Thaniks everybody. Interesting responses. Doug, I cannot shake the intuition that the reason you cannot see value of the taxonmy is that you already have one in your head that makes writing one down unnecessary. I am not sure quite what that means, let alone how I would show it to you.
But let's imagine I were to do a study of you as you discussed a new ABM project with a client, or discussed with you colleagues how you were going to approach the problem, after the client had left. In those discussions, wouldnt you reach for exemplars or typical approaches or basic elements as you planned your way into the work? Then I would leap up and point my finger and say, AHA! you DO have a taxonomy. Perhaps the taxonomy is not in the models themselves but in the problems that the models are brought to bear on. Or, here is another way to smoke out a taxonomy. Imagine a bright eyed and bushy tailed group of college seniors who have come to learn agent based modeling from you. Now granted DOING a lot of them would be most of the course. But would you have nothing to say of a conceptual nature to guide students concerning how to approach different sorts of problems with different sorts of models? Thanks for humoring me, here. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([email protected]) > [Original Message] > From: <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Date: 1/3/2009 9:48:28 PM > Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 67, Issue 8 > > Send Friam mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. great paper on revolutionary change in systems (Phil Henshaw) > 2. Re: great paper on revolutionary change in systems (Steve Smith) > 3. Re: What to do with knowledge (Russ Abbott) > 4. Callling all cladisticists (Nicholas Thompson) > 5. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Russ Abbott) > 6. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Nicholas Thompson) > 7. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Russ Abbott) > 8. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Joshua Thorp) > 9. Re: great paper on revolutionary change in systems (Phil Henshaw) > 10. Re: What to do with knowledge (Phil Henshaw) > 11. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Phil Henshaw) > 12. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Douglas Roberts) > 13. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Marcus G. Daniels) > 14. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Marcus G. Daniels) > 15. Re: Callling all cladisticists (Douglas Roberts) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:22:11 -0500 > From: "Phil Henshaw" <[email protected]> > Subject: [FRIAM] great paper on revolutionary change in systems > To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'" > <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <006a01c96dc7$d1bffeb0$753ffc...@com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > www.synapse9.com/ref/GersickCJG1991RevolutionaryChangeTheories.pdf (500k) > Have any of you heard of the "Academy of Management Review" or Connie JG > Gersick? > > She might have called it 'emergence' I think, but seems to have done a great > job of threading together six different theories of change between complex > system equilibriums, punctuated by disequilibrium, which she calls > "revolutionary change". The familiar ones are the models offered by TS > Kuhn, SJ Gould, and I Prigogine. She seems to come to the conclusion, yes, > there are discontinuities. My view has developed as being that, yes, there > are discontinuities, but often observably in the mode of explanation used > and not the physical process. > > Does anyone else also see the need to have gaps between modes of explanation > for complex system features as a important reason for using the word > 'complex' to describe them? > > Phil Henshaw?? > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:44:20 -0700 > From: Steve Smith <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] great paper on revolutionary change in systems > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/8858443 0/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 12:06:33 -0800 > From: "Russ Abbott" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What to do with knowledge > To: [email protected], "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee > Group" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > When I first read this question, I thought that it was somewhat off topic. > It is asking about policy rather than science. But the implication of that > perspective is that there is no science of policy, i.e., that political > science or sociology isn't a science. But of course it should be. In fact it > should be one of the sciences of the complex. > > -- Russ > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:56 AM, Phil Henshaw <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Doesn't the most dangerous knowledge often come from having a blind spot to > > the danger? That's often the problem when people don't recognize the > > meaning of changes in scale or kind, like looking for 'bigger' solutions > > (the bigger bomb or bigger shovel approach) when the nature of the problem > > changes unexpectedly with scale. > > > > Would you include that in your problem statement? > > > > Phil Henshaw > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > > > Behalf Of Steve Smith > > > Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 4:13 PM > > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What to do with knowledge > > > > > > I believe this is an important but subtle topic that deserves much more > > > discussion. > > > > > > I believe that the sfComplex should host a series of live discussions, > > > probably starting with a Panel presentation by a handful of people > > > representing differing but well-considered points of view. > > > > > > I have been considering this since we opened our doors in June, but > > > find > > > that it is a very difficult topic. Perhaps the most difficult is the > > > polarization that seems to come with it. I have a lot of strong > > > opinions on this subject, some of which I've begun to try to share > > > here. This thread (and the