Tag: #emergence

• From reductionism to realism

  “From reductionism to realism: holistic mathematical modelling for complex biological systems” At its core, the physics paradigm adopts a reductionist approach, aiming to understand fundamental phenomena by decomposing them into simpler, elementary processes. While this strategy has been tremendously successful in physics, it has often fallen short in addressing fundamental questions in the biological sciences.…

  walterstiers

  2026-03-24

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens

• Affective State as a central component to environmental changes

  “Considering affective state as a central component of the response of animals to environmental changes” Current environmental changes are often considered as negatively impacting the affective state of animals. Yet, the interplay betweenenvironmental conditions and affective state should rather be viewed as a reciprocal and dynamic relationship, as variation in affective state likely determines how…

  walterstiers

  2026-03-17

  #sense-making, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Practical Wisdom

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #Neuroscience, #TheInformationLens, health, Science

• Music as a scientific metaphor for mind and brain

  “Music as a scientific metaphor for mind and brain” Metaphors have long played multiple roles in conceptualizing the mind and brain, guiding the development and refinement of theoretical models and empirical questions. Early analogies (comparing the brain to hydraulic systems, telephone exchanges, factories, or libraries) offered shortcuts to understanding aspects of cognition, memory, and brain…

  walterstiers

  2026-03-17

  #sense-making, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Collective intelligence as collective information processing

  “Collective intelligence as collective information processing” Collective intelligence research spans multiple disciplines and focuses on a broad range of collective behaviors, including group problem-solving, flocking in social animals, and the formation of social knowledge. It is not apparent what these different forms of collective intelligence have in common, apart from being instances of collective behavior.…

  walterstiers

  2026-01-09

  #Sensemaking, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens

• The coevolution of cognition and sociality

  “The coevolution of cognition and sociality“ Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing the need for cognition.Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures but rather arise from the decisions individuals make…

  walterstiers

  2025-12-26

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, philosophy, psychology

• The Universe Learning Itself

  “The Universe Learning Itself: On the Evolution of Dynamics from theBig Bang to Machine Intelligence” We develop a unified, dynamical-systems narrative of the universe that traces a continuous chain of structure formation from the Big Bang to contemporary human societies and their artificial learning systems. Rather than treating cosmology, astrophysics, geophysics, biology, cognition, and machine…

  walterstiers

  2025-12-26

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, consciousness, philosophy, Science, spirituality

• Keep the hands in mind

  Keep the hands in mind: A meta-analysis of correlations between fine motor skills and reading, writing, mathematics, and cognitive development in children and adolescents” Evidence suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) relate to academic and cognitive development; however, findings are unclear, strewn across multiple disciplines, and lack adequate synthesis. We conducted the first comprehensive meta-analysis…

  walterstiers

  2025-12-11

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, education, health, learning, mental-health, teaching

• Towards embodied intelligence

  “Intelligent soft matter: towards embodied intelligence” Intelligent soft matter lies at the intersection of materials science, physics, and cognitive science, promising to change how we design and interact with materials. This transformative field aims to create materials with life-like capabilities, such as perception, learning, memory, and adaptive behavior. Unlike traditional materials, which typically perform static…

  walterstiers

  2025-09-09

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, philosophy, technology

• Nested hierarchies in skills – importance of basic education

  In many careers, a person must learn foundational skills before advancing deeper into their profession. Computer programmers need a solid foundation in basic mathematics; nurses must gain clinical experience and specialized training to become nurse practitioners; a negotiator’s ability to persuade depends on solid communication and active-listening skills. A recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour mapped the dependency…

  walterstiers

  2025-04-15

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Practical Wisdom, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, education, skills, technology

• Power of the Invisible

  “The Power of the Invisible: The Quantessence of Reality” from Sander Bais There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery. Enrico Fermi Quantum Physics is the solid basis of most of our understanding of…

  walterstiers

  2025-04-03

  Complexity, Creative Thinking, Information Technology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, philosophy, physics, quantum-mechanics, quantum-physics, Science

• A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds

  We’re being spoiled by MIT Press Open Access. Not just did we just receive access to the great title “From Sensing to Sentience” , but also “A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds: The Evolution of Life and Consciousness” became available for download. A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-04

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

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, brain, consciousness, evolution, philosophy, Science

• From Sensing to Sentience: How Feeling Emerges from the Brain

  Open access book, download available @ MIT Press A new theory of Neurobiological Emergentism that explains how sentience emerges from the brain. Sentience is the feeling aspect of consciousness. In From Sensing to Sentience, Todd Feinberg develops a new theory called Neurobiological Emergentism (NBE) that integrates biological, neurobiological, evolutionary, and philosophical perspectives to explain how sentience naturally emerges from the brain. Emergent…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-04

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, sentience

• Energy cost of computation: stochastic thermodynamics?

