Thanks for the reply Rory! I think at this point it is fairly clear where we agree (quantitative methods and ideas from maths and physics can be helpful in other disciplines) and where we disagree (whether complexity science has new insights to offer, and whether there is a need for an interdisciplinary field doing this work separate from the ones that already exist), and don’t have any more to offer here past my previous comments. And I appreciate your candidness noting that most complexity scientists don’t mention complexity or emergence much in their published research; as is probably clear I think this suggests that, despite their rhetoric, they haven’t managed to make these concepts useful.
I do not think the SFI, at least judging from their website, and from the book Scale which I read a few years ago, is a good model of public relations that EAs should try to emulate. They make grand claims about what they have achieved which seems to me to be out of proportion to their actual accomplishments. I’m curious to hear what you think the great success stories of SFI are. The one I know the most about, the scaling laws, I’m pretty skeptical of for the reasons outlined previously. I had a look at their “Evolution of Human Languages” program, and it seems to be fringe research by the standards of mainstream comparative linguistics. But there could well be success stories that I am unfamiliar with, particularly in economics.
Thanks for the reply Rory! I think at this point it is fairly clear where we agree (quantitative methods and ideas from maths and physics can be helpful in other disciplines) and where we disagree (whether complexity science has new insights to offer, and whether there is a need for an interdisciplinary field doing this work separate from the ones that already exist), and don’t have any more to offer here past my previous comments. And I appreciate your candidness noting that most complexity scientists don’t mention complexity or emergence much in their published research; as is probably clear I think this suggests that, despite their rhetoric, they haven’t managed to make these concepts useful.
I do not think the SFI, at least judging from their website, and from the book Scale which I read a few years ago, is a good model of public relations that EAs should try to emulate. They make grand claims about what they have achieved which seems to me to be out of proportion to their actual accomplishments. I’m curious to hear what you think the great success stories of SFI are. The one I know the most about, the scaling laws, I’m pretty skeptical of for the reasons outlined previously. I had a look at their “Evolution of Human Languages” program, and it seems to be fringe research by the standards of mainstream comparative linguistics. But there could well be success stories that I am unfamiliar with, particularly in economics.