We report verbatim a 1998 article A Survey of “Complexity Measures” by David P. Feldman and Jim Crutchfield. A more adequate title for this evasive article would be “A Survey of How Science Avoids to Measure Complexity”. Once you’ve read it, ask yourself this: can I use any of these measures to actually measure the…
Individuals are the atoms of a society, while families constitute its fundamental building blocks, its DNA. The amount of entropy or disorder that each individual ‘dumps’ into society depends on the amount of freedom, or impunity, society offers – or is willing to tolerate – as well as one’s moral compass, responsibility and, of course,…
Prologue from “Governing a Liquid Society – How to Save Democracy From Itself” In the past the Earth was populated by numerous civilizations. The Greeks, the Incas, or the Romans are just a few egregious examples. Because the temporal and spatial correlation between those civilizations was often non-existent, or very limited, if one happened…
Of all physical quantities, energy is probably the most important. Energy expresses the capacity of a body or a system to perform work. Nature works by using energy to transform matter. This is done via processes (physical, chemical, etc.). However, in order to realize these processes it is necessary to have information. Energy on its…
From Wikipedia: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, the field of AI research defines itself as the study of “intelligent agents”: any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. Colloquially, the term “artificial intelligence” is applied when a machine mimics…
In a recent article entitled “Is gravity the force driving time forwards”, a new theory is proposed in order to explain why time evolves only in one direction. The theory attempts to complement the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which has been instrumental in terms of establishing the concept of arrow of time based on entropy.…
Every dynamical system possesses a characteristic value of complexity which reflects how information is organized and how it flows within its structure. Like most things in life, complexity is limited. In fact, there is an upper bound on complexity that a given system may attain and sustain with a given structure. This ‘physiological’ limit…
Frank Drake devised an equation to express the hypothetical number of observable civilizations in our galaxy: N = Rs nh fl fi fc L where N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy, expressed as the product of six factors: Rs is the rate of star formation, nh is the number of habitable worlds…
The Global Financial Complexity Index™ (GFCI™) is a meta-index which measures the complexity of the global financial system. The GFCI™ is based on the closing values of the indices of the World’s main market indices and is computed on a daily basis. Essential to the global investor, the GFCI™ measures the ‘temperature’ of the…
Recently revealed analysis of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) data has delivered images of unseen quality. The images of the Moon’s terrain made possible by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument onboard the LRO has been compared to similar images obtained using the Unified Lunar Control Network based on the best available data…
