Dear all,
I have been trying off and on for the last year to assemble a definitive
glossary of complexity terms along with definitions that would make sense to
any English major. I am having a harder time than one might expect finding the
locus classicus of complexity talk. For those of you who don't read beyond the
first screen of an email message, I am looking for sources, preferably
available on line, that will help me explain the meanings of the words used in
complexity talk.
OK. Now for the rest of you: When I started, I thought it was just because I
didn't know enough physics, or thermodynamics, or mathematics, but each time I
look into one of these areas I find that word usages and meanings in complexity
talk don't really line up. For instance, "constraint" in physics-talk is just
a force acting perpendicularly to the motion of the thing we are talking about,
hence a force doing no work. In at least one version of complexity talk, a
constraint is that which transforms energy into work. One candidate for a
source of the meanings of complexity-words was Alicia Juarrero's. She relates
"constraints" to information theory but also defines them as "relational
properties that parts acquire in virtue of being unified -- not just aggregated
--into systematic wholes. Here's another example: in thermodynamics, the
"system" is just the thing you happen to be talking about. In Juarrero the
system is the set of elements and relations among elements such that the
properties of the elements depend on the state of the system in which they are
located. I like her definition better, but the point is that in fact they are
different with very different implications.
Where can I go to find stable language?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Smith
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 3/9/2009 9:26:22 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] complexity science map...
Well Found Mikhail!
Naturally many of us will take issue with many of the details, relationships
and attributions shown here, but as a rough, high-level sketch it has some
merit. The more egregious issues have to do with specific attributions,
implied precedence, and the most recent additions (e.g.web science, e-science,
global network society...). Most of this is handled in the "fine print"
provided by the author/artist, so I'm not "complaining", just noticing.
What I'm (yet) more interested in is this general approach to trying to
organize/diagram/depict the complex relationships between scientific (and
mathematical) (sub) fields as they influence eachother and evolve over time.
This is an area I am actively working in (trying to understand the evolving and
emerging relationships among scientific/mathematical disciplines and topics).
I'd be curious to hear others' ideas and opinions about how these kinds of
concepts can be understood (structurally, visually, spatially, even
metaphorically).
- Steve
Mikhail Gorelkin wrote:
http://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html
Mikhail Gorelkin
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============================================================
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
