This New Idea Could Explain Complexity

I don’t undestand the details, but a clear understanding emerges.

"Usually these people are computer scientists." Shots fired.

This reminds of software architecture. The underlying purpose of code encapsulation is causal closure to reduce complexity. Similarly the lumpability of data reduces the test complexity to manageable levels

4:00 - having conducted a few traffic studies in the US... "You still get the correct prediction" is giving us a LOT of credit we probably don't deserve. But then, the fact that your individual odds of getting stuck at any traffic light (not involving a train, anyway) for more than 120 seconds are basically zero means that statistics kinda work. Which is reassuring. And yes, rather than use actual stats terminology, traffic engineers and city planners call "the value that tells you how meaningful your grouping selections have been" "Lumpability". The reason for this is that they often have to explain the results of their research to town councils and city board selectpersons who barely understand the concept of "road".

Highly lumpable is such a good insult

what a great explanation of such a fascinating subject. Our cat is called Kant, now he gets a new name, we call him Emergence. He is lumped with dogs

Based on some of the comments I have read, and speaking as a computer scientist (well, PhD student, take it as you will): 1) please don't conflate software engineering with computer science, these are two totally different things entirely - even if, and especially if, you are yourself a software engineer 2) Computer science is essentially the study of computation, which I believe can be very accurately described as the study of the macroscopic emergent properties of mathematics 3) Hence if anything, I would argue this paper actually serves as evidence that computation (if we assume it functions as the study of emergence) is a fundamental property of the universe 4) I don't think Sabine was being at all sarcastic when she described some computer scientists as seeing their field as more fundamental than particle physics - I personally interpreted this response to be that she found this notion to simply be an interesting concept. (Perhaps her further input would clarify this?)

Lumpability sounds a lot like computational reducibility.

I gave this some thought when I was sequencing DNA in 1994 using the God awful method "dideoxy chain termination sequencing" method. Very painful, but the point is. Identical twins are the same (ignoring the complexity) and yet you find a large number of emergent properties between them that are unexplainably different. While there are aspects we can certainly lump together, there are strange permutations that are unexpected.

Lumpability? I would have gone with "Glomular."

3:46 I get the idea, but I hate this example, because I have yet to see a traffic flow prediction that was actually correct. They always predict far more traffic than in reality. In my experience, there are two reasons for this: First, traffic engineers almost exclusively plan for moving as many cars as possible, rather than as many people as possible, so they overplan for cars to the detriment to every other form of transportation. Second, traffic engineers are paid to build roads. They are not paid to not build roads. So every projection always results in (surprise!) proof that they need to build more roads.

It looks to me these ideas are Stephen Wolfram’s ideas. He published the cellular automata long ago and most recently he and his team talk about observer theory. How this new paper is different from Wolfram’s team ideas apart from the mathematical particularities? I found observer theory the most convincing theory of everything.

Nice shot at Wolfram.. Oh. Just all computer scientists in general? Well, we are kinda lumpable. Lumpen? Lumpy?

Who doesn't want a t-shirt with "Highly Lumpable" emblazoned on it? 😆

Great topic! Thanks for making me aware of this paper. This is something I have worked on and I'll take a close look at this paper.

Great review of a seminal article. It applies directly to my current research. I will look into how it might be used "by the numbers." That is to say, using the exact ideas and doing rigorous application to the concepts in my work. TY Sabine.

Wolfram's A New Kind of Science uses some of these ideas as a fundamental property, particularly that complexity arises out of simple rules, as with Cellular Automata. What's fascinating is that from simple rules, you can derive BOTH the math of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and why they are the way they are is completely explained and understandable. Again, from very simple rules. Simple rules can even produce what seems to be "randomness" -- unpredictability is what's called computational irreducibility. It's impossible to predict the output in the future without running the rules in sequence. It's still early, and we don't have experiments to make predictions and provide evidence that it's "what's really going on" yet, but it's fascinating stuff.

"Highly lumpable man" made my day, I feel, channel is gold. Big thanks to you!

In addition to Wolfram's work, the Santa Fe Institute has done great work in Complexity and Emergence. My favorite novel about Emergence is "Lila" by William Pirsig, the same guy/genius who wrote "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Separation of Scales ... Sabine is such an illuminating teacher ... this idea was seldom discussed or even mentioned in my classes ...