Description of Complex Systems

1. State vs. Process Descriptions: - State: Describes system as sensed (e.g., blueprints) - Process: Describes system as acted upon (e.g., recipes)

2. Simplifying Complex Descriptions: - Exploit redundancy in hierarchic systems - Use “empty world hypothesis” (most things weakly connected) - Recode to reveal hidden redundancy (e.g., differential equations)

3. Self-Reproducing Systems: - DNA as both template (state) and recipe (process) - Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: Development mirrors evolutionary history

Key insight: The choice of description (state or process) significantly affects our understanding and ability to reproduce complex systems.

Related: - nearlydecomposablesystems - evolutioncomplexsystems