Re: Comparing Rosennean Complexity

[John Kineman <***>]

To beat the old drum - if we shift focus just a bit and say complexity,
as such, is already present, the question becomes why do some systems
simplify (the classical world) and others retain and employ natural
complexity to determine their behavior (the living world).

Simplifying is easy to explain in terms of a degenerate complex system -
both sides of the modeling relation behahve the same, so you have a
simple system. The difficulty is then explaining why there is anything
else.  I attempted it in my space-time paper. Basically any observation
requires a framework for measurement (recall RR's "Fundamentals of
Measurement"). That framework alone provides mechanistic simplicity to
further observations and events that occur in that framework. Physics
assumes there is only one such framework - the one we perceive in. A
concession is made to others via relativity, but these are continuous
variations between each other. Discrete space-times are the issue, in
which different simplicities can exist. Many speculate that this idea of
multiple space-time frames must be related to quantum phenomena (e.g.,
Penrose and others), and I speculate that it must be related to the
ability to anticipate and make decisions. Basically if a separate
space-time frame is where our thoughts exist, they can vary from the
events of the space-time our senses and bodies participate in
materially. If the two can influence each other through the exchange of
information (light) then we have a means for having multiple functional
possibilities in the isolated space-times that can varioiusly be
selected to influence the one we inhabit.

I would look for some natural phenomenon where one gets quantum
isolation (hence alternative space-time frames) preserved in a
macroscopic system. Maybe a room temperature Bose-Einstein condensate
(so far only confirmed at low temperatures) that can get caught up in
organic chemical structures and then influence their development to
evolutionary forms???? It would be a very special kind of primitive
system that can combine both classical matter and BE matter or the like.

James N Rose wrote:

> Thank you Judith. Not really.  I was hoping he might
> have cited something that would give a 'tendency
> toward complexity' as the "resultant" of some
> sequentially prior arrangement of conditions or
> factors.   Anything along -that- line?
>
> James
>
> Judith Rosen wrote:
>
>
> > > James Rose wrote: Judith, Did your father ever point
> > > to anything that could be identified as a 'fundamental
> > > mechanism or relationship', that generated or educed
> > > the phenomenon of 'tendency toward complexity'?
> > I think "relationship" is the right concept here. He spoke of  "the three
> > body problem" as being part of what got him going in this direction. Does
> > that help?
> >
> > Judith

--
© 2004 John J. Kineman
all rights reserved