What's your opinion about complex systems?

[u/Complete_Necessary48]

The title. I have the impression that complex systems are controversial, as if it is really valid to apply physics tools and frameworks to understand emergent phenomena, not just physical in the traditional sense.

I'm referring to things like vote models based on the Ising model, modeling bird flocks and bacterium, the works.

I'm personally interested in the field, but sometimes I have the weird sensation that maybe it's bulls***t.

What do you think?

Edit: I should add that this is not an attack against this discipline and those who practice it. I myself do so, like for my thesis. This post was more like a 3:00 AM "what am I doing with my life" thought than "yo what's up with these bozos"

[u/warblingContinues]

Modeling things like bird flocks and bacteria is totally normal, but you cant model them using thermodynamics because the systems are not in equilibrium.  If you're interested, the appropriate search term is "active matter system."  You end up using tools from nonequilibrium statistical physics, which includes correlation functions, master equations, information theory, and approaches like agent based modeling.

[u/JGPTech → u/warblingContinues]

I'd argue their very existence proves equilibrium and we simply lack the tools to explain it. Like erubim said below in this thread. Its the ignore what doesnt i take exception to. The "don't try to take in all in at once". Please do try to take it all at once, and model the emergent properties while you're at it.

Edit - I don't understand why I am getting downvote. If someone wants to challenge me on this I will prove it right now by modeling a flock of birds using nothing but thermodynamic principles and I promise you it will make more sense than any reductionist approach you could counter with. I'm not being philosophical we can have a physics off math + coded model which one makes more physical sense back up by raw numbers. Just because my sundial is super accurate doesn't mean my hypothesis the sun is pulled by horses is correct. The sundial works despite my misunderstanding of the physics behind it, not because of it.

Edit - Just going to leave this here.

Fun/FlockMe at main · JGPTech/Fun

[u/david-1-1 → u/JGPTech]

You can't just claim to prove something, or promise something. If you believe you are right, do the math and point to your results. Then you will be upvoted for contributing to science instead of promising you can contribute to science.

Claims are usually the recourse of the undereducated.

[u/JGPTech → u/david-1-1]

oh I always back my shit up. I wasn't claiming anything I was daring someone to open their mouth. So bird flocks?

I'll run in on that Budapest/oxford line. The one they used to describe the leader-follower shit. Woulda been about 10-15 years ago now, lots of public data available. Also the PLOS ONE follow up. I am going use use my 7 observable operators of any complex system, cyclicity, recursion, fractality, regression, synergy, refraction, and outliers, to transform variables and do some time rescaling in a physically meaningful way. The end results will be the transformation of the leader follower relationship into a physically coherent equilibrium representation, then back to the current description of the leader follower relationship. My goal will be to show the empirical path measure obeys detailed balance and admits a Gibbs distribution over an effective free-energy landscape.

ill need like 4-5 hours on it. But I wouldn't mind more time. How long will you need for the NESS side of things? For the comparison?

[u/david-1-1 → u/JGPTech]

What's a NESS?

That sounds very ambitious. Don't have any expectations from Reddit. This is not a publication site, just a social discussion site. Your work is not likely to be seen by anyone in academia. But it does sound worth doing (it's outside of my field).

[u/JGPTech → u/david-1-1]

that last comment was the only honest thing you've said. your first comment was utter nonsense.

Fun/FlockMe at main · JGPTech/Fun

Edit - What pisses me off so much is not the utter nonsense, I expect that I do. Its the actual factual comment being massivly downvoted, while the nonsense gets upvoted. In a physics forum. I expect better, I do.

[u/david-1-1 → u/JGPTech]

I think it likely that not one of the people who downvoted your comment had any idea that you had actually thought about it, and did trial calculations. Nor are they familiar with Joe Poplett's framework.

Because of the volume of comments, and the low likelihood that a comment in a social physics forum is educated, and because of the ease of use of LLMs, readers tend to make snap judgements and downvote too easily. I didn't downvote you, but I did prejudge you.

The question remains as to whether your claims are supported by your logical framework, your programs, and their output. I did not see the usual Readme.md file containing these important pieces of evidence, so I cannot make any judgement myself. And as I said, this subject matter is outside of my expertise.

[u/david-1-1 → u/JGPTech]

My first comment was apt. It applied to you, and you rose to the challenge with evidence of your ideas. But you did not offer this evidence in your OP, and I cannot read information that is only in your mind.

I suggest, if you don't want to be downvoted, that you include more of your specific thinking and fewer generalized claims.