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Jim Rutt Show: On Hierarchical Complexity: https://www.jimruttshow.com/zak-stein-4/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_of_hierarchical_complexity

On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 2:27 PM Waldemar Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Someone, please clarify (for me) what MHC means.

On Jan 20, 2022, at 9:42 AM, Zachary Stein <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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You're on you something Brendan, 

Many thinkers 

  have been on the same scent. 

Aside from e.g., Wilber's 

 use of Laszlo et al

 in *Sex, Ecology Spirtuality;* 

 See also, for example, 

  less well known works

  like Elliot Jaques'

  *The Life and Behavior 

    of Living Organisms.*

Everyone has been asking: 

 Can the whole of evolution 

  be placed along 

  a single objective axis 

  of directionality? 

Multiple, level-specific "measures," 

  yes, ok, *and*

   there are deep structural isomorphisms 

   across/between levels. 

Piaget & Co.

  can be read as suggesting 

  that what we call MHC

  (Fischer's Skill Levels)

  are a local manifestation 

  of a cosmic evolutionary process

  occuring at all levels: 

  matter, life, and mind. 

Quite a claim. 

Problematic, 

  but also illuminating 

  and insightful. 

It is to say, 

  aside from space, time, etc

  there is another universally measurable 

  dimension involving (forgive the jargon)   

   *non-abirtary iterations   

    of complex emergence 

    and hierarchical integration*

"The many become one, 

 and are increased by one."

  As Whitehead would say. 

This is the many stepped 

 "stairway" of evolution

  giving a sense 

  that things are "going somewhere"

    rather than just meandering and 

    arbitrarily enduring through time. 

But, of course, 

  even if we accept all that 

  what does it buy us? 

Does it buy us what we want?

I think it buys a great deal, 

  some of it we want 

 (some of it we don't know what to do with);

  But this second step

  of "who cares/so what?"

  is not trivial.

zak

On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 10:45 AM Brendan Graham Dempsey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Hi all,

Have been considering the ToK through the complexification lens and wondering what the specific quantitative metrics might be in each domain of complexification. Each new information system would complexify along its own trajectory, meaning the specific metric used to measure it would be different than the one before. Moreover, each metric would be dependent upon and relate to the ones on which it rests. Here's what I was playing with:

MATTER: Cosmic evolution – energy (metric: free energy rate density, Øm)
LIFE: Biological evolution – genetic information (metric: “physical [genomic] complexity”, C)
MIND: Consciousness evolution – nervous system integration (metric: integrated information, Ø)
CULTURE: Cultural evolution – linguistic justification systems (metric: hierarchical task complexity, MHC)

At the level of matter, I think the work of Eric Chaisson on cosmic evolution is helpful, and he uses the free energy rate density (Øm) as his metric.

At the level of life, some preliminary searches yielded genomic complexity (C) as a potential metric, as according to the work of Adami, Ofria, and Collier (2003), but I suspect there is better/more recent work on measuring biological complexity.

At the level of mind, I was wondering whether IIT would be the best fit, which uses the metric of Ø of increasing sentience.

Finally, at the level of culture, I'm intrigued by the potential for the Model of Hierarchical Complexity to measure justification systems and other cultural phenomena.

Again, each new metric would map onto the other, such that Øm would increase as C increased as Ø increased as MHC increased. That's a hypothesis, anyway.

Perhaps I'm re-inventing the wheel here, so let me know if there's already work that's done this. But I wanted to hear people's perspectives on the prospect of identifying different complexity metrics for each unique level of the stack.

Cheers,

Brendan

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Zachary Stein, Ed.D.

www.zakstein.org

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Zachary Stein, Ed.D.

www.zakstein.org

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