one it emerged from) have tapped a few of > > > the ideas and opinions that need to be discussed. > > > > > > We would need a format and possibly a good moderator to help avoid the > > > many opportunities for spinning out. > > > > > > Ideas, issues, topics are welcome. > > > > > > - Steve > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > > 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 > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/835f528 2/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 13:39:56 -0700 > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[email protected]> > Subject: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > All, > > For those of you who werent there, last friday, we got into an intersting discussion about the possibility of taxonomies of agent based models. Are there only a few basic types? Are many apparently different agent based models, deployed for widely different purposes, fundamentally only subtle variations? > > Two positions were taken, Theirs and Mine. They argued that any such classification system must be essentially arbitrary and useful only for the narrow purposes for which it was disigned. Me argued that there MUST (note the use of modal language) be a natural taxonomy of abms. In ABM's, there must be "natural kinds". You should know that Me has never written a program longer than a seven line Word macro. > > Knowing Me pretty well, I surmise that his position is shaped by his experience in evolutionary theory where taxonomy is pretty important. Taxonomic systems are mostly devised to relate contemporary species, But for evolutionary theorists, there is a natural validator of taxonomic classifications, the historical record of evolution. If we took this analogy seriously, we would be led to try and validate classifications of ABM's on the history of their development, perhaps doing dna analysis on the code fragments that make them up? Sounds like a singularly useless endeavor. But if history is uninteresting in the ABM case, why is it so interesting in the evolutionary case. > > But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of classification that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable relations amongst species without, so far as I understand, any reference to evolution. Yet, as I understand it, cladistics is not arbitrary. > > So, I am wondering, you cladisticists out there, what would a cladistics of abm's look like? And should we care about it? > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/9242760 2/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 13:16:01 -0800 > From: "Russ Abbott" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > 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 Nick, > > What's wrong with this argument? > > My wife teaches what's known as Early Modern English, which means English > literature, culture, etc. in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She is > interested in how people thought about things in her period as well as how > those ways of thinking developed from previous periods. We are continually > arguing about the value of that sort of study. If you are interested in the > history of ideas or culture, it certainly has some value. But if you are > interested in the best current thinking about a subject, why should you care > how people thought about it 4 centuries ago? Do I really care about > Aristotelian physics, for example, if I want to know how the physical world > works? I would say, "No" what I really want to know is what the best current > physicist think. > > Why isn't that same argument relevant to ABMs? What one really wants to > know is how we currently think about ABMs, not the history of the > development of ABMs that got us there. If that history makes it easier to > understand the current best thinking, so much the better. But it is only in > the service of the current best thinking that history is useful when what > one wants is to know the current state-of-the-art. > > -- Russ > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > All, > > > > For those of you who werent there, last friday, we got into an intersting > > discussion about the possibility of taxonomies of agent based models. Are > > there only a few basic types? Are many apparently different agent based > > models, deployed for widely different purposes, fundamentally only subtle > > variations? > > > > Two positions were taken, Theirs and Mine. They argued that any such > > classification system must be essentially arbitrary and useful only for the > > narrow purposes for which it was disigned. Me argued that there MUST (note > > the use of modal language) be a natural taxonomy of abms. In ABM's, there > > must be "natural kinds". You should know that Me has never written a > > program longer than a seven line Word macro. > > > > Knowing Me pretty well, I surmise that his position is shaped by his > > experience in evolutionary theory where taxonomy is pretty important. > > Taxonomic systems are mostly devised to relate contemporary species, But for > > evolutionary theorists, there is a natural validator of taxonomic > > classifications, the historical record of evolution. If we took this > > analogy seriously, we would be led to try and validate classifications of > > ABM's on the history of their development, perhaps doing dna analysis on the > > code fragments that make them up? Sounds like a singularly useless > > endeavor. But if history is uninteresting in the ABM case, why is it so > > interesting in the evolutionary case. > > > > But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of classification > > that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable relations amongst > > species without, so far as I understand, any reference to evolution. Yet, > > as I understand it, cladistics is not arbitrary. > > > > So, I am wondering, you cladisticists out there, what would a cladistics of > > abm's look like? And should we care about it? > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University ([email protected]) > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/0e679d9 8/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 17:25:32 -0700 > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Hi, Russ, > > Thanks for your interesting response. > > Well, the same argument could be made, could it not, against trying to gather information about human evolution. After all, it matters not how we got here, but who we are, now that we are here. However, in evolutionary psychology, I have always been soft on the value of evolutionary study for understanding human psychology because much of what we do makes more sense in terms of where we came from than it does in terms of where we are. > > But, I am not sure the same argument works for the history of agent based modeling. I have never heard any agent based modeler claim that he or she gives a rat's ass about how we got where we are in that domain. Might it illuminate how we got "stuck" in some way or other? I dunno. I just dont know enough about it. > > But all of this is aside from the question of the value of Taxonomy. Evolutionary considerations aside, are there natural kinds of ABM;s And would a cladistic analysis of model types be useful for programmers trying to decide what sort of approach to use to a new problem. In the ABSENSE of an interest in history, is there anything useful that taxamonies can tell us? > > that is the question I was asking. > > Thanks again for helping me clarify, > > NIck > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: [email protected];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 1/3/2009 2:16:02 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > > > Hi Nick, > > What's wrong with this argument? > > My wife teaches what's known as Early Modern English, which means English literature, culture, etc. in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She is interested in how people thought about things in her period as well as how those ways of thinking developed from previous periods. We are continually arguing about the value of that sort of study. If you are interested in the history of ideas or culture, it certainly has some value. But if you are interested in the best current thinking about a subject, why should you care how people thought about it 4 centuries ago? Do I really care about Aristotelian physics, for example, if I want to know how the physical world works? I would say, "No" what I really want to know is what the best current physicist think. > > Why isn't that same argument relevant to ABMs? What one really wants to know is how we currently think about ABMs, not the history of the development of ABMs that got us there. If that history makes it easier to understand the current best thinking, so much the better. But it is only in the service of the current best thinking that history is useful when what one wants is to know the current state-of-the-art. > > -- Russ > > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > > All, > > For those of you who werent there, last friday, we got into an intersting discussion about the possibility of taxonomies of agent based models. Are there only a few basic types? Are many apparently different agent based models, deployed for widely different purposes, fundamentally only subtle variations? > > Two positions were taken, Theirs and Mine. They argued that any such classification system must be essentially arbitrary and useful only for the narrow purposes for which it was disigned. Me argued that there MUST (note the use of modal language) be a natural taxonomy of abms. In ABM's, there must be "natural kinds". You should know that Me has never written a program longer than a seven line Word macro. > > Knowing Me pretty well, I surmise that his position is shaped by his experience in evolutionary theory where taxonomy is pretty important. Taxonomic systems are mostly devised to relate contemporary species, But for evolutionary theorists, there is a natural validator of taxonomic classifications, the historical record of evolution. If we took this analogy seriously, we would be led to try and validate classifications of ABM's on the history of their development, perhaps doing dna analysis on the code fragments that make them up? Sounds like a singularly useless endeavor. But if history is uninteresting in the ABM case, why is it so interesting in the evolutionary case. > > But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of classification that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable relations amongst species without, so far as I understand, any reference to evolution. Yet, as I understand it, cladistics is not arbitrary. > > So, I am wondering, you cladisticists out there, what would a cladistics of abm's look like? And should we care about it? > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/f56add0 7/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 7 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 16:39:29 -0800 > From: "Russ Abbott" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Since my prejudice as a programmer is that almost any abstraction is likely > to be useful, then since taxonomies tend to reveal interesting abstractions, > they will very likely be useful. How could they not? At worst a taxonomy > will be found to be uninteresting and unrevealing of underlying design > principles. In that case, we wasted our time in building the taxonomy. But I > would bet that developing ABM taxonomies will turn out to worth the effort. > I can't imagine an argument that says *a priori* that it won't be. How could > anyone possibly know that? > > -- Russ > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi, Russ, > > > > Thanks for your interesting response. > > > > Well, the same argument could be made, could it not, against trying to > > gather information about human evolution. After all, it matters not how we > > got here, but who we are, now that we are here. However, in evolutionary > > psychology, I have always been soft on the value of evolutionary study for > > understanding human psychology because much of what we do makes more sense > > in terms of where we came from than it does in terms of where we are. > > > > But, I am not sure the same argument works for the history of agent based > > modeling. I have never heard any agent based modeler claim