antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 5:38 am on June 18, 2023

British-Serbian AI veteran George Rzevski honoured with OU workshop – AI and complexity A Workshop in Honour of Emeritus Professor George Rzevski 10:00 – 16:00 21 June 2023 Systems Seminar Room, Walton Hall

An unusual source and nisam znala ko George Rzevski – who I invited to speak at SCiO many years ago – was Serbian.

More and more founding figures of Artificial Intelligence are making tsunami-scale waves with headlines of imminent doom. Our community can boast one such innovator who is celebrating his 90th year with an open invitation to hear him speak on how our lives will change.

British-Serbian AI veteran George Rzevski honoured with Milton Keynes Workshop

Pdf:

Click to access AI_Complexity_Workshop-K.pdf

A Workshop in Honour of Emeritus Professor George Rzevski

10:00 – 16:00

Wednesday 21st June 2023

Systems Seminar Room, Walton Hall

For half a century George Rzevski has made many original contribuons to Arficial Intelligence, Complexity Science and Design. What sets George apart from many other researchers in these fields is successful praccal applicaons in areas such as dynamic scheduling of taxis, a fleet of oil tankers, and private jet aircra. George has published widely on his work. His latest book, The Future is Digital: How Complexity and AI will Shape Our Lives and Work, will be published this year by Springer.

09:30 – 10:00 Welcome

10:00 – 11:00 George Rzevski – How Complexity and AI will Shape our Life and Work

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee

11:30 – 13:00 Phil Picton – Deep Learning – What’s New? Soria Psoma – Biosensors for Intelligent Healthcare Systems Vikram Goolaup – Spintronics Neuromorphic Systems Miguel Valdez – AI, Complexity and Starship robots Marian Petre – to be announced Viktoriya Pyeshkova – to be announced Jeff Johnson – AI, Complexity and Designing the Future

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:30 Serhan Cosar – Machine Vision and Robocs Alistair Wyllis – to be announced Claudia Eckert – The Data Challenge in Complex Engineering System Design Jon Hall – to be announced Lucia Rapano – to be announced Ihor Sobianin – Harvesng Energy for Bio-implants Anthony Lucas-Smith – to be announced

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee and Discussion: Is Arficial intelligence a subfield of Complexity Science? Everyone is welcome to attend, and everyone is invited to give a 5-minute presentation on their ideas. The more controversial the better !

jeff.johnson@open.ac.uk 12-June-2023

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 4:19 am on June 15, 2023

News from the Complexity Institute (in Italian)

Complexity InstituteCorso Genova 32, 16043, Chiavari

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 4:15 am on June 15, 2023

How To Use Systems Thinking To Understand And Communicate Complex Behaviours

David Plummer

Jan 31

View at Medium.com

A Medium member-only article:

https://medium.com/@DiaAzul/how-to-use-systems-thinking-to-understand-and-communicate-complex-behaviours-2071b8257061

You can see responses at LinkedIn here:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stephanethiltgen_how-to-use-systems-thinking-to-understand-activity-7072771990134128640-hwwD?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 4:08 am on June 15, 2023

Shockwave traffic jams recreated for first time

New Scientist

3 Mar 2008

Shockwave traffic jams that appear for no reason have been recreated for the first time. Researchers in Japan applied mathematical theory to cars on a race track to show how drivers breaking can trigger disruptions to traffic flow. Read more about the phenomenon at https://www.newscientist.com/article/…

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:09 am on June 15, 2023

Systems Thinking, 1969 | David L. Hawk, John Pourdehnad | Systems Thinking Ontario 2023-06-12

Systems Thinking, 1969 | David L. Hawk, John Pourdehnad | Systems Thinking Ontario 2023-06-12

June 14, 2023 daviding

The 1969 publication of Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery as a Penguin Modern Management paperback, can be regarded as a milestone. The articles date from the 1940s to the 1960s, when the first wave of systems thinking was on the rise.

For the June session of Systems Thinking Ontario, we stepped through a wiki digest of the book highlights, with two invited discussants. David L. Hawk (Ph.D. 1973) and John Pourdehnad (Ph.D. 1982) were both graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. In the Social Systems Science program led by Russell Ackoff, eminent visitors such as Fred Emery were frequent guest lecturers.

This session covered some basic idea in sections of the book, filled with colour commentary on personal history associated with systems researchers in the 1970s.

link https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/systems-thinking-1969-hawk-pourdehnad/

Book excerpts at https://st1969.daviding.wiki.openlearning.cc/…/systems…

Systems Thinking Ontario https://wiki.st-on.org/2023-06-12

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:15 pm on June 14, 2023

Machinism or synergism – Two cybernetic meta-narratives

TEKTOLOGICAL҉ – SERENDIPITY

MAY 3, 2023

https://tektology.substack.com/p/machinism-or-synergism

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:12 pm on June 14, 2023

Podcast – Cybernetics and the Left: Communist Synergy or Capitalist Machines?

