Biting my lip over here. [Don't respond...DON'T RESPOND!] -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell
On Dec 5, 2007 5:14 PM, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is a very "Phil Henshaw" response - its a bit hard to know how to > respond to this. > > On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 10:14:41AM -0500, Phil Henshaw wrote: > > Russell, > > That's a sound way to choose the most valuable model of the moment, but > > it won't help you with what models can't show. You need to study the > > space between the models. If you use optimal models and study the > > discrepancy between them and the continually changing systems they > > imperfectly reflect, you have a chance of seeing and engaging with the > > real thing. > > > > So you're just saying we should be performing crossover operations > between successful models? But this is exactly what happens when > multidisciplinary teams form leading to cross-polination of ideas. The > results are often quite interesting and advance the field. > > > Models are inherently lifeless, and quite unlike the inventive > > independent networks we find in the complex physical world. > > As a long time ALife practitioner, I don't really believe this at > all. I have often been surprised at the behaviour of my models, even > lifelike behaviour. > > > Using the > > 'best' model to represent nature is like putting a high resolution > > picture of a frog in your son's terrarium. Very nice, but not the real > > thing. > > Nice metaphor, but I don't understand how it relates... What about > replacing the frog with a detailed robotic imitation that has been > evolved to imitate frog behaviour using artificial life techniques? > > > Assuming that all behavior is deterministic, just waiting for us > > to find the formula, still lingers. > > What do you think of stochastic descriptions of nature then (starting with > Boltzmann's statistical physics)? > > > It blocks learning about what we > > can't write formulas for, though, so I think it should be among the > > first things to go. > > > > What we cannot "write formulas for" (by which I mean "find > compressible descriptions for"), we cannot learn. For that is the very > nature of learning - being able to generalise from the specific. > > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ============================================================ > 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
