The problem of Fractal Wrongness

• Great work built on weak foundation (science) • Hope I can learn and help (shake things up)

The problem of Fractal Wrongness

Fractal wrongness• Emergence• Risk

Fractal wrongness

Much (most?) of what many (most?) believe is obviously false.

• Emergence• Risk• Sustainability• Autocatalysis• Global !#%&!?!?• Evolution• Technology• Markets, finance, …• …

• Robustness• Efficiency• Scale• Dynamics• Nonlinearity• Nonequlibrium• Open• Feedback• Adaptation• Intractability• …

• Wrongness everywhere, every scale, “truthiness”• Involving anything “complex”…• Wild success: religion, politics, consumerism, …• Debates focused away from real issues…

• Even if erased, sustainability challenges remain• Hopeless if it persists

• I’ll set aside all of this for now, and “zoom in” on the world of PhD research/academic scientists

• BTW, excellent case study in infectious hijacking

Fractal wrongness

Fractal wrongness (PhDs only)

Much (most?) of what many (most?) believe is obviously false.

• Emergence• Risk• Sustainability• Autocatalysis• Global !#%&!?!?• Evolution• Technology• Markets, finance, …• …


…Extinction simulations have already been performed in a variety of network contexts, including the World Wide Web (WWW) [2], metabolic networks [26], protein networks [25],…

[2] R. Albert, H. Jeong, and A.-L. Barabasi. Error and attack tolerance of complex networks. Nature, 406:378{382, 2000.[25] H. Jeong, S. P. Mason, A.-L. Barabasi, and Z. N. Oltvai. Lethality and centrality in protein networks. Nature, 411:41, 2001.[26] H. Jeong, B. Tombor, R. Albert, Z. N. Oltvai, and A.-L. Barabasi. The large-scale organization of metabolic networks. Nature, 407:651{654, 2000.

• “Wrongness” everywhere, every scale • Involving “complexity”• Wild success: high impact journals, funding

agencies, popular science, policy…• Debates shifted away from real issues…

• Even if erased, huge challenges remain• Hopeless if it persists?

• BTW, excellent case study in infectious hijacking


• “Wrongness” everywhere, every scale • Involving “complexity”• Wild success: high impact journals, funding

agencies, popular science, policy…• Debates shifted away from real issues…

• Even if erased, huge challenges remain• Hopeless if it persists?

• I’ll set this aside for now, and “zoom in” to a small spot (within science) with a solid foundation (but a huge spot in math and engineering)


Rigorous foundations

• Emergence• Risk• Autocatalysis• Global !#%&!?!?• Evolution• Technology• Markets, finance, …• …


A source of fractal wrongness we need to remove

Large, thin, nonconvex

Software

Hardware

DigitalAnalog

“solution sets” (a la Marder, Prinze, etc)

large, thin, nonconvex

All systems

Functional

Meaning

Syntax

WordsLetters

Layered language?


Letters and words

• 9 letters: adeginorz• 9!= 362,880 sequences of 9 letters• Only “organized” is a word

1 << (# words) << (# non-words) large thin

Meaning

Syntax

WordsLetters

Language?

Almost all• grammatical sentences are meaningless• sequences of words are ungrammatical• sequences of letters are not words• collections of symbols are not letters

Meaning

Syntax

WordsLetters

• large, thin, nonconvex• # of order parameters • with tuning, Watson beat

humans at Jeopardy

• What are the protocols and architecture?

Meaning

Syntax

WordsLetters

Almost all• grammatical sentences are meaningless• sequences of words are ungrammatical• sequences of letters are not words• collections of symbols are not letters

large thin 1 << # toys << # piles

toyspile


pile

“order for free?”

emergenceedge of chaosself-organized criticalityscale-free???

statistical physicsrandom ensemblesminimally tunedphase transitionsbifurcations


toyspile

“order for free?”

nonconvex

Computer programs

• Almost any computer language• Large # of working programs• larger # of non-programs• “Nonconvex” = simple mashups of working

programs don’t work• Need architecture to organize working

programs

1 << (# programs) << (# non-programs) large thin

Software

Hardware

DigitalAnalog

Computer programs

Software is not an emergent property of hardware

• morphodynamics and “top-down causality” ?

