Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!ncar!uchinews!quads!awl1
From: awl1@quads.uchicago.edu (alpha beaver lo)
Subject: edge of chaos
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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 1995 19:08:34 GMT
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langton came up with the idea that complex behaviour occurs at the edge
of chaos, that is between order and chaos is where things start behaving
in interesting ways.
  he draws the analogy within physics with the critical point where second
order phase transitions occur as being similar to the edge of chaos, because
at that point you have fluctuations on all length scalesm and infinte length
correlation functions.
  It seems to me an even better analogy would be with turbulence (which
contrary to its name is not alot of randomness) which occurs in nonequilibrium
situations because not only does turbulence have behaviour on all length 
scales but a lot more complexity thrown in to boot.



awl1@midway.uchicago.edu

