Emergence and Embodiment Science and Cultural Theory
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What Is a Complex Adaptive System?
PROJECT GUTS What is a Complex Adaptive System? Introduction During the last three decades a leap has been made from the application of computing to help scientists ‘do’ science to the integration of computer science concepts, tools and theorems into the very fabric of science. The modeling of complex adaptive systems (CAS) is an example of such an integration of computer science into the very fabric of science; models of complex systems are used to understand, predict and prevent the most daunting problems we face today; issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, energy consumption and virulent disease affect us all. The study of complex adaptive systems, has come to be seen as a scientific frontier, and an increasing ability to interact systematically with highly complex systems that transcend separate disciplines will have a profound affect on future science, engineering and industry as well as in the management of our planet’s resources (Emmott et al., 2006). The name itself, “complex adaptive systems” conjures up images of complicated ideas that might be too difficult for a novice to understand. Instead, the study of CAS does exactly the opposite; it creates a unified method of studying disparate systems that elucidates the processes by which they operate. A complex system is simply a system in which many independent elements or agents interact, leading to emergent outcomes that are often difficult (or impossible) to predict simply by looking at the individual interactions. The “complex” part of CAS refers in fact to the vast interconnectedness of these systems. Using the principles of CAS to study these topics as related disciplines that can be better understood through the application of models, rather than a disparate collection of facts can strengthen learners’ understanding of these topics and prepare them to understand other systems by applying similar methods of analysis (Emmott et al., 2006). -
Organization, Self-Organization, Autonomy and Emergence: Status and Challenges
Organization, Self-Organization, Autonomy and Emergence: Status and Challenges Sven Brueckner 1 Hans Czap 2 1 New Vectors LLC 3520 Green Court, Suite 250, Ann Arbor, MI 48105-1579, USA Email: [email protected] http://www.altarum.net/~sbrueckner 2 University of Trier, FB IV Business Information Systems I D-54286 Trier, Germany Email: [email protected] http://www.wi.uni-trier.de/ Abstract: Development of IT-systems in application react and adapt autonomously to changing requirements. domains is facing an ever-growing complexity resulting from Therefore, approaches that rely on the fundamental principles a continuous increase in dynamics of processes, applications- of self-organization and autonomy are growing in acceptance. and run-time environments and scaling. The impact of this Following such approaches, software system functionality trend is amplified by the lack of central control structures. As is no longer explicitly designed into its component processes a consequence, controlling this complexity and dynamics is but emerges from lower-level interactions that are one of the most challenging requirements of today’s system purposefully unaware of the system-wide behavior. engineers. Furthermore, organization, the meaningful progression of The lack of a central control instance immediately raises local sensing, processing and action, is achieved by the the need for software systems which can react autonomously system components themselves at runtime and in response to to changing environmental requirements and conditions. the current state of the environment and the problem that is to Therefore, a new paradigm is necessary how to build be solved, rather than being enforced from the “outside” software systems changing radically the way one is used to through design or external control. -
1 Emergence of Universal Grammar in Foreign Word Adaptations* Shigeko
1 Emergence of Universal Grammar in foreign word adaptations* Shigeko Shinohara, UPRESA 7018 University of Paris III/CNRS 1. Introduction There has been a renewal of interest in the study of loanword phonology since the recent development of constraint-based theories. Such theories readily express target structures and modifications that foreign inputs are subject to (e.g. Paradis and Lebel 1994, Itô and Mester 1995a,b). Depending on how the foreign sounds are modified, we may be able to make inferences about aspects of the speaker's grammar for which the study of the native vocabulary is either inconclusive or uninformative. At the very least we expect foreign words to be modified in accordance with productive phonological processes and constraints (Silverman 1992, Paradis and Lebel 1994). It therefore comes as some surprise when patterns of systematic modification arise for which the rules and constraints of the native system have nothing to say or even worse contradict. I report a number of such “emergent” patterns that appear in our study of the adaptations of French words by speakers of Japanese (Shinohara 1997a,b, 2000). I claim that they pose a learnability problem. My working hypothesis is that these emergent patterns are reflections of Universal Grammar (UG). This is suggested by the fact that the emergent patterns typically correspond to well-established crosslinguistic markedness preferences that are overtly and robustly attested in the synchronic phonologies of numerous other languages. It is therefore natural to suppose that these emergent patterns follow from the default parameter settings or constraint rankings inherited from the initial stages of language acquisition that remain latent in the mature grammar. -
