14th International Conference on ​Complex Networks COMPLENET 2023 April 25 – 28 2023

cxdig's avatarComplexity Digest

The International Conference on Complex Networks (CompleNet) brings together researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplines working on areas related to complex networks. CompleNet has been an active conference since 2009. In its 14th year, and after being an online event for three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are very enthusiastic about reuniting in-person and delighted to have the next CompleNet in Aveiro, Portugal, hosted by Universidade de Aveiro.

​Over the past two decades, we have witnessed an exponential increase in the number of publications and research centers dedicated to this field. From biological systems to computer science, from technical to informational networks, and from economic to social systems, complex networks are becoming pervasive for dozens of applications. It is the interdisciplinary nature of complex networks that CompleNet aims to capture and celebrate.​
The CompleNet conference is one of the most cherished events by scientists in our field…

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Courses: Complex Systems Summer School | Santa Fe Institute

cxdig's avatarComplexity Digest

June 11- July 7, 2023.

Complex Systems Summer School (CSSS) offers an intensive four-week introduction to complex behavior in mathematical, physical, living, and social systems. CSSS brings together graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professionals to transcend disciplinary boundaries, take intellectual risks, and ask big questions about complex systems. The residential program comprises a series of lectures and workshops devoted to theory and tools, applications-focused seminars, and discussions with faculty and fellow participants. CSSS participants put what they learn from these didactic sessions into practice through group research projects, conducted throughout the program and often extending into manuscripts and longer-term collaborations. CSSS provides an unparalleled opportunity for early-career researchers to expand their professional networks, produce a novel research product, and gain valuable experience working in transdisciplinary teams.

More at: www.santafe.edu

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The theoretical foundations of enaction: Precariousness

cxdig's avatarComplexity Digest

Randall D.Beer, Ezequiel A.Di Paolo

Biosystems
Volume 223, January 2023, 104823

Enaction is an increasingly influential approach to cognition that grew out of Maturana and Varela’s earlier work on autopoiesis and the biology of cognition. As with any relatively new scientific discipline, the enactive approach would benefit greatly from a careful analysis of its theoretical foundations. Here we initiate such an analysis for one of the core concepts of enaction, precariousness. Specifically, we consider three types of fragility: systemic, processual and thermodynamic. Using a glider in the Game of Life as a toy model, we illustrate each of these fragilities and examine the relationships between them. We also argue that each type of fragility is characterized by which aspects of a system are hardwired into its definition from the outset and which aspects are emergent and hence vulnerable to disintegration without ongoing maintenance.

Read the full article at: www.sciencedirect.com

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Another Post on Constraints – Harish’s notebook

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

In today’s post, I am looking again at the idea of constraints in relation to Ross Ashby’s ideas and the ideas of second order cybernetics. As far as I know, Ashby did not go into the differentiation of first and second order cybernetics. A lot of what he wrote can be filed away under “First order cybernetics”. But to do so will be missing the forest for the trees. A lot of Ashby’s ideas were ahead of his time and resonate with the ideas of complexity and systems thinking.

Ashby tied the idea of constraints to variety and the observer. Variety, as I have written here before, can be loosely put as the number of possible states differentiated by an observer. So, for example, an analog light switch can be said to have a variety of two – ON and OFF. Constraint is the relational part between an observer and…

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A Theory of Emergence and Entropy in Systems of Systems | Tolk (2013)

A Theory of Emergence and Entropy in Systems of SystemsAndreas Tolk2013, Procedia Computer Science

(78) A Theory of Emergence and Entropy in Systems of Systems | Andreas Tolk – Academia.edu

Why I Stopped Trying to Understand the Real World – Starbuck (2004)

September 2004

DOI:10.1177/0170840604046361

William H. Starbuck

Years ago, I believed that rationality could manufacture understanding. I lived in physical and social environments that were real and I wanted to understand the social realities. I wanted to create a genuine ‘behavioral science’ based on mathematical models, computer simulation, and systematic experiments. Various experiences over the years have challenged these beliefs. I discovered that rationality can not only be a deceptive tool but a potentially dangerous one, and I learned a few techniques to help me challenge my rational thought. I discovered that research findings have very low reliabilities, that some fields make no discernible progress over many decades, and that societal cultures strongly influence researchers’ judgments about what constitutes useful knowledge. I saw that much that passes for research is merely random noise dressed up in pretentious language. Rather than realities, the social systems I was studying proved to be arbitrary categories created by observers or social conventions. I became an advocate for research that actively attempts to change situations rather than merely to observe what happens spontaneously.