Zer0 Books and Repeater Media

31 May 2023

Adam is joined by Dr James Fox to discuss the legacy of cybernetics and organizational theory, its Leftist critics, and the potential for a cybernetics of the commune, one which politicizes the dynamic systems of democracy at play in worker organizing. We discussed public attitudes to cyber-theory, the history of the field from Wiener to Bogdanov and Stafford Beer, and the use of machinic language from Deleuze to the CCRU. You can read all of the pieces from James we discussed today over at https://tektology.substack.com/ Also: Catch James’ talk on his work for the COVER centre at the University of Essex • Dis/agreement in … Support Zer0 Books and Repeater Media on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books

link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x92KOP5p8Is

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:08 pm on June 14, 2023

SFI Complexity Interactive – October 9-20, 2023, Santa Fe, USA

Online + Exploratory + Transdisciplinary

Program Overview • Dates & Times • Registration Fee • Program Goals • Venue • Faculty • Audience • Application Requirements

Program Overview

SFI Complexity Interactive (SFI-CI) combines the dynamic interactions of an in-person course with the flexibility to learn from anywhere in the world. This two-week, part-time, online course offers participants a theory- and applications-based overview of complexity science. Complexity Interactive provides a foundation for thinking broadly about complex systems, encouraging participants to explore syntheses across systems in an open dialog with SFI faculty. The program’s size is limited to ensure everyone has ample opportunity to discuss with faculty and with each other.

In 2023, the curriculum will investigate modeling humans and social behavior, focusing on methods and approaches from complex systems science.

Dates & Times

October 9 – 20, 2023

Live sessions take place 8:00–10:00AM Santa Fe local time (GMT-6), Monday – Friday. Participants are encouraged to self-schedule time for group discussion and a hackathon project.

Registration Fee

The 2023 program registration fee is $300. A limited number of scholarships are available to participants who can articulate a need for support; scholarship application instructions will be provided upon acceptance into the program.

Program Goals

recognize cross-system regularities that govern complex systems and have a vocabulary for describing those properties
understand the approaches used to understand complex systems and the considerations for employing different approaches
work collaboratively on a hackathon project
expand your global complex systems scientific network

Venue

SFI-CI takes place online, using a variety of platforms, all of which are available at no cost but may require registration. Access to YouTube will be required to access recorded content.

Faculty

The faculty comprises members of SFI’s research network and includes:

with more speakers to be announced.

Audience

Complexity Interactive is aimed at practicing researchers and leaders from academic, private, non-profit, and government sectors. The curriculum is especially suited to graduate students and postdocs (or those at similar career stages) who wish to develop a trans-disciplinary approach in their work, as well as those who want a deeper look into the approaches of complex systems science as practiced at SFI.

The SFI-CI team is committed to offering inclusive educational programs in which all participants feel valued and supported in their learning journey. We believe that human diversity in all of its dimensions is essential to meaningful scientific progress. We believe that open discourse and respectful sharing of broad perspectives is essential for understanding our world. We work to ensure our educational programs reflect and encourage this diversity and inclusivity, and we welcome you to join us.

Application Requirements

biographical information
current CV or résumé
personal statement of interest in the course (max. 1 page)
research statement (max. 1 page)

Education Office

Questions? Check our FAQs
Email: education@santafe.edu

Education Mailing List

PROGRAM DETAILS

Begins: Oct 09 2023
Ends: Oct 20 2023

Application Deadline: July 12, 2023

Apply now!

https://santafe.edu/engage/learn/programs/complexity-interactive

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 10:43 am on June 12, 2023

New Philanthropy Capital – Systems investing: How to invest in systems change – David Neaum

Home » Blog » Systems investing: How to invest in systems change

By David Neaum 12 June 2023

Systems investing: How to invest in systems change

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:54 pm on June 11, 2023

An Existentialist’s View of Complexity:

Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.

In my post today, I am looking at the idea of complexity from an existentialist’s viewpoint. An existentialist believes that we, humans, create meanings for ourselves. There is no meaning out there that we do not create. An existentialist would say, from this viewpoint, that complexity is entirely dependent upon an observer, a meaning maker.

We are meaning makers, and we assign meanings to things or situations in terms of possibilities. In other words, the what-is is defined by an observer in terms of what-it-can-be. For example, a door is described by an observer in terms of what it can be used for, in relation to other things in its environment. The door’s meaning is generated in terms of its possibilities. For example, it is something for me to enter or exit a building. The door makes sense to me when it has possibilities in terms of…

View original post 633 more words

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:27 pm on June 11, 2023

Towards “a good enough justice” : Gillian Rose, interpretive systemology, and the mandatory introduction of British values in schools – Smith (2022)

