The Evolution of Complexity - Abstracts.

Computational mechanics and emergent computation models in which quantitative measures of complexity increase during evolution

By J.P. Crutchfield

  • DEPARTEMENT OF PHYSICS
  • UNIVERSlTY OF CALIFORNIA,
  • BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
  • USA
    • My students and co-workers at the University of California and at the Santa Fe Institute have made substantial progress over the last half decade on the issues of complexity and evolution. What distinguishes our work from current philosophical discussions and scientific work is the fact that we have introduced quantitative measures of complexity and have shown how this complexity increases over time under in evolutionary process. I believe the level of concreteness and analysis are unique in this area.

    This is a bold claim. I'd be pleased to back it up by giving a talk on our development of computational mechanics and on the evolution of emergent computation. I think the Symposium attendees would appreciate the level on concreteness that we can bring to this discussion.

    Although some people recognize our contributions exist-e.g. Gell-mann does obliquely mention our work in his recent book-and although the work has been published for several years now, many do not appreciate the concrete progress that has been made. The Symposium could provide a forum for this exposure.

    References:

    I would recommend browsing our WWW site: http://www.santafe.edu/projects/CompMech and http://www.santafe.edu/projects/evca.