This paper integrates Alan Fiske’s theory of social relational models into John Holland’s model of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Holland’s model is a meta-model, one that posits four properties (aggregation, flows, diversity, linearity) and three mechanisms (internal model, building blocks, tagging) common to all CAS. However, the nature and implementation of the mechanisms are CAS-specific. With respect to human systems, Fiske’s theory of relational models provides an internal model of social interaction composed of four building blocks (communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, market pricing) that guide all social interactions; they are species specific and operate cross-culturally. This paper first outlines the two models and shows the relationships between Holland’s mechanisms and Fiske’s relational models. Then, the integrated model is used to look at a first-year university composition class for nonnative speakers of English to understand how students interact with others within the classroom and without. In particular, this paper will focus on how students formed groups, collaborated, accepted authority, and reacted when a relational model had been violated. As implementation of the relational models is guided by cultural constraints, an awareness of the models is important in framing class activities, and especially so in a class of international students with different cultural implementations of the four models.

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Bard Ermentrout

University of Pittsburgh

Bard and sons

I will talk of hallucinations and also some recent thoughts on the existence of supernatural beliefs

fred: this could tie in with Tom’s work, and possibly with my recent psychophysics on strange attractors.

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Ivelisse Lazzarini

Ivelisse Lazzarini, OTD, OTR/L,
Creighton University
School of Pharmacy & Health Professions
Dept. of Occupational Therapy
Omaha, NE 68178

Meaning and Perception. It was published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy (20004).

I teach neuroscience and a course called neuro-occupation. Neuro-occupation is a conflate of philosophy, neuroscience and occupation; it is also the quest for understanding how humans through the meaningful occupations form the patterns of brain activity that lead to the habits and rituals of a life time. Well needles to say, I look forward to attending your conference to listen/share with others our meaningful work and occupations.

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Doris Fromberg, Hofstra

The Power of Play: Gender Issues in Early Childhood Education

Play is an arena in which young children can feel powerful. When children self-select an activity, they view it as play. When a teacher requests them to participate in the same activity, they view it as work (King, 1992). The context of gender in society parallels the context of play in school as an issue that involves power, a sense of identity, communication, and opportunity. This paper considers the dynamics of play and power in relation to gender issues in early childhood, and concludes with some implications for teachers. Within the larger field of types of play, this paper gives particular attention to sociodramatic play because of its dynamic character. The framework of sociodramatic play offers an opportunity for adults to understand and assess how young children use power and reflects the players’ understanding of gender issues.

Doris sent a 39-page paper. Above is the introductory paragraph.—fred

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Mark Filippi:

Dr. Mark R. Filippi
Behavioral Consultant
The Extended Self Program
1890 Palmer Avenue, Suite 401
Larchmont, NY 10538

By Cosmosis: Navigating The Dynamics of Agreement

This will be an experiential presentation of the coupling mechanisms I've been integrating to my protocols that are components of salutogenesis. I've reframed Antonovsky's work on the Sense of Coherence (SoC) into recursive cycles of alignment, agreement and amendment. This allows for a more phylogenic understanding of Antonovosky's factors of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness to gain 'universal' application.
Some of the contributors to my 'journey' are Porges (Polyvagal Theory), Siegel (interpersonal neurobiology),
Tulving (Autonoetic Consciousness), Hanna (Somatic Osmotic Function), Lewis, et. al. (limbic resonance),
and Fritz. et.al. (Atttribution Theory), to name a few. My focus has been to apply some obscure, but useful NDS tools like tensegrity, enformy and biosemiosis in their most informal or tacit manifestations. What I'd like to learn from the group concerns addressing how Sabelli's 'union of opposites' (bios) and Porter's NDS version of syzygenesis relate to my experiences with Burrow's concepts of oscillating cotentive and ditentive states.

Fred note: Between Dan, Enrico, and Mark, we are about to have our vocabulary expanded, and our minds as well!!

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Roulette William Smith, Ph.D.

Institute for Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Studies

Palo Alto, CA 94306-0846 USA

najms@Postgraduate-Interdisciplinary-Studies.org

It took a while to successfully snip this portrait from Roulette’s bio. Since we had put his bios on to accomplish that, for now we leave them there. Here are links to a short bio and a longer bio, both of which are fascinating reading. I’ll put other people’s bio’s on if they wish. Roulette, tell me if you don’t want them here, or if it is ok to leave them in our web site for now.

Short bio with picture

Longer bio, including some of his school projects

Evolution and Long-Term Memories in Living Systems:

Using molecular biology to resolve three great debates …

Lamarck versus Darwin, Nature versus Nurture, and The Central Dogma

It is extremely rare that seminal scientific discoveries lead to profound changes in established and well-heeled

beliefs. In the life sciences, particularly molecular biology, Barbara McClintock’s discovery of transposons

possibly qualifies as such a seminal event because her work demonstrated unanticipated dynamicity in DNA.

