> > > Most all of nature as i know it is self organizing. Shake up oil and
> > > water...they
> > > separate....put a drop of dye in the water..it spreads out. is this self
> > > organization or not? If not why not?
> > > respectfully,
> > > Don
> >
> > I think it is a form a self organizing and your point is well taken.
> > Still, how would you go about dealing with the gradients and qualities
> > of self organizing processes?
>
> the one case is a classic picture of diffusion..the other is also well
> known....here's a good example of semantics being carried with the complexity
> of the situation.....we were taught that these were "merely" diffusion and oil
> and water don't mix. We built a surrogate world with physics which saw most
> things as governed by simple laws like that for diffusion. Now we get bold
and
> open our eyes and see the real world for what it is....most things, if not
all,
> are "self-organizing" and this becomes the norm rather than a novelty. this
is
> equivalent to changing the formal system with which we make inferences about
> the natural world....and also being open to further changes and even more
> radical formalisms as needed. In short...there has to be more than one
> way...many ways....each time we think we have "the" way..we stop progressing.
> the essence of this is to face the self-referencial quality of the modeling
> relation we seek up front...each step closer will dictacte another change and
> that in turn another....freeze it and the model becomes a snapshot again. I
> know that is vague, but it is what I see happening.
You do have a way with words Don. I couldn't agree more. I wonder how
many others around the world have a sense of these changes?
>
> > Is it semantically ok just to drop the
> > self organizing quality out of the equation and reduce the differences
> > to comparative complexity? Or do we need both the quality of self
> > organizing and the quantity of complexity in the process to benefit from
> > the modeling relation?
> >
> > Norm
>
> the essence of complexity is non-computable and not algorithmic......hence if
> we purge that essence we get simple mechanism back.
I still can't help wonder if it is what you call "the essence of
complexity" that is non-computable and not algorithmic. And I still
think this non computable aspect is more related to the self organizing
processes. Could our fixation on complexity be one of those snap shots
you refer to above? I don't mind the vagueness, I just have a sense
that this word throws us off trail of the open ended uncertain systems
we are trying to deal with.
I also think this issue is related to some of the things John said in
his last post. He said that there is no such thing as a grand unified
theory. I agree and I'm struggling to articulate why the notion of
complexity seems less useful than some other term that we might use in
its place. I'll think about it some more and see what I can come up
with.
Don, do you have any specific comments on the three suggested terms that
have been mentioned so far? i.e. Participatory, synergic or chaordic
systems? Do you have any other ideas for a term that might work better?
.......the essence of a
> functional component in a complex system is that it has no definition out of
> context.....it defines the whole as the whole defines it...self refernce and
> context dependence everywhere....any attempt to "clean that up" results in a
> reduction and a loss of complexity...physics is too good at that to try to
> compete with it.
> respectfully,
> Don