Nature’s dynamical complexity

Complexity and Dynamical Depth

We argue that a critical difference distinguishing machines from organisms and computers from brains is not complexity in a structural sense, but a difference in dynamical organization that is not well accounted for by current complexity measures. We propose a measure of the complexity of a system that is largely orthogonal to computational, information theoretic, or thermodynamic conceptions o...

Dynamical Complexity and Regularity

1. The dynamical complexity of an object is defined. This is something like its algorithmic information content, but I use a dynamical system in place of a universal Turing machine. A dynamically-complex object is, roughly speaking, one that the dynamical laws have little or no tendency to produce from a random initial state. A “GIGO” theorem is proved, that an object with dynamical complexity ...

The Natures of Nonconfigurationality

Population, development, and human natures

At the dawn of this new millennium, the human enterprise is quickly becoming a globally unified one. Yet numerous obstacles and pitfalls remain in the path of a full and fair unification. A substantial fraction of the world’s population is well-off and increasingly connected through trade and communications systems. But an even larger fraction is struggling to make ends meet and is only sketchi...

Natures and Perspectives

“Nature” and “Perspective” have similar meaning for Eclipse developers and for personnel in a software product line organization. The nature of product line work differs from one part of the organization to another. A developer using Eclipse switches among perspectives to have ready access to the specific tools needed for the nature of the current work such as testing, modeling, or plug-in deve...