Six years ago, Afonso Bandeira and Shuyang Ling were attempting to come up with a better way to discern clusters in enormous data sets when they stumbled into a surreal world. Ling realized that the equations they’d come up with were, unexpectedly, a perfect match for a mathematical model of spontaneous synchronization. Spontaneous synchronization is a phenomenon in which oscillators, which might take the form of pendulums, springs, human heart cells or fireflies, end up moving in lockstep without any central coordination mechanism.
Bandeira, a mathematician at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and Ling, a data scientist at New York University, dove into synchronization research, obtaining a series of noteworthy results on the strength and structure that connections between oscillators must have to force the oscillators to synchronize. That work culminated in an October paper in which Bandeira proved (together with five co-authors) that synchronization is inevitable in special types of networks called expander graphs, which are sparse but also well connected.
Expander graphs turn out to have a slew of applications not only in math but also in computer science and physics. They can be used to create error-correcting codes and to figure out when simulations based on random numbers converge to the reality they are trying to simulate. Neurons can be modeled in a graph that some researchers believe forms an expander, due to the limited space for connections inside the brain. The graphs are also useful to geometers who try to understand how to traverse complicated surfaces, among other problems.
The Systems Thinking Starters KitOver 80+ of my favourite systems thinking resources — for the complete beginner, absolute expert, and everything in between.TIJN TJOELKERNOV 28, 2023∙ PAID
I must admit I’m disappointed, Tjin. I know that my critique and recommendations were just one comment on your – as you say – viral LinkedIn post. But I hoped that from me or someone else you would have engaged with some of the points therein.
I think you’ve ended up with a toolkit that is flat – not engaging with some of the rich depth and complexity of systems | complexity | cybernetics – difficult – some of the Systems Dynamics stuff is amongst the hardest to learn and use well – and that includes a lot of interesitng stuff that doesn’t really relate to the field.
Anyway, I do appreciate all the work that goes into something like this (I’ve been working away at www.syscoi.com for years) and I will stay tuned – on the paid subscription – for a couple of months to see where yo utake this!
The session opened on a map of The Sassanid Empire c. 620 CE, also known as Second Persian Empire, a high point for the Iranian civilizations before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries.
Join us in person to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Buckminster Fuller Institute! A night of inspiration, innovation and community.
By The Buckminster Fuller Institute
Date and time
Friday, December 15 · 5 – 9pm PST
Location
Gray Area / Grand Theater, Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, USA2665 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94110 United States
Buckminster Fuller Institute 40th Anniversary Celebration
Join us for a spectacular in-person event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Buckminster Fuller Institute! This is designed as an immersive experience and will not be live streamed or recorded.
We are thrilled to invite you to the Gray Area / Grand Theater on Mission Street in beautiful San Francisco, CA, USA.
This milestone celebration promises to be an unforgettable experience filled with inspiration, creativity, innovation, and special guests! We will celebrate forty incredible years of Buckminster Fuller Institute and the transformative work underway heading into our fifth decade! We’ll also have updates on current projects to reach 100 million life-centered designers, regenerate bioregions, center indigenous knowledge in design, transform financial systems, engage with regenerative AI, uplift and build capacity for design scientists, support large-scale ecological restoration and more.
The event will feature sustainable local food served throughout the evening and a cash bar.
Friday, December 15Buckminster Fuller Institute 40th Anniversary CelebrationJoin us in person to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Buckminster Fuller Institute! A night of inspiration, innovation and community.By The Buckminster Fuller Institute54 followersFollowDate and timeFriday, December 15 · 5 – 9pm PSTLocationGray Area / Grand Theater, Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, USA2665 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94110 United StatesShow mapRefund PolicyContact the organizer to request a refund.Eventbrite’s fee is nonrefundable.About this event4 hoursMobile eTicketBuckminster Fuller Institute 40th Anniversary CelebrationJoin us for a spectacular in-person event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Buckminster Fuller Institute! This is designed as an immersive experience and will not be live streamed or recorded.We are thrilled to invite you to the Gray Area / Grand Theater on Mission Street in beautiful San Francisco, CA, USA.This milestone celebration promises to be an unforgettable experience filled with inspiration, creativity, innovation, and special guests! We will celebrate forty incredible years of Buckminster Fuller Institute and the transformative work underway heading into our fifth decade! We’ll also have updates on current projects to reach 100 million life-centered designers, regenerate bioregions, center indigenous knowledge in design, transform financial systems, engage with regenerative AI, uplift and build capacity for design scientists, support large-scale ecological restoration and more.The event will feature sustainable local food served throughout the evening and a cash bar.
