MD Quality and Complexity

From: bahna@rpi.edu
Date: Tue Mar 11 2003 - 00:32:55 GMT

  • Next message: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com: "Re: MD Quality and Complexity"

    To all:

    Is anyone else out there wading through Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of
    Science?" If there is I would love to discuss what you think the
    relationship is, if any, between quality and complexity. Wolfram's book is
    1200 pages long and no where in it does he formally define complexity,
    which is central to his thesis. In his cellular automata examples he
    discovers simple rules which produce patterns he describes as complex.
    What makes them complex? Well, he spends three quarters of the book
    exploring this question. He attempts several methods of computation and
    formal mathematics to uncover some formal description. Ultimately, though,
    the best test for complexity is human perception. We just look at it and
    most of us will agree one picture is more complex than another. There are
    some characteristics of the complexity. The pattern appears random
    (another undefined term), but there are recognizable structures in the
    pattern. Some of the pictures are quite beautiful. There is a lot in the
    book which brings to mind Phaedrus's quest for defining Quality. Although,
    I think Wolfram will ultimately avoid any psychic breakdowns.

    Andy

    I think the

    MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    Mail Archives:
    Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net

    To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Mar 11 2003 - 00:34:46 GMT