Category: Complexity

• How Constraints Create Coherence

  This entry is a pointer to the long-expected work of Alicia Juarrero: Context Changes Everything, How Constraints Create Coherence how the concepts of constraints provide a way to rethink relationships, opening the way to intentional, meaningful causation. Grounding her work in the problem of causation, Alicia Juarrerochallenges previously held beliefs that only forceful impacts are…

  walterstiers

  2023-07-12

  #Cynefin, #sense-making, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• AI can distort human beliefs

  Without a zone of uncertainty plus other troubling features, generative AI is poised to amplify bias and falsehoods, distort human perception. Individual humans form their beliefs by sampling a small subset of the available data in the world. Once those beliefs are formed with high certainty, they can become stubborn to revise. Fabrication and bias…

  walterstiers

  2023-06-23

  #Sensemaking, AI, Complexity, Information Technology, Science

  #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens

• Social and Affective Neuroscience of Everyday Human Interaction

  I found – rather serendipitous – this recent, open access and very interesting book “Social and Affective Neuroscience of Everyday Human Interaction“, edited by Springer 2023. This Open Access book presents the current state of the art knowledge on social and affective neuroscience based on empirical findings. Some highlights as appetiser: Molecular Imaging of the…

  walterstiers

  2023-05-09

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Design Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Walking

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Symmetry–simplicity–complexity

  A number of (the 15) contributions to a theme issue ‘Making and breaking symmetries in mind and life’ have some interest to be referred. Symmetry is a motif featuring in almost all areas of science. Symmetries appear throughout the natural world, making them particularly important in our quest to understand the structure of the world…

  walterstiers

  2023-04-16

  #Wicked, Complexity, Information Technology, Science

  #emergence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Bayesian Nonlinear Models

  The review article Bayesian Nonlinear Models for Repeated Measurement Data gives a valuation of the use for the Bayesian Model to solve complex problems. Nonlinear mixed effects models have become a standard platform for analysis when data is in the form of continuous and repeated measurements of subjects from a population of interest, while temporal…

  walterstiers

  2023-04-15

  Active Inference, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• The innovation and intelligence of goats …

  Goats have not (yet) earned a reputation for their problem-solving abilities. But if you hide food in a strange cup and put a lid on it, a goat may find a way, a new study finds. And not just any goat. Animals that functioned like outsiders in their social group were best at tackling and…

  walterstiers

  2023-04-06

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Interprofessional sense-making

  Medical Emergency Departments serve as a main entry point for patients into hospitals, and the team, the core of which is formed by doctors and nurses needs to make sense of and respond to the constant flux of information. This requires sense-making, communication, and collaborative operational decision-making. The study’s main aim was to explore how…

  walterstiers

  2023-04-06

  #Cynefin, #sense-making, Complexity, Information Technology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Small steps

  Small steps for mankind: Modeling the emergence of cumulative culture from joint active inference communication discusses a testable deep active inference formulation of social behavior and accompanying simulations of cumulative culture in two steps: First: cast cultural transmission as a bi-directional process of communication that induces a generalized synchrony (operationalized as a particular convergence) between…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-28

  #sense-making, #stakeholder economy, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Design Thinking, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Science, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Peter Pan ?

  There is controversy around the mechanisms that guided the change in brain shape during the evolution of modern humans. It has long been held that different cortical areas evolved independently from each other to develop their unique functional specializations. Some recent studies suggest that high integration between different cortical areas could facilitate the emergence of…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-20

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Native language & connectome of the brain

  Investigation towards the question if the neuroanatomy of the language structural connectome is modulated by the life-long experience of speaking a specific language are presented. The current study compared the brain white matter connections of the language and speech production network in a large cohort of native speakers of two very different languages: an Indo-European…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-20

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Perceived time & heartbeat

  This blog entry about the Current Biology article “Perceived time expands and contracts within each heartbeat” relates perfectly to my previous blog on “cardiac activity: its role in perception and action“ Perception of passing time can be distorted. Emotional experiences, particularly arousal, can contract or expand experienced duration via their interactions with attentional and sensory…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-20

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology

  #emergence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• How Occam’s razor guides human decision-making

  A rather complex but very interesting article was published @PennLibraries and (somewhat more recent) @bioRXiv But for those who want to understand by a lecture, I can recommend the Simons Faoundation lecture from Joshua Gold (also available on Youtube: How Occam’s Razor Guides Human and Machine Decision-Making) Occam’s razor is the principle stating that, all…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-03

