Talk:Complex adaptive system

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[edit] Commercial link appropriate?

As it sits, the external link to the Redfish Group with no description looks like spam. Any comments or differing characterization of the link before it gets removed? --Blainster 23:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting

The universe seems to be arranged in hierarchies. There are various levels at which you can understand it. The level we are most famililar with is the level of everyday life. Going down we run into the levels of organs, cells, molecular biology, chemistry. Each level has its own laws which work in certian "special cases" with all violations at the "extreams". Complex Adaptive Swarms exhibit similar layered behavior also, at each layer the swarm is made of smaller complex adaptive systems. This layered behavior doesn't appear in swarms made of simple systems. This all seems to imply that either there is no bottom to the layers of the universe(and no TOE) or, the bottom layer is made of smart, adaptive particles.--SurrealWarrior 18:08, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 12:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed name change [plural -> singular]

  • JA: I had posted the reason for this change at the Requested moves page. I thought that this was pretty straightforward, but needed admin help because of the pre-existing undeveloped article with the singular title. This article was initially titled with the singular Complex adaptive system, then listed for speedy deletion due to lack of content or lack of work expanding the stub. Then it appears that a new article was created under the plural title. I think that it's standard to use singular forms for titles unless there is some overriding reason to use the plural, as this makes it easier to wiki both forms as needed, by Complex adaptive systems, and so on. There is now a complex tangle of redirects involving this article and several others on complexity that I encountered in the process of trying to reference it properly, and I can sort that out after the change is made. Jon Awbrey 02:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Agree, move: I don't have a problem with this move. It seems strange that the singular title was previously redirected to complex system instead of here. Since there was no substantive article or any discussion at the singular title, I can't see any need to try to preserve the history there. --Blainster 02:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Notes & Queries

Jon Awbrey 05:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definitions need fix

The Revision as of 13:50, 20 December 2006 Michael Hardy, (→Definitions - cquote) resulted in the deletion of the original text. But I can't figure out how to fix it. Help, anyone?Fireproeng 04:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Done.Fireproeng 18:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] maybe an example or two would help?

i'm having trouble understanding these articles. i.e. complexity almost doesn't say anything specific. can we have an example of a complex adaptive system, what makes it complex, what makes it adaptive? Is a thermostat one? or is it not complex?

a quote from the article (a definition?)

What distinguishes a CAS from a pure multi-agent system (MAS) is the focus on top-level properties and features like self-similarity, complexity, emergence and self-organization. A MAS is simply defined as a system composed of multiple, interacting agents. In CASs, the agents as well as the system are adaptive: the system is self-similar. A CAS is a complex, self-similar collectivity of interacting adaptive agents. Complex Adaptive Systems are characterised by a high degree of adaptive capacity, giving them resilience in the face of perturbation.
Other important properties are adaptation

the article just keeps saying the same words over and over again: self-similarity, compexity, adaptive capacity... but it defines none of these. I have no clue what self-similarity is doing here, it usually refers to a subsystem being similar to the whole system, of course this is strictly speaking impossible for a finite system so i don't get it. i also don't see how that makes it adaptive. does it make a snowflake complex?

pick a few systems and define in what way they are self similar, define what it means for the system to be adaptive.

the section on biology only discusses a technical issue of the left hand wall in evolution of complexity. again, it doesn't describe what it means for a cell or a mouse to be a complex adaptive system (other than the obvious gut sense that of course that sounds like what they are. work your way down the scale from mouse to cell to ribosome to enzyme to amino acid to carbon atom to proton. at what point in this hierarchy is the system no longer a complex adaptive system?

I'd try writing it, but i've been trying for 20 years to no avail. the best i can come up with is a collection of 60 descriptions of interesting systems and let the reader decide on the categories if there are any. perhaps it is too early in history for such a treatment, these things are only 150 years old. I think it took longer than that to define what oxygen was.Wikiskimmer 08:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)