INCOSE Natural Systems Discussion on Modularity

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Curt McNamara

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Mar 19, 2018, 10:38:59 PM3/19/18
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Please join us this Saturday, March 24th at noon CDT for an informal discussion of modularity in natural systems.

We will have a follow-up meeting in April where we discuss modularity in the context of complex systems.

Members of the Complex Systems Working Group will be joining us.

There are a few papers on modularity located in this dropbox folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8v3yuvfbjz5akag/AADaiYA6_8b4DD1Zft5B37TAa?dl=0

Please take a look, and forward any recommended resources to me for inclusion.

        Curt

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Aleksandar Malečić

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Mar 27, 2018, 3:50:27 AM3/27/18
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I wasn't able to attend. Was it any good? Are there any recordings?

Aleksandar

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Curt McNamara

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Apr 5, 2018, 4:26:53 PM4/5/18
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Thanks for your note. It was good! :-)

We spent a good chunk of the time talking about the three kinds of biological modularity:
  • Developmental
  • Morphological
  • Evolutionary

The summary we used was from "The Ubiquity of Modularity" by Callebaut.

I placed a copy of that book chapter and our mind map in the dropbox folder for the discussion.

Now we are curious:

  • Herbert Simon wrote about chunking, decomposability, and hierarchy as aspects of complex systems.
  • John Holland wrote about complex adaptive systems consisting of agents, tags, and a context for interactions. This fits in well with ideas of teamwork and emergence.  
There are also some papers on Simon and Holland in the dropbox.

What other connections are there between modularity and complex systems?

                 Curt

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8v3yuvfbjz5akag/AADaiYA6_8b4DD1Zft5B37TAa?dl=0

Richard Martin

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Apr 5, 2018, 5:28:22 PM4/5/18
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Curt,

 

Google this - doug hofstadter chunking

 

Cheers,

Richard

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Curt McNamara

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Apr 6, 2018, 12:09:40 AM4/6/18
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Good reminder. There is lots of material out there on "modularity of mind" as Fodor stated. We didn't cover that perspective.

"Systems architecture is best done by building from the bottom up and from the top down simultaneously" (Maier, Rechten).

         Curt

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Jack Ring

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Apr 6, 2018, 2:54:48 PM4/6/18
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1. Warfield’s Interactive Management and its Interpretive Structural Modeling method has proven useful several hundred times at discerning the most meaningful (to system builders) modularization and orchestration.

2. Note Rechtin and Maier never specified what system architecture a) Is and b) Is Not and c) Does and c) Does Not.
If I am mistaken pls cite the publication.

Jack

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Jack Ring

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Apr 6, 2018, 7:27:49 PM4/6/18
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Curt,
Instead of trying to notice modules it may be better to formulate modules.
This may be relevant —

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Hillary Sillitto

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Apr 7, 2018, 4:19:50 AM4/7/18
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Curt

Modularity:
High internal complexity;
Low external complexity;
Able to be tested and used, and its contribution to a containing system understood, with little or no knowledge of its internal workings.

Cheers

Hillary

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Swaminathan Natarajan

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Apr 7, 2018, 10:10:22 AM4/7/18
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One interesting point I picked up from the discussion (Curt, please correct if there is some gap).  I am sure it is obvious to many, but it was new to me.

In natural systems, other than the usual compositional modularity that we typically encounter in engineering, there is considerable generative modularity. For example, phenotypes often have mirroring (left- and right- handed versions) e.g. arms, legs, eyes. There may be a common genetic sequence that produces this, which operates during the developmental process, transforming a base structure into mirrored versions. In engineering, we would view this as a pattern (often a process pattern), but in natural systems, these are reified structurally, for example into genetic sequences, which operate generatively i.e. they are modules that operate on other modules.

Of course, Curt provided a more nuanced view above, in terms of three kinds of modularity: developmental, morphological and evolutionary.  I guess all three are reifications of process patterns, that operate on different parts of the lifecycle.

Nice to see that Hillary's definitions above fit these versions of modularity also perfectly.

swami

Richard Martin

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Apr 7, 2018, 10:21:39 AM4/7/18
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All,

 

About 40 years ago, a software design practitioner whose name I do not recall, coined the phrase “high cohesion, low coupling” to characterize a good software module. That seems to fit Hillary’s statement. Does it also apply to the concept of modularity in natural systems? I’ll also point out that ‘modularity’ can apply for simple, complicated or complex situations with assessment of cohesion and coupling becoming more difficult along that progression.

 

Cheers,

Richard

 

From: syss...@googlegroups.com [mailto:syss...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Swaminathan Natarajan
Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 10:10 AM
To: syss...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [SysSciWG] INCOSE Natural Systems Discussion on Modularity

 

One interesting point I picked up from the discussion (Curt, please correct if there is some gap).  I am sure it is obvious to many, but it was new to me.

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Aleksandar Malečić

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Apr 11, 2018, 4:46:47 AM4/11/18
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What I'm curious about is getting the best or at least good enough out of infrastructure, energy, information, and society. I am a pessimist about society and don't like absolutely anything I watch in the news, but I guess that's what the majority wants.

Anyway, Warfield was name-dropped and I can barely see anyone (except Len Troncale in his papers) mentioning Mihajlo Mesarovic. Here are some of his books and proceedings: Organization Structure, Systems Theory and Biology, Theoretical Approaches to Non-Numerical Problem Solving, and Abstract Systems Theory, Cybernetics of Global Change, General Systems Theory, and "Theory of Hierarchical, Multilevel, Systems" (that comma is theirs). I have the access to each one, but I'm overwhelmed by my limited capacity to understand (and read from cover to cover) what they are about. 

From "Organization Structure": "The most significant aspect that is missing in the model of this book is investigation of growth through internal elaboration. However, in order to include the growth aspect in our mathematical theory of organizational cybernetics, we need a more solid theory of self-organization. Although many researchers have discussed self-organization it cannot be said that there is a satisfactory formal theory suitable for our purpose. It is doubtful that the concepts of negative entropy and equifinality of open systems can play a vital role in a formal theory of organization, although they can be useful at times as a persuasive tool in verbal discussions about an organization."

I suppose the discussion here (modularity) is significantly overlapping with that growth and self-organization (and adaptability, resilience, and sustainability) of infrastructure, energy, information, and society. Sustainable development and renewable energy for instance still have to deserve their name, i.e. to last longer.

Aleksandar

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Aleksandar Malečić

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Apr 11, 2018, 6:17:46 AM4/11/18
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Here is something I have actually read from cover to cover: http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/Documents/Lindau2016-slides.pdf - "Biological Organisation as the True Foundation of Reality"

Pick a Brick: https://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Pick-a-Brick - "There's no limit on what you can build!"

Aleksandar

Jack Ring

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Apr 12, 2018, 6:17:14 AM4/12/18
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Aleksander,
You may find the ideas expressed by A. Korsybski useful (not necessarily his later work involving pseudo-spiritual notions).
For example, when you adopt the label ‘duck’ to signify the bird duck you no longer fully understand the bird duck.
Jack

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