Clunio Populations to Different Tidal Conditions
Genetic adaptation in emergence time of Clunio populations to different tidal conditions DIETRICH NEUMANN Zoologisches Institut der Universitiit Wiirzburg, Wiirzburg KURZFASSUNG: Genetische Adaptation der Schliipfzeiten yon Clunio-Populationen an verschiedene Gezeitenbedingungen. Die Schliipfzeiten der in der Gezeitenzone Iebenden Clunio-Arten (Diptera, Chironomidae) sind mit bestimmten Wasserstandsbedingungen syn- chronisiert, und zwar derart, dat~ die nnmittelbar anschlief~ende Fortpflanzung der kurz- lebigen Imagines auf dem trockengefallenen Habitat stattfinden kann. Wenn das Habitat einer Clunio-Art in der mittleren Gezeitenzone liegt und parallel zu dem halbt~igigen Gezeiten- zyklus (T = 12,4 h) zweimal t~iglich auftaucht, dann kann sich eine 12,4stiindige Schliipf- periodik einstellen (Beispiel: Clunio takahashii). Wenn das Habitat in der unteren Gezeiten- zone liegt und nur um die Zeit der Springtiden auftaucht, dann ist eine 15t~igige (semilunare) SchRipfperiodik zu erwarten (Beispiele: Clunio marinus und C. mecliterraneus). Diese 15t~igige Schliipfperiodik ist synchronisiert mit bestimmten Niedrigwasserbedingungen, die an einem Kiistenort alle 15 Tage jewqils um die gleiche Tageszeit auftreten. Sie wird daher dutch zwei Daten eindeutig gekennzeichnet: (1) die lunaren Schliipftage (wenige aufeinanderfolgende Tage um Voll- und Neumond) und (2) die t~igliche Schliipfzeit. Wie experimentelle Untersuchungen iiber die Steuerung der Schliipfperiodik zeigten, kiSnnen die Tiere beide Daten richtig voraus- bestimmen. Die einzelnen Kiistenpopulationen -
Ophthalmology and the Emergence of Artificial Intelligence
Perspectives Ophthalmology and the emergence of artificial intelligence Rapid advances in AI in ophthalmology are a harbinger of things to come for other fields of medicine he autonomous detection and triage of eye for retinopathy using retinal photography. This disease, or even accurate estimations of gender, vast demand for diabetic eye screening services Tage, and blood pressure from a simple retinal has stimulated the development of AI algorithms to photo, may sound like the realms of science fiction, identify sight-threatening disease. Several algorithms but advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have already have achieved performance that meets or exceeds that made this a reality.1 Ophthalmology is at the vanguard of human experts.4,5 Accordingly, in 2018, the United of the development and clinical application of AI. States Food and Drug Administration approved an AI Advances in the field may provide useful insights into system to detect referable diabetic retinopathy from the application of this technology in health care more retinal photographs, the first autonomous diagnostic broadly. system to be approved in any field of medicine.6 Advances in deep learning have extended to other Artificial intelligence imaging modalities that are commonly used in ophthalmology. Ocular coherence tomography is an Once described as the capacity of intelligent machines imaging technology that produces highly detailed, to imitate human intelligence and behaviour, AI now depth-resolved images of the retina. A recent describes many theories and practices used to achieve collaboration between researchers and clinicians computer intelligence (Box 1).2 Machine learning is at Google DeepMind, Moorfields Eye Hospital an application of AI that uses algorithms or statistical and University College London culminated in the models to make decisions or predictions. -
I690/H699 Cybernetics and Revolution: International Histories of Science, Technology, and Political Change
I690/H699 Cybernetics and Revolution: International Histories of Science, Technology, and Political Change Prof. Eden Medina Office: Informatics 305 Email: [email protected] Class Times: W 1:00-3:30 Room: Info 001 Class Description Norbert Wiener used the term cybernetics for studies of communication and control in the animal and the machine. Cybernetics brought together ideas from biology, psychology, math, computation, and engineering and looked for underlying commonalities in areas as diverse as neurology, electronics, and the study of social systems. Historical studies of cybernetics often cite the research activity that took place in the United States during 1940s and 1950s as the peak moment of this interdisciplinary field. However, these ideas also took root in other parts of the world, where they intertwined with other national histories and political ideologies. This class will bring an international perspective to the study of cybernetics. Different geographical, political, and cultural contexts shaped the language, content, and application of cybernetic science outside of the United States. Cybernetics also offered new ways for imagining social and political change. The class will study individuals such as Norbert Wiener, Ross Ashby, Stafford Beer, Humberto Maturana, and Viktor Glushkov, among others. Since most histories of cybernetics are set in the United States and Western Europe, special attention will be given to the evolution and application of cybernetic ideas in Latin America. Required Reading Paul Edwards, The Closed -
