linear ones. And the same is true for centralized vs. decentralized systems. Any thoughts? --Mikhail ----- Original Message ----- From: Alfredo CV To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 1:42 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex To decide if a phenomena is complex maybe It's necessary to identify patterns of self organization in the "behavior" of the small units of individual that conform the population of interest. Maybe It's necesary to check the lack of centralized control and the existence of some stable states. I think these three features are the diagnostic features of complexity. I guess.... I don't know what Hayes says but I'll think about these three features for health insurance, medicare, Social Security and Pensions in my country... (in fact is not mine, belongs to the richest and the multinationals.... anyhow). Regards Alfredo CV health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the uninsured Mikhail Gorelkin wrote: +1: I guess that complexity cannot be expressed adequately even in a term of computability. ? --Mikhail ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mikhail Gorelkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2007 6:24 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex Just two thoughts: 1) it seems that complexity is a more fundamental category than linearity / non-linearity, which are parts of a sophisticated ***formal*** system; 2) I assume there are types of complexity (and, therefore, many - I mean really many - types) that cannot be expressed in any formal system (beyond linearity / non-linearity). Something like Gödel's theorem. ? --Mikhail ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2007 4:45 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When is something complex Alfredo, Good question. In fact, the question of the day, for the Hayes talk. Mysterious non linear effects in Hayes data leading to the conclusion good hearted efforts in one direction lead to the opposite result. I guess "mysterious non-linearity" is a good clue that the phenomenon is complex. Nick . Message: 1 Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:12:09 -0500 From: Alfredo CV <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] **today ** Lecture Wed Sep 12 12:30p: Jim Hayes - Hedging Complex and Chaotic Private Health Insurance Markets and the Uninsured To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hi Of course it?s impossible to me to know details of the speeches you usually have. In the distance I suppose that the first purpose of each one of these speeches is to know and evaluate a broad type of cases where complexity is used to understand phenomena. I wonder what makes some phenomena suitable to be studied with a "complex" approach. What must somebody take in consideration to decide that is studying a complex phenomena? Regards, Alfredo CV ============================================================ 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ 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