Explaining Systems Changes Learning | RSD12 | 2023-10-14 November 20, 2023 daviding 0 CommentsFor the Relating Systems and Design RSD12 symposium on October 14, 2023, members of the Explainers subgroup of the Systems Changes Learning Circle conducted an in-person workshop on “Explaining Systems Changes Learning: Metaphors and translations” at OCADU in Toronto.
Focused on the mental processes of the systems thinker, the books introduce a paradigm shift in advanced systems thinking: rather than fixating attention on systems
hypostatized by the thinker on purely logical grounds, the books lay bare the thought- form structure of the thinker’s real-time movements-in-thought that led him to
hypostatize the system in question, thus making visible the ‘absences’ in the thinker’s thought that need to be repaired.
By centering on the systems thinker’s own mental process and its cognitive- developmental structure, the books outline an assessment methodology for judging the
quality of individual system thinkers’ process in terms of the complexity and maturity of their thinking.
Thereby, they deliver the foundation for empirical studies in systems thinking as a part of studies in adult cognitive development; the books also lay the foundation for teaching advanced systems thinking in a self-reflective manner, not primarily for “solving problems” (which are always a function of the thinker’s thought maturity), but for measuring and boosting the thought complexity a thinker is presently capable of.
The books thus amount to an epistemology of advanced systems thinking that highlights the latter’s limitations when it is conducted in purely logical terms, simultaneously showing that logical thinking, (in Western cultures) mature at 25 years of age, naturally evolves into dialectical thinking over the lifespan.
The books are based on Laske’s Dialectical Thought Form Framework (DTF, put in place in 2000), which is continued to be taught in international cohorts at the Interdevelopmental Institute (https://interdevelopmentals.org/services/). Three New Books on Advanced Systems Thinking by Otto Laske, known as Inventor of New Thinking Tools, have appeared at Springer
Volume 1: Approaching Real-World Complexity with Dialectical Thinking (ISBN 978-3-031-40331-6) Volume 2: How to Measure and Boost Thought Maturity (ISBN 978-30031-40984-4) Volume 3: Manual of Dialectical Thought Forms (ISBN 978-3-031-40338-5)
The books spell out and interpret validated empirical outcomes of adult-developmental research in cognitive development over the life span, — a discipline now 25 years old but curiously kept out of the systems thinking mainstream which therefore lacks a reflexive meta-level.
The books articulate the pedagogical foundations of 20 years of undergraduate and graduate instruction in advanced systems thinking at the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM; www.interdevelopmentals.org), delivered in international cohorts in English, French, German, and Spanish.
From a historical perspective, the books fuse insights of the Frankfurt School and the Harvard Kohlberg School as well as integrate cutting-edge insights deriving from R. Bhaskar’s and M. Archer’s Dialectical Critical Realism. Having proven their worth in practice, they are ready to be used for teaching and examinations at colleges, universities, think tanks, and in programs of executive and team development. I would be happy to mentor your staff in the novel subject of the three books. Sincerely, Otto Laske, Founder and Director, Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) otto@interdevelopmentals.org
For more detailed information on the contents of the books, go to
The principle of feedback — the cycle by which performance is measured, evaluated against desired results, and corrected for future performance. Made for IBM, Introduction to Feedback was one of a series of films proposed by the Eames Office to explain computers and the principles underlying their operation. Script by Charles Eames Narrated by Vic Perrin, Music by Elmer Bernstein 10 minutes, 40 seconds.
Other videos on this Eames Office YouTube account are well worth a look:
We tend to talk about complexity as something “out there”. A wicked problem to solve, a mess to order, a source of overwhelm and confusion to eliminate. And while it is all these things, it is also our home territory. Our habitat. And it IS us.
We are complexity walking.Sonja Blignaut·Following4 min read·3 hours ago25Photo by Ryoji Iwata on UnsplashWe tend to talk about complexity as something “out there”. A wicked problem to solve, a mess to order, a source of overwhelm and confusion to eliminate. And while it is all these things, it is also our home territory. Our habitat. And it IS us.
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