Michael Crichton on Complex Systems

[ryyannon]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=78...84634&hl=en

Or read the whole enchilada:

http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-complexity.html

Excerpt:

"We live in a world of complex systems. The environment is a complex system. The government is a complex system. Financial markets are complex systems. The human mind is a complex system---most minds, at least.

By a complex system I mean one in which the elements of the system interact among themselves, such that any modification we make to the system will produce results that we cannot predict in advance.

Furthermore, a complex system demonstrates sensitivity to initial conditions. You can get one result on one day, but the identical interaction the next day may yield a different result. We cannot know with certainty how the system will respond.

Third, when we interact with a complex system, we may provoke downstream consequences that emerge weeks or even years later. We must always be watchful for delayed and untoward consequences.

The science that underlies our understanding of complex systems is now thirty years old. A third of a century should be plenty of time for this knowledge and to filter down to everyday consciousness, but except for slogans

[professor_yaffle1]

Hmm, good article, and some well presented ideas and interpretations.............as for me, I can't get past 44 on Freerice

[ryyannon]

Hmm, good article, and some well presented ideas and interpretations.............as for me, I can't get past 44 on Freerice

It's a very good article and it goes a long way in explaining the messes that managers, specialists, politicians and any idiot with a bit of power are creating for the rest of us. As Crichton says (sort of, somewhere) "A bit of f

[Nanuq]

This is a fascinating concept. Read some of Benoit Mandelbrot's and Henri Poincare's work... nonlinear systems seem completely knowable and the math is ridiculously simple. And yet, a few iterations out, they are simply and maddeningly unpredictable.

Not that they are hard to predict... they are impossible to predict.

Amazing.

[ryyannon]

[sssurfer]

They are impossible to predict from the point of view of a mathematician, Nanuq -- i.e., they cannot be integrated, i.e. you cannot predict in a single step where the system's trajectory in the space of phases will be in n times from now.

In this sense yes, they are fully deterministic, but we cannot predict them.

But we can simulate them.

I naturally agree that Eisenberg puts quite a limit about simulating a real system, though.

And also that simulating a system made of a large number of elements for a large number of times may rapidly grow beyond our simulation capabilities.

So far, so better, I think.

[Nanuq]

And yet, scientists continue to attempt to model the climate, and extend valid predictons from their findings.

[ryyannon]

And yet, scientists continue to attempt to model the climate, and extend valid predictons from their findings.

The whole system runs on the insane desire to be able to develop rational systems to predict with certainty what's going to happen tomorrow - plus the tons of grants and government money that gets thrown at anyone claiming to be able to be able to do so - or at least working on the idea.

Personally, I find that using an online Tarot reading produces excellent results and has the merit of being free. The worst part about it is how accurate it can be - along with the cororllary of how difficult it is to face reality - or often just to see it - particularly when it's staring you in the face, warts and all.

The toughest part is understanding that it's you.

[sssurfer]

And yet, scientists continue to attempt to model the climate, and extend valid predictons from their findings.

Yes, but they are doing it by simulation.

Also, extending valid predictions from 1 day to 2 days proved easy... 2 days to 3 days, uneasy... 3 days to 4 days, tough... more than 4 days, still unreliable.

That is exactly what we would expect from a complex system: the more in the future we gather, the greater the error between the predicted trajectory and the actual trajectory, due to our necessarily incomplete knowledge of the initial state. We know that the system will be somewhere near the attractor... but where, that's a different matter.

This even by simulation, I mean.

BTW, I recently got an amusing tale by a mathematician friend who is a teacher in our university.

He was paying a visit to another friend who performs wheather forecasts.

The guy was comprehensibly proud of their good results on short-term forecast, but was also a bit frustrated from their bad results on mid-term and long-term results. As much as they worked on it, he said, they could not get better than 49% at a few days.

"Nothing easier to make a better prediction", my friend obviously smiled, "just invert your prediction and you will get up to 51% reliability in a snap!"

The toughest part is understanding that it's you.

Absolutely.

In my hope, I should have a book published this year about highest mind functions (thinking, reasoning, consciousness) analyzed as complex systems and reproducted in their smallest features and their evolution as neural networks (an about 15 years ongoing work).

If you like, I would like to send you a copy. Maybe you can find a friend able to read my language.

(... but yes, where is Vicky???)

[Nanuq]

In my hope, I should have a book published this year about highest mind functions (thinking, reasoning, consciousness) analyzed as complex systems and reproduced in their smallest features and their evolution as neural networks (an about 15 years ongoing work).

If you like, I would like to send you a copy. Maybe you can find a friend able to read my language.

Congratulations! THAT is an accomplishment.

[ryyannon]

In my hope, I should have a book published this year about highest mind functions (thinking, reasoning, consciousness) analyzed as complex systems and reproducted in their smallest features and their evolution as neural networks (an about 15 years ongoing work).

If you like, I would like to send you a copy. Maybe you can find a friend able to read my language.

(... but yes, where is Vicky???)

