Systems Theory

VII. Randomness, Probability, Compression and Redundancy

VII. Randomness, Probability, Compression and Redundancy

“Order” and “disorder”, we have seen, are observer-dependent categories of a dynamical system’s state space. What characterizes disordered states, relative to any observer, is that different disordered states do not differ in any meaningful way.

IV. A Patchwork of Metaphor

IV. A Patchwork of Metaphor

The language used so far may have seemed too removed from the number-crunching chores of experimental science to be anything else than a whimsical indulgence. 

VII. Hierarchy Theory Literature

VII. Hierarchy Theory Literature

The aim of the preceding sections was to introduce for the general reader the concept of hierarchical thinking – to raise awareness of how both the observer and the observed contribute in perception, not unlike how the fishing net and the water contents interact to determine what kind of fish is captured.