that he or she > > gives a rat's ass about how we got where we are in that domain. Might it > > illuminate how we got "stuck" in some way or other? I dunno. I just dont > > know enough about it. > > > > But all of this is aside from the question of the value of Taxonomy. > > Evolutionary considerations aside, are there natural kinds of ABM;s And > > would a cladistic analysis of model types be useful for programmers trying > > to decide what sort of approach to use to a new problem. In the ABSENSE of > > an interest in history, is there anything useful that taxamonies can tell > > us? > > > > that is the question I was asking. > > > > Thanks again for helping me clarify, > > > > NIck > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University ([email protected]) > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > *From:* Russ Abbott <[email protected]> > > *To: *[email protected];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > > Coffee Group <[email protected]> > > *Sent:* 1/3/2009 2:16:02 PM > > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > > > > Hi Nick, > > > > What's wrong with this argument? > > > > My wife teaches what's known as Early Modern English, which means English > > literature, culture, etc. in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She is > > interested in how people thought about things in her period as well as how > > those ways of thinking developed from previous periods. We are continually > > arguing about the value of that sort of study. If you are interested in the > > history of ideas or culture, it certainly has some value. But if you are > > interested in the best current thinking about a subject, why should you care > > how people thought about it 4 centuries ago? Do I really care about > > Aristotelian physics, for example, if I want to know how the physical world > > works? I would say, "No" what I really want to know is what the best current > > physicist think. > > > > Why isn't that same argument relevant to ABMs? What one really wants to > > know is how we currently think about ABMs, not the history of the > > development of ABMs that got us there. If that history makes it easier to > > understand the current best thinking, so much the better. But it is only in > > the service of the current best thinking that history is useful when what > > one wants is to know the current state-of-the-art. > > > > -- Russ > > > > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson < > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > >> All, > >> > >> For those of you who werent there, last friday, we got into an intersting > >> discussion about the possibility of taxonomies of agent based models. Are > >> there only a few basic types? Are many apparently different agent based > >> models, deployed for widely different purposes, fundamentally only subtle > >> variations? > >> > >> Two positions were taken, Theirs and Mine. They argued that any such > >> classification system must be essentially arbitrary and useful only for the > >> narrow purposes for which it was disigned. Me argued that there MUST (note > >> the use of modal language) be a natural taxonomy of abms. In ABM's, there > >> must be "natural kinds". You should know that Me has never written a > >> program longer than a seven line Word macro. > >> > >> Knowing Me pretty well, I surmise that his position is shaped by his > >> experience in evolutionary theory where taxonomy is pretty important. > >> Taxonomic systems are mostly devised to relate contemporary species, But for > >> evolutionary theorists, there is a natural validator of taxonomic > >> classifications, the historical record of evolution. If we took this > >> analogy seriously, we would be led to try and validate classifications of > >> ABM's on the history of their development, perhaps doing dna analysis on the > >> code fragments that make them up? Sounds like a singularly useless > >> endeavor. But if history is uninteresting in the ABM case, why is it so > >> interesting in the evolutionary case. > >> > >> But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of > >> classification that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable > >> relations amongst species without, so far as I understand, any reference to > >> evolution. Yet, as I understand it, cladistics is not arbitrary. > >> > >> So, I am wondering, you cladisticists out there, what would a cladistics > >> of abm's look like? And should we care about it? > >> > >> Nick > >> > >> > >> Nicholas S. Thompson > >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > >> Clark University ([email protected]) > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> ============================================================ > >> 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 > >> > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/6153092 f/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 8 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 18:02:28 -0700 > From: Joshua Thorp <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: [email protected], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed"; > DelSp="yes" > > I don't know anything about cladistics, so I don't know whether this > fits with it. > > ABMs can have many different parents, often not directly known. I'm > not sure parentage in any strict sense would be a particularly good > approach. Better would be to identify separate patterns in how the > ABMs work. Any ABM could then be compared (even clustered) with other > ABMs based on shared patterns. > > High level patterns might include: how is time simulated in an ABM? > How are the energy or other flows accounted for in the model? How is > the environment broken up, or represented? What kinds of interactions > can take place between parts of the ABM (agents, environment, ?). > > Does this fit with cladistics? > > --joshua > > On Jan 3, 2009, at 5:25 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > cladistic > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/789949d 0/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 9 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:47:07 -0500 > From: "Phil Henshaw" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] great paper on revolutionary change in systems > To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'" > <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <003701c96e16$bca92f70$35fb8e...