Evolution of complexity/information

Charles Knight writes: I have examined 100s of "knowledge management" systems, every single one had been an information management system. The idea of managing the knowledge of individuals is just daft.

Charles Knight writes: I don't believe knowledge can be managed. Knowledge Management is a poor term, but we are stuck with it, I suppose. "Knowledge Focus" or "Knowledge Creation" (Nonaka) are better terms, because they describe a mindset, which sees knowledge as activity not an object. A is a human vision, not a technological one.1

Brain imaging techniques show this complexity in action. And, it reveals much more. It shows how emotional moods, hormone levels, genetic variation, pharmaceutical drugs and a host of other factors can greatly influence this brain activity. It shows how different people will interpret and react differently to the same information. It shows how people interpret and react differently to the same information at different times according to mood, context and situation.Ramifications for knowledge managementThis knowledge, of the physical activity in the brain as it perceives and processing information, has profound ramifications for knowledge management systems. It gives substance to the wealth of empirical evidence that people differ markedly in how they understand information and the knowledge they gain from it. An insightful, inspirational document to one person may seem a nonsensical collection of buzzwords to another. Contradictory conclusions can be drawn from the same tracts of text when read by people who have different moods or have different background experiences.
Given this situation, who can be relied on to evaluate the content of a paper? Whose views are best, when it comes to classification and categorization?The problems are compounded by the knowledge that the brain doesn't absorb information in a literal sense. Brain imaging has shown that all inputs to the brain are lost during the neural processing procedures. The brain constructs its own version of the information it receives, using elements drawn from memory to build selected elements of the information it perceives into its own unique conceptual framework.This can be likened to an artist showing somebody a picture they have drawn and then for that person to cut it up into pieces and add some of the pieces to a picture they have created themselves.The more that is learned about how the brain processes information the less likely it seems that this knowledge can be of much use in creating a computer system that can deal with information intelligently. But, this begs the question, "How does the brain deal intelligently with the information it is receiving?".

Jar writes: yet after nearly 200 posts, we still have no idea of what either Complexity or Information are.We have no way to know if complexity is greater today than it was during the Cambrian era, or Cretaceous.Without both good definitions that we all agree upon, and some agreed method to measure and quantify, where the hell is this going?

Having described mental systems, Gregory Bateson is able to lay out a number of other characteristics. He elaborates the notion that, in the world of mental process, difference is the analog of cause ("difference that makes a difference") and argues that embedded and interacting systems have a capacity to select pattern from random elements, as happens in evolution and in learning which Gregory calls the "two great stochastic processes." He explores the way analogy underlies all "patterns which connect,"

SIDELINED writes: Well astrology is nonsense and it too is a multi-billion dollar a year industry.So is homeopathy. no one ever became poor underestimating the gullibility of the public.

NosyNed writes:Then any sentences that say things like "Evolution can not increase complexity" are also meaningless. That is the point of the discussion. If we are unable to define and quantify "complexity" it is useless to continue the discussion on that topic.

ComplexityThere are different senses of complexity:* In information processing, complexity is a measure of the total number of properties transmitted by an object and detected by an observer. Such a collection of properties is often referred to as a state.
* In computer science, the study of how much time and memory a computer algorithm may take is the field of computational complexity theory.
* Complexity is often used as a shorthand for the field that developed in the late 1980s around the use of mathematical and computational modeling of biological, economic and technological systems known as "complex systems" (sometimes complex adaptive systems).
* In the sense of how complicated a problem is from the perspective of the person trying to solve it, limits of complexity are measured using a term from cognitive psychology, namely the hrair limit.
* In mathematics, Krohn-Rhodes complexity is an important topic in the study of finite semigroups.

Rather than trying to define what complexity is, perhaps it would be more useful to identify the properties that are commonly associated with the term. I would suggest that complexity often (not always) implies the following attributes: (1) a complex phenomenon consists of many parts (or items, or units, or individuals); (2) there are many relationships/interactions among the parts; and (3) the parts produce combined effects (synergies) that are not easily predicted and may often be novel, unexpected, even surprising.At the risk of inviting the wrath of the researchers in this field, I would argue that complexity per se is one of the less interesting properties of complex phenomena. The differences, and the unique combined properties (synergies) that arise in each case, are vastly more important than the commonalities. If someone does develop a grand, unifying definition-description of complexity, I predict that it will add very little to the tree of knowledge (pardon the pun). But that shouldn't deter us from trying; the very effort to do so will surely enrich our understanding.

contracycle writes: It sounds to me like you guys are having a semantic difference

It occurs to me that Evolutionary Psychology is at the crossroads of numerous specialist disciplines. There is not just evolutionary biology and psychology, but numerous branches of biology and psychology from memetics to genetics to psychopathy to social psychology to ethnology and so on.I hesitate to even attempt to list all the underlying disciplines as I am bound to exclude more than I include. As consciousness is also an important issue, and consciousness is made up of at least 100 disciplines, possibly as many as 200, then the list for Evol Psych must be long indeed.Robert Karl Stonjek