RE: Intelligent Adaptive Systems (WAS RE: [xml-dev] Objections to / uses of PSVI?)

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:] 
> Sent: 20 May 2002 14:26
> To: 'Bill de hOra'; ; 'Eric Bohlman'
> Cc: 'xml-dev'
> Subject: Intelligent Adaptive Systems (WAS RE: [xml-dev] 
> Objections to / uses of PSVI?) 
> 
> 
> Adaptation requires extra resources or very precise coordination 
> with the environment as it changes.   The issue is the ability 
> to identify a pattern and predict changes.  These are markov 
> problems.   If thriving in an environment requires instrumenting 
> the environment to detect emergence, it is quite straightforward 
> for a well-adapted system to evolve with the environment.

Adaptation first requires the ability to adapt; trite as it may
sound, that implies inbuilt redundancy. 

 
> Are you discussing intelligent adaptation?

Not as much as engineering in degrees of freedom to allow
adaptation; the behaviour might look intelligent from a distance,
but it's largely a consequence of not being brittle (brittle things
are in a sense, stupid). If all the subsystems are maximised
instead of optimal there's little or no room left to change and no
execess capacity to invest. It's why we build buffers between
computer processes; we typically tune them for efficiency not
responsiveness. 

De Marco's book is worth reading, no surprise there.

Bill de hÓra 

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