Right. My only point was to distinguish the two procedures for examining a thing, because one's choice of procedure can bias one's results. (obviously) With EricS' very detailed throwdown in favor of hierarchical accumulation AND Russ' chosen _target_ of urban systems, I think it's critical that we choose analysis procedures that are as agnostic as possible.
We've now discussed cognitive biases toward _direction_ (up vs. down) and continuity (or population density - laminar flow - AND space vs. graph) ... even if it has taken us days and billions of emails. Are there other biases we could eliminate? I like, but reject, Roger's assertion that "[deep neural nets] don't care about no stinking layers". As with using polar coordinates on an onion (or monotonic "time" in Diffusion Limited Aggregation), deep learning requires at least a sequencing of (distinct) procedures. So, it does require layers in very much the same sense as a DLA. On the other hand, I like considering deep learning as a thing to be analyzed, because it does allow cycles of a kind. And again, I'm not proposing any of these _things_ are analogs/metaphors targeting "complex systems". I'm only trying to argue for agnostic analysis tools. TANSTAAFL! On 06/12/2017 12:45 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > At the risk of another discursion: > > I think I just realized what I've been (almost) seeing of value in all this > back and forth: > > 1. I (and Nick) heard Glen's invocation of the Onion as an attempt to > explicate a useful difference between levels and layers in the > understanding of Complexity Babble (Talk/Science/Math/???). I think > he meant only to try to distinguish the two from one another and > explicate their differences irrespective of the near dead horse we > were working over at the time. I think this might be the totality > of the misunderstanding. > 2. I'm always looking for form/function dualities. In the onion, the > form (layers) follows a certain functional/behavioural path > (cyclical growth). I don't even know how to find "levels" in the a > *hierarchical* sense or otherwise in an onion... maybe if we look at > the cross section (as Glen suggested) and see *strata* (from the > source (domain) of geological deposition and erosive or shearing > exposure?) and then consider drilling a mine shaft into said strata > which is more suggestive of the term "levels"? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