Susumu Tonegawa’s discovery of rearrangements in immunoglobulin genes refuted the “one-gene – one

protein” thesis. It also provided the first clues to interdependently evolving systems because rearranged genes

were not communicated to the germ-line. Two February 2001 reports that Human Genome Projects [HGP]

found that the human proteome constitutes as little as 1.2% of the human genome and as few as 20,000 genes

now presage a major revolution in scholarly inquiry — in the life sciences (and especially genetics), logic and the

philosophy of sciences, curriculum and instruction, and, social and clinical sciences. The HGP provided the first

solid, albeit circumstantial, support for Smith’s 1979 hypothesis that DNA must be the repository for long-term

memories [LTM] – especially in brain and the immune system. Thus, the HGP, when coupled with Smith’s

hypothesis, now provide a compelling basis for nine findings:

• Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution can account for at most 25% of human evolution, with Smith’s, Jean-

Baptiste Lamarck’s and others’ theories having validity for 75% or more of human evolution;

• Indeed, three interdependent systems of evolution operate in many higher species – the first system being

associated with classic genetics and transmission of traits via the germ-line, the second system is

associated with passive and active immune function, and the third system accounting for cognition and

behavior – with the second and third systems being associated primarily with inverse molecular pathways

and with changes in DNA not being transmitted to the germ-line;

• In the third of these evolutionary systems, evolution within a host (involving nurturance) can be as profound

as evolution within and across species, with much of that evolution within the host representing the

“transpersonal”;

• Concrete quantitative measures of nature comprise mostly proteomic portions of the genome, whereas

crude quantitative measures of nurture and nurturance are reflected in changing Guanine*Cytosine ::

Adenine*Thymine base-pair ratios in selected regions in brain;

• The “Central Dogma” (that “DNA . RNA . proteins”) may be necessary, but is not sufficient; to wit, there

appears to be a parallel inverse molecular pathway involving “conformed proteins . RNA . DNA,” and

especially including changes in DNA in non-proteomic regions particularly in the third interdependent

evolutionary system;

• Darwinian evolution focuses almost exclusively on genetics and genetic transmission of traits to offspring

along with their survival characteristics, whereas Smith-Lamarckian evolution involves a parallel non-genetic

(i.e., non-proteomic) transmission of nurturance traits possibly involving some form of non-proteomic

molecular and/or cellular mimicry – with those traits having epidemiologic distributions (i.e., not necessarily

comporting with laws of genetics) and provide support for Smith’s 1988 notion of “psychoviruses” underlying

“transmissible negativism” may contribute to aberrant commonsense;

• The mirror neuron system and trinucleotide repeat [TNR] diseases (e.g., Huntington’s disease) provide

clues to underlying mechanisms associated with nurturance and the inverse molecular pathway,

respectively, and to Smith-Lamarckian evolution;

• “Intelligent design” is not consistent with either Darwinian or Smith-Lamarckian evolution – indeed, all forms

of evolution are “unintelligent,” though occasionally understandable using a variant of Murphy’s Law (i.e., “if

it can be different, it will”); and,

• Three corollaries to these findings are:

· using Immanuel Kant’s notions of the a priori and a posteriori, DNA changes in neurons represent a

· priori events and axon-dendrite development and connectivity represent a posteriori events;

· “preliophic” (i.e., protonic-electronic-ionic-photonic) devices and processes invented by Smith (patents

· pending) emulate cellular micro-geography and both (i.e., direct and inverse) molecular information

· pathways; and,

· multivalent killed vaccines against relatively uncommon pathogens can provide efficacious vaccines

· against AIDS.

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Dan Miller, Clinical Psychologist, Brooklyn, danielwmiller@earthlink.net, www.danielwmiller.net


Dan	Dan on the edge of chaos

Reconstructing the Functions and Architecture of Consciousness: With Psychology, Science & Homeodynamics

Homeodynamics in its present version, focused on consciousness, is derived from Dan Miller's extensive readings on scientific issues in biology, evolution, neuroscience, physics, complexity and chaos theory as well as over 40 years of psychotherapeutic practice. His treatment debunks the separation between science and other forms of acquiring knowledge, including the spiritual, by demonstrating that consciousness, evolution and homeodynamics are common to all. Dan will present the fundamental concepts and will welcome questions and discussion.

Homeodynamics can be described as the principle and process whose oversight regulates the changing organization (an reorganization) of information and energy in a system in response to numerous variables pressing on it from environmental, physiological, conscious, and non-material stimuli. Homeodynamics is fundamental to the means of organization of a mind, body and spirit system (MBSS), governing the varieties of everyday life in all its manifestations.

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Tom Malloy

Department of Psychology

University of Utah

Salt Lake City, UT USA

Malloy@psych.utah.edu

The Logic of Logic and the Logic of Dreams

Bateson proposes that there are two fundamental logics that humans use (the logic of logic and the logic of metaphor, which is what I like to call the logic of dreams). My discussion with the group will build on this distinction and focus on the following themes: 1) I will argue that while mathematical models are based on the logic of logic their mapping to scientific data is in the realm of the logic of dreams; 2) That it is essential for a clean scientific epistemology to make this distinction; 3) That our social relations within the society may be muddled because we muddle this distinction; and 4) How dreams (the ones at night) have the same structure Bateson thinks applies to the biological world. Perhaps that is too ambitious; we'll find out how far we get in the time we have. I will elaborate the distinction and find out where the group wants to take it.

My talk will be expressed in my own terms but I will let Bateson pass on to you the kernel idea in his own words by a quote below.

The following is from Bateson and Bateson, Angels Fear: Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred, Chapter II:

“Let me point up the contrast between the truths of metaphor and the truths that the mathematicians pursue by a rather violent and inappropriate trick. Let me spell out metaphor into syllogistic form: Classical logic named several varieties of syllogism, of which the best known is the "syllogism in Barbara." It goes like this:

Men die;
Socrates is a man;
Socrates will die.

“The basic structure of this little monster -- its skeleton -- is built upon classification. The predicate ("will die") is attached to Socrates by identifying him as a member of a class whose members share that predicate.

“The syllogisms of metaphor are quite different, and go like this:

Grass dies;
Men die;
Men are grass.

“[In order to talk about this kind of syllogism and compare it to the "syllogism in Barbara," we can nickname it the "syllogism in grass."] I understand that teachers of classical logic strongly disapprove of this way of arguing and call it "affirming the consequent," and, of course, this pedantic condemnation is justified if what they condemn is confusion between one type of syllogism and the other. But to try to fight all syllogisms in grass would be silly because these syllogisms are the very stuff of which natural history is made. When we look for regularities in the biological world, we meet them all the time.

