[ExI] [Soc]Complex Adaptive Systems - Tending Always to 50/50 split

Jef Allbright jef at jefallbright.net
Tue Oct 14 03:46:30 UTC 2008


On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 6:39 PM, Tony wrote:
> Bryan, I suspect Jef is reversing the active roles here.

I suspect I didn't communicate my conjecture very clearly.  And I'm
tired right now, so I may not do any better.

My point was not about a tendency toward equally distributed
bifurcation along any particular (perceived) boundaries, but rather,
that adaptive systems, by virtue of their effectively closed feedback
loops, will tend to arrive at equilibrium (at some point), and then,
any variation in features involved in that feedback loop will tend to
correlate roughly 50/50 between the system itself and its environment
of adaptation.  Further, that with *complex* feature sets involved in
that aggregate  feedback loop, multiple features will tend to vary
together as if situated on a hyperplane maximally separating (or
mirroring) the system and its environment.

A central supporting idea, and why I called this conjecture "obvious",
is that to the extent a (complex and responsive) feedback loop leads
to a system being adapted to its environment of interaction, the
system will tend to become a "mirror" of its environment in terms of
the features involved in the feedback loop.   It is this "mirroring"
that I see leading to a 50/50 split in terms of variation about the
set point.

Sorry, too tired to even proofread this, but perhaps it provides some
useful clarification.

- Jef



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