Re: [ROSEN Ways of defining Rosennean Complexity

[Judith Rosen <***>]

Tim's post requires some elaboration because it is misleading taken out of
context in this way. There are times that my father's definitions can stand
alone and be self-contained. There are also times when he develops a set of
ideas together and putting one or two paragraphs down can give the opposite
impression or an otherwise erroneous impression. Specifically, in the quote
Tim used, the "number of ways of interaction with a system" refers to making
inequivalent models of it, not "how many ways can we use this system" or
"how many ways can be play with this system", etc. The inequivalence is the
operative quality with regards to models, and he called inequivalent models
"independent encodings". He develops that idea extensively throughout the
book. The quote that Tim posted (included at the bottom of this post) was
taken from the end of the book and is embedded in several pages of this kind
of discussion, but it is very misleading taken out of context.

In "Anticipatory Systems", my father  was creating a language to describe
properties that no one had ever scientifically investigated or that no one
had ever tried to elucidate in writing before. Earlier in the book, he says
the following:

"We are going to relate our capacity to produce independent
encodings[non-equivalent models] of a given natural system with the
complexity of it. Roughly speaking, the more such encodings we can produce,
the more complex we will regard the system. Thus, contrary to traditional
views regarding system complexity, we do not treat complexity as a property
of some particular encoding. Nor is complexity entirely an objective
property of the system, in the sense of being itself a directly perceptible
quality which can be measured by a meter. Rather, complexity pertains at
least as much to us as observers as it does to the system; it reflects our
ability to interact with the system in such a way as to make its qualities
visible to us. Intuitively speaking, if the system is such that we can
interact with it in only a few ways, there will be correspondingly few
distinct encodings we can make of the qualities which we perceive thereby,
and the system will appear to us as a simple system. If the system is such
that we can interact with it in many ways, we will be able to produce
correspondingly many distinct encodings, and we will correspondingly regard
the system as complex."

In all of his books, there are different uses of language to describe the
same thing. Anticipatory Systems was breaking a lot of new ground and many
of the ideas were articulated in ways he later refined. It might be useful
to post some of these definitions out of the various books for people to
discuss. However, I hope that this clears up the seeming inconsistency
regarding my father's views and definitions of complexity.

Judith

Tim Gwinn posted:
> Robert Rosen (excerpt from AS): "In what follows, we are going to take a
quite different  approach. Namely,
> we are going to define a system to be complex to the extent that we can
> observe it in non-equivalent ways.
> ----
> This approach to complexity is novel in several ways. For one thing, it
> requires that complexity is not an intrinsic property of a system nor of a
> system description. Rather, it arises from the number of ways in which we
> are able to interact with the system. Thus, complexity is a function not
> only of the system's interactive capabilities, but [also] of our own." [AS
> 321-322]

>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Judith
> > Rosen
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 10:54 PM
> > To: ***
> > Subject: Re: Comparing Rosennean Complexity
> >
> >
> > The quarrel between myself and Don M. was over his contention that
"Rosen
> > said" there is no such thing as a simple system in the material
> > world; that
> > all simple systems are formal systems (i.e. models). I told him
> > [paraphrasing here]; that was incorrect and did not accurately reflect
my
> > father's theoretical beliefs. That's when it got ugly.
> >
> > But the truth is what it is. The thing people seem to get
> > confused on is; if
> > complexity is a fundamental tendency in the universe, how can any
material
> > system be simple (non-complex)? My father's answer was that both types
of
> > organization co-exist in this universe (it's even possible that there
are
> > others) and it is the organization that determines whether the system is
> > complex or non-complex. Don M's argument was that if atoms are
> > complex and a
> > car engine is made of atoms and made by humans and so on... how
> > can that be
> > a "simple system". But that's a reductionist approach. The parts are not
> > what determines complexity; ORGANIZATION is what determines complexity.
A
> > car engine is a system with non-complex organization. A simple
> > system in the
> > material world.
> >
> > It's easy to transform a complex system into a simple system: collapse
the
> > complex organization. Kill the organism. We have the technology to build
a
> > dead organism out of other dead parts. That's not so hard,
> > really.Complicated but not complex. The parts can all be modelled too,
and
> > computed. It's the organization of the living organism that's beyond the
> > reductionist approach to model completely because the
> > organization involves
> > interrelationships that are constantly in motion, constantly in a state
of
> > "flux" or change. Any "snapshot" you try to take of the organism's
complex
> > organization is already out of date, in a sense. Out of time. Therefore,
> > incomplete.
> >
> > Judith
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "John Kineman" <***>
> > To: <***>
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 8:28 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Comparing Rosennean Complexity
> >
> >
> > > Yes, this seems likely, that the problem was in believing that in fact
> > > there is such a threshold. If one presumes that it is possible
> > to (a) have
> > > a simple system, and (b) transition from a simple system to a
> > complex one,
> > > then the question of a threshold where this can be said to have
occurred
> > > comes up. However, if (a) there are no truly simple natural
> > systems, just
> > > conceptual models that are simple and that can make a complex system
act
> > > simple, then (b) one does not in fact transition from simple to
complex,
> > > one degenerates a complex system to a simple one, perhaps in degrees.
At
> > > what threshold would we then say it is no longer complex?? I
> > believe there
> > > are passages in RR's writings (Tim can probably recall them)
> > where he says
> > > even though a complex system may behave like a simple one, it always
> > > retains the possibility of changing that behavior, and hence remains
> > > complex. Part of complexity is not being able to predict
> > behavior, so how
> > > long a simple system will stay simple is part of that
unpredictability,
> > > hence complexity. I think some of this concept was articulated by Don
M.
> > > rather well, and regardless of other matters in his interpretations I
> > think
> > > this is one thing he got right. But Judith can perhaps comment
> > further on
> > that.
> > >
> > > So, Howard, please don't get the idea that I'm on a campaign
> > here against
> > > the Von Neumann view, but I think there is a legitimate question as to
> > > whether the assumptions involved in that view are the right ones for
> > > understanding life.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > JJK
> > >