“Von Domarus long ago pointed out that schizophrenics commonly talk and act in terms of syllogisms in grass,Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. and I think he, too, disapproved of this way of organizing knowledge and life. If I remember rightly, he does not notice that poetry, art, dream, humor, and religion share with schizophrenia a preference for syllogisms in grass.

“But whether you approve or disapprove of poetry, dream, and psychosis, the generalization remains that biological data make sense -- are connected together -- by syllogisms in grass. The whole of animal behavior, the whole of repetitive anatomy, and the whole of biological evolution -- each of these vast realms is within itself linked together by syllogisms in grass, whether the logicians like it or not.

“It's really very simple -- in order to make syllogisms in Barbara, you must have identified classes, so that subjects and predicates can be differentiated. But, apart from language, there are no named classes and no subject-predicate relations. Therefore, syllogisms in grass must be the dominant mode of communicating interconnection of ideas in all preverbal realms.

“I think the first person who actually saw this clearly was Goethe, who noted that if you examine a cabbage and an oak tree, two rather different sorts of organisms but still both flowering plants, you would find that the way to talk about how they are put together is different from the way most people naturally talk. ...we talk about "things," notably leaves or stems, and we try to determine what is what. Now Goethe discovered that a "leaf" is defined as that which grows on a stem and has a bud in its angle; what then comes out of that angle (out of that bud) is again a stem. The correct units of description are not leaf and stem but the relations between them.

“These correspondences allow you to look at another flowering plant -- a potato, for instance -- and recognize that the part that you eat in fact corresponds to a stem.”

Brief comment by Fred:

Coming from the other side of the ying/yang mountain, I think you could make the case that this position might be the one proved by Gödel. It is also syntonic with the paradoxical position taken by systems theorists, that context is always relevant. These positions imply that exactly this issue limits the program of the grand hypothetico-deductive theorists of the 50s and 60s in psychology. On the other hand, I do not follow with any clarity, the argument that this all flows from the ‘fallacy of asserting the consequent’ being equivalent to dreams and metaphor. I might state the idea as the inclusion of context by using metaphor, for these do not invalidate themselves as immediately as most dreams because of their literal impossibility. Perhaps Bateson is implying the metaphoric (analytic) interpretation of dreams as their inherent logic? I suspect a bit of our discussion will flow around Darwin and ID? Which dream will win? What synthesis?

Reply/explication from Tom:

Jan 13, 2006: Thanks for the comment Fred. Bateson is a contextualist (in fact he is rather extreme in that direction, references available upon request) so I doubt that objections (?) to his line of thought based on contextualism will produce much disagreement with the ideas once I develop them. We'll see. Also, your not following with any clarity how metaphor and dream is related to the syllogism in grass is understandable since I haven't developed the idea very well in the short text I submitted. My hope is that you understand it better after a talk for a few minutes (not necessarily agree with it, but at least understand the structure of the argument). But I'll give a shot at it right now:

Very briefly for the moment, dreams from my own and Bateson's perspective are a purely relational nexus in which the RELATA (that which is related, the arguments of the functions) are scrambled. If you pay attention to the relata then, yes, the dreams are impossible; in contrast, if you examine the relations among the relata (possibly replacing them with several other sets of relata until you get a tow hold on what the relations are in the dream) the relations may be a powerfully useful description of (even isomorphic to) context-specific relational patterns experienced by a person in the waking world. There is no dream interpretation in this approach, not in the sense of these dreams "means" X. There is only the experiencing of relationships outside the normal (wakeful) contextual relata that usually accompany those relationships.

Very briefly, once again, metaphor is the mapping of a set of relations from one realm to another (changing the relata to be contextually specific to the second realm). As a trivial example, Human Information Processing is (or originally was when Broadbent wrote his 1958 book) the mapping of relational functions from computational theory to psychological theory. In this sense it is like dreams (in my mine and Bateson's approach) in that a relational pattern is mapped in a way that the relata change (only in dreams the change of the relata seems more "random"). A syllogism in grass for Human Iinformation Processesing as a paradigm might be:

Computers buffer information

Human Iconic memory buffers information

Humans process information like computers process information.

Jan 14, Fred again: and with chaotic attractors (trajectories); also amenable to agent based modeling.

Précis of Gregory Chaitin, The Limits of Reason, Scientific American, 294(3), 74-81. from message to participants 2/20/2006

Snowflake Colleagues:

I thought I might bring to your attention this article that relates very strongly to the presentations on the philosophy and logic of science at our conference; that of Tom on Bateson's logic, and that of Bob Porter’s on linear/nonlinear methodology and dynamical ethological psychology. This article especially makes some references to Poyla &Lakatos that Tom mentioned. The writing is very clear and comprehensible.

Let me try to present some of his ideas to whet your appetite for looking at the article if you haven't yet seen it:

1. Complexity and Scientific Laws.

Leibniz, 1686, in Discours de metaphysique, "essentially states a theory has to be simpler than the data it explains". Modern algorithmic information theory instead of measuring bits, ask what "size computer program is necessary to generate the data. The "software view of science: a scientific theory is like a computer program that predicts our observations." This view derives from (1) parsimony (Occam's razor) the simpler theory (the smaller the program)" is preferred, and (2) the compression of data into theory (concise algorithmic description), the simpler, the better the understanding.

