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Whether software is the most complex systems humans have built very much depends on what you consider to be a system. And whether you agree that software is th

Whether software is the most complex systems humans have built very much depends on what you consider to be a system. And whether you agree that software is the most complex thing humans have built also seems to correlate, to a remarkable degree, with whether you build software for a living.

Turing_Machine 11y ago
"Whether software is the most complex systems humans have built very much depends on what you consider to be a system." Indeed. To take just one example, the world economy is a system created entirely by human beings, yet seems to me to be much more complex than any piece of software. People try to model pieces of the economy with software, with varying degrees of success, but I don't think it's feasible (it may be impossible) to model the economy as a whole.
- danmaz74 11y ago
  I don't know if software systems are the most complex systems we built, but you can't compare it to the world economy, which is an emergent property that nobody has "built".
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    It's composed of the individual actions of human beings, so yes, it was built. It certainly isn't a natural phenomenon. "Emergence" doesn't have any bearing on it. The properties of music and art are emergent, too. Doesn't make them not constructed by humans.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      The economy is emergent in ways that art and music are not.
    - toothbrush 11y ago
      The difference is intensional or extensional behaviour.
    - danmaz74 11y ago
      > It certainly isn't a natural phenomenon. Now, this is interesting. You mean that we humans aren't a natural phenomenon? :D
      - Turing_Machine 11y ago
        nat·u·ral ˈnaCH(ə)rəl/ adjective 1. existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind. Humans are natural. Human artifacts are not.
        techbio 11y ago
        Mom's tomato garden?
        boomlinde 11y ago
        Not that I necessarily agree with the distinction made in the definition above, but assuming it's true, wouldn't the garden be an artifact? The soil and the tomatoes surely not, but the garden in layout and concept would be a human built thing.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    The ideas of personal property and wage labor are certainly not emergent properties of the universe. We could just as easily have chosen collective ownership with equal distribution of the fruits of socially compelled labor, trial by combat to see who gets the most stuff, serfs being fed by their masters who effectively own them, everyone feeding himself directly from the land which is owned by no one, everyone feeding himself directly from the land which was cleared of competitors by deliberate genocide, etc. All have been practiced at one point or another. An economy based on property ownership, investment, and labor is absolutely a system created by humanity, though you could argue many of its observed properties are emergent.
    - danmaz74 11y ago
      The key in my comment is the difference between "built" (as in: purposefully designed and built, like it happens with software) and "created" (as in: you can accidentally create something). But I know that human language isn't so well defined and other people can give different meanings to those terms... because nobody "built" English! Regarding "We could just as easily have chosen" I don't agree at all on "easily". Contrary to many theories which say or imply that, people's minds aren't blank slates that can be easily programmed (not to mention re-programmed) to adapt to any social engineering project. Countless examples in history prove this.
- jrochkind1 11y ago
  If you say 'have designed' instead of 'have built'... I don't think we'd say the world economy has been designed, exactly.
  - parasubvert 11y ago
    The world economy absolutely was designed, just not by a single designer. It certainly isn't there by mistake. Economic theory dating back to the late 1700's arguably were the first major attempts at retroactive design of the global economy. There've been other pockets of this happening, but not globally, more likely the monetary and debt systems of various epochs and empires. But after retroactively observing market exchange, most classical economic theory became pretty prescriptive, i.e. it wasn't a reflection of "human nature" so much as that was an easy way to promote free market ideals. For example, the "profit motive" has been basically disproven as something that never actually existed historically or anthropologically as a universal human driver. It was invented by economists as useful way to explain away certain aspects of their system design. This is not to say some people were not and are not motivated by profit.. sure they are. It's just not universal, like hunger, or breathing. Markets also weren't omnipresent throughout human history until proto-economists noticed them, wrote about them, and businessmen began convincing governments to apply them by force to various communities in the 1800s. (see Karl Polanyi, the Great Transformation). One could argue that economics is really "software design for the world economy", except you need to test and debug in production. Religious wars about better designs and features abound (fiat currency vs. gold standard; Keynesians vs. Rational Expectations / Real Business Cycles; Austrians vs. Science; etc.)
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  The OP is referring to white box systems where the programmer thoroughly understands everything. The economy may be artificial, but its' immense complexity makes it a black box.
- dasil003 11y ago
  The world economy is not analogous to "any piece of software", it is loosely analogous to something like "all software running on the Internet" or some other broad set of heterogenous systems.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

