Huh

I’ve started this post eight different times, each time I tried a different tact and each time I gave up. Over the past year I’ve gained a real interest in Complexity theory. I’ve read multiple books, papers, blogs… on different aspects of Complexity, Chaos, Emergence and related topics. In fact, in some of these posts I’ve referenced Complex Adaptive Systems (I’m using John Holland’s nomenclature) yet I’ve never adequately defined my terms. So, this week I decided to reread and do some additional reading to actually define my terms since, and I’m ashamed to admit this, I wasn’t completely sure what I mean by complexity. It turns out, from what I can tell, no one else is sure what the definition should be either. So, in the spirit of arrogance that comes so naturally to blogging I’ve decided to lay out some definitions below in the hope that people will want to comment and help me refine them. Actually, even if people don’t comment I’ll probably refine them. Anyway, here goes, my definitions for Complexity, Atomic Part (I might want to change that) Emergence and Complex systems.

Complexity: the the measurement of an ideal observer’s ability to predict the outcome of the interaction of a system’s atomic parts.

Atomic Parts: The arbitrarily chosen component parts that appear irreducible, when compared against each other at some arbitrarily chosen level.

Complex system: A system that can not be reduced to the sum of it’s parts. Effectively it is a system that is greater than the sum of it’s parts or as Stuart Kauffman would say, “a system that gives you something for nothing.”

Emergence: The observed qualities (or perhaps regularities) as perceived by the ideal observer that were unpredictable when said observer was given a complete description of the observed system’s atomic parts.

Caveats:

1) You’ll note in an effort to simplify my understanding of these concepts I’ve (temporarily) discarded the notion that complexity or emergence exist with out an observer. I don’t like making this assumption but I’m having trouble finding any way around it.

2) The use of an “ideal” observer is meant to do away with the argument that the unpredictability of a system is a factor of ignorance on the part of the observer. I know there are mathematical proofs that appear to prove some class of systems as complex given near infinite computational resources but I must admit I don’t have the expertise necessary to evaluate said proofs.

3) When speaking of the arbitrariness of component parts or chosen level, I’m enforcing my belief that there are in fact “levels” of a system that are internally cohesive when judging whether parts of the system are irreducible. Example, if one were to look at a human society one could just as easily argue that humans are the component parts as that human brains (or organs) or atoms are the irreducible component parts. I suspect that a part is irreducible if if possess a high enough (any?) level of complexity but, for purposes of this discussion, it seems it circular to argue this point.

4) Given the above definitions, Complexity can be an emergent property of a system, though I’d argue, that complexity will not necessarily emerge. If complexity doesn’t emerge, I’d call the Birthing System a Final Complex System and the Emergent System would be a Simple System. However, as I write this I wonder if any system is ever final since, depending on where you look, it would seem that it will birth some form of complexity even if not at a different level. Example, the interaction of ants is a complex system, the resultant ant hill is a simple system but future ant hives that come from the original ant system will, of course, be complex systems.

5) I’m still wrestling with whether complexity is a qualitative measurement, a quantitative measurement or both. In other words we can argue some system is more or less complex based on, potentially, how many complex systems it births, how many atomic parts and kinds of interactions said system starts with, how hard it is to predict Emergent phenomena…

So there it is, my first take on this issue. In my next post I’ll give some fuller descriptions of complex systems and why they’re of interest.

Steve Grand wrote a book I just love, called Creation: Life and how to make it. Steve’s the creator of Creatures a popular computer game, kinda a cross between the Sims and Spore. In his highly readable book he posits

Dr. Frankenstein’s Creed:

“Life is not the stuff of which it is made – it is an emergent property of the aggregate arrangement of that stuff. Even the stuff itself is no more than an emergent property of a still smaller whirlpool of interactions. Living beings are high-order persistent phenomena, which endure through intelligent interaction with their environment. This intelligence is a product of multiple layers of feedback. An organism is therefore a localized network of feedback loops that ensures its own continuation.