2. Sufficient Reason

Leibniz's "principle of sufficient reason--everything happens for a reason" with its roots in ancient Greek philosophy. Mathematicians believe it because they "try to prove everything. . . demand a proof of the general case. . . . And here is where the concept of algorithmic information can make its surprising contribution to the philosophical discussion of the origins and limits of knowledge. It reveals that certain mathematical facts are true for no reason. . . an infinite number of mathematical facts are irreducible [computationally and logically] which means that no theory explains why they are true. The only way to prove 'such facts' is to assume them directly as new axioms without using reasoning at all." Much as did Euclid did; all mathematical theories being deduced from such irreducible axioms. "My source of an infinite stream of unprovable mathematical facts, is the number that I call omega."

3. The Number Omega

Turing, 1936, proposed "mathematical model of a simple, general-purpose, programmable digital computer. He then asked, Can we determine whether or not a computational program will ever halt. . . . Turing showed a general solution is impossible. . . Consider the ensemble of all possible programs. Does a program chosen at random ever halt. The probability of having that happen is my omega number [as an irreducible binary number between 0 and 1]? Omega is the infinite sum of the probabilities of all N-bit programs that halts, each contributing (1/2)^N to the sum, that is "each N-bit program that halts adds a 1 to the Nth bit in the binary expansion of omega." The sum would give "a precise value of omega." However, while "omega is perfectly well defined and it is a specific number, but it is impossible to compute in its entirety. . . [because] knowing omega would let us solve Turing's halting problem, but we know that this problem is unsolvable. . . [furthermore] the first N digits of omega cannot be computed using a program significantly shorter than N bits long. Most important, omega supplies us with an infinite number of these irreducible bits. . . [there are] an infinite number of bits that the program cannot compute. . . Given any finite set of axioms, we have an infinite number of truths that are unprovable in that system. Because omega is irreducible, we can immediately that a theory of everything for all of mathematics cannot exist. . . Mathematics therefore had infinite complexity. . . [reasoning is still useful] . . .Irreducible principles--axioms--have always been a part of mathematics. Omega just shows that a lot more of them are out there than people suspected. . . Mathematicians would rather die [than give up on proving anything] in sharp contrast with their physicist colleagues, who are happy to be pragmatic and to use plausible reasoning instead of rigorous proof."

4, Mathematics and Physics

In physics, laws are determined empirically, "and then asserted like axioms that cannot be logically proved, merely verified." Mathematical truths are independent of the universe. But physics can "compress experimental observations into scientific laws [and] then show how their observations can be deduced from their laws, and mathematics can "compress their computational experiments into mathematical axioms, and they then show how to deduce theorems from these axioms [for which Lakatos coined the term 'quasi-empirical'].

5. New Mathematical Axioms

Examples include the parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry. Non-Euclidian geometric axioms. The law of the excluded middle in logic. The axiom of choice in set theory. There is also 'intuitionist logic' and 'constructivist mathematics' used by some, but not all mathematicians. And then there is the 'P not equal to NP' conjecture. The vulnerability of certain cryptographic systems.

6. Experimental Mathematics.

With a computer, when given the absence of a short proof, "it can be more convincing that a long and extremely complicated proof, and for some purposes it is quite sufficient. (Supported by "Polya and Lakatos, believers in heuristic reasoning and in the quasi-empirical nature of mathematics. This methodological is also practiced in Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science. Both kinds of evidence [proofs and calculations] are useful, supplying "different kinds of evidence".

"All these issues are intrriuing but far from resolved. It is now 2006, 50 years after Godel's proof, and we still do not know how serious incompleteness is. We do not know of incompleteness is telling us that mathematics whoudld be done somewhat differently."

fda: I might add that it was obvious long before Wolfram, that nonlinear dynamics rested heavily on experimental mathematics. Some remains highly conjectural.
Your comments are welcome. We can post this and any interchange on Snowflake.

see the article, and visit Chaitin's home page: www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/

fred

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Jerry Chandler, WESS (Washington Evolutionary Systems Society)

Mind is Fire: Aristotelian Categories, Porphyrean Trees and the

Three Classes of Logics of Communications.

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 Bob Porter (abstract: philosophy and practice of science)

Bob Porter, Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Tampa, Florida; Clinical Psychologist and Outpatient Therapist, Directions for Mental Health, Clearwater, Florida; Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of New Orleans.

rjporter@mindspring.com, www.mindspring.com/~rjporter

Why Doing Research in NL Science is Like and not Like Doing Research in Linear Science (something on this theme)

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Karen Vander Ven Professor, Applied Developmental Psychology, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh

Hi, Fred.

Attached is my proposal to present for the upcoming conference. It's kind of

a sequel to last year's on chaotic aspects of Erikson's life span theory.

Since I am now underway on sabbatical and its project to write

a new life span theory updating Erikson for the 21st century - which

undoubtedly will require more and new stages - I think the topic

'The Mathematical Life Span' is intriguing and would serve to

generate some helpful discussion for me. I'm the first to say I'm a bit

out of my league (as usual) with this topic but this group is so good about it.

Why I like it so much and am happy to have it here.

Karen

The Mathematical Life Span

Karen Vander Ven, Ph.D.,

University of Pittsburgh School of Education

The human life span and the features and major tasks at various ages that offer subdivisions within it have been the concern of writers, philosophers and psychologists down the ages. Erik Erikson’s 8 Stages of Man is perhaps the most famous recent formulation to address the issue of how many stages or phases there are within the life span. However, there have been other formulations that have suggested 3, 4, 5, 7

(including William Shakespeare’s 7 Ages of Man from As You Like It ) 10, and 21. The conceptual sources of these proposals have included the lunar cycle and the seasons; some formulations are based on multiples of the same number.

Then there is the issue of graphical representation of the life span and the trajectory through it. Erikson proposed a matrix while others have suggested a wheel, (with various internal configurations) which of course has mathematical properties.

