At 11:21 AM 7/17/98 +0100, you wrote:
>John J. Kineman wrote:
>>
>> What is the best definition of "ecological complexity?"
>
>I have been reading this interchange, and wish to put in my tuppence
>worth.
>
>For me complexity is relative to the modelling framework (modelling
>language/system, mapping into the object system, modelling goals, etc.).
>If you agree on these (i.e. fix them) you can come to objective
>agreement on complexity judgements, but complexity, as such, is not a
>property of 'reality' as such, but the chosen projection of such (or
>formal systems) into a modelling framework. (see my papers
>http://bruce.edmonds.name/evolcomp/ and
>http://cfpm.org/cpmrep23.html).
>
>This approach means it is *very* important to specify how you wish to
>model such ecologies. For example:
>* from the point of view of an exterior observer, but with what
>modelling language/system and what goal?
>* from the point of view of a member of that ecology, again for what
>purpose (to survive?)?
>* from the point of view of a potential new entrant to the ecology
>* etc. etc.
>
>There will NOT be ONE ecological complexity for all aspects.
Yes! This seems to be emerging quite clearly from the discussion now. It is
what I had suspected and was writing in a paper I'm doing on
eco-regionalization, but I wanted to know what the experts thought - if I
was missing some clear definition of complexity. Its getting clearer for
me, but I've a long way to go.
>
>As I understand it Rosen is not so helpful in making complexity
>judgements about ecologies, since it is always possible to model such
>ecologies from an infinite number of viewpoints-
Don, what about this? I haven't gotten far enough through Rosen to have an
opinion, but I'm getting the impression that Rosen's view is VERY
instrumentalist in this regard. That worries me because, while I believe it
is certainly true that there are potentially an infinite number of valid
perspectives, it is also true that our knowledge depends on what we have
built so far, and we must connect with it as much as possible or else
everything starts over from scratch with each new idea, with a great deal
of duplication and waste. I think there is a way to balance this problem
and it involves dealing methodically with paradox in current theories
before determining the next most useful (not necessarily most valid) view.
>so by his formulation
>they are all equally complex. Don is the person to ask about Rosen's
>view on this - it may be that Rosen has reasons why such questions as
>the relative complexity of different ecologies is meaningless.
Based on the discussion we had since this message, I am comfortable with
the infinite complexity of nature, but the relative complexity of any
interaction with nature (i.e., between systems). We choose the level of our
interaction by what we are capable of perceiving. I suggest all living
systems do this at the level of their awareness (semantic closure). In
other words, a metal deposit in the ground is not aware at the level of
being a metal deposit because it has no means of semantic closure at that
level. However, it is aware at the particle level, just as all matter is. I
know this sounds wierd, but it seems consistent with what we're saying
about semantic closure and quantum phenomena. That's of course why I focus
on the role of macroscopic quantum processes in organisms, because that is
the only means I see for getting semantic closure from existing theories.
The relative complexity of different interactions may be very hard to
measure in all but human interractions, but it intuitively makes sense to
me that a primative organism is interacting in a less complex way than a
very intelligent organism. Can complexity as a relative measure refer to
the interaction? I think we agreed that would work.
-----------------------------------------------
John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
National Geophysical Data Center
325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
Boulder, Colorado 80303 USA
(303) 497-6900 (phone)
(303) 497-6513 (fax)
jjk@ngdc.noaa.gov (email)