Main principles of the complex nonlinear thinking which are based on the notions of the modern theory of evolution and self-organization of complex systems called also synergetics are under discussion in this article. The principles are transdisciplinary, holistic, and oriented to a human being. The notions of system complexity, nonlinearity of evolution, creative chaos, space-time definiteness of structure-attractors of evolution, resonant influences, nonlinear and soft management are here of great importance. In this connection, a prominent contribution made to system analysis (...) and to a necessary reform of education and thinking by Edgar Morin is considered. (shrink)

A novel thermodynamic perspective on natural selection is presented. In the case that life continuity is optimized in an ideal system, where relatively constant and homogeneous selective pressures favour a given competing species, natural selection leads that system to a stationary state of maximum genotypic uniformity of life and maximum sustainable consumption of available energy by life (competitive equilibrium). Structurally and functionally, this optimizing tendency towards competitive equilibrium looks similar to the optimizing tendency towards thermodynamic equilibrium of classical thermodynamics (maximum (...) energetic uniformity and maximum degradation of available energy). The principle of competitive exclusion may thus be conceptually viewed as an ecological manifestation of the second law of (classical) thermodynamics. On the other hand, the novel thermodynamic perspective on natural selection is discussed with regard to the open and nonequilibrium system of nature, where selective pressures vary in space and time. In this case, natural selection can induce diversity instead of uniformity, though an optimizing tendendcy towards maximum sustainable consumption of resources (optimization of life continuity) always remains. Overall, it is concluded that the action of natural selection favours the maximization of the sustainable consumption of energy at the level of individual organism. (shrink)

The biological sciences study (bio)complex living systems. Research directed at the mechanistic explanation of the "live" state truly requires a pluralist research program, i.e. BioComplexity research. The program should apply multiple intra-level and inter-level theories and methodologies. We substantiate this thesis with analysis of BioComplexity: metabolic and modular control analysis of metabolic pathways, emergence of oscillations, and the analysis of the functioning of glycolysis.

This paper considers the nature of time and temporality in Homer. It argues that any exploration of narrative and time must, as its central tenet, take into account the irreducible plurality and interconnectedness of memory, the event, and experienced time. Drawing on notions of complexity, emergence, and stochastic behavior in science as well as phenomenological traditions in the discussion and analysis of time, temporality, and change, and offering extensive readings of Homer, of Homeric epithets and formulae, and of key passages (...) in the Iliad and Odyssey, the paper argues against chronological notions of linear time and progression and in favor of a complex, dynamic temporal “geometries” of Homeric temporality. The paper concludes by briefly extending the argument to the wider domain of ancient time in general. Homer is a fundamental point of reference in the ancient world. Thus, Homeric temporality—irreducibly complex—affects the cognition and perception of time throughout the whole of antiquity. (shrink)

Understanding a normative concept like oppression requires attention to not only its harms but also the causes of those harms. In other words, a complete understanding of such a concept requires a proper causal explanation. This causal explanation can also inform and constrain our moral response to such harms. Therefore, the conceptual explanatory framework that we use to inform our moral diagnosis and our moral response become significant. The first goal of this dissertation is to propose complexity theory as the (...) proper framework for not only explaining a social phenomenon like oppression but also understanding the proper sites for social change. The second goal of this dissertation is to answer three interrelated questions about how we should respond, morally, to a chronic and complex social problem like racial or gender inequality: (1) Why do the current interventions to address these problems fail? (2) Do social movements play any unique role in addressing these problems? (3) What is our individual responsibility to participate in social movements? In response, I argue that the explanatory frameworks that we choose to understand the cause(s) of social problems can be the source of the inadequacy of our intervention. I argue that a proper social and moral intervention needs to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the social world. I also show that changing the explanatory framework allows us to see the unique role social movements play in making effective and sustainable social change possible. Finally, I conclude supporting such movements is a moral imperative. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic status of biology from the standpoint of the systemic approach to living systems based on the notion of biological autonomy. This approach aims to provide an understanding of the distinctive character of biological systems and this paper analyses its theoretical and epistemological dimensions. The paper argues that, considered from this perspective, biological systems are examples of emergent phenomena, that the biological domain exhibits special features with respect to other domains, and that biology as a discipline (...) employs some core concepts, such as teleology, function, regulation among others, that are irreducible to those employed in physics and chemistry. It addresses the claim made by Jacques Monod that biology as a science is marginal. It argues that biology is general insofar as it constitutes a paradigmatic example of complexity science, both in terms of how it defines the theoretical object of study and of the epistemology and heuristics employed. As such, biology may provide lessons that can be applied more widely to develop an epistemology of complex systems. (shrink)