As scholars continue to consider how the life span is divided up into phases and how to represent them, the thought occurs that it could be interesting to look at these various proposals in light of mathematical concepts, such as mathematical characteristics of numbers and established number series, especially those with recursive aspects. Is it possible that mathematics can inform conceptualizations of the number of stages or phases in the human life span, and ways of representing them, as much as the humanities or social sciences ?

Thus, this presentation will describe various numerical proposals on the number of stages in the life span and ways of representing the life span geometrically (e.g. wheel), along with some relevant mathematical concepts, in the hope of stimulating further discussion of the topic.

Fred: Looking for the Feigenbaum constant? Interesting, also to compare with the bifurcation series for the development of multiple personalities. All about Eve?

I do have some of the playthings that I used in presentations showing a developmental trajectory in 'complexity' in playthings - all the way from two-dimensional square tile flat small blocks (manipulatives as they say in early childhood education) to Rubik's cube. (complexity being for these purposes how many options the

playthings offer, how much variability, etc).

I can't guarantee that anybody would see these either as complex or dynamic - but I do have --

* Three small rubber balls with a string through each, a ball at each end. If one holds either end and carefully juggles it, the balls go through motions very reminiscent of the Yorke apparatus that Carlos has. (I don't know what it's called).

*Connector that if you attach a big soda bottle at each end makes a 'tornado in a bottle'.

* Jars of tiles of different shapes that allow different tilings - of the Penrose type. (When I first learned of Penrose tiles I thought - Oh boy -

somebody ought to make playsets with these shapes. Of course somebody got there first. So I bought them.

* Adult table blocks that are great for making long sequences that if you push one over, the rest follow.

*Juggling materials - blocks and scarves.

Etc.

Anyway, I think it might be interesting just to bring some of these along. I'm making sure we have a 'display table' in the room and everybody who brings such could put them there. People could have fun during breaks.

I'm definitely planning to bring my Ferris wheel made with K'Nex that actually turns - run by batteries - if only as a decoration to enhance the room. I had my Play classes build it.

What do you think?

Karen

Fred: I think it’s a great idea. Everybody bring show and tell.

Post Conference Discussion:

I see I was wrong to say that the Feigenbaum comment was not in response to Karen’s life span abstract. Indeed it was, but it was made without having any measurement aspects (durations of life stages), so it proved to be premature, as the durations did not correspond, i.e., the ratio of 4.669x… did not hold for the ratio of the duration of any stage to the preceeding.

But we did see that it followed the Fibonocci series. I was mainly highlighting Karen’s implication that some mathematically lawful process might be involved. And we saw that the exception that Roulette mentioned did not obviate the relevance of the sequence because of individual difference possibilities in the time constant of the growth curve (the Fibonocci is a discrete version of the growth curve). We see that it is remarkable that Karen has found this relationship, and that it follows the universal law of growth that we see in snail shells, seeds, and in many phenomena of growth and form in nature. It says a lot about model building, relating to the modeling processes discussed by Bob, Tom, and Jerry. Model building can begin with a model, or with empirical observations, which seeds an ongoing dialogue between them. Now we have two empirical relations coming from Karen’s work: Fibonocci, yes; Feigenbaum Ratio, no. Immediately we are into both classic logic and metaphoric logic in the quest for processes, which might underly, the developmental stages. We start with the implications, if growth, then Fibonocci, and the other, if first order differential equations, then Feigenbaum ratio. Thus asserting the consequent Fibonocci while possibly metaphoric, is hardly any leap, since we are already in a growth process, so we are simultaneously asserting the antecedent. But what remains metaphoric would be the conjecture that a single growth variable might dominate the process, as with Nautilus building its shell, but all these growth processes involve interactions with environment, and several biological and environmental variables. We are left with a search for a few variables. Interesting, the failure to get a Feigenbaum Ratio tells us something as well. To deny the consequent, suggests that, within classic logic, leads to denying that a simple first order difference equation would be suffice. Another suggestion that multiple variables (and a dynamical system) are involved.

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George J. Muhs University of Bridgeport

BrainWork and Incoherence Within the Neuraxis

As a BrainWorker, I see indications of incoherence within the neuraxis on a daily basis. I will discuss this neural incoherence within the metaphoric framework of nonlinear topology.

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Martin Gardiner

Engagement, Transfer and Learning

While waiting for Martin’s abstract for the winter conference, here is his abstract for the INSC conference in Crete in March, which show some of his thinking for those of you who have not been to any of his prior presentations at the Winter Conference. NB: the Conference chair is our own Ivy, who has been pretty busy.

ABSTRACT

2^ND International Nonlinear Science Conference:

Research and Application in Behavioral, Social and Life Sciences

Heraklion, Crete, Greece

March 10 -12, 2006

Nonlinearity, Complexity, Engagement Learning, and the Role of the Arts in Human Development

Martin F. Gardiner, Ph.D.

Center for the Study of Human Development

Brown University, U.S.A.

This paper reviews and discusses recent evidence (1,2) that arts learning, and especially arts skill learning, can affect human learning and development more broadly – cognitively and socially. I am developing theory to address certain features of these data that are still not fully understood. Connections between arts and broader learning seem worth investigating for at least two reasons. One is the more general new information on human learning they may provide. The other is the possibility that such connections from arts to broader learning may well be an essential part of the human meaning of the arts. This follows, I propose, from the inherent complexities of the world which we help to form and in which we live. To survive in such a world we must integrate accumulating factual knowledge into a larger developing and redeveloping complex fabric of brain processing by which we engage with the world. This fabric of Engagement Learning and how it develops will be the principal focus of my talk. From the viewpoint of Engagement Learning, human development of spoken and then written language, of mathematics and science, enlarge and enrich our opportunities to develop our engagement, and so too, I argue, do the arts. What we learn from the arts can complement and reinforce, but also supplements what we can learn from other sources. Historically, I argue, arts have often had an important influence on how we have developed our individual and social means of living together. The arts can provide complexities of form and experience as high as available from other experience. We require such levels of complexity to prepare ourselves to engage richly with our developing world. Such considerations may help to explain why humanity has included the arts in essentially every human culture, and also the further human potential that they still hold.