Are Living Beings Extended Autopoietic Systems? an Embodied Reply
Article Adaptive Behavior 1–11 Ó The Author(s) 2019 Are living beings extended autopoietic Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1059712318823723 systems? An embodied reply journals.sagepub.com/home/adb Mario Villalobos1,2 and Pablo Razeto-Barry2,3 Abstract Building on the original formulation of the autopoietic theory (AT), extended enactivism argues that living beings are autopoietic systems that extend beyond the spatial boundaries of the organism. In this article, we argue that extended enactivism, despite having some basis in AT’s original formulation, mistakes AT’s definition of living beings as autopoietic entities. We offer, as a reply to this interpretation, a more embodied reformulation of autopoiesis, which we think is nec- essary to counterbalance the (excessively) disembodied spirit of AT’s original formulation. The article aims to clarify and correct what we take to be a misinterpretation of ATas a research program. AT, contrary to what some enactivists seem to believe, did not (and does not) intend to motivate an extended conception of living beings. AT’s primary purpose, we argue, was (and is) to provide a universal individuation criterion for living beings, these understood as discrete bodies that are embedded in, but not constituted by, the environment that surrounds them. However, by giving a more expli- citly embodied definition of living beings, AT can rectify and accommodate, so we argue, the enactive extended interpre- tation of autopoiesis, showing that although living beings do not extend beyond their boundaries as autopoietic unities, they do form part, in normal conditions, of broader autopoietic systems that include the environment. -
The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence in the Home: Products, Services, and Broader
Western Oregon University Digital Commons@WOU Student Theses, Papers and Projects (Computer Department of Computer Science Science) 3-8-2017 The meE rgence of Artificial Intelligence in the Home: Products, Services, and Broader Developments of Consumer Oriented AI Bingqing Tang [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/ computerscience_studentpubs Part of the Management Information Systems Commons Recommended Citation Tang, Bingqing, "The meE rgence of Artificial Intelligence in the Home: Products, Services, and Broader Developments of Consumer Oriented AI" (2017). Student Theses, Papers and Projects (Computer Science). 6. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/computerscience_studentpubs/6 This Professional Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Computer Science at Digital Commons@WOU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Theses, Papers and Projects (Computer Science) by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@WOU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence in the Home: Products, Services, and Broader Developments of Consumer Oriented AI Bingqing Tang IS642 MIS Graduate Project Dr. David Olson, Dr. John Leadley & Dr. Scot Morse March 15, 2017 Tang 1 Abstract Current home automation system merges a family's lifestyle with the latest technology & energy management tools to simplify people's lives. It allows users to easily manipulate a variety of home systems, including appliances, security systems, and environmental systems. Setting up a home automation system confuses many consumers. Multiple product lines and platforms make choosing the best system difficult. Basic requirements of setting up a home automations system and the comparison between different platforms are explained. -
Learning and Complex Adaptive Systems
LEARNING AND COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS (Article by Diana Stirling, Associate Researcher, Learning Development Institute) EDITORIAL NOTE The following article on Learning and Complex Adaptive Systems by LDI Associate Researcher Diana Stirling was first published in a translated version in Japanese. It appears here for the first time in English, the language in which it was originally written. For citation purposes, the English version should reflect access via this site and should read as follows (MLA style): Stirling, Diana. "Learning and Complex Adaptive Systems." Learning Development Institute. 31 May 2014. Web. The reference for the originally published paper in Japanese is: Stirling, Diana. "Learning and Complex Adaptive Systems." Aichi Universities English Education Research Journal. 30 (2013): 183-226. Trans. Mitsuo Kondo. Print. We thank the Aichi Universities English Education Research Journal for permission to publish this paper on the learndev.org site in accordance with an agreement made with the author. Learning Development Institute, June 1, 2014 JV Learning and Complex Adaptive Systems Diana Stirling Part 1: Complex Adaptive Systems Introduction to Complex Adaptive Systems The science of complexity and complex adaptive systems has engendered a view of the beauty of self-organization which arises as a result of continual transformation, via nonlinear interactions, within and between co-creating systems. Through this lens, learning is seen as a continuous dynamic, the inevitable actualization of an innate biological potential. When the human individual is viewed as a complex adaptive system and learning is seen as an essential dynamic on which the system depends for survival, conscious learning is recognized as the tip of the learning iceberg. -