Hey, thanks for the offer! I'd love to read it.

One of the many ironies of my life is that despite receiving an

[Nanuq]

Ah, well said. Can we start a new "Where in the world is Victoria?" contest here? Perhaps a sightings bulletin board?

Irregardless (don't you doubly hate it when people use that term?) you can define your singular vs. plural regular nouns in much the same way that your erstwhile students describe astronomical objects: by their surroundings.

Have you ever seen a black hole? No, so one describes and "observes" them by their cosmic effects on their neighbors.

In much the same way, the verbal neighbors of the noun in question will describe the noun's plurality: "a" moose "eats" the hiker, vs. "two" moose "eat" the hiker.

Just like a black hole, those things that surround your object of interest define and categorize it.

QED, voila' and all that.

PS: 0 + 0 = 0

[ryyannon]

Yikes! And I always thought the plural of 'moose' was mice....

You learn something every day reading RWG!

As for the mysterious disappearance of Vicky (and the sudden reapparance of that guy in Alaska), I earlier suggested that they were one and the same.

With the passage of time, I'm beginning to think I was right.

PS: 0 + 0 = 0

[Nanuq]

Yikes! And I always thought the plural of 'moose' was mice....

You learn something every day reading RWG!

As for the mysterious disappearance of Vicky (and the sudden reapparance of that guy in Alaska), I earlier suggested that they were one and the same.

With the passage of time, I'm beginning to think I was right.

My friend, irregardless of your mathematical knowledge, you have no idea of just how large a value of 0 you're dealing with here. It is stupifying....

Do you mean stupefying? *wagging my finger at you* Perhaps "Terrifying, mortifying or petrifyingly" large....??

Now just a darn minute here. The delectable Miz Vicky has a grasp of foreign and historical events of which I am utterly incapable. I can barely even spell the words she so blithely tosses about. Me? I'm just an ignorant Alaskan hick.

[ryyannon]

By the way - and for the misguided who imagine that ryyannon is just blowing soap bubbles out of his...um... nostrils every time he posts - just check out this little bit of news, first reported by ryyannon himself (in concert with his old friend, Special Agent 'iblake') three years ago in one of the most informative threads ever to appear on the old RWG:

http://www.replica-watches-guide.com/forum...6384&st=120

and this item, right off the April 11 news wire of the AFP:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-EetM...1QWRvLzMWPE2wjA

My natural modesty prevented me from bringing the latest news concerning Victor Bout to the attention of the forum earlier, but following Nanuq's attack on my use of the word 'irregardless' (not to mention my speling skills), I feel that honor demands that I re-establish my overall credibility - irrespective of the fact that despite his increasingly frantic claims to the contrary, Nanuq himself is very certainly Victoria Barrett's alter-ego!

[Nanuq]

Ah, the inimitable and never-to-be-repeated TRL thread. A masterpiece of speech.

Irrespective of your attempts to paint me with the Vickybrush, I think you've ir-reestablished one thing for all of us... too much time spent in France turns one's brain to crepes.

Hmmmmmmm, I wonder what happened to the ever-delectable Miss Understood? Have you considered perhaps she and Miz Barrett are one and the same?

[ryyannon]

Ah, the inimitable and never-to-

Irrespective of your attempts to paint me with the Vickybrush, I think you've ir-reestablished one thing for all of us... too much time spent in France turns one's brain to crepes.

Actually, it turns one's brain into something far worse than that.

But irrespective and irregardless of that irritating reality, the attentive reader has doubtlessly noticed the duplicitous 'Nanuq's' inadvertent demonstration of his mastery of foreign languages.

I rest my case.

Hmmmmmmm, I wonder what happened to the ever-delectable Miss Understood? Have you considered perhaps she and Miz Barrett are one and the same?

Is it full-blown Dissociative Identity Disorder, or just cabin fever, Nanuq?

Being chased around by Polar Bears and attacked by large man-eating antlered Arctic Mice seems to have taken its toll....

[Nanuq]

Mastery of languages? Pshaw. Una inuuq aaniqtuuq.

Cabin fever?

[ryyannon]

Pshaw. Una inuuq aaniqtuuq.

Cabin fever?

Well, there you have it folks.

So far around the bend that he's living proof of the concept of curved space.

Decency demands that we change the subject.

[Nanuq]

Speechless, I see. I often have that effect on, um ladies.

...............Vicky??

[sssurfer]

Oh well, I cannot have just 1 single real work day, you two together have to go that far without me.

Shame on you!

BTW, the most entertaining read since a long time.

May I use your 'So Where's Vicky', Rya?

Sort of a red bow to anyone interested?

[ryyannon]

Oh well, I cannot have just 1 single real work day, you two together have to go that far without me.

Shame on you!

BTW, the most entertaining read since a long time.

May I use your 'So Where's Vicky', Rya?

Sort of a red bow to anyone interested?

Sure, Mr. sssurfer, help yourself...

[sssurfer]

Thanks, Rya!

Just, I am really becoming a bit concerned.