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Template:Conway and complexity: Difference between revisions
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Remember, we are so far away from having enough data, information and processing capacity as for the practical difference between these dispositions to be, for all time, nil — but the theoretical distinction between them is fundamental nonetheless. | Remember, we are so far away from having enough data, information and processing capacity as for the practical difference between these dispositions to be, for all time, nil — but the theoretical distinction between them is fundamental nonetheless. | ||
In both cases, complex systems present us with unpredictable, non-linear outcomes in edge cases. All that differs is | In both cases, complex systems present us with unpredictable, non-linear outcomes in edge cases. All that differs is ''why'' they appear that way. (One is “because they are”, the other “because we have no way to better calculate them”. | ||
But in the first case, any heuristic that helps us make sense of the system ISAs good as any other. There is no “[[epistemic priority]]” between competing heuristics: all that matters is what works best, judged by whatever criteria you happen to bring to the table. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In the other, there ''is'' such an epistemic priority. The most granular binary code is the closest to the truth. This gives the holders of that view grounds for insisting it is preferred, by everyone, over every other heuristic. | |||
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.” | 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.” | ||