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
