Category: #Wicked
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Why collective behavioursself-organize to criticality
“Why collective behaviours self-organize to criticality: a primer on information-theoretic and thermodynamic utility measures” Collective behaviours are frequently observed to self‑organize to criticality. Existing proposals to explain these phenomena are fragmented across disciplines and only partially answer the question. This primer compares the underlying, intrinsic, utilities that may explain the self‑organization of collective behaviours near…
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The ‘made-up mind’.
“The ‘made-up mind’. Deriving new hypotheses on delusions from general psychological models of belief maintenance” Highlights Contemporary definitions of delusions highlight their resistance to conflicting evidence as the core feature, but there has been little progress in understanding why even explicit confrontation with contradicting evidence seldom leads to belief revision. This review aims to generate…
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Nature on the balance sheet …
“Putting nature on the balance sheet: how to account for the ecological costs of our actions” Economists should consider forests and wetlands as well as factories and farms. A book review of “On Natural Capital: The Value of the World Around Us“, Partha Dasgupta (2025) On Natural Capital recaps the roaring economic advances of the past 75…
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Fast, slow, & metacognitive
“Fast, slow, and metacognitive thinking in AI” Inspired by the ”thinking fast and slow” cognitive theory of human decision making, we propose a multi-agent cognitive architecture (SOFAI) that is based on ”fast”/”slow” solvers and a metacognitive module. We then present experimental results on the behavior of an instance of this architecture for AI systems that…
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From Soundwaves to Brainwaves: “Music”
“From Soundwaves to Brainwaves: The Transformative Power of Music” The human brain physically embodies rhythmic sound in a remarkablesymphony that has the power to heal. People resonate to music. They respond positively in ways that suggest that the rhythms of the brain and body, like neurons, breathing, or cardiac rhythms, are engaged when you listen…
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Climate Change, A Geoscience Perspective
Climate Change, A Geoscience Perspective This open access book on climate change assesses past climatic change from a geoscience perspective and directly and effectively addresses common misconceptions on climate and climate change. A geoscience perspective on the multiple causes, rates, and consequences of climate change is essential context to assess modern climate change and our…
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Greatness Cannot Be Planned
Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated — and nearly everything in-between — our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned—The Myth of…
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