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To determine if the web is a complex system,
read the draft of the W3C web architecture.
If the description there is clear to you,
it isn't.
If you consider a hypermedia link
a function call, then your vision is
coherent. Unfortunately, it is
too limited for the purpose of getting
a research grant.
Complexity is an effect, not a
type of system. There are types of systems
that exhibit complexity. What characteristics
of systems create complexity? Once you have
that, it is much easier to find examples.
Feedback-mediated adaptation is one means
to create complexity from simple initial
conditions. The term non-linear dynamic
system is also applied. Another way to
consider attractors is to look for hidden
couplers. For the cultural Rummy example,
what is coupled to the site where the term
originated that enabled it to propagate
quickly? Did it change meaning or role,
for example, going from Google to
googling such that a specific name for a site
became a generalized verb for searching?
len
From: bryan [mailto:bry@itnisk.com]
I was thinking at a far enough distance, which distance I can achieve by
leaning my head way back in my chair and looking straight up, the
individual programming languages and processes sitting on individual
addresses performing calculations on the inputs sent to them, begin to
seem insignificant, that the network itself begins to look like a
program calling these addresses as its subroutines. (By the way did
anyone ever see that study that a large number of IT workers had smoked
pot before? Fascinating stuff.)
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