Interpretive systemology is a systems approach asking researchers to explore different interpretations of a given social phenomenon or policy problem. While most systems approaches seek to support systemic intervention for social change, interpretive systemologists are mostly sceptical of interventions because they involve finding accommodations between stakeholders with different perspectives. It is these accommodations that allow people to define mutually-acceptable ways forward for organisations, communities or wider society, but this generally involves closing off critique so action can be taken. Instead of accommodation, interpretive systemologists value critique, and they see accommodation and critique as logically opposed. This thesis acknowledges that, in the context of social policy, accommodation and critique are necessarily in tension, but it challenges the idea that they are logically opposed. Therefore, the thesis reconstructs some of the theory underpinning interpretive systemology so that it becomes meaningful to relate accommodation and critique together in research projects. This reconstruction is achieved by drawing on the sociology of Gillian Rose, who examines what happens when a methodology prioritises critique over all other principles. She explains that this compromises any possibility of a positive normativity (a set of values or a pathway for action that people can commit to) because only negative normativity (overthrowing existing commitments through critique) is valorised. Rose also argues that we can work with concepts in tension (like accommodation and critique, or ethics and law) by acknowledging a ‘broken middle’ between them. The task of social policy is to continually work in the broken middle, knowing that it can never be mended, just navigated in practice when the two concepts in tension present decision makers with difficult dilemmas. This idea allows us to recalibrate the relationship between accommodation and critique in interpretive systemology, and the thesis argues that this recalibration is especially useful for analysing processes of marginalisation and conflict during policy interventions. The reconstructed methodology of interpretive systemology is then applied to a study of the UK Government’s 2014 policy that all schools must teach and uphold Fundamental British Values (FBVs). The existing literature on the FBVs reveals a diversity of perspectives, each grounded in different (mostly undeclared) assumptions about wider society. The methodology supports an explicit examination of the broader societal and institutional contexts that made the 2014 policy meaningful in different ways to various stakeholders: specifically, it enables the exploration of different understandings of how the FBVs generate or undermine the institutional preconditions for practical discourse in a manner that accommodates moral diversity within a liberal institutional framework. Three interpretations are provided: two competing liberal perspectives (realism and multiculturalism) and a somewhat-marginalized religious perspective, drawing on elements of Christian and Islamic theology. Although all three interpretations have some shortcomings in terms of their implications for social policy, the thesis argues that aspects of the theological interpretation offer the best prospect of working in the broken middle between accommodation and critique. This is because it embraces a reflexive notion of transformative accommodation, which signals the need for an emergent accommodation responding to critiques of the bi-partisan liberal mainstream and their explicit or implicit emphasis on transformative constitutionalism. Essentially, the idea of transformative accommodation requires critique as much as accommodation. The insights from the use of the reconstructed interpretive systemology are compared back to the insights in the prior literature on the FBVs to demonstrate the added value that the methodology offers to social policy analysis.

On Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1698754760335916/permalink/3486020611609313/), Gerald Midgely says:

At long last (after more than a year of waiting for the British Library to archive it), Alistair Smith’s PhD thesis is in the public domain. I was Alistair’s first supervisor, and (in my view) this is an important argument about the relationship between accommodation (stakeholders agreeing ways forward for social policy) and critique (questioning the assumptions underpinning such policies). Some systems theorists say that accommodation and critique are fundamentally contradictory, and that we are faced with a choice of either making major compromises on the social policies we might want, in order to achieve accommodations and make a difference in practice, or preserving our critical faculties, but being doomed to a ‘tragedy of enlightenment’ – believing we have better ideas than the mainstream, but always being marginalized from that mainstream. Alistair shows that, by drawing on the sociology of Gillian Rose, we can recognize the tension between accommodation and critique, but still use both ideals in our systemic interventions. For anyone aspiring to a critical approach to systems change, but who fears being marginalized, this is important. Likewise, for anyone facilitating consultancies that always seem to prioritize short-term accommodations over long-term critique, this is good news: you really don’t have to abandon critical thinking when seeking accommodations. Indeed, one of the welcome challenges of systemic intervention is to facilitate critique in ways that still move towards accommodation and action.

You can download the PhD thesis from the ETHOS web site:

https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=13&uin=uk.bl.ethos.867979&fbclid=IwAR1dGy1ujdEx_USINzEPzgj8mafT43tcm2YtW7Rdhy3JtjhPvYbakQ0usKc

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 2:07 pm on June 11, 2023

Team ‘reads minds’ to understand human tool use – neuroscientific proof that tools are literally interpreted by the brain as an extension of the human body

Yo so you know how a bunch of scientists and theorists have been saying for years that tools are an extension of the human body?

A new study was just published in the Journal of Neuroscience and

Tools are *literally* interpreted by the brain as an extension of the human body. pic.twitter.com/VFEOIVUbZw
— James Rosen-Birch (YVR May 23 – Jun 15) (@provisionalidea) May 13, 2021

Date:May 10, 2021

Source:University of East Anglia

Summary:Researchers have made an astonishing new discovery about how our brains control our hands. The team used MRI data to study which parts of the brain are used when we handle tools. The findings could help shed light on the regions of the brain that evolved in humans and set us apart from primates, and could pave the way for the development of next-generation prosthetic limbs that tap into the brain’s control center.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210510133204.htm