  “Is stochastic thermodynamics the key to understanding the energy costs of computation?” The relationship between the thermodynamic and computational properties of physical systems has been a major theoretical interest since at least the 19th century. It has also become of increasing practical importance over the last half-century as the energetic cost of digital devices has…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-04

  Complexity, Information Technology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, AI, entropy, philosophy, physics, Science

•  The Edge of Sentience

  “The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI.” by Jonathan Birch Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects, or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the womb start to have conscious experiences?…

  walterstiers

  2024-07-29

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

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, sentience

• nature was much more inventive

  Space scientist Edward Stone served as project scientist for NASA’s Voyager missions for 50 years, as well as playing a major role in many other missions, acting as director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and running his own lab at Caltech. Stone has died, aged 88. Here are some remarkable quotes from “Celebrating Voyager’s 40…

  walterstiers

  2024-07-10

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens

• An Informational Approach to Emergence

  Claudio Gnoli gives an updated view on emergence in “Foundations of Science“ Emergence can be described as a relationship between entities at different levels of organization, that looks especially puzzling at the transitions between the major levels of matter, life, cognition and culture. Indeed, each major level is dependent on the lower one not just…

  walterstiers

  2024-05-21

  #sense-making, #Sensemaking, #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, epistemology, ontology

• Collective behavior from surprise minimization

  This paper introduces a model of collective behavior, proposing that individual members within a group, such as a school of fish or a flock of birds, act to minimize surprise. This active inference approach naturally generates well-known collective phenomena such as cohesion and directed movement without explicit behavioral rules. This model reveals intricate relationships between…

  walterstiers

  2024-04-23

  #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Social-Technical

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

• Intelligence: Evolution, Brains and AI – but #6?

  I just finished the marvellous book from Max Bennett: “A Brief History of Intelligence“. As mentioned by the praise: “If you are interested in understanding brains or in building human-like general AI, you should read this book.” Dileep George, DeepMind, Co-Founder of Vicarious AI In the book, a wonderful story is given from the evolution…

  walterstiers

  2024-04-11

  #sense-making, #stakeholder economy, #Wicked, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Science, Social-Technical, Sustainability, Uncategorized

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens

• Novel beings, novel goals

  Every now and then there is the opportunity to get the a clear overview on the actual state of research on biology, intelligence, the artificial and it’s overlap towards future capabilities. “Novel beings, novel goals: evolution & engineering of the agential material of life | Dr. Mike Levin‘ is available on youtube. Dr. Michael Levin…

  walterstiers

  2024-03-19

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Innovation Games, Life Ideas, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens

• Bad Therapy

  I just copied the review of this book – Bad Therapy by @AbigailShrier This is one of the most eye-opening books I’ve ever read. It’s a must read for any parent, any teacher, and should be required reading for any school administrator as well.The book dives into trying to figure out why kids are having…

  walterstiers

  2024-03-11

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Design Thinking, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, anxiety, children, depression, mental-health, parenting

• The Elephant and the Blind: The Experience of Pure Consciousness

  Thomas Metzinger’s latest book from MIT Press is focused on the experience of “pure awareness” as an investigation of the most basic fundamental nature of consciousness This specific experience, is the most important thing I have ever experienced in my life, as a personal attestation It is available for free here or also as pdf…

  walterstiers

  2024-02-26

  #sense-making, #Wicked, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, awareness, consciousness, god, meditation, spirituality

• An New Law Needed?

  On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems - by Michael L. Wong, et al. (2023) Systems of many interacting agents display an increase in diversity, distribution, and/or patterned behavior when numerous configurations of the system are subject to selective pressure. The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws…

  walterstiers

  2023-12-18

  #sense-making, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens

• Yes, it is an ART; but it leads tot non-decisions

  Anthony Judge 2021 blog on “The art of non-decision-making” identifies 14 aspects of the art of non-decision-making based on experiences serving in, and observing, a range of international organisations. 1. Definitional games: This is the process of defining categories in one way in one document or organizational unit, and then defining them in another way…

  walterstiers

  2023-11-23

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Policy, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty

• Interoception and Active Inference for mental health

  Interoception refers to the process by which the nervous system senses and integrates signals originating from within the body, providing a momentary mapping of the body’s internal landscape and its relationship to the outside world. Active inference is based on the premise that afferent sensory input to the brain is constantly shaped and modified by…

  walterstiers

  2023-11-17

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

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