Re: The damage that can be done

Judith,

wouldn't it be nice to point out why are these identifications wrong? BTW did I miss your brief and understanding version of a RR-"complexity"?

I looked at that terrible URL, it speaks about all reductionistic complex systems in conventional science. My former WEB- correspondents (prof. Mainzer, Dimitrov) are excellent, but not in the wholeness business.

I just found another "applied" complexity definition for social studies (economics) from a friend in England (I quote the first sentence from her book):

> "We take complexity to mean the intricate inter-relationships that arise from the interaction of agents, which are able to adapt in and evolve with a changing environment...."<
I added in my appreciative post:

> I like to go more generalized - way into the 'wholeness-thinking'.
> The only thing I have to reconsider in this brief definition is the extent of 'agents' and environment - into unlimited all over the world (nature, existence), unrestricted interactions (I like the word: effects with maybe 2-way responses) with inter-relationships unspecified both in qualia and strength/effectiveness. Add to it: so far discovered or not. (Wholistic thinking is still embryonic).<

I wrote this "pour l'honeur du drapeau" to direct "complexity" to the natural system approach. She is prfessor of economics, not philosophy.

Your (and others') comment?

John M

----- Original Message -----

From: Judith Rosen

To: ***

Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2004 10:19 AM

Subject: The damage that can be done

As I was researching various definitions of complexity on the web, I came across something that needs to be addressed by me. The issue in the excerpt I include below, and the link to the larger document, is that another person's characterization of my father's work is what is taken to be representative of the work itself. In this particular case, it is Don Mikulecky's characterization, which is incorrect and is skewed by his own definitions of what complexity means. I was afraid this might happen, and it has.

What does the group suggest I do about this? I can't find a current email for the writer, who is clearly a very intelligent person and who is also on the right track in defining complexity. But there needs to be some means to redress the stupidity ascribed, unfairly, to Robert Rosen, here. It's infuriating.

Excerpt:

The second definition of complexity, as relative to the observer, is that provided by Mikulecky (1999: 2), who defines complexity as ?the property of a real world system that is manifest in the inability of any one formalism being adequate to capture all its properties?. This definition requires that we find distinctly different ways of interacting with systems, in that the formal systems of successful models are not derivable from each other (Mikulecky 1999). Thus ?a system is complex to the extent that we have more than one distinct way of interacting with it? (Mikulecky 1995: 4). The spirit of this formalism, although ascribed to the work of Robert Rosen, can also be found in the writings of George Klir (see 1988: section 5.8). A system is considered simple if one description is considered sufficient to describe the interactions of the system, it is complex when this fails to be true (Mikulecky 1995). Mikulecky (1995: 7) notes that ?Rosen points out that even a stone, which seems simple to us, will be a complex system to a geologist, merely because of the myriad of ways the geologist has of interacting with the stone?. Thus under the Newtonian paradigm the world appears complex as we discover the aspects of it that the Newtonian paradigm failed to capture (Mikulecky 1999).

As with Mikulecky (1995 and 1999), the third definition to be described is also based on the work of Robert Rosen, ?who argues that an observer sees a system as ?complex? when he has more then one single description of it, and these descriptions cannot be reduced to one? (Fioretti 1996: 3). Thus according to Fioretti (1996: 4) ?a system is seen as ?complex? by its observer when, due to the presence of a self-referential loop, the observer can never compile a finite list of the behaviours the system will exhibit?. Fioretti?s definition of complexity is specifically aimed at the social sciences. Under Fioretti?s (1996) view the system does not possess ?complexity?, that it is not an intrinsic property of the system, rather it is the adjective that the observer attaches to it.

Link:

http://www.geog.umd.edu/gis/literature/theses/Jochen's%20students/Femke%20Reitsma/Complexity%20Masters%20thesis/4-.doc