Towards Autopoietic SB-AI
Towards Autopoietic SB-AI Luisa Damiano1 and Pasquale Stano2 1IULM University, Milan, Italy 2University of Salento, Lecce, Italy [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract that dynamically embed them in environments (e.g., Pfeifer Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isal/proceedings-pdf/isal/33/51/1930006/isal_a_00430.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 This programmatic paper continues a series of works that we and Scheier, 1999). This development, as such, reoriented AI are dedicating to introduce a novel research program in AI, back towards its cybernetic origins and, more precisely, which we call Autopoietic SB-AI to indicate two basic toward the original cybernetic project: structuring a unified elements of its procedural architecture. (1) The first element is study of biological systems and machines, and this way the innovative methodological option of synthetically studying attempting to overcome the divide between the inorganic and the cognitive domain based on the construction and the organic world (Damiano and Stano, 2018). experimental exploration of wetware –i.e., chemical – models of cognitive processes, using techniques defined in the field of If until now EAI focused on the implementation of Synthetic Biology (SB). (2) The second element is the embodied agents as hardware robots, new possibilities have theoretical option of developing SB models of cognitive been recently prepared by the second of the scientific processes based on the theory of autopoiesis. In our previous advancements we mentioned. This is the constitution, at the works we focused on the epistemological and theoretical beginning of the 2000s, of SB, a sci-tech research domain, at groundings of Autopoietic SB-AI. -
Francisco Varela's Vision of the Immune System
RUCH FILOZOFICZNY LXXV 2019 2 Bartłomiej Świątczak University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China ORCID: 0000-0001-6767-3064 e-mail: [email protected] Francisco Varela’s Vision of the Immune System DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/RF.2019.030 Introduction Francisco Varela’s contribution to cognitive science and neurobiology is well known.1 Apart from introducing the concept of autopoiesis to- gether with Maturana, he developed a doctrine of enactivism, which by portraying cognition as inseparable from action challenged representa- tionist principles of classical cognitivism.2 Varela applied his unique per- spective on cognition and self also to immunology thereby advocating 1 Evan Thompson, Antoine Lutz, and Diego Cosmelli, “Neurophenomenology: An Introduction for Neurophilosophers”, in: Cognition and the brain: The philosophy and neuroscience movement, ed. Andrew Brook, Kathleen Akins (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 40–97; David Rudrauf, Antoine Lutz, Diego Cosmelli, Jean- Philippe Lachaux, Michel Le Van Quyen, “From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenol- ogy: Francisco Varela’s Exploration of the Biophysics of Being”, Biological Research 36, no. 1 (2003): 27–65; John Mingers, “The Cognitive Theories of Maturana and Varela”, Systems Practice, 4, no. 4 (1991): 319–338; Adrián G. Palacios, Juan Bacigalupo, “Fran- cisco Varela (1946–2001): Filling the Mind – Brain Gap: A Life Adventure”, Biological Research 36, no. 1 (2003): 9–12. 2 Francisco J. Varela, Eleanor Rosch, Evan Thompson, The Embodied Mind (Cam- bridge Mass.: -
Conscious Enactive Computation 3
Conscious Enactive Computation Daniel Estrada New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark NJ 07102 [email protected] Abstract. This paper looks at recent debates in the enactivist litera- ture on computation and consciousness in order to assess major obstacles to building artificial conscious agents. We consider a proposal from Vil- lalobos and Dewhurst (2018) for enactive computation on the basis of organizational closure. We attempt to improve the argument by reflecting on the closed paths through state space taken by finite state automata. This motivates a defense against Clark’s recent criticisms of “extended consciousness”, and perhaps a new perspective on living with machines. Keywords: enactivism, artificial intelligence, computation, Turing ma- chine, state space, finite state automata, predictive coding, consciousness 1 Introduction Enactivism challenges the dominant cognitive paradigm in psychology with an account of intentional (purposive) agency that is grounded in the emergent dy- namics of biological complexity [15,43,46]. Specifically, enactivism holds that biological life is characterized by adaptive self-constitution: living systems con- struct and maintain their own organized structure through their active engage- ment with a changing world [4,35]. This approach motivates a systematic account of autonomy [3,33,41,48], intentional agency [17,31], subjective consciousness [19,28], and identity in complex dynamical systems [5,6], with the promise of a consistent and unified explanatory framework across the full range of biologi- cal processes, from the biomechanics of single-celled organisms to ecologies and societies [18,26,44]. Despite the emphasis on biological complexity, enactivism has from its in- arXiv:1812.02578v1 [cs.AI] 3 Dec 2018 ception maintained a robust research program investigating artificial intelligence, artificial life, and robotics (hereafter AI) [1,2,13,16,20,42].