Template:Conway and complexity: Difference between revisions

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Hmm. So however long you run Conway’s life game, it does not seem to arrive at [[rice pudding and income tax]]. Reductionists say “Ah, but that is just because the rules aren’t quite right, or we haven’t quite got the right initial configuration”. But then, they would say that.
Hmm. So however long you run Conway’s life game, it does not seem to arrive at [[rice pudding and income tax]]. Reductionists say “Ah, but that is just because the rules aren’t quite right, or we haven’t quite got the right initial configuration”. But then, they would say that.


The idea that complexity is merely an emergent probability of a simple [[algorithm]] is quite the piece of eliminative reductionism. It converts all complex systems to no more than an insufficiently understood simple systems. This undermines the powerful distinction between [[simple]], [[Complicated system|complicated]] and [[Complex system|complex]] systems — they are now just points along a continuum, without hard boundaries between them — and undermines the explanatory power of complexity theory. It is really just saying, “well, in this complex system, ''something'' will happen; we don’t know what, but as and when it does we will be able to rationalise it as a function of our rules, by deducing what the missing data must have been.”
The idea that [[complexity]] is merely an [[emergent]] probability of a simple [[algorithm]] is quite the piece of eliminative [[reductionism]]. Eliminative in that it eliminates complexity as discrete state. It converts all [[complex]] systems to no more than an insufficiently mapped understood simple systems.  
 
This is like saying — maybe it ''is'' saying —an [[analog]] signal is just an insufficiently granular [[digital]] signal. That the digital world isn't just a handy
 
This undermines the powerful distinction between [[simple]], [[Complicated system|complicated]] and [[Complex system|complex]] systems — they are now just points along a continuum, without hard boundaries between them — and undermines the explanatory power of complexity theory. It is really just saying, “well, in this complex system, ''something'' will happen; we don’t know what, but as and when it does we will be able to rationalise it as a function of our rules, by deducing what the missing data must have been.”


Ex-post facto rationalisation to comply with your rules is rather like the work normal scientists do in a research programme, of course. It is a form of narratisation.
Ex-post facto rationalisation to comply with your rules is rather like the work normal scientists do in a research programme, of course. It is a form of narratisation.