@com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Steve, > > > > Phil - > > This is a very timely reference. I often find that "Survey" papers, > especially from outside of the field I am working in, but on a subject > overlapping said field can be very illuminating. They help to provide a > common-sense perspective on the problem... help to remove me from the > "trees" enough to see the "forest", as it were. > > [ph] Yes, just my thought, that it seems to be a good survey by a management > science person. The paper has actually been cited 750 times since it was > published in 91. Clarifying the forest by getting a good look at separate > kinds of trees is also one of the things I found interesting in writing my > short encyclopedia entry covering all the approaches to complex systems > science and practice. I may have left out just a few things. of course. > but it did force me to look at the subject from several different time > tested orientations. > > > Your comment about the discontinuities are > > often observably in the mode of explanation used > and not the physical process might be a corollary of Kierkegard's > Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward. > [ph] Well, that certainly applies to the discontinuity between foresight and > hindsight, when in the one you're looking for choices and in the other > you're only looking for excuses. you might say. :-) I'll have to read > Gersick more carefully to understand what she defines as the discontinuity > displayed by "revolutionary change" but what I was thinking was more that > once you see the finished form you suddenly see the whole effect of the > distributed events coming together, that would have been all undeveloped and > incomprehensible before. Most of them you also would never have seen > before because they were distributed, and so not occurring where you were > looking too, as well as because they were undeveloped as a whole and so > would be naturally meaningless too. So even if the distributed process > was continuous and developmental, you would necessarily miss most of it > happening, and then be distracted by the false simplicity of hindsight to > boot. > > > It is my (anecdotal) experience that many people live through, or even > participate in revolutions without realizing it until (long?) after they are > over. Often the turmoil that is attendant to the "Revolution" is not a new > experience for them, a series of tumultuous periods lead up to it, and it is > only the actual "breaking through" that ultimately marks it as a > "Revolution". To the extent that that "breaking through" is an emergent > phenomena, it is often not visible at the scale of the individual observer, > especially an observer who is steeped in the old way of experiencing things. > > > [ph] What that suggested to me was that a parcel of hot air might be locally > experiencing a gradual decrease in air pressure, and not much else, as it > rose along with an air mass as part of a large accumulating column of air > breaking through an inversion layer to become a great erupting cumulus > cloud. Widely scattered things become unobservably connected is the first > step as far as any part may be concerned. So for emerging "revolutionary > change" might it sometimes be that neither the parts nor outside observers > could know about it? > > Phil > > - Steve > > > > > > www.synapse9.com/ref/GersickCJG1991RevolutionaryChangeTheories.pdf (500k) > Have any of you heard of the "Academy of Management Review" or Connie JG > Gersick? > > She might have called it 'emergence' I think, but seems to have done a great > job of threading together six different theories of change between complex > system equilibriums, punctuated by disequilibrium, which she calls > "revolutionary change". The familiar ones are the models offered by TS > Kuhn, SJ Gould, and I Prigogine. She seems to come to the conclusion, yes, > there are discontinuities. My view has developed as being that, yes, there > are discontinuities, but often observably in the mode of explanation used > and not the physical process. > > Does anyone else also see the need to have gaps between modes of explanation > for complex system features as a important reason for using the word > 'complex' to describe them? > > Phil Henshaw > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/6ed9527 a/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 10 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:21:55 -0500 > From: "Phil Henshaw" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What to do with knowledge > To: <[email protected]>, "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group'" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <004501c96e1b$9b1189c0$d1349d...@com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Thanks, yes that way of asking it does expose the fact that I often deal > with the issues of poorly explained complex systems like those one finds all > over the place in societies and ecologies. Science is a policy to > understand things better, though, with the knowns ultimately nested in > unknowns, so the posture is still basically similar. > > > > For less defined systems the main "system model" is not in a computer, > though, but in the experience of the people involved, reflected mostly in > their way of making snap judgments or asking probing questions, say, about > whether it's time to use the opposite rule as before. You can have > interacting systems requiring alternating choices, for example, like when > driving on a road where you'd expect a left turn to follow a right turn and > so forth, like a period of adding followed by one of subtracting to keep a > balance, and not always make progress by turning in the same direction as > before. It can be both necessary and rather difficult to convince people > with institutional habits to consider remarkable concept like that. ;-) > > > > Phil Henshaw > > > > From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 