Biological Robots: Perspectives on an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field

cxdig's avatarComplexity Digest

Biological Robots: Perspectives on an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field
D. Blackiston, S. Kriegman, J. Bongard, M. Levin
Advances in science and engineering often reveal the limitations of classical approaches initially used to understand, predict, and control phenomena. With progress, conceptual categories must often be re-evaluated to better track recently discovered invariants across disciplines. It is essential to refine frameworks and resolve conflicting boundaries between disciplines such that they better facilitate, not restrict, experimental approaches and capabilities. In this essay, we discuss issues at the intersection of developmental biology, computer science, and robotics. In the context of biological robots, we explore changes across concepts and previously distinct fields that are driven by recent advances in materials, information, and life sciences. Herein, each author provides their own perspective on the subject, framed by their own disciplinary training. We argue that as with computation, certain aspects of developmental biology and robotics are not tied…

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Touching the elephant

#TIL than in 1998, some absolute MAD LADS at the BBC organised for some blind people to touch an elephant 😀
BBC Radio 4 Extra – 90 by 90 The Full Set, 1998: Touching The Elephant
https://bbc.in/3PqNeYA

Also on YouTube:
https://bit.ly/3O6bo9J

What were the connections between ‘systems thinking’ and Nazism?

See this tweet and replies from Paul Nightingale

includes:
“The early ones were literally Nazis who were interned after the war. Concepts like Fuhrer-prinzip had to be cleaned up for US audiences.”
“Cybernetics is later. Systems theory emerged in 1930s Germany, Bertalanffy was in the Nazi party.”
“The pre war categories were often racial, while the post war US work was actively trying to purge all racial and biological characteristics from their conceptions of human agents. Which is why they are often so abstract.”

CSRP Institute – Creative Systemic Research Platform

Creative Systemic Research Platform Instituteis an institution aiming to promote research and development of non-profit projects. We focus on investigating the skills needed for Community Resilience, supported by ecological practices and systemic and creative learning.Existing since 2017 as a non-profit research group, we evolved in December 2020 into the CSRP Institute.

CSRP Institute – Creative Systemic Research Platform

What do ‘systems leadership’ and ‘systems change ‘ mean to you? What questions would you like me to answer?

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor's avatarchosen path

I’m talking about them at the free SCiO — Systems and Complexity in Organisation evening session tonight (18:30–20:30 UK time), and I’m sharing the session with David Ing who is four years into a ten-year ‘systems changes’ journey.

Session info:

SCiO Virtual Open Meeting – July 2022
Virtual Open Meeting: A series of presentations of general interest to Systems and Complexity in Organisation’s members…www.scio.org.uk

You may also like our session with Carbon Capture folk as part of The Systems Change Alliance on July 20:

There are many approaches and a lot of words wasted about these topics. Some of it is really good, some of it is risible, and much has little to do with systems thinking or systems practice.

‘Systems Leadership’ can mean anything from systems thinking-informed traditional #leadership to better leadership of an organised set of institutions — like a ‘healthcare system’, to…

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Systems Mapping | How to build and use causal models of systems – Barbook-Johnson and Penn

Systems MappingHow to build and use causal models of systems

Systems Mapping | SpringerLink

Systems Mapping

How to build and use causal models of systems

Authors:

 (view affiliations

  • Pete Barbrook-Johnson, 
  • Alexandra S. Penn
  • Provides a practical and in-depth discussion of causal systems mapping methods
  • Provides guidance on running systems mapping workshops and using different types of data and evidence
  • Orientates readers to the systems mapping landscape and explores how we can compare, choose, and combine methods
  • This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

David Ing, “Systems Changes Learning: Recasting and reifying rhythmic shifts for doing, alongside thinking and making”, The Journal of Sustainable Smart Behavior , August 2022, in press

David Ing, “Systems Changes Learning: Recasting and reifying rhythmic shifts for doing, alongside thinking and making”, The Journal of Sustaiable Smart Behavior , August 2022, in press

2022/07 Systems Changes Learning: Recasting and reifying rhythmic shifts for doing, alongside thinking and making | Coevolving Innovations

2022/07 Systems Changes Learning: Recasting and reifying rhythmic shifts for doing, alongside thinking and making

 24th Jun 2022

Authors

David Ing

Abstract

In 2022, the Systems Changes Learning Circle is in its fourth year of 10-year journey on “Rethinking Systems Thinking”. In a contextural action learning approach, the Circle has elevated rhythmic shifts as the feature that both resonates with practitioners in the field, and fits with a post-colonial philosophy of science bridging classical Chinese thought with Western professional practices. This multiparadigm inquiry recasts and reifies the activities of doing (praxis), thinking (theoria) and making (poiesis). The facility with this approach is deepened through three levels: (i) educating of attention, orienting novices towards contrasting modes of thought; (ii) learning for co-relating, lending a way for practitioners to critically appreciate their situations, and (iii) learning for articulating, aiding mentors to guide groups productively through mutual learning.