A paradox, it is claimed, is a radical form of contradiction, one that produces gaps in meaning. In order to approach this idea, two senses of “separation” are distinguished: separation by something and separation by nothing. The latter does not refer to nothing in an ordinary sense, however, since in that sense what’s intended is actually less than nothing. Numerous ordinary nothings in philosophy as well as in other fields are surveyed so as to clarify the contrast. Then follows the (...) suggestion that philosophies which one would expect to have room for paradoxes actually tend either to exclude them altogether, or to dull them. There is a clear alternative, however, one that fully recognizes paradoxes and yet also strives to overcome them. (shrink)

This paper aims to justify the concept of natural intelligence in the biosemiotic context. I will argue that the process of life is (i) a cognitive/semiotic process and (ii) that organisms, from bacteria to animals, are cognitive or semiotic agents. To justify these arguments, the neural-type intelligence represented by the form of reasoning known as anthropic reasoning will be compared and contrasted with types of intelligence explicated by four disciplines of biology – relational biology, evolutionary epistemology, biosemiotics and the systems (...) view of life – not biased towards neural intelligence. The comparison will be achieved by asking questions related to the process of observation and the notion of true observers. To answer the questions I will rely on a range of established concepts including SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), Fermi’s paradox, bacterial cognition, versions of the panspermia theory, as well as some newly introduced concepts including biocivilisations, cognitive/semiotic universes, and the cognitive/semiotic multiverse. The key point emerging from the answers is that the process of cognition/semiosis – the essence of natural intelligence – is a biological universal. (shrink)

Contemporary theories of consciousness are based on widely different concepts of its nature, most or all of which probably embody aspects of the truth about it. Starting with a concept of consciousness indicated by the phrase “the feeling of what happens” (the title of a book by Antonio Damásio), we attempt to build a framework capable of supporting and resolving divergent views. We picture consciousness in terms of Reality experiencing itself from the perspective of cognitive agents. Each conscious experience is (...) regarded as composed of momentary feeling events that are combined by recognition and evaluation into extended conscious episodes that bind cognitive contents with a wide range of apparent durations (0.1 secs to 2 or more secs, for us humans, depending on circumstances and context). Three necessary conditions for the existence of consciousness are identified: a) a ground of Reality, envisaged as an universal field of potentiality encompassing all possible manifestations, whether material or 'mental'; b) a transitional zone, leading to; c) a manifest world with its fundamental divisions into material, 'informational' and quale-endowed aspects. We explore ideas about the nature of these necessary conditions, how they may relate to one another and whether our suggestions have empirical implications. (shrink)

The interpretation of the concept of reduced state is a subtle issue that has relevant consequences when the task is the interpretation of quantum mechanics itself. The aim of this paper is to argue that reduced states are not the quantum states of subsystems in the same sense as quantum states are states of the whole composite system. After clearly stating the problem, our argument is developed in three stages. First, we consider the phenomenon of environment-induced decoherence as an example (...) of the case in which the subsystems interact with each other; we show that decoherence does not solve the measurement problem precisely because the reduced state of the measuring apparatus is not its quantum state. Second, the non-interacting case is illustrated in the context of no-collapse interpretations, in which we show that certain well-known experimental results cannot be accounted for due to the fact that the reduced states of the measured system and the measuring apparatus are conceived as their quantum states. Finally, we prove that reduced states are a kind of coarse-grained states, and for this reason they cancel the correlations of the subsystem with other subsystems with which it interacts or is entangled. (shrink)