(PDF) Why I Stopped Trying to Understand the Real World

INCOSE Launches the Future for Systems Engineering (FuSE) Initiative to Deliver the SE Vision 2035

INCOSE Launches the Future for Systems Engineering (FuSE) Initiativeto Deliver the SE Vision 2035

INCOSE Launches the Future for Systems Engineering (FuSE) Initiative to Deliver the SE Vision 2035

Lectures on Cybernetics – Stuart Umpleby’s Website

2019

Umpleby, Stuart. “How Cybernetics is Contributing to Traditional Disciplines” (Slides) (Video)

2016

Umpleby, Stuart, “Vladimir Lefebvre’s Theory of Two Systems of Ethical Cognition”(Paper) (Slides) (Video)

2014

Umpleby, Stuart, “Second Order Science: Logic, Strategies, Methods” (Paper) (Slides) (Video)

2013

Umpleby, Stuart. “Second Order Cybernetics Then and Now” (Abstract) (Slides) (Video) (pic1pic2pic3pic4pic5);  

2012

Umpleby, Stuart, “A Second Expansion of Science” (Slides) (Audio lecture)

2006

Umpleby, Stuart, “Fundamentals and History of Cybernetics:  A Tutorial.”  (Slides 1234) (Exercises) (Video)

Lectures on Cybernetics – Stuart Umpleby’s Website

UK Systems Society (UKSS) 23rd International Conference 2023 14th & 15th September 2023, at St Hilda’s College, Oxford UK – Systems: Transition to a Sustainable World

Keynote Speakers

Rodney Irwin, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT) at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Ray Ison is Professor of Systems at the Open University and President of the International Federation of Systems Research.

Registration guidelines

The registration fee for the two-day event is £250 including lunch, one evening meal and refreshments. Students/retirees £125. Further donations to the work of the society are gratefully acknowledged.

To book a place please visit this link.

Call for contributions

Papers are invited to contribute to the following streams

Sustainability research- what can systems offer?
Barriers to change – how can systems thinking/practice help overcome them?
Methodologies -evaluating system methods for intervention and transition
Cross disciplinary research -the contribution of Systems to interdisciplinarity
Knowledge Transfer-continuity or transformation?
Power and Accountability- Systems perspectives
The question of scale and transition – spatial and chronological
Policy making and its impact upon the process of transition
Food Systems and their impact upon Healthy diets
The NHS -A system to…?
Sustainable Systems in Business
Details of participation and submissions

Abstracts: from the 31st of March 2023.
Close for abstracts/submissions: 30th June
Review of submissions by 30th July
Revised submissions/full papers 31st of August.
Conference publication of accepted abstracts 15th September.
Publication of proceedings – January 2024
To submit please see here.

Presentations will F2F and in plenary. Special dispensation for Zoom-based presentations might be considered in special cases but please note the cost of registration remains the same.

For full details of the conference keynote speakers, submission process, registration and accommodation in Oxford please see the conference flyer.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-systems-society-international-conference-2023-tickets-461932942867

PS Please pass the flyer on to anyone you think might benefit from this conference – thank you and see you in September 2023.

Systems Thinking Ontario – 2023-01-09

January 9 (the second Monday of the month) is the 106th meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration is at https://root-metaphors.eventbrite.ca .

2023-01-09

January 9 (the second Monday of the month) is the 106th meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration is at https://root-metaphors.eventbrite.ca .

Root Metaphors and World Hypotheses

The Socio-Ecological Systems Perspective from the Tavistock Institute (and not necessary the Social-Ecological Systems perspective of the Resilience Alliance) has a foundation in Contextualism, originating from Stephen C. Pepper with World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence (1942).

A Root Metaphor is induced from a World Hypothesis. Coming from a theory of knowledge based in doubt, a World Hypothesis might approach a World Theory (e.g. a theory of everything), but a philosophical inquiry focused on evidence invokes a more critical eye.

Towards an appreciation of this body of work, David Ing has produced a federated wiki site at http://wh.daviding.wiki.openlearning.cc/view/welcome-visitors/view/world-hypotheses

The January 9 session will see David Ing roaming over the wiki site, with Zaid Khan serving as an inquiring critic to improve understandability. Dan Eng will moderate questions and comments from the audience.

Systems Thinking Ontario – 2023-01-09

#daneng, #systemstheory, #systemsthinking, #zaidkhan

World Hypotheses, Contextualism, Systems Methods – Coevolving Innovations

The first Systems Thinking Ontario session for 2023 is scheduled for January 9, on “Root Metaphors and World Hypotheses”.  This is philosophical content, for which a guided tour and discussion will be better than attempting a solo reading of the World Hypotheses wiki on the Open Learning Commons.  Upon announcing the session on social media, I was honoured to receive a response from Michael C. Jackson, OBE

 January 4, 2023  dividing

World Hypotheses, Contextualism, Systems Methods

The quiet revolution: When complex left networks

Soon after networks became all the rage among statistical physicists, the field turned away from the home turf of complex systems science. This blog …

The quiet revolution: When complex left networks

Three halfday courses from me (Benjamin Taylor) via SCiO

FRIDAY–> Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions https://bit.ly/3i7ONQb
Facilitation Skills for Systems Practice Interventions https://bit.ly/3jLXyzV
Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions https://bit.ly/3VIN5CD

Call for Tutors: Complexity 72H, June 26-30, 2023, Palma de Mallorca

cxdig's avatarComplexity Digest

WE NEED YOU! Would you like to be a tutor at the next edition of Complexity72h? Then you should apply to the call for tutors!

Deadline: January 20th, 2023.

More at: www.complexity72h.com

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MIT Systems Awareness Lab & Systems Awareness Research Conference at MIT – Center for Systems Awareness, January 17-19, 2023

MIT Systems Awareness Lab & Systems Awareness Research Conference at MIT

MIT Systems Awareness Lab & Systems Awareness Research Conference at MIT – Center for Systems Awareness