3:07 PM > To: [email protected]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What to do with knowledge > > > > When I first read this question, I thought that it was somewhat off topic. > It is asking about policy rather than science. But the implication of that > perspective is that there is no science of policy, i.e., that political > science or sociology isn't a science. But of course it should be. In fact it > should be one of the sciences of the complex. > > -- Russ > > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:56 AM, Phil Henshaw <[email protected]> wrote: > > Doesn't the most dangerous knowledge often come from having a blind spot to > the danger? That's often the problem when people don't recognize the > meaning of changes in scale or kind, like looking for 'bigger' solutions > (the bigger bomb or bigger shovel approach) when the nature of the problem > changes unexpectedly with scale. > > Would you include that in your problem statement? > > Phil Henshaw > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > > Behalf Of Steve Smith > > Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 4:13 PM > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What to do with knowledge > > > > > I believe this is an important but subtle topic that deserves much more > > discussion. > > > > I believe that the sfComplex should host a series of live discussions, > > probably starting with a Panel presentation by a handful of people > > representing differing but well-considered points of view. > > > > I have been considering this since we opened our doors in June, but > > find > > that it is a very difficult topic. Perhaps the most difficult is the > > polarization that seems to come with it. I have a lot of strong > > opinions on this subject, some of which I've begun to try to share > > here. This thread (and the one it emerged from) have tapped a few of > > the ideas and opinions that need to be discussed. > > > > We would need a format and possibly a good moderator to help avoid the > > many opportunities for spinning out. > > > > Ideas, issues, topics are welcome. > > > > - Steve > > > > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/0f41a49 a/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 11 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:41:40 -0500 > From: "Phil Henshaw" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: <[email protected]>, "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group'" <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <004a01c96e1e$5dd95c10$198c14...@com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > The basis of taxonomy is the developmental sequences of the forms > themselves, so in the case of ABM's it would be finding who built on whose > ideas and model parts. It's basically a time network map of parentage > and offspring, which naturally branches and cross fertilizes. > > > > I asked what families of models there were at the SASO-07 conference on > self-organizing and self-adapting software and controls. As I recall there > were a great many variations on the pheromone 'wisdom of the crowd' type of > learning systems and a lot of peer to peer organisms, with a couple whacko > things like amorphous computing. What you'd need maybe is someone to > create a relational network map and have the authors of ABM's draw links > with the ones it was based on somehow. ?? > > > > Phil Henshaw > > > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf > Of Russ Abbott > Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 7:39 PM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > > > > Since my prejudice as a programmer is that almost any abstraction is likely > to be useful, then since taxonomies tend to reveal interesting abstractions, > they will very likely be useful. How could they not? At worst a taxonomy > will be found to be uninteresting and unrevealing of underlying design > principles. In that case, we wasted our time in building the taxonomy. But I > would bet that developing ABM taxonomies will turn out to worth the effort. > I can't imagine an argument that says a priori that it won't be. How could > anyone possibly know that? > > -- Russ > > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Nicholas Thompson > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, Russ, > > > > Thanks for your interesting response. > > > > Well, the same argument could be made, could it not, against trying to > gather information about human evolution. After all, it matters not how we > got here, but who we are, now that we are here. However, in evolutionary > psychology, I have always been soft on the value of evolutionary study for > understanding human psychology because much of what we do makes more sense > in terms of where we came from than it does in terms of where we are. > > > > But, I am not sure the same argument works for the history of agent based > modeling. I have never heard any agent based modeler claim that he or she > gives a rat's ass about how we got where we are in that domain. Might it > illuminate how we got "stuck" in some way or other? I dunno. I just dont > know enough about it. > > > > But all of this is aside from the question of the value of Taxonomy. > Evolutionary considerations aside, are there natural kinds of ABM;s And > would a cladistic analysis of model types be useful for programmers trying > to decide what sort of approach to use to a new problem. In the ABSENSE of > an interest in history, is there anything useful that taxamonies can tell > us? > > > > that is the question I was asking. > > > > Thanks again for helping me clarify, > > > > NIck > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University ([email protected]) > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Russ Abbott <mailto:[email protected]> > > To: [email protected];The Friday <mailto:[email protected]> > Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Sent: 1/3/2009 2:16:02 PM > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > > > > Hi Nick, > > What's wrong with this argument? > > My wife teaches what's known as Early Modern English, which means English > literature, culture, etc. in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She is > interested in how people thought about things in her period as well as how > those ways of thinking developed from previous periods. We are continually > arguing about the value of that sort of study. If you are interested in the > history of ideas or culture, it certainly has some value. But if you are > interested in the best current thinking about a subject, why should you care > how people thought about it 4 centuries ago? Do I really care about > Aristotelian physics, for example, if I want to know how the physical world > works? I would say, "No" what I really want to know is what the best current > physicist think. > > Why isn't that same argument relevant to ABMs? What one really wants to > know is how we currently think about ABMs, not the history of the > development of ABMs that got us there. If that history makes it easier to > understand the current best thinking, so much the better. But it is only in > the service of the current best thinking that history is useful when what > one wants is to know the current state-of-the-art. > > -- Russ > > > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Nicholas Thompson > <[email protected]> wrote: > > All, > > > > For those of you who werent there, last friday, we got into an intersting > discussion about the possibility of taxonomies of agent based models. Are > there only a few basic types? Are many apparently different agent based > models, deployed for widely different purposes, fundamentally only subtle > variations? > > > > Two positions were taken, Theirs and Mine. They argued that any such > classification system must be essentially arbitrary and useful only for the > narrow purposes for which it was disigned. Me argued that there MUST (note > the use of modal language) be a natural taxonomy of abms. In ABM's, there > must be "natural kinds". You should know that Me has never written a > program longer than a seven line Word macro. > > > > Knowing Me pretty well, I surmise that his position is shaped by his > experience in evolutionary theory where taxonomy is pretty important. > Taxonomic systems are mostly devised to relate contemporary species, But for > evolutionary theorists, there is a natural validator of taxonomic > classifications, the historical record of evolution. If we took this > analogy seriously, we would be led to try and validate classifications of > ABM's on the history of their development, perhaps doing dna analysis on the > code fragments that make them up? Sounds like a singularly useless endeavor. > But if history is uninteresting in the ABM case, why is it so interesting in > the evolutionary case. > > > > But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of classification > that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable relations amongst > species without, so far as I understand, any reference to evolution. Yet, > as I understand it, cladistics is not arbitrary. > > > > So, I am wondering, you cladisticists out there, what would a cladistics of > abm's look like? And should we care about it? > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University ([email protected]) > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/2c105ce a/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 12 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 21:04:55 -0700 > From: "Douglas Roberts" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: [email protected], "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee > Group" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:41 PM, Phil Henshaw <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The basis of taxonomy is the developmental sequences of the forms > > themselves, so in the case of ABM's it would be finding who built on whose > > ideas and model parts. It's basically a time network map of parentage > > and offspring, which naturally branches and cross fertilizes. > > > > > > > > Well, I've been designing, developing, and using ABMS for pert' near 18 > years, but I must confess that the the two sentences above conveyed > absolutely no meaning to my poor, befuddled brain. > > I' serious: none. > > Clearly it must be time for me to swarm over to the Carnot-Cycle device and > prise open the magnetic strip- secured metallic thermal barrier and extract > a fused-silicon hermetically-sealed pressure vessel containing > Brettanomyces-modified *Hordeum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordeum>vulgare > *carbohydrate, hopefully tinctured with a moderate dosage of Humulus > Lupulus-produced aromatic oils. > > Then, once I'm done with that one, I might just go get myself another beer > from the refrigerator. > > -- > Doug Roberts, RTI International > [email protected] > [email protected] > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/700d6ea 1/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 13 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:25:29 -0700 > From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of > > classification that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable > > relations amongst species without, so far as I understand, any > > reference to evolution. Yet, as I understand it, cladistics is not > > arbitrary. > In both cases it boils down to selecting a set of features and assigning > them to a set of character states. With DNA, the job is done because > the character states are A G C or T in long strings. But can also > consider an encoding like C=has claws, !C does not have claws, L=has > lungs, !L has no lungs, V=has vertebrae, !V not vertebrae, F=fur, !F no > fur, and so on. To make a taxonomy, similarity techniques like > neighbor-joining or distance methods are often used. To go to the next > step and consider an evolutionary model, then things get complex fast > because, for example, it is necessary to be able to say how a critter > goes from having no hair to having it, or develops lungs and the > relative impotance of those things. On the other hand, it is not > nearly so hard if the transition you want to describe is one of an > adenine changing to guanine, which is chemistry. > > I think a high-level description