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Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

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Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#91

Post by guerrilla »

taeric wrote: post #89
guerrilla wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're talking about the size of systems, maybe I missed something. I think the point is that the systems become stronger with negative stimuli. The community and relevant economy become stronger only because of the hurricane. They would not have done it otherwise.

I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smaller trees do. If you increase the size of the system/thing, then it necessitates larger negative stimuli in most cases. Consider the size of a wave that would topple a canoe versus standard war ships. At any rate, this is a hard analogy to stick with as it isn't t…

> I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smaller trees do. If you increase the size of the system/thing, then it necessitates larger negative stimuli in most cases. Consider the size of a wave that would topple a canoe versus standard war ships.

I don't know anything about that but it's an empirical question that you can't answer with a priori reasoning like you're trying to do. We need actual data.

> At any rate, this is a hard analogy to stick with as it isn't the hurricane that makes things stronger. It is being ready for the hurricane.

No, the point was that they are not ready the first time, but they are the second time. The hurricane is what causes them to be ready the second time. If their preparations were not good enough the second time, they will be even better the third time.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#92

Post by taeric »

guerrilla wrote: post #91
taeric wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smaller trees do. If you increase the size of the system/thing, then it necessitates larger negative stimuli in most cases. Consider the size of a wave that would topple a canoe versus standard war ships. At any rate, this is a hard analogy to stick with as it isn't t…

> I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smaller trees do. If you increase the size of the system/thing, then it necessitates larger negative stimuli in most cases. Consider the size of a wave that would topple a canoe versus standard war ships. I don't know anything about that but it's an empirical questi…

I'm not sure I follow. You don't need heavy logic to explain why a single person can capsize a canoe rather easily, but would be unable to capsize something like a ferry.

As a similar example, we know that you can't just scale up an ant body to be human sized, as it would crumble under its own weight. Look up the "square-cube law". Same basic idea, in many ways. Ratios and scale just don't hold as things grow.

Back on the cities and preparing for a hurricane, this is not that they are stronger because they were hit by a hurricane. By this logic, you couldn't have a new coastal town that can weather one. After all, they weren't made stronger by the first hit. I think we can agree that is silly logic? If you know what forces you will get hit by, you can build anticipating them.

This is too close to the phrasing that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Which, frankly, is mostly nonsense. Many things can weaken you to the point that what didn't kill you this time let something else finish you off. Its cute, but largely presupposes growth between hits that has to happen.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#93

Post by guerrilla »

taeric wrote: post #92
guerrilla wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smaller trees do. If you increase the size of the system/thing, then it necessitates larger negative stimuli in most cases. Consider the size of a wave that would topple a canoe versus standard war ships. I don't know anything about that but it's an empirical questi…

I'm not sure I follow. You don't need heavy logic to explain why a single person can capsize a canoe rather easily, but would be unable to capsize something like a ferry. As a similar example, we know that you can't just scale up an ant body to be human sized, as it would crumble under its own weight. Look up the "square-cube law". Same basic idea, in many ways. Ratios and scale just don't hold as things grow. Back o…

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger (for certain types of systems)" is the actual point.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#94

Post by taeric »

guerrilla wrote: post #93
taeric wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow. You don't need heavy logic to explain why a single person can capsize a canoe rather easily, but would be unable to capsize something like a ferry. As a similar example, we know that you can't just scale up an ant body to be human sized, as it would crumble under its own weight. Look up the "square-cube law". Same basic idea, in many ways. Ratios and scale just don't hold as things grow. Back o…

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger (for certain types of systems)" is the actual point.

Right, and I said that is cute, but mostly nonsense. There are no systems that can take arbitrary hits without ending. And as soon as you acknowledge that this only works by spurring growth after the hit, you are back to tolerances and growth.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#95

Post by guerrilla »

taeric wrote: post #94
guerrilla wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger (for certain types of systems)" is the actual point.

Right, and I said that is cute, but mostly nonsense. There are no systems that can take arbitrary hits without ending. And as soon as you acknowledge that this only works by spurring growth after the hit, you are back to tolerances and growth.

I mean you can go and argue with the biologists and economists if you need to. I'm just delivering the meesage.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#96

Post by _yb2s »

sethammons wrote: post #46
_yb2s wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool, but I'm surprised you're sharing this on here and not in a job interview with a deep learning startup and/or an arXiv paper.

