The Divine Action Project, 1988–2003

This article explores the state of the art in theories of special divine action by means of a study of the Divine Action Project (DAP) co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley. The basic aim is to introduce the DAP and to summarize its results, especially as these were compiled in the final “capstone” meeting of the DAP, and drawing on the published output of the project where possible. The subsidiary aim is to evaluate criticisms of theories of special divine action developed within the DAP.ye

Economics: The next physical science?

We review an emerging body of work by physicists addressing questions of economic organization and function. We suggest that, beyond simply employing models familiar from physics to economic observables, remarkable regularities in economic data may suggest parts of social order that can usefully be incorporated into, and in turn can broaden, the conceptual structure of physics.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physics Toda

Artificiality in Social Sciences

This text provides with an introduction to the modern approach of artificiality and simulation in social sciences. It presents the relationship between complexity and artificiality, before introducing the field of artificial societies which greatly benefited from the computer power fast increase, gifting social sciences with formalization and experimentation tools previously owned by "hard" sciences alone. It shows that as "a new way of doing social sciences", artificial societies should undoubtedly contribute to a renewed approach in the study of sociality and should play a significant part in the elaboration of original theories of social phenomena.artificial societies; multi-agent systems; distributed artificial intelligence; complexity

Economics: the next physical science?

We review an emerging body of work by physicists addressing questions of economic organization and function. We suggest that, beyond simply employing models familiar from physics to economic observables, remarkable regularities in economic data may suggest parts of social order that can usefully be incorporated into, and in turn can broaden, the conceptual structure of physics.Economic theory, Physics, Econo-physics

Crosstalk and the spectrum of biological global broadcasts: Toward generalization of the Baars consciousness model across physiological subsystems

Once cognitive biological phenomena are recognized as necessarily having 'dual' information sources, it is easy to show that the information theory chain rule implies isolating coresident information sources from crosstalk requires more metabolic free energy than permitting correlation. This provides conditions for an evolutionary exaptation leading to dynamic global broadcasts of interacting cognitive biological processes analogous to, but slower than, consciousness, itself included within the paradigm. The argument is closely analogous to the well-studied exaptation of noise to trigger stochastic resonance amplification in physiological systems