The Neo‐Darwinian concept of natural selection is plausible when one assumes a straightforward causation of phenotype by genotype. However, such simple 1:1 mapping must now give place to the modern concepts of gene regulatory networks and gene expression noise. Both can, in the absence of genetic mutations, jointly generate a diversity of inheritable randomly occupied phenotypic states that could also serve as a substrate for natural selection. This form of epigenetic dynamics challenges Neo‐Darwinism. It needs to incorporate the non‐linear, stochastic (...) dynamics of gene networks. A first step is to consider the mathematical correspondence between gene regulatory networks and Waddington's metaphoric ‘epigenetic landscape’, which actually represents the quasi‐potential function of global network dynamics. It explains the coexistence of multiple stable phenotypes within one genotype. The landscape's topography with its attractors is shaped by evolution through mutational re‐wiring of regulatory interactions – offering a link between genetic mutation and sudden, broad evolutionary changes. (shrink)

The ecological approach to perception-action is unlike the standard approach in several respects. It takes the animal-in-its-environment as the proper scale for the theory and analysis of perception-action, it eschews symbol based accounts of perception-action, it promotes self-organization as the theory-constitutive metaphor for perception-action, and it employs self-referring, non-predicative definitions in explaining perception-action. The present article details the complexity issues confronted by the ecological approach in terms suggested by Rosen and introduces non-well-founded set theory as a potentially useful tool for (...) expressing them. The issues and the tool are brought to focus in the concept of affordance that is the basis for explanation of prospective control of action in the ecological approach. (shrink)

It has been commonplace to maintain of the phenomenon that occurred during classical times, the change from relying on myth to trusting in reason: (1) that the emergence of philosophy from myth was marked by an abrupt discontinuity; (2) that mythical thinking was left behind once philosophy was invented or discovered; and (3) that the ancient Greeks were the agents of this miracle. This paper suggests that the so-called “Greek miracle” was, in fact, a miracle manqué and, more importantly, that (...) close examination of this failed miracle offers valuable insight into the philosophical crisis facing the world today. (shrink)

Connectionist models aiming to reveal the mechanisms of atypical development must in their undamaged form constitute plausible models of normal development and follow a developmental trajectory that matches empirical data. Constructivist models that adapt their structure to the learning task satisfy this demand. They are therefore more informative in the study of atypical development than the static models employed by Thomas & Karmiloff-Smith (T&K-S).

It is often assumed that similar domain-specific behavioural impairments found in cases of adult brain damage and developmental disorders correspond to similar underlying causes, and can serve as convergent evidence for the modular structure of the normal adult cognitive system. We argue that this correspondence is contingent on an unsupported assumption that atypical development can produce selective deficits while the rest of the system develops normally (Residual Normality), and that this assumption tends to bias data collection in the field. Based (...) on a review of connectionist models of acquired and developmental disorders in the domains of reading and past tense, as well as on new simulations, we explore the computational viability of Residual Normality and the potential role of development in producing behavioural deficits. Simulations demonstrate that damage to a developmental model can produce very different effects depending on whether it occurs prior to or following the training process. Because developmental disorders typically involve damage prior to learning, we conclude that the developmental process is a key component of the explanation of endstate impairments in such disorders. Further simulations demonstrate that in simple connectionist learning systems, the assumption of Residual Normality is undermined by processes of compensation or alteration elsewhere in the system. We outline the precise computational conditions required for Residual Normality to hold in development, and suggest that in many cases it is an unlikely hypothesis. We conclude that in developmental disorders, inferences from behavioural deficits to underlying structure crucially depend on developmental conditions, and that the process of ontogenetic development cannot be ignored in constructing models of developmental disorders. Key Words: Acquired and developmental disorders; connectionist models; modularity; past tense; reading. (shrink)

