13 research outputs found
Delegated causality of complex systems
A notion of delegated causality is introduced here. This subtle kind of causality is dual to interventional causality. Delegated causality elucidates the causal role of dynamical systems at the âedge of chaosâ, explicates evident cases of downward causation, and relates emergent phenomena to Gödelâs incompleteness theorem. Apparently rich implications are noticed in biology and Chinese philosophy. The perspective of delegated causality supports cognitive interpretations of self-organization and evolution
The biosemiotic implications of 'bacterial wisdom'
Eshel Ben-Jacobâs manuscript entitled âBacterial wisdom, Gödelâs theorem and creative genomic websâ summarizes decades of work demonstrating adaptive mutagenesis in bacterial genomes. Bacterial genomes, each an essential part of a Kantian whole that is a single bacterium, are thus not independent of the environment as sensed; and a single bacterium is therefore a semiotic entity. Ben-Jacob suggests this but errs in 1) assigning autonomy to the genome, and 2) analogizing through computation without making clear whether he is doing so for illustrative purposes or making committed ontological propositions. We reinterpret adaptive mutagenesis and related phenomena in ways both metaphysically rigorous and revealing. We conclude that bacteria are much farther removed from the âself-organizingâ world of inanimate process than from the Peircian world of signs; and a critical reappraisal of existing knowledge can enhance our understanding of selfhood, semiosis, and the roots of subjective experience
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'Waiting for Carnot': Information and complexity
The relationship between information and complexity is analysed, by way of a detailed literature analysis. Complexity is a multi-faceted concept, with no single agreed definition. There are numerous approaches to defining and measuring complexity and organisation, all involving the idea of information. Conceptions of complexity, order, organization and âinteresting orderâ are inextricably intertwined with those of information. Shannonâs formalism captures informationâs unpredictable creative contributions to organized complexity; a full understanding of informationâs relation to structure and order is still lacking. Conceptual investigations of this topic should enrich the theoretical basis of the information science discipline, and create fruitful links with other disciplines which study the concepts of information and complexity
A Multilevel Model of Collaboration and Creativity
The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole.
âFREEMAN DYSON, 1996, p.2
Creativity does not occur in a vacuum. An enabling environment must exist. Whether creativity is at the breakthrough level or a cluster of micro-level events, it requires environments with special facetsâespecially collaboration that enables knowledge sharing and idea synthesis
Teaching public administrators and leaders to handle complexity
Understanding and working under complexity has become âthe new normalâ in public administration. Hence complexity must also be integrated into teaching and training of public administrators, not only in higher education but also in in-service training and educating wider society. This can be done by combining the ongoing research agenda into courses and teaching methods. This article describes the integration of complexity thinking and teaching in one university, both by giving examples on the courses and methods applied, student feedback received and by anticipating future developments. Finally, practical advice for teachers of complexity is given
Self-Organizing Multi-Agent Systems for the Control of Complex Systems
Because of the law of requisite variety, designing a controller for complex systems implies designing a complex system. In software engineering, usual top-down approaches become inadequate to design such systems. The Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems (AMAS) approach relies on the cooperative self-organization of autonomous micro-level agents to tackle macro-level complexity. This bottom-up approach provides adaptive, scalable, and robust systems. This paper presents a complex system controller that has been designed following this approach, and shows results obtained with the automatic tuning of a real internal combustion engine
Emergence and Downward Causation Reconsidered in Terms of the Aristotelian-Thomistic View of Causation and Divine Action
One of the main challenges of the nonreductionist approach to complex structures and phenomena in philosophy of biology is its defense of the plausibility of the theory of emergence and downward causation. The tension between remaining faithful to the rules of physicalism and physical causal closure, while defending the novelty and distinctiveness of emergents from their basal constituents, makes the argumentation of many proponents of emergentism lacking in coherency and precision. In this article I aim at answering the suggestion of several thinkers to redefine emergence and downward causation in terms of the broader Aristotelian view of causation. In addition, I further develop this interdisciplinary conversation to include theological implications of emergentism, analyzed in reference to Aquinasâ understanding of divine action in terms of the same fourfold division of causesâbringing thus natural science, philosophy, and theology into creative and fruitful dialogue
Morphology, Plasticity, and Transformation between Philosophy and Biology
In biology, interest in form was the prerogative of developmental biology, while it was practically neglected by evolutionary biology. This situation has changed a lot in recent decades and has led to a reinterpretation of the concept of evolution and evolutionism focusing more on the problem of form and morphology. In Italy, especially Alessandro Minelli, one of the editors of this issue, has dedicated his studies to the need to communicate form to structure, to reconnect morphology and evolution. This theme is a highly relevant one for philosophy, inasmuch as the question of form and morphology, since the days of Goethe and Bergson, has always been considered as the starting point for a philosophy of the living being endowed with its own categories that cannot be reduced to those of physics
Toward a Logic of the Organism: A Process Philosophical Consideration
Mathematical models applied in contemporary theoretical and systems biology are based on some implicit ontological assumptions about the nature of organisms. This article aims to show that real organisms reveal a logic of internal causality transcending the tacit logic of biological modeling. Systems biology has focused on models consisting of static systems of differential equations operating with fixed control parameters that are measured or fitted to experimental data. However, the structure of real organisms is a highly dynamic process, the internal causality of which can only be captured by continuously changing systems of equations. In addition, in real physiological settings kinetic parameters can vary by orders of magnitude, i.e., organisms vary the value of internal quantities that in models are represented by fixed control parameters. Both the plasticity of organisms and the state dependence of kinetic parameters adds indeterminacy to the picture and asks for a new statistical perspective. This requirement could be met by the arising Biological Statistical Mechanics project, which promises to do more justice to the nature of real organisms than contemporary modeling. This article concludes that Biological Statistical Mechanics allows for a wider range of organismic ontologies than does the tacitly followed ontology of contemporary theoretical and systems biology, which are implicitly and explicitly based on systems theory.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2021 - 2022 / Technische UniversitÀt Berli