References:

Gardiner, M.F. , A.Fox, F. Knowles, D. Jeffrey, (1996). Learning improved by arts training, Nature, 381:284.

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Carlos Torre Yale and Southern Connecticut


Carlos at Snowflake 2004	Kai y Carlos, Puerto Rico, horsing around

The Ecology of Education and Our Biological Heritage:
How Dynamics Can Get Us Back to the Future

Long Abstract:

My current research integrates the work I have done over the past 25 to 30 years. The concept of “ecology” serves as an organic model (and metaphor) for studying and explaining complex educational problems as well as for prognosticating how a given situation might develop (the likely trajectories and outcomes of these problems) and how best to approach solutions.

Underlying this ecological approach is the assertion that human nature is amiss with life in schools because these are, for the most part, artificial structures and environments that run counter to our genetic make up. Findings in History; Psychology; Anthropology; Biology; Ecology; and other disciplines corroborate that our biological heritage is essentially that of pre-agricultural, pre-industrial revolution humans. As such, we aren't made to live in large formal bureaucratic hierarchies, in which authority comes with position rather than merit and the majority is usually left out of the information loop and subsequent decision-making. Our biological heritage also has not prepared us to be cogs in the education machines we’ve developed, nor to excel in the one-way communication that is common to schools and school systems.

On the contrary, people (especially children) usually function better in small, clan-like collaborative groups, need personal recognition, respect, and to be acknowledged as important. We fear being ostracized by “the group”, thus, we’re wary of being too different, … often become confused, suffer greatly, and behave badly when ignored, disrespected, driven to feel inferior, or experience invisibility in large groups. We want to belong, … to be part of something useful, significant, and valuable; to be trusted and feel we can count on others. We want to know what's going on and have a say in important decision-making, … as well as a sense of control over our own lives and future.

This doesn’t describe your typical school. To be fully effective, pertinent, and efficient, learning environments need to address the requirements of our biological heritage outlined above. I maintain that, in combination, the Nonlinear Sciences (human, physical, and life sciences) can help us get back to (reclaim and understand) our biological past as well as use this understanding to transform our educational processes into ones compatible with our genetic make-up and the complex realities of our agricultural, industrial world. Examples will be discussed of how fractal geometry, self-organization and complexity theories, and other Nonlinear Sciences can help us perceive education in ways that are more organic and conducive to meeting our biological needs.

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Robert Faux

University of Pittsburgh

Robert & Ludvig in Philly

Chaos, Jazz, and the Art of Teaching

The squirming facts exceed the squamous mind,

If one may say so. And yet relation appears,

A small relation expanding like the shade

Of a cloud on sand, a shape on the side of a hill

(Connoisseur of Chaos, Wallace Stevens)

In this paper I will attempt to explain, via the metaphor of jazz improvisation, how the “artful” teacher is able to harness the inevitable chaos, complexity, non-linearity present in the classroom and use it to achieve teaching and learning goals. But I will have to justify my claim that optimal learning is more likely to take place in a chaotic, complex, and non-linear classroom. To do this I will briefly describe two contrasting classrooms, one with apparently little chaos, the other, with considerably more. I will briefly outline how educational psychologists would describe the teaching styles and learning outcomes in these classrooms. Then I will go on to explicate the links between teaching, chaos, and jazz, and explain how improvisation takes place in classrooms that leads to deep learning.

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Enrico Wensing, Saybrook Graduate Student

Since we have had some recent interest in projects for the introduction into science education in the schools and may devote a session to that issue, I am including Enrico’s interest in it even though he cannot make the conference this winter. He may want to participate in any projects that we may initiate in this regard. —fred

Dear Fred

Just a note that I am very excited about the work you are doing with Chaos in schools. I picked this up from emails I received from the Snowflake mailing list I am on. Although I am not able to participate in this year’s Snowflake meeting, please keep me in mind for any educational programs you are involved with and need participants for.

As I mentioned previously I am applying complexity theory/science to the development of education programs through a company I have founded called Ecosphere Net. Where the “net” is network as in a connectionist model. The site ecosphere.net will be up soon and will offer programs on personal/global sustainability based on a book I am co-writing called “I am sustainability”: A revolutionary new program for finding global ecology in personal identity.(working title)

Basically the ideas/theory of complexity can teach us a lot about ourselves, our world and our place in it. So please keep me up-to-date with any educational projects you embark upon in the future. By the way, I have just applied to Santa Fe CSSS for Beijing, China. I’ll know by late March if I’m in. (Stan Krippner and Allan Combs are writing letters of recommendation).

Just one more thing. Sustainability, ecology, global survival is an increasingly hot topic. I read in one of your email exchanges some concern about getting students interested in the engineering and hard science of complexity. Most kids I know are interested in nature and many schools in sustainability and the environment. Sustainability education may provide a doorway to create interest in complexity. In the sustainability curriculum I am co-developing complexity in nature/ecology is used as a segue for the introduction of more formal complexity theory.

Warm regards,

Enrico

I am reinserting Enrico’s ecological point of view, because it is relevant to his educational program..