This article proposes a number of models to examine through which mechanisms a population of autonomous agents could arrive at a repertoire of perceptually grounded categories that is sufficiently shared to allow successful communication. The models are inspired by the main approaches to human categorisation being discussed in the literature: nativism, empiricism, and culturalism. Colour is taken as a case study. Although we take no stance on which position is to be accepted as final truth with respect to human categorisation (...) and naming, we do point to theoretical constraints that make each position more or less likely and we make clear suggestions on what the best engineering solution would be. Specifically, we argue that the collective choice of a shared repertoire must integrate multiple constraints, including constraints coming from communication. Key Words: autonomous agents; colour categorisation; colour naming; connectionism; cultural evolution; genetic evolution; memes; origins of language; self-organisation; semiotic dynamics; symbol grounding. (shrink)

Goldstein reported multiple cases of failure to categorise colours in patients that he termed amnesic or anomic aphasics. These patients have a particular difficulty in producing perceptual categories in the absence of other aphasic impairments. We hold that neuropsychological evidence supports the view that the task of colour categorisation is logically impossible without labels.

In a certain sense, uncertainty andignorance have been recognized in science andphilosophy from the time of the Greeks.However, the mathematical sciences have beendominated by the pursuit of certainty.Therefore, experiments under simplified andidealized conditions have been regarded as themost reliable source of knowledge. Normally,uncertainty could be ignored or controlled byapplying probability theory and statistics.Today, however, the situation is different.Uncertainty and ignorance have moved intofocus. In particular, the global character ofsome environmental problems has shown that theproblems cannot be disregarded. Therefore,scientists and technologists (...) have in many wayscome into a new situation. The Chernobylaccident is a dramatic example, however,problems such as a possible greenhouse effect,a possible reduction of the ozone layer, and soon are all of the same type. These encompasstotally different problems than scientists andtechnologists are traditionally trained to dealwith. In these cases, the standard use ofstatistics has to change, the burden of proofshould be reversed, one should draw ondifferent kinds of expertise, and, in general,science should be ``democratized.''. (shrink)

Since their inception in the 1980s, complexity sciences have been described as a revolutionary new domain of research. By describing some of the practices and assumptions of its representatives, the present article shows that this field is an association of subdisciplines laying on existing disciplinary footholds. The general question guiding us here is: On what basis do complexity scientists consider their inquiry methods and results as valuable? To answer it, I describe five “epistemic argumentative regimes,” namely the ways in which (...) complexity scientists argue the credibility of their research, and five “ontological views,” that is the ways in which they interpret the material and formal causes of their study objects and models. Finally, the article proposes the term of “regime of evidence” to designate the specific combination of one ontological view with one or more epistemic argumentative regimes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: With a view to suggesting the possible relevance of Aristotelian thought to current notions of complexity and self-organization, studies Aristotlenard cells, and the theories of Schneider, Kay, and D. Sagan.

Philosophical accounts of emergence have been explicated in terms of logical relationships between statements (derivation) or static properties (function and realization). Jaegwon Kim is a modern proponent. A property is emergent if it is not explainable by (or reducible to) the properties of lower level components. This approach, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in scientific explanations of complex systems. The standard philosophical notion of emergence posits the wrong dichotomies, confuses (...) compositional physicalism with explanatory physicalism, and is unable to represent the type of dynamic processes (self-organizing feedback) that both generate emergent properties and express downward causation. (shrink)