of conceptual model features (like > those Joshua suggested) as character states would work for making > similarity trees without an evolutionary model behind them. The main > work there is deciding on the features. > > And on the other extreme, one could probably come up with some very > crude evolutionary model for local change of machine code based on > context and knowledge of common programming idioms and/or the source > language and compiler. Even if you had that, though, one thing that is > assumed by most phylogenetics programs is a multiple alignment. That > is, for any code fragment found anywhere in a given program, the same > fragment can be found in any another aligned down to the opcode. Then > there's the small matter that horizontal gene transfer happens all the > time in software as 3rd party libraries get pulled in and dropped and > software factoring is going on. In principle, I bet with sufficient > effort one could probably recover the revision history of some large > project like GCC from various binaries of different ages. But better > just to go the revision system and look at the history directly. With > GCC it goes back 20 years or something. > > Marcus > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 14 > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:44:11 -0700 > From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Russ Abbott wrote: > > But if you are interested in the best current thinking about a > > subject, why should you care how people thought about it 4 centuries ago? > What if there are common processes behind learning and insight and they > are general and timeless? > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 15 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 21:48:11 -0700 > From: "Douglas Roberts" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Callling all cladisticists > To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" > <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Ok, Marcus. But what does that buy the developer of a C^3I (Command, > Control, Communications, and Intelligence) war gaming ABM? Or and ABM of > the pork bellies market? Or an ABM of celestial mechanics? Or an ABM of > the braking system of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner? Or an ABM of a specific > social network where the intent is to model the onset of terroristic > behavior within that society? > > I fail to see how a taxonomy-based formal description methodology aimed at > classifying of ABM categories would buy anything useful for either the > developer or the user of an ABM. > > ABMS are designed and implemented to model the interactions of real-world > entities, at whatever level of abstraction that will produce results which > can provide information that might be useful for addressing the problem the > ABM was developed to solve. I seriously doubt that there is a > one-size-fits-all taxonomy classifier for ABMs that will produce anything > other than "No shit!" rudimentary descriptive information about any given > ABM. > > But hey! I've been wrong before, and I seriously plan to be wrong again. > > --Doug > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 9:25 PM, Marcus G. Daniels <[email protected]>wrote: > > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > >> > >> But what then about cladistics. Cladistics is a dark art of > >> classification that uses a variety of obscure incantations to lable > >> relations amongst species without, so far as I understand, any reference to > >> evolution. Yet, as I understand it, cladistics is not arbitrary. > >> > > In both cases it boils down to selecting a set of features and assigning > > them to a set of character states. With DNA, the job is done because the > > character states are A G C or T in long strings. But can also consider an > > encoding like C=has claws, !C does not have claws, L=has lungs, !L has no > > lungs, V=has vertebrae, !V not vertebrae, F=fur, !F no fur, and so on. To > > make a taxonomy, similarity techniques like neighbor-joining or distance > > methods are often used. To go to the next step and consider an > > evolutionary model, then things get complex fast because, for example, it is > > necessary to be able to say how a critter goes from having no hair to having > > it, or develops lungs and the relative impotance of those things. On the > > other hand, it is not nearly so hard if the transition you want to describe > > is one of an adenine changing to guanine, which is chemistry. > > > > I think a high-level description of conceptual model features (like those > > Joshua suggested) as character states would work for making similarity trees > > without an evolutionary model behind them. The main work there is deciding > > on the features. > > And on the other extreme, one could probably come up with some very crude > > evolutionary model for local change of machine code based on context and > > knowledge of common programming idioms and/or the source language and > > compiler. Even if you had that, though, one thing that is assumed by most > > phylogenetics programs is a multiple alignment. That is, for any code > > fragment found anywhere in a given program, the same fragment can be found > > in any another aligned down to the opcode. Then there's the small matter > > that horizontal gene transfer happens all the time in software as 3rd party > > libraries get pulled in and dropped and software factoring is going on. In > > principle, I bet with sufficient effort one could probably recover the > > revision history of some large project like GCC from various binaries of > > different ages. But better just to go the revision system and look at the > > history directly. With GCC it goes back 20 years or something. > > > > Marcus > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20090103/744dd99 b/attachment.html> > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Friam mailing list > [email protected] > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > End of Friam Digest, Vol 67, Issue 8 > ************************************ ============================================================ 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
