Virtual stability and a complex systems paradigm

October 18th, 2007

Another SFI seminar I wish I could have attended: Virtual Stability: A General Characteristic of Complex Adaptive Systems?

[...] we define the concept of virtual stability as a state in which a system employs self-monitoring and adaptive control to maintain itself in a configuration that would otherwise be unstable. The energy expended in this gains the system a major increase in its flexibility of behavioral response to environmental change. Virtual stability is proposed as a general principle of complex adaptive systems.

The speaker, Burton Voorhees, wrote a paper in 2002: Virtual Stability: A Principle of Complex Systems [PDF]. Along with that stronger in-title assertion, the introduction says:

We suggest that virtual stability provides an answer to the question of whether or not there is a direction to evolution.

A fairly bold statement. Perhaps he has endured some questioning and criticism seeing as the seminar title uses looser language and is phrased as a question. :-)

Curiously, “virtual stability” does not appear in Dr. Voorhees’ list of interests.

Ignoring the uncertainty of the notion, virtual stability fits well in one of my favorite complex system paradigms:

  • solid ↔ liquid ↔ gas
  • order ↔ chaos ↔ random
  • rest ↔ inhalation/exhalation ↔ seizure
  • fixed/periodic ↔ complex ↔ chaotic
  • stable ↔ virtually stable ↔ unstable
  • etc.

Where changes between states is like a phase-transition.

As far as I know this paradigm is in no way “official”, but I find it a meaningful guide. The idea was first presented to me in Christopher Langton‘s thesis1. If you are into complex systems, you should not hesitate to find a copy2. Not only is it a wonderful story of discovery, it’s rife with humor! An inspiring work.

As for Dr. Voorhees’ ideas, I’d like to know more. It would be wonderful if SFI would publish audio and/or video of their seminars.

  1. C. G. Langton. Computation at the edge of Chaos: Phase-Transitions and Emergent Computation. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan (1990). ↩
  2. If you are in university, you may be able to use the inter-library loan system to borrow it from the University of Michigan. That’s what I did in 2000. There was also a company which sold thesis copies, but their quality was atrocious — perhaps being printed from microfiche! ↩

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Wikipedia to relocate to San Francisco

October 18th, 2007

While looking for some voting information on San Francisco’s government website, I saw this press release: Wikipedia to Relocate to San Francisco. Basically, the Wikimedia Foundation will be moving here at the beginning of 2008. Hopefully, that will bring more local talks by Jimmy Wales. The last time I heard him was at Stanford when Mosuki was attending Howard Rheingold and Andrea Saveri‘s class: Literacy of Cooperation. Jimmy Wales’ lecture was one of my favorite.

It’s been a while since I’ve thought about the class, but it was quite good. We got to meet a lot of very interesting people with provocative ideas. The syllabus and class web page appear gone, but Markus Sandy has a good description and many of the lectures are on the Internet Archive.

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RIAA trial: Capitol v. Thomas

October 3rd, 2007

Originally posted to the Self-Referential Orgy (SRO) list.

Some people on this list will probably be interested to know that this morning began the first jury trial between the RIAA and someone they accuse of sharing pirated music via KaZaa. So far, out of the 20,000 cases the RIAA has made against people for pirating, this is the first one to actually make it to court.

Ars Technica is at the trial and making reports. Here are some choice parts:

And the latest entry:

Which has this humorous bit:

Judge Michael Davis gave his assent to the demonstration, and, after the jury filed back into the courtroom, Thomas ripped two CDs, timing it on her cell phone. When the first CD was done, she announced the time as 2:36.18. Gabriel immediately objected saying that they timed it at over four minutes. The apparently-amused judge said that the jurors could figure out the time for themselves. The second CD ripped in 2:17.71 according to the defendant’s timing (I timed the second demonstration in 2:18.97). Gabriel again objected, saying that he had it at three-and-a-half minutes.

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Lost.

July 3rd, 2006

Lost. Lost in this sea of modernity. My society, my world. Energy put into production, into consumption. For what? Living breathing energy or dead? To enjoy or to end. Cycle of life? Reincarnate? Faith, belief. More stories to tell ourselves. Bring us through the suffering of survival. Is there truth to any of it? Or another product. Build build build. Create, structure, model. Growth and destruction, ensuring we recognize the arrow of time. Our worldline bright.

Posted in poems + prose + rambles | Comments Off

Yeast After Me

November 27th, 2005

For some reason, a couple of lovely artists decided I could taint their show, Repeat After Me, with an attempt at Art (more likely, art). Being in love with the science of complexity, the topic of self-replication has come up more than a few times. Fortunately, my original, colder, less fun idea wouldn’t come to fruition in time for the show, so I’ve been forced towards a more seasonally appropriate goal: the creation, recording, and imbibing of beer.

What better way to say “self-replicate” than helping billions of fungal organisms live and die, drinking their waste in celebration? This is a sound art project whose name is still undecided (though my collaborator Søren and I have a few good ideas). We’ve field recorded the brew cycle and will be conjuring the sound pieces into an audible reflection of the process. We’ve got one month to do it. Yikes!

Tonight was the first I’ve played with the samples. If you are bored and I mean really bored (it’s really boring), you can listen to the first exbeeriment. It’s here solely as something to look back at when we finish the final piece. Our work (including the crap linked previously) is licensed under the Creative Commons Sample Plus license.

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