Reductionism is a central issue in the philosophy of biology. One common objection to reduction is that molecular explanation requires reference to higher-level properties, which I refer to as the context objection. I respond to this objection by arguing that a well-articulated notion of a mechanism and what I term mechanism extension enables one to accommodate the context-dependence of biological processes within a reductive explanation. The existence of emergent features in the context could be raised as an objection to the (...) possibility of reduction via this strategy. I argue that this objection can be overcome by showing that there is no tenable argument for the existence of emergent properties that are not susceptible to a reductive explanation. (shrink)

Current empirical studies of moral behavior of healthcare professionals are almost entirely focused on self-reports, usually collected under the assumption that an ethical disposition characterizes individuals across various contexts. It is well known, however, that individuals adjust their behavior to what they see being done by those in their peer group. That presents a methodological challenge to traditional research within a community of peers because the behavior of each individual is both the result of norms and a contributor to the (...) norms of others. Computer simulations can be used to address this methodological challenge. A Markov replicator model that runs on an Excel spreadsheet was used to investigate a community with four agent types in the dental community: devious practitioners, ethical practitioners who avoid involvement in the poor ethics of others, ethical practitioners who accept it as part of their professional responsibility to challenge colleagues who act unprofessionally, and those who enforce ethical standards. A panel of leaders in the profession independently estimated parameters for the model and criteria for a possible distribution of agent types in the community. The simulation converged on distributions of the agent types that were very similar to the expectations of the panel. The simulation suggests the following characteristics of such moral communities: The structure of such communities is robust across a wide distribution. It appears that reduction in unethical behavior is more sensitive to the way ethical practitioners interact with each other than to sanctions the enforcement community imposes on unethical practitioners, and that large external interventions will be short lived. (shrink)

In the recent history of psychology and cognitive neuroscience, the notion of habit has been reduced to a stimulus-triggered response probability correlation. In this paper we use a computational model to present an alternative theoretical view (with some philosophical implications), where habits are seen as self-maintaining patterns of behavior that share properties in common with self-maintaining biological processes, and that inhabit a complex ecological context, including the presence and influence of other habits. Far from mechanical automatisms, this organismic and self-organizing (...) concept of habit can overcome the dominating atomistic and statistical conceptions, and the high temporal resolution effects of situatedness, embodiment and sensorimotor loops emerge as playing a more central, subtle and complex role in the organization of behavior. The model is based on a novel “iterant deformable sensorimotor medium” (IDSM), designed such that trajectories taken through sensorimotor-space increase the likelihood that in the future, similar trajectories will be taken. We couple the IDSM to sensors and motors of a simulated body and environment and show that under certain conditions, the IDSM forms self-maintaining patterns of activity that operate across the IDSM, the body, and the environment. We present various environments and the resulting habits that form in them. The model acts as an abstraction of habits at a much needed sensorimotor “meso-scale” between microscopic neuron-based models and macroscopic descriptions of behavior. Finally, we discuss how this model and extensions of it can help us understand aspects of behavioral self-organization, historicity and autonomy that remain out of the scope of contemporary representationalist frameworks. (shrink)

Ilya Prigogine was not a systematic author: his ideas, covering a wide arch of areas, are dispersed in his many writings. In particular, his philosophical thought has to be reconstructed mainly on the basis of his works in collaboration with Isabelle Stengers: La Nouvelle Alliance ( 1979 ), Order out of Chaos ( 1984 ), and Entre le Temps et l’Éternité ( 1988 ). In this paper I undertake that reconstruction in order to argue that Prigogine’s position, when read in (...) the light of Putnam’s internalist realism, can be characterized as an ontological pluralism. The main aim of this work is to show the striking parallelism between the philosophical views of Prigogine and Stengers and those of Hilary Putnam in Reason , Truth and History ( 1981 ). This task will lead me to critically review Prigogine’s general scientific program: the attempt to establish the foundations of objective irreversibility. (shrink)

The theories of complexity comprise a system of great breadth. But what is included under this umbrella? Here we attempt a portrait of complexity theory, seen through the lens of complexity theory itself. That is, we portray the subject as an evolving complex dynamical system, or social network, with bifurcations, emergent properties, and so on. This is a capsule history covering the twentieth century. Extensive background data may be seen at www.visual-chaos.org/complexity.

