How times have changed [was Sr. Developer ]

[Fred]

On Thursday 16 February 2006 12:12, Jeff Kinz wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 10:22:01AM -0500, I wrote:
...
> > So, to differ, "organizations" DO exist -- but their efficiency to act
> > is inversely proportional to the number of participants. That is to say,
> > the "collective IQ" of the group, if there is such a thing, will always
> > be *less* than the IQ of individuals. The reason for this is simple: The
> > individuals are *not free* to act as the group can. The group itself is
> > by design forced to act as a unit; therefore it is a node in its own
> > right.
> >
> > This scares the willies out of me because group nodes where it involves
> > humans typically become *less humane* than the individuals themselves.
>
> Fred, are you looking at chaos/complexity theory as it applies to
> human behavior & economics?

Pretty much. Actually, I am looking to take the whole affair to the "next 
level". More on that later after I get some publications up... whenever that 
happens. Right now, making money has taken priority. :-(

> A whole bunch of stuff came out of the Santa Fe Institute that allowed
> economists to actually start realistically modeling human behavior
> wit the same  approach the physicists had started using to model
> complex-chaotic systems.  They labeled it "chaos theory".  I'm sure
> everyone has heard of it and it seems to be usable for a great deal
> more than modeling chaotic physical systems.

The Santa  Fe Institute has been quite impressive over the years. I have a 
keen interest in what they've done with Artificial Life -or a-life. Everyone 
knows that is, right? If not, I strongly recommend the book "Artificial 
Life" by Steven Levy:

http://www.echonyc.com/~steven/

> One of the most interesting items I ran across was that there seems to be
> some cross-over between the chaos theory and the automata theories
> being advanced by Stephen Wolfram in "A New Kind Of Science".  A great
> book, but much harder to read than "Freakonomics".  Also harder to lift.
> :)

Oh yes, cellular automata. Fascinating stuff. Basically what I have in mind 
would represent a generalization of cellular automata, snagging some 
elements of set theory, and would be applicable to everything in the 
Universe. Oops, I'm saying too much and thus risking the image of "crank", 
so, I'll say no more until I publish. As an ardent skeptic myself, I must 
myself abide by the "extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence" 
credo... 

-Fred