Miscellaneous
Bradly Alicea, Jesse Parent, Ankit Gupta
2021
2021
Semantic Scholar
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Cite
APA
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Alicea, B., Parent, J., & Gupta, A. (2021). The illusion of structure or insufficiency of approach? the un(3) of unruly problems.
Chicago/Turabian
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Alicea, Bradly, Jesse Parent, and Ankit Gupta. “The Illusion of Structure or Insufficiency of Approach? the Un(3) of Unruly Problems,” 2021.
MLA
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Alicea, Bradly, et al. The Illusion of Structure or Insufficiency of Approach? the Un(3) of Unruly Problems. 2021.
BibTeX Click to copy
@misc{bradly2021a,
title = {The illusion of structure or insufficiency of approach? the un(3) of unruly problems},
year = {2021},
author = {Alicea, Bradly and Parent, Jesse and Gupta, Ankit}
}
Abstract
The ability to formalize problems in a quantitative manner is the key to predictive power. We characterize a lack of formality as unruliness, relate unruliness as a property of un(3) (undecidability, uncomputability, and unpredictability), and define a class of problems which even when well-posed remain highly informal in nature. Despite this lack of formalism, systems represented by these problems still exhibit significant structure. We call this class of problems hard-to-represent, and are characterized by the difficulties of quantification and symbolization, as well as the inherent un-physicality of a system. A significant part of this difficulty involves both finding the proper metaphor for such systems and a method for analyzing the system components. To counter these difficulties, we propose a new analytical paradigm called perceptual analysis, which brings an umbrella of diverse approaches to bear. These include neural-inspired modeling, visualization-based feature selection, and soft computation, which provide an alternate means to quantify features and discover structure in a manner that is less dependent on traditional mathematical presumptions.