The fundamental problem on which Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels-Austin Group have focused can be stated briefly as follows. Our observations indicate that there is an arrow of time in our experience of the world (e.g., decay of unstable radioactive atoms like Uranium, or the mixing of cream in coffee). Most of the fundamental equations of physics are time reversible, however, presenting an apparent conflict between our theoretical descriptions and experimental observations. Many have thought that the observed arrow of time (...) was either an artifact of our observations or due to very special initial conditions. An alternative approach, followed by the Brussels-Austin Group, is to consider the observed direction of time to be a basic physical phenomenon and to develop a mathematical formalism that can describe this direction as being due to the dynamics of physical systems. In part I of this essay, I review and assess an attempt to carry out an approach that received much of their attention from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s. In part II, I will discuss their more recent approach using rigged Hilbert spaces. (shrink)

A flourishing literature assesses how sustainable business models create and capture value in socio-ecological systems. Nevertheless, we still know relatively little about how the organization of sustainable business models—of which cross-sector partnerships represent a core and distinctive mechanism—can support socio-ecological resilience. We address this knowledge gap by taking a complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective. We develop a framework that identifies the key strategic, institutional, and learning elements of partnerships that sustainable business models rely on to support socio-ecological resilience. With our (...) analytical framework, we underpin the importance of assessing sustainable business initiatives in terms of their impact on resilience at the level of socio-ecological systems, not just of organizations. Therefore, we reveal how cross-sector partnerships provide the organizational support for sustainable business models to support socio-ecological resilience. By combining the key features of CAS and the key elements of partnerships, we provide insight into the formidable task of designing cross-sector partnerships so that they support socio-ecological resilience and avoid unintended consequences. (shrink)

Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary field that seeks to integrate the study of humans and the rest of nature as the basis for the creation of a sustainable and desirable future. It seeks to dissolve the barriers between the traditional disciplines and achieve a true consilience of all the sciences and humanities. This consilient, transdisciplinary science represents a rebalancing of analysis and synthesis; a recognition of the central role of envisioning in science; a pragmatic philosophy built on complex systems theory, (...) thermodynamics, and modeling; a multiscale approach; and a consistent integration of cultural and biological coevolution. It will allow us to build a world that is both sustainable and desirable and that recognizes our fundamental partnership with the rest of nature. (shrink)

Although Bohr’s Correspondence Principle (CP) played a central role in the first days of quantum mechanics, its original version seems to have no present-day relevance. The purpose of this article is to show that the CP, with no need of being interpreted in terms of the quantum-to-classical limit, still plays a relevant role in the understanding of the relationships between the classical and the quantum domains. In particular, it will be argued that a generic version of the CP is very (...) helpful in elucidating the physical meaning of the phenomenon of quantum decoherence. (shrink)

The received view of Bergson's philosophy of life is that it advances some form of vitalism under the heading of an “élan vital.” This paper argues against the vitalistic interpretation of Bergson's élan vital as it appears in Creative Evolution in favor of an interpretation based on his overlooked reflections on entropy and energetics. Within the interpretation developed here, the élan vital is characterized not as a spiritualistic “vital force” but as a tendency of organization opposed to the tendency of (...) entropic degradation. It is then shown how Bergson's view of evolution and living organization resonates with more contemporary scientific approaches belonging to a “thermodynamic paradigm” in theoretical biology in different respects, including the critique of neo-Darwinism and the positing of a driving force behind evolution. Finally, the special interest that Bergson's philosophical biology bears today is considered in terms of the connection between the concepts of élan vital and duration. (shrink)