  #Wicked, AI, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• A map is not the territory it represents, but…

  I quote one of the key ideas of my activities, as stated bij Korzybski: A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness Korzybski, “Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics.“ This post is created to…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-03

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Science, Social-Technical

  #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 ◦C ambitions

  This article in Cleaner Production Letters studies the implications of a continued growth in the number of millionaires for emissions, and its impact on the depletion of the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5 °C (about 400 Gt CO2). Much evidence suggests that the wealthiest individuals contribute disproportionally to climate change. Findings suggest that…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-03

  #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Policy, Science, Social-Technical

  #EconomicBehavior, #StakeholderEconomy, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Ten tips for facilitating emergent processes

  I just discovered a nice medium article/blog entry from Sonja Blignaut on working towards emergent solutions for wicked situations. I just summarise, but details are in the article. Facilitating emergent group processes requires a different kind of facilitation. When you’re not working towards a predetermined outcome, following a pre-designed agenda, the following principles are helpful…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-27

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• “A New Evolutionary Law”

  Revisiting Leigh Van Valen’s “A New Evolutionary Law” (1973) by Ricard Solé, (Biological Theory (2022) 17:120–125) Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass Leigh Van Valen was an American evolutionary biologist who made major contributions to evolutionary theory. He is…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-25

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Science

  #Ecosystem, #emergence, #Entanglement, #TheInformationLens

• The Niche theory : Compete, Facilitate & Mutualisme

  From competition to facilitation and mutualism: a general theory of the niche by Koffel, Daufresne and Klausmeier explores the niche theory. Niche Theory is a central framework in ecology based on the recognition that most interactions between organisms are indirect, mediated by the biotic and abiotic dynamical environment these organisms live in. Despite its potential…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-25

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science

  #Ecosystem, #Mutualism, #TheInformationLens

• Neuroplasticity enables bio‑cultural feedback

  The scientific reports article “Neuroplasticity enables bio‑cultural feedback in Paleolithic stone‑tool making” elaborates on the idea described in articles like The comparative neuroscience and neuroarchaeological evidence indicate that functional systems supporting stone tool making have undergone substantial change over human evolution, and that these changes may be relevant to a much wider range of distinctively…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-22

  #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science, Social-Technical

  #Analogy, #downcausation, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• The evolution of universal cooperation

  Humans work together in groups to tackle shared problems and contribute to local club goods that benefit other group members. Whereas benefits from club goods remain group bound, groups are often nested in overarching collectives that face shared problems like pandemics or climate change. Such challenges require individuals to cooperate across group boundaries, raising the…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-22

  #Sensemaking, #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #EconomicBehavior, #StakeholderEconomy, #TheInformationLens

• David Krakauer Lecture on What is Complexity?

  David Krakauer • What is Complexity? is a great and enlightening talk sectioning the concept of complexity and exploring complexity epistemology and emergence. (Also to be found on Sante Fe Institute website: The Complexity Explorer)

  walterstiers

  2023-02-21

  #Wicked, Complexity, Science

  #emergence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Brain-Behavior relationships

  “Improving the study of brain-behavior relationships by revisiting basic assumptions” discusses how scientific communities tacitly agree on assumptions about what exists (called ontological commitments), what questions to ask, and what methods to use. All assumptions are firmly rooted in a philosophy of science that need not be acknowledged or discussed but is practiced nonetheless. In…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-21

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• The Art of Abduction 

  Abductive reasoning typically begins with an incomplete set of observations and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the set. Abductive reasoning yields the kind of daily decision-making that does its best with the information at hand, which often is incomplete. A medical diagnosis is an application of abductive reasoning: given this set of symptoms,…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-21

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• As a human it would be quite easy to spot

  Man beats machine at Go in human victory over AI A human player has comprehensively defeated a top-ranked AI system at the board game Go, in a surprise reversal of the 2016 computer victory that was seen as a milestone in the rise of artificial intelligence. Kellin Pelrine beat the machine by taking advantage of…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-19

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, AI, Complexity, Information Technology

  #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• The complexities of knowledge co-production

  Practical wisdom and virtue ethics for knowledge co-production in sustainability describes how since antiquity, philosophers in the Western tradition of virtue ethics have declared practical wisdom to be the central virtue of citizens involved in public and social life. Practical wisdom is of particular importance when values are conflicting, power is unequal and knowledge uncertain.…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-10

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Policy, Science, Sustainability

  #TheInformationLens, #Wicked