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Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

nature.com

31–40 of 115 posts

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#31
post #6
post #4

Systems or organisms can be defined as antifragile if they derive benefit from systemic variability, volatility, randomness, or disorder. If that's a riddle, death fits. Those things are characteristic of the pestilence, famine, war, etc. that feed death. The decay surrounding death is complex and dynamical. And death is more sustainable than any living system.

but death isn't a system or organism...

you are an organism that is continually dying.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_succession

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restructuring

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_refactoring

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandava

it's all the same shit

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#32
post #24

There are now so many bullshit-terms derived from Taleb's bullshit books. Like how people still keep mentioning "black swans" as if it actually means something other (or something more) than "unexpected event". And for some unfathomable reason it keeps traction. Similarly how Mandelbrot "redefined" (i.e. distorted) the meaning of "Lindy effect", and it stuck (however, I didn't notice if it became popular to call a mi…

When I saw the title I thought it came out of one of those online bullshit generators...

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#33
post #9
post #3

Is this just risk seeking behavior (in contrast to risk sensitive)

Now I wonder what a machine learning model with risk seeking behaviour would look like.

From the little I know about ML in general, you always want to introduce randomness so you don't get stuck in a local minimum/maximum. So they're all risk seeking?

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#35
post #26

I'd like to point out that Norbert Wiener was the first to discover the concept of antifragility (under a different term though). It's also worth checking out more of his works as he initiated the field of cybernetics.

Where did he described this? (Honest question)

To be correct, he maybe didn't coin the term. At least I didn't find it on quick search in his book Cybernetics. Seems like the term ultrastable actually comes from Ashby [1].

[1] https://users.sussex.ac.uk/~ezequiel/AS/lectures/AdaptiveSys...

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#36
post #34

Random note: Antifragility is called hormesis in living organisms, a concept that existed since the 1950s when the wrong dose - too low - of herbicides made the plants stronger.

Mechanical engineering uses the term system resilience. I must admit I don't like antifragility, which sounds like a novlang and is poorly defined.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#37
post #34

Random note: Antifragility is called hormesis in living organisms, a concept that existed since the 1950s when the wrong dose - too low - of herbicides made the plants stronger.

Mechanical engineering uses the term system resilience. I must admit I don't like antifragility, which sounds like a novlang and is poorly defined.

Resilience is not the same, a system is anti-fragile if it gets stronger under stress.

Resilience is just "not getting weaker".

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#38
post #11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but death isn't a system or organism...

> but death isn't a system death is entropy. do you know of a system without entropy? > or organism... boy are you going to be surprised when you answer that knock on the door, eh?

Isn’t it definitely not an organism? If death is the inevitable process from order to disorder, isn’t it deeply a-systemic at its core? If it were a system, it would also eventually have to end.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#39
post #34

Random note: Antifragility is called hormesis in living organisms, a concept that existed since the 1950s when the wrong dose - too low - of herbicides made the plants stronger.

That's what immediately came to mind when reading OP's comment. He's basically describing the action of perturbing a system just enough with a weak force that it 'innoculates', for lack of a better word, itself against similar but stronger forces.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#40

I wish folks would write more plainly. “Antifragility characterizes the benefit of a dynamical system derived from the variability in environmental perturbations.” Geish.

Yeh agree. Seems like someone's been drinking ivory tower soda-pop too long!

FWIW, I tend to think of it like this: Antifragility is a property of something that benefits from a bit of hammering. Like young tree saplings tend to do better in older life when they've been whipped around by the wind a bit. It's basically "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

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