Re: Complexity, Languaging & Design LO779

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 14 Apr 1995 09:36:14 GMT

Replying to LO516 --

I haven't forgotten Fred's questions regarding the distinction that I am
working on of "intelligent systems". The question was just too large and
to-the-point to jump right into. I'll tackle part of it now. (The
conversations arising from the Complexity and Strategy Conference in SF
have increased my commitment to the distinction.)

I earlier distinguished different levels of complex systems, the most
complex of which are "complex adaptive systems" and "intelligent systems"
- both of which are autopoetic as Fred points out. Both are characterised
by their survival being dependent on learning, adaptation and
innovation.The "intelligent systems" are distinguished by being
language-based.

Fred says,
> I (perhaps mistakenly) took the difference between these two layers as
> being based on the "type" of interaction between the entities so self-
> organizing. In particular, the fourth level is "language-based", so I
> assumed that the third level was, inferring from the examples given such
> as immune systems and species, somehow distinguished by a more material
> (vs. language) basis for structural coupling (to use the autopoiesis
> term)>

I take langauge to be en emergent phenomenon. That implies that the
entities which embody the emergent phenomenon are unique in aspects
related to that phenomenon. A particular uniqueness provided by language
as a fundamental means of communication is self-awareness and the ability
to mediate the processes of communication. While all complex adaptive
systems can be said to learn, to communicate (or at least interpret
information) and to generate adaptive action; only those which have
language can alter the medium of their own communication. This adds a
dimension that is of a different order. We'll explore what that might be
at some later time.

Fred continues,
> My problem/question still is: I don't see a reason to distinguish
> "language-based" emergent systems from those of level three, that also,
> in my mind, use the same semiotic (i.e., sign using) process for their
> self-organization. (snipped some further interesting development of
Fred's question)

I have not studied semiotics and may be getting into trouble with my
response to this. (That is to announce that I'm responding to the "sign
using" part of the message rather than semiotics itself.) I are not
referring to the "sign using" nature of language. At that level, I'd
agree with your comments that a distinction may not be necessary or
useful. Language, however, is more than "sign using". Language is a
generative medium and, as I understand autopoesis, is totally creative and
does not use "signs" except as they may generate _internal_ symbols as
memory and pragamatic tools.

Language provides a self-organising ability that is beyond sign using. I
assert that "sign using" is a small part of language and that it is a
popular fiction of language because of its fundamentally Cartesian
approach. The "deep structures" of language - the referents from
experience - that make sense of a language distinct from a collection of
signs are a different order.

Language is self organising for itself. It also organises the users of
the language. The users of the language are also its continuing creators.
The interplay between all of these allows us to create a grammar or syntax
with which we can influence the patterns of organisation of our own medium
of communication - maybe even existence because we live largely in a
socially created world and most of our interactions are with or determined
by that world. Hence the call for "intelligent systems" as a distinct
phenomenon.

Fred also says,
> I guess my whole point behind this is that Mike said he was developing "a
> new theory of organization" for the fourth level system, and I'm wondering
> why an appropriate theory of organization for his third level might not
> also apply to the fourth.

An appropriate theory of organisation for the third level - being
developed by complex adaptive systems research, autopoetic research and
others provides a great deal of useful thinking for the fourth level task
but doesn't completely fill the need. But it provides an excellent start.

-- 
Mike McMaster      <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>
    "Intelligence is an underlying organisational principle
     of the universe.  The 'logos principle' is hidden and
     perceptible only to the intelligence."   Heraclitus