From Enrico’s application to Sante Fe Institute:

Recent suggestions in the literature regarding the consequences of human connection to the complex evolutionary systems of nature (through connectionism, interactionism, embeddedness) and, in turn, nature’s purported connection to the gravitational movement of all of cosmological space (along Einstein’s cosmological constant/ Peebles quintessence), have led me to shift from an autopoietic dynamical systems perspective to one that aligns with a more sympoietic perspective of complex systems. Initially coined by Beth Dempster of Waterloo University, Canada, the term sympoietic describes systems that are boundaryless, collectively produced, and organizationally open. Evolutionary dynamical systems theory emphasizes that although systems in nature are self-organizing and self-creating, or autopoietic, in relative terms within their own domains (Maturana & Varela, 1980, 1987), boundaries between systems are largely permeable (Van de Vijver, Salthe, Delpos, 1998).

I am interested in how such “permeable” sympoietic evolution influences the emergence of novel human cognition, consciousness and behavior systems. Mine is an inquiry into the cause and effect of co-evolutionary perturbations that precipitate system emergence and, conversely, what features of system robustness prevent transformation. I am interested in human cognition, consciousness and behavior systems with respect to their underlying mechanisms of assimilation, adaptation, optimization, accommodation and novel emergence.

One model I am studying to explore complex system evolutionary connectionism is in the possible parallels between the connected network mechanisms of the human mind and the human mind’s attempt to mimic those mechanisms through artificial intelligence (AI) research. For instance, sophistication in AI research has evolved to first indicate the feasibility of quantum computation based on control of quantum operations of dynamical origin, then those combining dynamical and geometric origin (i.e. holonomic) and, most recently, solely on the geometric manipulation of a quantum system. Are these three AI variations possibly analogous to the proposed evolutionary epochs in the emergence of human cognitive and consciousness systems referred to by Gebser (1985)? Perhaps there is in essence only partial “evolutionary pressure” for the evolution of consciousness in the more conventional, neo-darwinistic sense. That is, no pressure per se may be necessary for evolution; it may simply be a matter of sympoietic systems that are co-evolving dynamically, and perhaps out of complexity, as they motion along a cosmological constant.

I am currently completing a doctorate at Saybrook Graduate School with executive faculty John Adams (organizational systems), Stan Krippner and Alan Combs (complexity as applied to models of consciousness and social systems) in complex system models of consciousness and psychology as applied to education for sustainability. I am concurrently co-authoring a book that presents a new model of transformative education for sustainability that utilizes a very broad multidisciplinary approach. This book is primarily intended for scholars and academics. It combines and connects Saybrook’s three main program areas of psychology, organizational systems and human sciences. However, it also includes contributions from studies in global systems, network dynamics, cognitive neuroscience, and social dynamics, which are of course some of the areas of research at SFI.

It is for this reason I find SFI very attractive. I want to be part of a multidisciplinary collaborative scholarly research community that pursues “common themes in natural, artificial and social systems”. I deeply miss the scientific rigor and pursuit of excellence in basic research I experienced during my MSc in mammalian genetics at the University of Toronto. Combining SFI and Saybrook would give me the “best of both/all worlds”.

I would like to explore the boundaries of reductionism vis-à-vis quantitative psychology’s attempts to operationalize human experience (phenomena) and the endeavor of physics and mathematics to formalize their underlying complex mechanisms (noumena). There may be no end to this ball of thread; epigenetic and synergistic “mechanisms”, to cite two examples, likely preclude full reduction of what it is to be human. However, the understanding attained through the continued pursuit of limitations and the clarification of distinctions of what is metaphoric and what is formal will lead to more powerful truths especially, as in the case of my ambition, when applied to education for global sustainability. Thus, research in complexity, which “views dynamics, computation and adaptation in a unified framework” (Mitchell, 1998, p.5), is, in general terms, where I want to be.

Specifically, I am interested in testing the proposals of Stuart Hameroff (U. of Arizona) and Roger Penrose (Oxford) (1994, 1996a, b, 1998, 2002) regarding the role of quantum computation in human cognition and consciousness and possibly explore and extend them along evolutionary and developmental lines from a sympoietic dynamical systems perspective. This echoes the attempted rapprochement by Melanie Mitchell regarding the computational/dynamical debate over human cognition. Given that phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny, the multidisciplinary research in developmental cognitive neuroscience of the SFI Human Potential Project appears to be poised to answer some of these questions.

I would like to participate in the CSSS 2006 so that I can continue to expand my knowledge of complex systems (natural, artificial and social) and non-linear thinking, especially from an evolutionary perspective. Following CSSS 2006 it is my intention to apply for a post doc at SFI in 2007 to conduct research as part of the human potential group.

Although logistically CSSS Santa Fe is perhaps more logical since I now live “just down the road” in Farmington, New Mexico I have two previous conference commitments in June that prevent me from being able to participate at that location. The Beijing school, however, with its opportunity to learn from Stanford geneticist Marcus Feldman as well as its course emphasis in complexity science tools and methods (my love of excellence in basic research), physics of biological systems (my interest in dynamical quantum computation and genetics), and dynamic – social models of language acquisition and evolution (my interest in system evolution and connectionism) seems precisely suited for me.

Thank you. – EJW

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Matthijs Koopmans, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

'Dynamical systems, organizational change and organizational outcomes: Perspectives from philanthropy.'

I'd like to talk about my experiences at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, where I am currently employed. The foundation supports youth organizations, particularly by helping them strengthen their organizational infrastructure and growing of their service capacity. Nonlinear dynamical systems models are highly relevant, and underutilized in this area of work. The kind of change we hope our grantees will accomplish with our help is qualitative and nonlinear in nature, and it requires a systemic engagement with grantee organizations, which is analogous to the way family therapists engage with families.

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Bill Huitt, Valdosta State University

Bill is not a participant but his comments are welcome.