Your surprise breaks my brain. Why would someone "keep it to themselves" outside some white paper they won't have time to promote or for a job interview that they might not need? Is your thought that it is some novel approach that nobody is doing and has obvious market implications? Even then, the implications matter only if you are in a position to take advantage. The Internet used to be a place people shared cool s…

As I'm sure you're aware deep learning work better is the most hot and highly funded thing right now... there is nothing wrong with making sure you get the credit for a new technique, and it in no way precludes widespread free sharing of the idea.

I am an academic researcher (not in this field) and everything I do is 100% free and public, but I still either patent or publish it, because getting the credit is what allows me to keep doing what I love. I actually hate that part, and would rather just do the work, but I already push that line too far sometimes, and risk losing my funding aka "publish or perish."

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#97

Post by taeric »

guerrilla wrote: post #95
taeric wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and I said that is cute, but mostly nonsense. There are no systems that can take arbitrary hits without ending. And as soon as you acknowledge that this only works by spurring growth after the hit, you are back to tolerances and growth.

I mean you can go and argue with the biologists and economists if you need to. I'm just delivering the meesage.

My argument here would be that this isn't that new, all told? And... I would be shocked to find a lot of disagreement there. Indeed, other threads are already pointing out that terms already existed that covered this general idea.

My problem with antifragile, as often offered, is that it is positioned as something that gets stronger from being damaged, full stop. But... there is literally nothing on earth that would withstand the sun going nova, so that there are obvious limits to the idea. And if you accept that it is something in limits, you are back to model ideas of feedback and growth. And as you get back to that, you cover a lot of the same ground as many other discussions.

It is a cute model, mind. And somewhat fun to play with. Also worth knowing that some systems will react violently to small changes. Think flashbacks in building fires. It just doesn't bring much new to the table, all told.

Edit: I meant to add "fair enough!" at the top of this. Is a valid point to make! :D

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#98

Post by _yb2s »

Animats wrote: post #28
_yb2s wrote: post #10

I love how Taleb managed to translate an ideal from stoic philosophy into a precisely defined mathematical concept

Some of this reads like rediscovering control theory, which is all about stability and robustness within defined limits. It's more popularization than innovation. The person who first translated this idea into math was James Clerk Maxwell, in his paper, "On Governors", in 1868.[1] Maxwell was the first to get a mathematical handle on stability of feedback systems. He wrote: "If, by altering the adjustments of the mac…

I am not an expert on control theory, but I don't see how what you quoted is really the same concept as antifragility. A control system can compensate for disturbances, and may even perform better with some types of disturbances but that is just 'robustness' and isn't antifragility - where the system is progressively improved in a lasting way by stressors over time, like a person getting better at a sport by repeatedly training for it.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#99

Post by _yb2s »

BOOSTERHIDROGEN wrote: post #52
_yb2s wrote: post #10

I love how Taleb managed to translate an ideal from stoic philosophy into a precisely defined mathematical concept

Interesting connection can you elaborate more about ideal stoic which part of the philosophy that translate to which math concept.

Here is a quote from Marcus Aurelius which captures the same key concept as antifragility:

“The impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way.”

What he is getting at here is that adapting to and overcoming challenges improves your skills, and opens up new ideas and possibilities. The stoics believe that if life goes smoothly and easily, it is actively harmful, and that hardship is required for personal growth.

The core idea of antifragility (which Taleb rigorously defines as a math/engineering principle in his papers) is also that a certain type of system that responds to a stressor in a specific way, can be progressively improved in a lasting way by experiencing that stressor, and conversely, harmed by not experiencing it. For example, an astronaut that spends time in zero gravity loses muscle mass and can lose the ability to walk, whereas a person doing heavy strength training on earth could train themselves strong enough to stand and walk while holding many times their bodyweight.

A more subtle aspect of this for the stoics would be where someone creatively turns a hardship into a unique opportunity. Think someone that loses their job because of a neurodevelopmental disorder, but then ends up studying ways to manage the disorder, and becomes a bestselling author sharing what they learned.

Re: Antifragility in complex dynamical systems

#100

Post by _yb2s »

tinix wrote: post #31
_yb2s wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That entirely misses my point. Antifragility is a property complex systems can exhibit. Concept systems can also 'die' but the concept of death isn't itself an example of a complex system.
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