Intelligence cannot be abstracted – we have to build a whole organism. Nether can intelligence exist in a vacuum – it has to be embedded in a self-consistent environment. Life is the sum total of all the feedback within the organism, and between the organism and it’s environment. The division between organism and environment is not a real boundary, but a convenience dreamt up by our own brains – the universe is really just a single jumble of interactions.

A computer cannot be intelligent or alive, Nor can a computer program. But a computer can be used to create a cyberspace. Inside that cyberspace we can construct first-order objects and use algorithms to emulate their behavior. These objects are not alive or intelligent either, but they can be pieced together to build a second-order assemblage that is. Our task is not to program in intelligent behavior, but to enable such behavior to emerge from simulated objects that embody the cybernetic properties from which life emerged in the natural world.

To complete the picture, we must ensure that the recipe for this emergent phenomenon is not hard-wired but is able to be passed on from generation to generation and modify itself in order to persist on longer timescales, as the environment changes. Our creature will be fully alive and intelligent only if its future lies in its own hands, and to give it this autonomy we must relinquish direct control of its design. In short, the plans for how to assemble our creatures should be coded in its genes.”

Now I know some will argue this is not formalized enough to be meaningful but to them I respond. “It’s a creed for god’s sake, get over yourself”. What blew me away, are the twin concepts of evolution and emergence in the first two paragraphs. Note: I have issues with the last sentence in the second paragraph since the issue of subjective vs. objective “reality” is not at all clear to my way of thinking. But put that aside. To think, the average human has 35K genes, you could almost look at them as lines of code and with these 35K worth of genes you get not only all the variety of the human race (this concept first struck me at my local grocery store; the same pool of genes created him, her and me? Get out of here!) But, more importantly, those genes having been and still being selected by evolutionary pressure, resulted in the human brain, perhaps the most complex entity known to, well, the human brain. Further, without evolutionary pressures there wouldn’t be intelligence, let alone the human brain. But of course, it’s not just humans that evolved, only because of competition, because the evolutionary landscape is constantly changing from the perspective of any one individual “persistent phenomenon” is there life.

So I got a myriad of questions but a couple come to mind.

Why do the patterns persist? I mean wouldn’t it be easier to just not struggle. Where does that universal urge to survive come from? Becasue, without the urge to survive, to reproduce, make more of oneself, the whole damn system falls apart. Now I know, one could say, “Well, the will to persist is there because it defines success. All the other approaches (the will to not persist, the will to watch lots of television, eat cheetos and never move) didn’t do so well. Only the results of the the will to persist are around to be seen. Okay, fair enough but here we get into emergence. There seems to be a movement towards complexity throughout the Universe. This movement is not only seen in entities with “will” but in non-willfull agents. Why? Where does that come from?

My friend Richard Nantel (check out his blog here) argued I have a moral duty to blog. His theory seems to be, the world is full of big problems, the only way things are going to get better is if we put our heads together and share what we know. Frankly, my gut doesn’t completely buy it but what the hell, why not give it a try? So I figured for my first post I’d offer a sense of what I’m trying to do and why.

I want to use this blog to explore things that make me say; huh? or huh! or huh. And I’ll probably even write about some things that made me say huh but now make me think, Ha! In short, I’ll throw things out there and see what sticks. I would LOVE for you to let me know what you think sticks and what you think stinks. Even better, please let me know WHY you think it sticks or stinks.

Things I intend to explore include; Complexity Theory, Emergence, Evolutionary Psychology, The craft of writing, Politics, Economics, Literature, Physics and Metaphysics. Of course I reserve the right to add any topic that makes me say Huh.

Finally, you may note above, I’ve a link for my writings. Not much there at the moment but eventually I’ll be publishing fiction that has been inspired by the above topics. I’ll sign off for now so I can actually  start writing some of this stuff. Hopefully this blog will encourage you to say, in the best possible way, “huh”.