• teleodynamics?

Software

Hardware

DigitalAnalog

Meaning

Syntax

WordsLetters

Software

Hardware

DigitalAnalog

Analog

digital

All “code”

functional software


This paper aims to bridge progress in neuroscience involving sophisticated quantitative analysis of behavior, including the use of robust control, with other relevant conceptual and theoretical frameworks from systems engineering, systems biology, and mathematics.

Doyle, Csete, Proc Nat Acad Sci USA, JULY 25 2011

Trivial examples

Universal “laws” (constraints)• Some constraints on bio & tech rise “bottom up”

from physics/chemistry– Gravity– Speed of light– Energy– Carbon– Other small moieties (e.g. redox, …)… more later?

• Emergence?

Components

Physical laws as constraints on components

• Gravity• Speed of light• Energy• Carbon• Other small moieties (e.g. redox, …)… more later

Components

Emergent phenomena?

Biology & technology not emergent in any useful sense

• Dissipation, friction• Liquids, gases, fluid dynamics• Phase transitions, homogeneous turbulence, etc• etc etc

Huge gap

Components

Emergent phenomena?

Biology & technology not emergent in any useful sense

Huge gap• Dissipation, friction• Liquids, gases, fluid dynamics• Phase transitions• etc etc

Risk not emergent in any useful sense?

Gap?

Components

Emergent phenomena?

Big gap

HUGE gap

Top down causality (Juarrero)Morphodynamics (Deacon)

Teleodynamics (Deacon)

wasteful

fragile

Laminar

Turbulentefficient

robust

Laminar

Turbulent

?Needs active

ActivePassive

ClassicalQuantum

LumpedDistributePassive

Lossless

coherent story here, but haven’t figured out best way to explain… working on it…

Emergence?

“New sciences” of “complexity” and “networks”? worse

• Edge of chaos• Self-organized criticality• Scale-free “networks”• Creation “science”• Intelligent design• Financial engineering• Risk management• “Merchants of doubt”• …

Science as • Pure fashion• Ideology• Political• Evangelical• Nontech trumps tech

simple enzyme

Fragility

Enzyme amount

complex enzyme

ln z pz p

2 20

1 ln lnz z pS j dz z p

Theorem!

z and p functions of enzyme complexity

and amount

Savageaumics

Fragilityhard limits

simple

Overhead, waste

complex

• General• Rigorous• First principle

• Domain specific• Ad hoc• Phenomenological

Plugging in domain details

?

Control Comms

Physics

Wiener

BodeKalman

Heisenberg

Carnot

Boltzmann

robust control

• Fundamental multiscale physics• Foundations, origins of

– noise – dissipation– amplification– catalysis

• General• Rigorous• First principle

?

Shannon

What I’m not going to talk much about

• It’s true that most “really smart scientists” think almost everything in these talks is nonsense

• Why they think this• Why they are wrong

• Time (not space) is our problem, as usual• Don’t have enough time for what is true, so have

to limit discussion of what isn’t• No one ever changes a made up mind (almost)• But here’s the overall landscape

Stat physics

Complex networks

PhysicsHeisenberg

Carnot

Boltzmann

Control Comms

Compute

“New sciences” of complexity and networksedge of chaos, self-organized

criticality, scale-free,…

Wildly “successful”

D. Alderson, NPS 37

Popular but wrong

Complex systems?Fragile

• Scale• Dynamics• Nonlinearity• Nonequlibrium• Open• Feedback• Adaptation• Intractability• Emergence• …

Even small amounts can create bewildering complexity

Complex systems?Fragile



Robust

Complex systems?

• Resources• Controlled• Organized• Structured• Extreme• Architected• …

Robust complexity


• These words have lost much of their original meaning, and have become essentially meaningless synonyms• e.g. nonlinear ≠ not linear

• Can we recover these words?

