Re: complexity ontological or epistemological

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Hi Jeff,

Your question "Is complexity ontological or just epistemological?" is a
great one. I've been chewing on this over the last day or so and I've almost
replied about three times.....each time with a different answer.

I am inclined to think that your question is closely related to the
ponderings Rosen himself posed in the notes excerpt Judith posted several
days ago days ago. In particular, related to the remarks:

> "Two kinds of complexity? As cause and as effect?"
>
> "Complexity = effect    and also   = causal agent"

At this moment, I am inclined to think that 'complexity' is epistemological,
and does not refer to an objective ontological property. A system is called
complex if it has a nonsimulable model, and simple otherwise. A label of
"complexity" is thus based on the characteristics of the sets of models that
a system possesses.

However, since complexity is ascertained via congruent modeling relations,
we have (we hope) transduced the causal entailment structures of the natural
system into the inferential entailment structure in its set of models. As
such, to say that "the system is complex", along with its particular set of
models, would seem to also be an ontological claim (imputation) about the
causal structures of reality.

My feeling is that this latter ontological portion *follows* from
complexity, but that it is not identifiable as 'complexity'. To do so, would
seem to me to be to omit the step that actually led to the label "complex" -
namely, the epistemological modeling process.

Well, that is my thought at the moment. I'll be curious what you and others
think of this.

Regards,
Tim


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Jeff
> Pridaux
> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 8:58 AM
> To: ***
> Subject: complexity ontological or epistemological
>
>
> Is complexity ontological or just epistemological?
>
> This has been on my mind since the mid-90s.  Consider the following....
>
> 1.  Certainly, different people can look at the same thing
> (Natural system)
> and see different things (formal system).  Just think of politics.  For
> instance, liberals and conservatives can look at the same issue
> and come up
> with completely different models of reality and push for different courses
> of action (when in many cases they both want the same end-result).
>
> 2.  Certainly just because we (scientists) may interact with an entity
> (like a sub-cellular organelle) with one set of observables (like
> concentrations of molecules), doesn't mean those observables
> (concentrations) are what something else (like other subcellular
> organelles) "sees" with its interactions with the entity.   The
> concentrations may be there but the concentrations may not really be the
> observable used between the organelles.
>
> 3.  It could follow that organelle B could use one set of observables when
> interacting with organelle A and organelle C could use a completely
> different set of observables when it interacts with organelle A.  The
> subcellular system could (in its own right) have complex modeling
> relationships going on independent of any human observer.  The system has
> its own interior complex modeling relationships inside it.  And as such,
> the complexity of this subcellular system could be thought of as having
> ontological existence.