"Whether software is the most complex systems humans have built very much depends on what you consider to be a system." Indeed. To take just one example, the world economy is a system created entirely by human beings, yet seems to me to be much more complex than any piece of software. People try to model pieces of the economy with software, with varying degrees of success, but I don't think it's feasible (it may be impossible) to model the economy as a whole.

danmaz74 11y ago
I don't know if software systems are the most complex systems we built, but you can't compare it to the world economy, which is an emergent property that nobody has "built".
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  It's composed of the individual actions of human beings, so yes, it was built. It certainly isn't a natural phenomenon. "Emergence" doesn't have any bearing on it. The properties of music and art are emergent, too. Doesn't make them not constructed by humans.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    The economy is emergent in ways that art and music are not.
  - toothbrush 11y ago
    The difference is intensional or extensional behaviour.
  - danmaz74 11y ago
    > It certainly isn't a natural phenomenon. Now, this is interesting. You mean that we humans aren't a natural phenomenon? :D
    - Turing_Machine 11y ago
      nat·u·ral ˈnaCH(ə)rəl/ adjective 1. existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind. Humans are natural. Human artifacts are not.
      - techbio 11y ago
        Mom's tomato garden?
        boomlinde 11y ago
        Not that I necessarily agree with the distinction made in the definition above, but assuming it's true, wouldn't the garden be an artifact? The soil and the tomatoes surely not, but the garden in layout and concept would be a human built thing.
- superuser2 11y ago
  The ideas of personal property and wage labor are certainly not emergent properties of the universe. We could just as easily have chosen collective ownership with equal distribution of the fruits of socially compelled labor, trial by combat to see who gets the most stuff, serfs being fed by their masters who effectively own them, everyone feeding himself directly from the land which is owned by no one, everyone feeding himself directly from the land which was cleared of competitors by deliberate genocide, etc. All have been practiced at one point or another. An economy based on property ownership, investment, and labor is absolutely a system created by humanity, though you could argue many of its observed properties are emergent.
  - danmaz74 11y ago
    The key in my comment is the difference between "built" (as in: purposefully designed and built, like it happens with software) and "created" (as in: you can accidentally create something). But I know that human language isn't so well defined and other people can give different meanings to those terms... because nobody "built" English! Regarding "We could just as easily have chosen" I don't agree at all on "easily". Contrary to many theories which say or imply that, people's minds aren't blank slates that can be easily programmed (not to mention re-programmed) to adapt to any social engineering project. Countless examples in history prove this.
jrochkind1 11y ago
If you say 'have designed' instead of 'have built'... I don't think we'd say the world economy has been designed, exactly.
- parasubvert 11y ago
  The world economy absolutely was designed, just not by a single designer. It certainly isn't there by mistake. Economic theory dating back to the late 1700's arguably were the first major attempts at retroactive design of the global economy. There've been other pockets of this happening, but not globally, more likely the monetary and debt systems of various epochs and empires. But after retroactively observing market exchange, most classical economic theory became pretty prescriptive, i.e. it wasn't a reflection of "human nature" so much as that was an easy way to promote free market ideals. For example, the "profit motive" has been basically disproven as something that never actually existed historically or anthropologically as a universal human driver. It was invented by economists as useful way to explain away certain aspects of their system design. This is not to say some people were not and are not motivated by profit.. sure they are. It's just not universal, like hunger, or breathing. Markets also weren't omnipresent throughout human history until proto-economists noticed them, wrote about them, and businessmen began convincing governments to apply them by force to various communities in the 1800s. (see Karl Polanyi, the Great Transformation). One could argue that economics is really "software design for the world economy", except you need to test and debug in production. Religious wars about better designs and features abound (fiat currency vs. gold standard; Keynesians vs. Rational Expectations / Real Business Cycles; Austrians vs. Science; etc.)
crimsonalucard 11y ago
The OP is referring to white box systems where the programmer thoroughly understands everything. The economy may be artificial, but its' immense complexity makes it a black box.
dasil003 11y ago
The world economy is not analogous to "any piece of software", it is loosely analogous to something like "all software running on the Internet" or some other broad set of heterogenous systems.