>You could include this on the definitions page. Is this the definition
>that they use at Santa Fe?
The June Sci. Am. mentioned this in the surprisingly critical article,
"From Complexity to Perplexity". There is a text box at the bottom of
p.107 titled Discord over Definitions claiming that a researcher compiled
over 30 different definitions of complexity including the following:
-- Entropy. Complexity equals the entropy, or disorder, of a system as measured by thermodynamics.Information. Complexity equals the capacity of a system to "surprise", or inform, an observer.
Fractal Dimension. The "fuzziness" of a system, the degree of detail it displays at smaller and smaller scales.
Effective Complexity. The degree of "regularity" (rather than randomness) displayed by a system.
Hierarchical Complexity. The diversity displayed by the different levels of a hierarchically structured system.
Grammatical Complexity. The degree of universality of the language required to describe a system.
Thermodynamic Depth. The amount of thermodynamic resources required to put a system together from scratch.
Time Computational Complexity. The time required for a computer to describe a system (or solve a problem).
Spatial Computational Complexity. The amount of computer memory required to describe a system.
Mutual Information. The degree to which one part of a system contains information on, or resembles, other parts.
--I'm not sure the definition I offered corresponds to any of the ones above.
-- David McFadzean dbm@merak.com Memetic Engineer http://www.merak.com/~dbm/ Merak Projects Ltd.