For those not on CHAOPSYC discussion list, Bill Huitt responded to a discussion of science fairs and dynamics education in the schools with the following correspondence, of interest, I think, to most of us. It has many resources with their URLs:

Another avenue is to consider teacher training programs and professional associations for educators.

I am working with a group that is developing a teacher training program at the master's level in holistic, integrative education. Central to the program would be three foundations courses that would introduce systems concepts: an intro course, an ed psyc course, and a research course.

In the intro course we want to introduce the idea of a paradigm shift from reductionistic to holistic, systems thinking with a systems approach being very broadly defined. I am proposing that an article by Pearce be read early in this course:

* Pearce, W. B. (2002). Systems: Schools of thought and traditions

of practice. Redwood City, CA: Pearce Associates. Retrieved April

2005, from

http://www.pearceassociates.com/essays/story_about_systems.pdf

We are thinking of highlighting several different systems theories (perhaps Whitehead's process philosophy, Lazslo's systems philosophy, and Wilber's integral philosophy) and then providing examples of how these approaches have impacted learning and developmental theory, research methods, curriculum, administration and leadership, evaluation, etc.

The learning theory course would describe some of the traditional approaches to studying cognition, emotion, volition, etc. with some articles on systems approaches to studying these topics. It would also include some systems approaches to educational reform such as educational systems design:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/j/sjm256/portfolio/kbase/Systems&Change/EducationalSysDesign.html <http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/j/sjm256/portfolio/kbase/Systems&Change/EducationalSysDesign.html>

In the research course, I would like to cover some traditional issues and then juxtapose traditional, reductionistic approaches with systems approaches. This would have to be done in a way that elementary teachers could understand.

We would want to continue this approach of juxtaposing traditional and systems approaches in courses in curriculum, leadership, etc. Articles such as those by Stamovlasis and Gillespie in the January 2006 issue of NDPLS and Wheatley are the types of readings I would advocate including in these courses.

* Wheatley, M. (1997, Summer). Goodbye, command and control. Leader

to Leader, 5. Retrieved December 1999, from

http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/l2l/summer97/wheatley.html

We are also networking with others who are interested in applying a systems approach to education such as the following:

Systems Thinking and Chaos Theory Network (STCT)

http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.1d0da3d8254c5836a8846ed0e3108a0c/#systems

http://www.haven.net/patterns/

Holistic/Integrated/Integrative Education

http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/materials/internet.html#holistic

As we see it, a major challenge will be to show how systems thinking is an improvement over reductionistic thinking in addressing issues that educators face everyday, from developing content knowledge and skills to developing critical and creative thinking to classroom management, etc. Most of the attempts to integrate systems approaches in education that we have found have focused on administrators and educational reform academicians rather than on K-12 classroom teachers, with STELLA perhaps the major exception.

Any thoughts, suggestions, advice, links, materials, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

William G. (Bill) Huitt, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology & Counseling

Valdosta State University

Valdosta, GA 31698

(229) 333-5930 (office)

(229) 259-5576 (fax)

whuitt@valdosta.edu

http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt

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Fred Blueberry Brain Institute, Waterbury Center, VT, USA & Department of Psychology, Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines

 Tien Ming with her pet.

Cyborgs, Cyberspace, Cybersexuality and the
Evolution of Everyday Creativity

Everyday creativity lives at the fractal imbrications of the individual and culture, which are evolving in some very rapid ways. Advances in science and technology drive much of this evolution. Some of these advances are in computer systems (cyberspace); some are in the hybridization of the human body with robotics (cyborgs); and some are in communications, artificial intelligence, cloning, genetic manipulation, stem cell research, pharmaceutical and molecular manipulation, nanotechnology, and so on. This evolution influences the programs of emancipation suggested by postmodern social theory and philosophical hermeneutics. Cybersexuality is a prime example.

This evolution also involves two very fundamental human motivations, those for optimizing knowledge and for optimizing stability. The quests for truth and for stability are at once two sides of the same tapestry, sometimes in competition with each other, and sometimes synergistic, but always interactive, playing in the same attractor. Creativity lies in exploring where and how to weave within these fractal imbrications. And creativity requires instability.

Let us have an unstable discussion concerning some aspects of this evolution. Please be ready to offer your favorite science fiction work as an example of issues raised. My paper can be found by returning to blueberry-brain home page (click just below), and selecting chaophilosophy, then Cybersexuality.

(2/21/06) Most of you are probably aware of the experimental play currently running based on Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, which features robots who come to be liberated and take over, like Ibsen's housewife. This is exactly the theme of my virtual talk at Pittsburgh on Cybersexuality, which examines the meaning of human nature by looking to its past (through the evolutionary history of the human brain and culture), and into the future by artificial intelligence and robotics, mostly as envisioned by science fiction and the closing of the gap between fiction and reality. A review I heard on NPR this morning (2/21) mentioned a bifurcation in the possible future, which the review called a ‘singularity’, at which point androids exceed humans (by what criteria? Presumably those traits we consider most human, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual—Dan’s MBSS). This is interesting concept that I did not verbalize in my presentation, but which is inherent in the topic. I'd love to see that play, and those of you in the NY area can attend and report back to us perhaps.

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update 2/22/2006

Blueberry Brain Institute

Matthijs

Martin Gardiner

The Ecology of Education and Our Biological Heritage: How Dynamics Can Get Us Back to the Future

Robert Faux

Bill Huitt, Valdosta State University

Fred Blueberry Brain Institute, Waterbury Center, VT, USA & Department of Psychology, Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines

Cyborgs, Cyberspace, Cybersexuality and the Evolution of Everyday Creativity

The Ecology of Education and Our Biological Heritage:
How Dynamics Can Get Us Back to the Future

Cyborgs, Cyberspace, Cybersexuality and the
Evolution of Everyday Creativity