Robert: Just to help untangle the discussion: Are you saying a
theoretical grounding for Complexity .. or even just Modeling ..
appears to have no concrete use for you?
To be even more specific: Chaos has at least one definition:
divergence. It uses the Lyapunov exponent to define chaotic systems.
Thus would it be useful for you in a calculation to know whether it
was inherently chaotic?
-- Owen
On Oct 10, 2009, at 7:58 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:
What's the point of determining whether a phenomenon is emergent or
not? What useful stuff can I actually do with that knowledge?
In other areas of my life, classification can have actionable
consequences. For example, I can use the sophisticated pattern-
matching algorithms and heuristics embedded in my brain to work out
that the three animals wandering through my house can be categorized
as "cats" and not "dogs". And that is useful, because it tells me
that I should buy cat food and not dog food when I go to PetCo.
So what is an equivalent example with emergence? Once I've attached
the "emergent" label to a phenomenon, then what?
-- Robert
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