A connection between two fundamental concepts of information and symmetry breaking (SB) is established. A concept called transform information (TI) is introduced. The known information measures (Hartley, von Neumann-Shannon-Wiener, Fisher informations, Renyi entropies) can be derived as (or mathematically expressed by) the particular forms of TI for certain transforms of a physical systems (when they are described by the probability measures). As TI is zero when the system is invariant under respective transform, it can be considered, when nonzero, as a (...) quantitative SB measure in the system under study. The classical information measures that are derived from TI also can be perceived as SB measures. This fact is a base for assigning a sense to information. The concept of TI is extended to the cases when systems are described without the use of probability concept. (shrink)

The intuitive difference between a system that choreographs the motion of its parts in the service of goals of its own formulation and a system composed of a collection of parts doing their own thing without coordination has been shaken by now familiar examples of self-organization. There is a broad and growing presumption in parts of philosophy and across the sciences that the appearance of centralized information-processing and control in the service of system-wide goals is mere appearance, i.e., an explanatory (...) heuristic we have evolved to predict behavior, but one that will eventually get swept away in the advancing tide of self-organization. I argue that there is a distinction of central importance here, and that no adequate science of complex systems can dispense with it. (shrink)

There is a famous passage in chapter six of James’ Principles of Psychology whose import, many believe, deals a devastating blow to the explanatory aspirations of panpsychism. In the present paper I take a close look at James’ argument, as well as at the claim that it underlies a powerful critique of panpsychism. Apart from the fact that the argument was never aimed at panpsychism as such, I show that it rests on highly problematic assumptions which, if followed to their (...) logical consequences, are just as inedible to contemporary critics of panpsychism as they are to its present-day supporters. Hence, a naïve employment of the argument, as a critique leveled by physicalists against panpsychism, is counterproductive and even self-defeating. After examining the metaphysical shortcomings undermining James’ position , I conclude with some reflections on what needs to be done in order to obtain a better perspective regarding the explanatory prospects of panpsychism as an alternative approach to mainstream physicalism in the study of conscious phenomena. (shrink)

The philosophical implications of the sciences of complexity suggest that complex systems (such as society) function according to a dialectic of chance and necessity, multidimensionality, non-linearity and circular causality. It is argued that one could employ aspects of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory in order to establish a consistent theory of social self-organization. Bourdieu describes society in epistemological terms as consisting of mutual relationships of subjectivity/objectivity, individual/society, homogeneity/diversity, freedom/necessity, externalization of internality/internalization of externality, embodiment/objectification, modus operandi/opus operatum. The concept of the habitus (...) is a means of explaining the re-creation/self-organization of social systems in terms of human beings as permanent creators and permanently created results of society. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that complexity theories have limited use in the study of society, and that social processes are too complex and particular to be rigorously modeled in complexity terms. Theories of social complexity are shown to be inadequately developed, and typical weaknesses in the literature on social complexity are discussed. Two stronger analyses, of Luhmann and of Harvey and Reed, are also critically considered. New considerations regarding social complexity are advanced, on the lines that simplicity, complexity (...) that can be modeled, and incondensible complexity permeate society simultaneously. The difficulty of establishing complexity models for processes involving ongoing interpretation is discussed. It is argued that the notions of system and environment need recasting in social studies. Existing social studies and literature, it is argued, reflect a polymorphous, contextual, contingent, labyrinthine, dramatic and political face to social complexity. Students of social complexity must be literate in such studies. (shrink)

Starting from a clear, experimentally verified, example of a flexible biological system -- an ant colony --, it is hypothesized that adaptability is enhanced at the "edge of chaos ", that is, in the vicinity of a point of instability. An ant colony exhibiting an appropriate combination of group and mass recruitment can adaptively switch to a newly introduced food source if it is richer: this is precisely the case of some species, such as Tetramorium caespitum, whose behavioral parameters are (...) argued to be those characterizing the edge of chaos. Several simple models of foraging show the robustness of the argument. (shrink)