Citation

David Ing, “Systems Changes Learning: Recasting and reifying rhythmic shifts for doing, alongside thinking and making”, The Journal of Sustaiable Smart Behavior , August 2022, in press

2022/07/08 Appreciating Systems Changes | Coevolving Innovations

Is the subject of systems change(s), as a whole, distinct from a reduction into (i) systems and (ii) changes? For practice, theory and methods to be authentically rigourous, the philosophy underlying an approach to systems changes can be explicated. An appreciative systems framework surfaces presumptions of (i) what are and are not systems changes; (ii) when, where, and for whom, systems changes are prioritized for attention; and (iii) how systems changes should be addressed. Philosophies of (i) architectural design; (ii) ecological anthropology, and (iii) Classical Chinese Medicine are explored through multiparadigm inquiry, and open theorizing. The resulting influence of these three philosophies is considered, leading to a philosophy of systems rhythms more explicitly proposed as a foundation on which to approach systems changes.

2022/07/08 Appreciating Systems Changes | Coevolving Innovations

Kenneth Stanley: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective – YouTube

Kenneth Stanley: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective

Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective Kenneth O. Stanley, Associate Professor, University of Central Florida In artificial intelligence and elsewhere, it has long been assumed that the best way to achieve an ambitious outcome is to set it as an explicit objective and then to measure progress on the road to its achievement. Upending this conventional wisdom, a series of unusual experiments in machine learning has shown that, for a broad class of outcomes, the very act of setting objectives can block their achievement. More fundamentally, the same so-called “objective paradox” applies not only in computer algorithms but across many human endeavors: Often, to achieve our highest aspirations, we must be willing to abandon them. As a corollary, collaboration can sometimes thwart innovation by tacitly forcing its participants into an objective-driven mindset. The moral is both sobering and liberating: We can potentially achieve more by following a non-objective yet still principled path, after throwing off the shackles of objectives, metrics, and mandated outcomes.

Kenneth Stanley: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective – YouTube

h/t Toby Lowe https://twitter.com/tobyjlowe/status/1544662634808713218

Home – The Liminal Learning Portal

Our global civilization faces multiple systemic threats.The inevitable deeply disruptive transition will lead…EITHER to untold pain and suffering – via chaosOR (maybe) to a New Era – via conscious evolution.On this site, we curate the content of some of the people and organizations who are consciously working directly or indirectly on Humanity’s Transition.Watch the video to learn more, and please Support Us if you can.Explore.   Learn.   Inform your decisions.

Home – The Liminal Learning Portal

Complexity perspectives on behaviour change interventions

Matti TJ Heino's avatar... And Out Come the Systems | Käyttäytymisarkkitehtuuri

I had the great pleasure to be involved in organising a symposium on the topic of my dissertation. Many if not most societal problems are both behavioural and complex; hence the speakers’ backgrounds varied from systems science, and psychology to social work and physics. Below is a list of video links along with a short synopsis of the talks. See here for other symposia in the Behaviour Change Science and Policy series.

A live-tweeting thread on 1st day here, 2nd day (not including presentations by me, Nanne Isokuortti or Ira Alanko) here. See here for the official web page, and here for the YouTube playlist!

Nelli Hankonen: Opening words & introduction to the Behaviour Change Science & Policy (BeSP) project

  • See here for videos of previous symposia (I: Intervention evaluation & field experiments; II: Behavioural insights in developing public policy and interventions; III: Reverse translation: Practice-based evidence; IV:…

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What is The Wicked 7? – The Wicked 7

As the world faces a growing number of existential challenges, our governments and institutions are failing us precisely at the moment we need them most. What if we could come together to work on identifying and developing public, common-good solutions to the world’s most urgent wicked problems?It’s time to re-design society by tackling the Wicked 7. What might that look like?

What is The Wicked 7? – The Wicked 7

The Ecosystem of Wicked Problems by Christian Sarkar – Global Peter Drucker Forum BLOG

The Ecosystem of Wicked Problems by Christian Sarkar

The Ecosystem of Wicked Problems by Christian Sarkar – Global Peter Drucker Forum BLOG

STiP Jubilee Seminar: Second-order perspectives on learning and practice under complex conditions – YouTube

STiP Jubilee Seminar: Second-order perspectives on learning and practice under complex conditions

Second-order perspectives on learning and practice under complex conditions is presented by Dr Andrew Mitchelle of De Montfort University.

STiP Jubilee Seminar: Second-order perspectives on learning and practice under complex conditions – YouTube

Providing sound theoretical roots to sustainability science: systems science and (second-order) cybernetics | Biggiero (2018)

Providing sound theoretical roots to sustainability science: systems science and (second-order) cyberneticsLucio Biggiero

(99+) Providing sound theoretical roots to sustainability science: systems science and (second-order) cybernetics | Lucio Biggiero – Academia.edu