Grant, You have certainly chosen a fascinating and challenging topic --I'm looking forward to seeing the completed paper. I'm a retired mathematician who works in category theory. Recently I have been applying categories to dynamical systems. I have no idea about how to handle a dynamical system that would involve some real evolution of life-like systems, but I'm open to any thoughts about this.
--John ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland [[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 6:00 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Hello, FRIAM Jochen, Hello! Thanks for responding. I like your answer, and I also agree. And...I'm actually looking for an answer with the equivalent semantics, but with a more actionable articulation. For now, I've actually found one that I like - and made a theory out of it. :-) And, No, I'm not related to John Holland. However, my first name is also "John" - but I go by my middle name. So I'm John G. Holland, and He's (should I use a capital "H?) John H. Holland. We also have another difference: He claims he cannot define "emergence" satisfactorily; but I claim I can! And I like your quotes from von Neumann. About errors - we all know that without DNA copy errors, there would be no species adaptation and no evolution. So that's another difference: for living systems, errors can be a salvation; for engineered systems they are almost always a problem to be eliminated. Take care, and thanks for the welcome email! Grant Jochen Fromm wrote: > Hello Grant, > > welcome! Are you related to John H. Holland? You asked an interesting > question: "Why is the organization and dynamics of living systems so > different from those of 'engineered' ones - and why are their systemic > properties so much more interesting?" I would say because living > systems are selfish and adaptive, they face the problem of survival > every single day, while engineered > systems are dumb and brittle, they do only what they are programmed to > do, and nothing else. > > John von Neuman (1903-1957) said > "It's very likely that on the basis of the philosophy that every error > has to be caught, explained, and corrected, a system of the complexity > of the living organism would not run for a millisecond." > He argued that living systems are fault-tolerant because they can > adapt themselves to errors and > changing conditions: > > "The system is sufficiently flexible and well organized that as soon > as an error shows up in any part of it, the system automatically > senses whether this error matters or not. If it doesn't matter, the > system continues to operate without paying any attention to it. If the > error seems to the system to be important, the system blocks that > region out, by-passes it, and proceeds along other channels. [...] The > duration of operability is determined by the time it takes until so > many incurable errors have occurred, so many alterations and permanent > by-passes have been made, that finally the operability is really > impaired." > And he argued that the fundamental difference in the > architecture is the ability to (re-)organize itself: > > "The fact that natural organisms have such a radically different > attitude about errors and behave so differently when an error occurs > is probably connected with some other traits of natural organisms > [...] The ability of a natural organism to survive in spite of a high > incidence of error probably requires a very high flexibility and > ability of the automaton to watch itself and reorganize itself." > Life is an exceptional state characterized by self-* properties: > self-reproduction, self-replication, > and self-maintenance, in short self-organization. When it comes to > large-scale computing systems - think of Google or Amazon - you can > discover many of these self-* properties again. They have > self-healing, self-monitoring and self-configuring systems. Therefore > living systems and large-scale computing systems may not be that > different at all, they both require self-* properties, > which are inevitable if you want to build really large systems that work. > > Good luck with your paper, > Jochen > http://blog.cas-group.net/ > > ( Quotes are from: John von Neumann, "Theory and Organization of > Complicated Automata", 4th Lecture "The Role of High and Extremely > High Complication" in John von Neumann on Computing and Computer > Theory, Vol. 12 in the Charles Babbage Institute, Reprint Series for > the History of Computing > Edited by William Aspray and Arthur Burks, > The MIT Press, 1987 ) > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Holland" > <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 8:06 PM > Subject: [FRIAM] Hello, FRIAM > > >> Dear FRIAM... >> >> I'm excited and happy to subscribe to the group. (Thanks for the >> invite Stephen, - and David.) For many years I have architected and >> implemented large-scale (mostly Java) enterprise software >> (applications and systems) for corporations and gov. institutions >> mostly in North America on behalf of a number of major computer >> systems vendors (e.g. Sun). However, for the past few years, my >> passion has turned to the question "Why is the organization and >> dynamics of living systems so different from those of 'engineered' >> ones - and why are their systemic properties so much more >> interesting?" From a practical perspective, I hoped to improve the >> engineering of large-scale computing systems from this research; but >> in reality I became fascinated with the theory, and so I had to >> (lovingly) read lots of books and research articles. >> >> Anyway, to drive toward an answer to above question, I have developed >> a mathematical theory of living and lifelike systems, which I call >> "Organic Complex Systems". A few months ago I began to write up an >> overview of the results of my research so far. I am nearing >> completion of that paper, and intend to publish it on arXiv.org in a >> couple of months with the hope of getting comments, and hopefully >> collaborators. BTW, perhaps somewhat more descriptive of this work is >> the subtitle of this forthcoming paper: "A Comprehensive Theoretical >> Apparatus for Modelling the Organization and Dynamics of Living and >> Lifelike Systems". >> >> Anyway, these are my immediate interests. I'm looking forward to >> finding out about yours. >> >> Take care, >> Grant >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 ============================================================ 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