This thesis presents a social ontology. It takes its problem, the emergence of social structure and order, and the relationship of the macro and the micro within this structure, from social theory, but attempts a resolution from the perspectives of contemporary French philosophy and complexity theory. Due to its acceptance of certain presuppositions concerning the multiplicity and connectedness of all life and nature it adopts a comparative methodology that attempts a translation of complexity science to the social world. It draws (...) both this methodology and its inspiration from the work of Michel Serres. After explaining this methodology, it presents a critique of the work of those prominent philosophers of multiplicity who have written on the social: Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and Manual DeLanda. Having argued for the need of a ‘non-unit’ of social organisation, it then unsuccessfully surveys the work of Michel Foucault and Gabriel Tarde in search of such a ‘non-unit’. It produces one by extracting elements from different theorists and then proceeds to offer a novel explanation of how these expectations first emerge from the ‘social noise’ and then go through a complex process of self-organisation to produce social structure. Apart from complexity theory, this explanation draws on the temporal ontologies of both Serres and Deleuze. In doing so, it argues that the social replication necessary for this self-organisation cannot be achieved through direct imitation. Instead, it draws on an idea from Stuart Kauffman and argues that this is achieved through autocatalysis. Finally, it argues that social structures and what is perceived to be social order are the effect of the codification, to varying degrees, of these emergent expectations. It concludes that this structure is at its most creative when on ‘the edge of chaos’, when at a point of social chaosmos. (shrink)

European intellectuals diagnosed the end of the nineteenth century as “the sickness of an age.” Schopenhauer's pessimistic books suddenly became popular; Nietzsche announced the “death of god”; and Max Nordeau's Degeneration was an international best seller. To be sure, this mood of despair was initially limited to a handful of poets and philosophers. But once the outbreak of World War I revealed what “the treacherous years were all the while making for and meaning,” the sense that the West had somehow (...) been betrayed by its own most fundamental accomplishments and beliefs was globalized. Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain captured the idea neatly by describing Europe as a tuberculosis sanatorium behind whose walls splendid accomplishment rapidly rotted toward calamity. Spengler's Decay of the West and the early volumes of Toynbee's Study of History argued that decline was inevitable. As Europeans lost faith in their ability to erect The Heavenly City Of The Eighteenth Century Philosophers [Becker, 1932], the era of “enlightenment optimism” gave way to Auden's “Age of Anxiety.” If, as T.S. Eliot put it in East Coker, “the quiet-voiced elders” bequeathed us “merely a receipt for deceit,” then, to cite again W.B. Yeats’ famous poem, it became increasingly obvious that “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” “[F]ollowing some rough beast” that “slouches toward Bethlehem to be born,” modern civilization began a desperate search for new values that could orient society in an unexpected world. (shrink)

This article addresses the physical chemical processes underlying biological self-organisation by which a homogenous solution of reacting chemicals spontaneously self-organises. Theoreticians have predicted that self-organisation can arise from a coupling of reactive processes with molecular diffusion. In addition, the presence of an external field, such as gravity, at a critical moment early in the process may determine the morphology that subsequently develops. The formation, in-vitro, of microtubules, a constituent of the cellular skeleton, shows this type of behaviour. The preparations spontaneously (...) self-organise by reaction-diffusion and the morphology that develops depends upon the presence of gravity at a critical bifurcation time early in the process. Here, we present numerical simulations of a population of microtubules that reproduce this behaviour. Microtubules can grow from one end whilst shrinking from the other. The shrinking end leaves behind a chemical trail of high tubulin concentration. Neighbouring microtubules preferentially grow into these regions, whilst avoiding regions of low tubulin concentration. The chemical trails produced by individual microtubules thus activate and inhibit the formation of neighbouring microtubules and this progressively leads to self-organisation. Gravity acts by way of its directional interaction with the macroscopic density fluctuations present in the solution arising from microtubule disassembly. (shrink)