[Fis] Beyond limits

[Carlos Gershenson]

Thanks to everyone for sharing their ideas.

It is true that we have a broad variety of proposals, and I think this is necessary to be able to explore the "space of explanations”, so that eventually through collective feedback we’ll converge into a set of concepts and methods that are easy to communicate and widely applicable. I don’t see any shortcut, so let’s keep on sharing ideas.

>From what has been expressed, it seems to me that we need to go beyond predictability, consistency, decidability… 

All of these are very powerful, so it makes sense that we would like to use models that are predictable, consistent, decidable, etc. to explain and understand phenomena. But as we have seen, models that stick to the limits of formal systems are insufficient to study complex systems, evolution, intelligence, etc. And we do have models of these phenomena, but then we cannot predict as we would like. Still, it seems to me that it is the only way to go. We won’t be able to create formal systems without their limits. We must change our worldview, to go beyond those limits.

Grounding this a bit, I can share related publications:

Gershenson, C. (2013). Facing complexity: Prediction vs. adaptation. In A. Massip & A. Bastardas (Eds.), Complexity perspectives on language, communication and society (pp. 3–14). Springer.  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3843__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UXcSesX9-DlibkCLi4ti1rLAyFJFGnXnJptde9IQJ1BFqNm_BChWTa-jS1__c5FyQRydNP_K6j3ywBAPeXc$ 
Here I argue that interactions inherently limit predictability, and we can use adaptation as an alternative to deal with this limited predictability. One can find flexible and efficient solutions for problems, but then one must give up “certainty” (because even if our methods are predictable, they fail when changes in the world deem our models obsolete).

Gershenson, C. (2013). The implications of interactions for science and philosophy. Foundations of Science, 18(4), 781–790. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2827__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UXcSesX9-DlibkCLi4ti1rLAyFJFGnXnJptde9IQJ1BFqNm_BChWTa-jS1__c5FyQRydNP_K6j3yt2gg1j0$    
This is more philosophical, but offers alternatives to the limitations of traditional reductionist worldviews, including materialism.

Gershenson, C. (2012). The world as evolving information. In A. Minai, D. Braha, & Y. Bar-Yam (Eds.), Unifying themes in complex systems (pp. 100–115, Vol. 7). Springer. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0304__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UXcSesX9-DlibkCLi4ti1rLAyFJFGnXnJptde9IQJ1BFqNm_BChWTa-jS1__c5FyQRydNP_K6j3yx17BsYI$  
Since we cannot express (semantic) information from physics (matter/energy), because meaning can be arbitrary (undecidable), one alternative is to do the opposite: express matter and energy in terms of information. And then we can explore “laws of information” that apply to everything we can express (because if you can express it, by definition it is information).

Best wishes,

Carlos

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