• Idea: make up a new word to mean “I’m confused but don’t want to say that” • Then hopefully we can take these words back (e.g. nonlinear = not linear)


Fragile complexity

New words Fragile

complexity

Emergulent

Emergulence at the edge of

chaocritiplexity


doesn’t work

Stat physics

Complex networks

Alderson & Doyle, Contrasting Views of

Complexity and Their Implications for

Network-Centric Infrastructure,

IEEE TRANS ON SMC,

JULY 2010

“New sciences” of complexity and networksedge of chaos, self-organized

criticality, scale-free,…

Stat physics

Complex networks

PhysicsHeisenberg

Carnot

Boltzmann

Control Comms

Compute

Complex systems?

Jean Carlson, UCSB Physics

Stat physics

Complex networks

PhysicsHeisenberg

Carnot

Boltzmann

Control

Alderson &Doyle, Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their

Implications for Network-Centric Infrastructure,

IEEE TRANS ON SMC, JULY 2010

Sandberg, Delvenne, & Doyle, On Lossless Approximations, the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem, and Limitations of Measurement,IEEE TRANS ON AC, FEBRUARY, 2011

Stat physics,

Complex networks

PhysicsHeisenberg

Carnot

Boltzmann

fluids, QM

“orthophysics”From prediction

to mechanism to control

Fundamentals!

Sandberg, Delvenne, & Doyle, On Lossless Approximations, the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem, and Limitations of Measurement,IEEE TRANS ON AC, FEBRUARY, 2011

“The last 70 years of the 20th century will be viewed as the dark ages of theoretical physics.” (Carver Mead)

accessibleaccountableaccurateadaptableadministrable

auditableautonomyavailablecompatiblecomposable configurablecorrectnesscustomizabledebugable

determinabledemonstrable

dependabledeployablediscoverable distributabledurableeffective

evolvableextensiblefailure transparentfault-tolerantfidelityflexibleinspectableinstallableIntegrityinterchangeableinteroperable learnablemaintainable

manageablemobilemodifiablemodularnomadicoperable

portableprecisionpredictableproducible

recoverablerelevantreliablerepeatablereproducibleresilientresponsive

safety scalable

serviceablesupportablesecurable

stable

survivable

tailorabletestabletimelytraceable

upgradable

Lumping requirements into simple groups

robust

A system can be efficient

using a resource

or producingwaste

But can be

inefficientfor differentresources

orwaste

Efficiency tradeoffs

efficientwith

resource 1

wasteful with

resource 1

efficientwith

resource 2

wasteful with

resource 2

Ideally

AchievableNot

Efficiency tradeoffs

efficient wasteful

efficient

wasteful

Not?

Distance running

digesting raw vegs

humans

cattle

chimpspronghorn?

accessibleaccountableaccurateadaptableadministrable

auditableautonomyavailablecompatiblecomposable configurablecorrectnesscustomizabledebugable

determinabledemonstrable

dependabledeployablediscoverable distributabledurableeffective

evolvableextensiblefailure transparentfault-tolerantfidelityflexibleinspectableinstallableIntegrityinterchangeableinteroperable learnablemaintainable

manageablemobilemodifiablemodularnomadicoperable

portableprecisionpredictableproducible

recoverablerelevantreliablerepeatablereproducibleresilientresponsive

safety scalable

serviceablesupportablesecurable

stable

survivable

tailorabletestabletimelytraceable

upgradable

Lumping requirements into simple groups

robust

A system can be robust

for a property

and aperturbation

But can be fragile

for a differentproperty

orperturbation

Robustness tradeoffs

robustto 1

fragileto 1

robustto 2

fragileto 2

Ideally

Achievable

Not


robust

fragile

fast

slow

Not

Sprinting

Tree climbing

humans

chimps

cheetahs

leopards

Robustness/efficiency tradeoffs

robust

fragile

efficient Inefficient

Not

Distance running

Tree climbing humans

chimps

kangeroos


robustto 1

fragileto 1

robustto 2

fragileto 2

Ideally

Achievable

Not

The problem of Fractal Wrongness

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