Using a knowledge-based approach, we derive a protocol, MACOM1, for the sequence transmission problem from one agent to a group of agents. The protocol is correct for communication media where deletion and reordering errors may occur. Furthermore, it is shown that after k rounds the agents in the group attain depth k general knowledge about the members of the group and the values of the messages. Then, we adjust this algorithm for multi-agent communication for the process of teamwork. MACOM1 solves (...) the sequence transmission problem from one agent to a group of agents, but does not fully comply with the type of dialogue communication needed for teamwork. The number of messages being communicated per communication between the initiator and the other agents from the group can differ. Furthermore, the teamwork process can require the communication algorithm to handle changes of initiator. We show the adjustments that have to be made to MACOM1 to handle these properties of teamwork. For the new multi-agent communication algorithm, MACOM2, it is shown that the gaining of knowledge required for a successful teamwork process is still guaranteed. (shrink)

Sustainability assessments bring together different perspectives that pertain to sustainability in order to produce overall assessments and a wealth of approaches and tools have been developed in the past decades. But two major problematics remain. The problem of integration concerns the surplus of possibilities for integration; different tools produce different assessments. The problem of implementation concerns the barrier between assessment and transformation; assessments do not lead to the expected changes in practice. This paper aims to analyze issues of complementarity in (...) sustainability assessment and transformation as a key to better handling the problems of integration and implementation. Based on a generalization of Niels Bohr’s complementarity from quantum mechanics, we have identified two forms of complementarity in sustainability assessment, observer stance complementarity and value complementarity. Unlike many other problems of sustainability assessment, complementarity is of a fundamental character connected to the very conditions for observation. Therefore complementarity cannot be overcome methodologically; only handled better or worse. Science is essential to the societal goal of sustainability, but these issues of complementarity impede the constructive role of science in the transition to more sustainable structures and practices in food systems. The agencies of sustainability assessment and transformation need to be acutely aware of the importance of different perspectives and values and the complementarities that may be connected to these differences. An improved understanding of complementarity can help to better recognize and handle issues of complementarity. These deliberations have relevance not only for sustainability assessment, but more generally for transdisciplinary research on wicked problems. (shrink)

The origins of testing scientific models with statistical techniques go back to 18th century mathematics. However, the modern theory of statistical testing was primarily developed through the work of Sir R.A. Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson in the inter-war period. Some of Fisher's papers on testing were published in economics journals (Fisher, 1923, 1935) and exerted a notable influence on the discipline. The development of econometrics and the rise of quantitative economic models in the mid-20th century made statistical (...) significance testing a commonplace, albeit controversial tool within economics. -/- In the debate about significance testing, methodological controversies intertwine with epistemological issues and sociological developments. Our aim in this chapter is to expound these connections and to show how the use of, and the debate about, significance testing in economics differs from other social sciences, such as psychology. (shrink)

"It is difficult not to notice a curious unrest in the philosophic atmosphere of the time, a loosening of old landmarks, a softening of oppositions, a mutual borrowing from one another on the part of systems anciently closed, and an interest in new suggestions, however vague, as if the one thing sure were the inadequacy of extant school-solutions. The dissatisfactions with these seems due for the most part to a feeling that they are too abstract and academic. Life is confused (...) and superabundant, and what the younger generation appears to crave is more of the temperament of life in its philosophy, even though it were at some cost of logical rigor and formal purity." - William James (1904). -/- Abstract: The study of model-based reasoning (MBR) is one of the most interesting recent developments at the intersection of psychology and the philosophy of science. Although a broad and eclectic area of inquiry, one central axis by which MBR connects these disciplines is anchored at one end in theories of internal reasoning (in cognitive science), and at the other, in C.S. Peirce’s semiotics (in philosophy). In this paper, we attempt to show that Peirce’s semiotics actually has more natural affinity on the psychological side with ecological psychology, as originated by James J. Gibson and especially Egon Brunswik, than it does with non-interactionist approaches to cognitive science. In particular, we highlight the strong ties we believe to exist between the triarchic structure of semiotics as conceived by Peirce, and the similar triarchic stucture of Brunswik’s lens model of organismic achievement in irreducibly uncertain ecologies. The lens model, considered as a theory of creative abduction, provides a concrete instantiation of at least one, albeit limited, interpretation of Peirce’s semiotics, one that we believe could be quite fruitful in future theoretical and empirical investigations of MBR in both science an philosophy. (shrink)

About selected philosophical questions of the past and today, with Egon Bondy (1930-2007). In a reaction to his response, I'll add a redefinition of the existential view of decision that is incomplete, and an explanation why 'social science' can be mathematized. The article also include my other ideas which have been developed since 1995. The interview was published in Blisty and Nove Slovo (2003), and some experts were published in The Ice House, Holland Park, London (2013), and Parallax Art (...) Fair (2015). (shrink)