I'd also be interested. I've been trying to put together a basic framework to
order my own thinking. Not quite resorting to set theory, but making explicit
the various levels of organisation, system boundaries, relationships between
elements, information flow, etc. My hope is that if one carefully works one's
way up through the various levels of organization (from quarks to content of
the psyche), it should become clear where the different views part ways.
I'd expect that this sort of thing has been attempted before; Google doesn't
appear immediately helpful, though.
Regards,
Rikus
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Owen Densmore" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 5:46 PM
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
Thank you Nick, good explanation. And Steve -- we actually started
down this road on the thermodynamic formulation of ABM .. Guerin-
Speak .. with some success.
Much more generally: There is a rift between the formal and
philosophic that I have a partial solution for. Both are VSI (Very
Short Introduction) books.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0192853619/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0192854119/
The first is the Mathematics VSI. It is written by Timothy Gowers and
really does get the reader into the mind of mathematics folks. Gowers
is a Fields Medalist -- the Nobel for math. And he is driven by a
Wittgenstein understanding of abstraction. Gowers' discussion of a
5th dimensional cube is a wonderful example. He constantly comes back
to the type of abstraction he prefers: very clean and focused on the
properties under discussion.
The second is the Wittgenstein VSI, to bind Gowers' math with his
inspiration, Wittgenstein. I've not finished this one (I've got a
digital version and have just sent for the paper one) but there is
hope we might actually find a connection between the more
philosophical discussions and a formalism for them.
I'd be very interested in this endeavor.
-- Owen============================================================
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
