A New Index of Complexity: The Aristotle Index

Paper opens with quote from Graham Wallas and proceeds to introduce idea of an “Aristotle Index” to measure complexity. The JOPES problematique is used as an example to explain the concept. The complexity measure is expressed in mathematical terms. Folder also includes simplified version used as a transparency or handout. See also, “The Aristotle Index: Measuring Complexity in the 21st Century.” This paper was also included in "1997 Essays on Complexity (Mid-Year Edition)."

Sent to GMU 27 September 2007. This paper is one of the group of seven manuscripts which Warfield included in his IASIS monograph titled "1997 Essays on Complexity (Mid-Year Edition)" which he assembled and printed in June 1997. Also in this folder is a simplified 2-page version used as teaching transparency or student handout. The document opens with a quotation from Graham Wallas. Wallas's quote is followed by Warfield's idea of an "Aristotle Index" to measure complexity. The JOPES problematique is used as an example to explain the concept. The complexity measure is expressed in mathematical terms: "An additional index of complexity is proposed. It will be called the "Aristotle Index", because (a) Aristotle originated the syllogism, (b) what the index measures is the number of syllogisms contained in a problematique, and (c) because the problematique portrays complexity in a problematic situation. What I want to show first are some aids in counting the number of syllogisms contained in a given problematique. Then I want to give the details of the count for the JOPES Problematique (Figure 1), as an illustrative example." Another discussion of The Aristotle Index is in Warfield's PowerPoint Slide presentation produced in 2007 with the title: "The Aristotle Index: Measuring Complexity in the 21st Century ."




Additional Info

  • Category: Complexity, Display and Graphical Representations
  • Size: 11 m 5 s
  • Description: Email
  • Publication Year: 1998
Read 128 times Last modified on Sunday, 19 July 2015 14:40

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