Thanks Robert for your reply I want to move on to the question of where math is effective. Previously, I wondered about the existence of domains where short logical implications were reliable but long chains of logical implications may start to be ineffective. In a sense this is true of any chaotic system, such as weather. We can now predict weather fairly well for the short term but not for the long term because we cannot measure the initial conditions to the required degree of precision (as even arbitrarily small changes now can cause big changes in future states). It is posible that weather is mathematically determined, say perfectly described by some chaotic system and yet math itself would be only of limited use in predicting weather?
Perhaps Physics has (so far, mainly) only analyzed non-chaotic phenomena. This raises the question of whether some other mathematical system, say one not involving numbers, could tell us somethging useful about chaotic phenomena. Maybe the use of ABMs would work, as suggested by Jochen. ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 2:27 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: [FRIAM] The unreasonable Effectiveness of ABMs in Complex Systems If physics is so successfully described by mathematics because the physical world is mathematical, and nearly isomorphic to a mathematical structure, then maybe complex systems are so successfully described by ABMs because their are isomorphic to them, too. Complex systems, especially social ones, are "agent-oriented". What do you think ? -J. ============================================================ 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
