Posted in Autocatalysis, Emergence, Evolution, tagged Autocatalysis, Emergence, Evolution on May 22, 2009| 3 Comments »
Yesterday’s puzzler was to guess the species being talked about here:
One became super efficient at gobbling up its food, doing so at a rate that was about a hundred times faster than the other. The other was slower at acquiring food, but produced about three times more progeny per generation.
The answer is…
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Autocatalysis, Causality, Economics, Interconnectedness, Interventions, Management, Markets, Networks, Non-linearity, Politics, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Socio-technical systems, Stability, tagged Alternative Institutions, Autocatalysis, Causality, Economics, Interconnectedness, Interventions, Management, Markets, Networks, Non-linearity, Politics, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Socio-technical systems, Stability on April 23, 2009| 6 Comments »
With his permission, I am posting an email thread between myself and Alfred Hubler. I had contacted him on the recommendation of John Miller when Kevin and I were posting on the possibility of dampening boom-bust cycles in the financial markets through policy or other mechanisms. Here’s what Hubler had to say:
Posted in Autocatalysis, Causality, Genetics, Health, Invisible Etiology, Nutrition, Psychology, Science, tagged Autocatalysis, Causality, Genetics, Health, Invisible Etiology, Nutrition, Psychology, Science on February 27, 2009| 2 Comments »
Debbie Maier asks us on the Upcoming Topics page to address Crohn’s Disease.
I don’t know too much about it except that it’s an autoimmune disease and has a complex, multi-causal etiology and pathology. In my reading on autoimmune diseases in general there seems to be a direct link between latitude an incidence. Specifically, the farther from the equator you live the more likely you are to get Crohn’s, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and so on.
Posted in Agency, Autocatalysis, Evolution, Scarcity / Abundance, Singularity, tagged Agency, Autocatalysis, Evolution, Scarcity / Abundance, Singularity on November 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »
The above is a self-replicating dynamic structure from a class of systems called cellular automata (click here to run the simulation). Below is a self-replicating dynamic structure from a class of systems called “life”:
(more…)
Posted in Agency, Autocatalysis, Socio-technical systems, Stability, tagged Agency, Autocatalysis, Socio-technical systems, Stability on June 1, 2008| 2 Comments »
I’ve talked on here about the importance of taking seriously the notion of agency as it applies to systems other than biological. In reading a recent Wired retrospective on what they called wrong, I was struck by feeling that their error was the same in all three cases, and that is underestimating the degree to which complex systems will defend themselves in the face of attack as if they were living, breathing organisms.
Posted in Agency, Autocatalysis, Causality, Cooperation, Emergence, Society, tagged Agency, Autocatalysis, Causality, Cooperation, Emergence, Society on December 31, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I posted earlier on emergent causality. One aspect that needs to be elaborated on is the concurrent, self-interdependent nature of emergence, or in other words the chicken and egg problem. (more…)
Posted in Autocatalysis, Causality, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Society, tagged Autocatalysis, Causality, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Society on November 2, 2007| 1 Comment »
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, you know about the self-help phenomenon called The Secret. Perhaps you even bought the DVD or book or had (multiple) friends tell you about it, or even buy it for you as a gift. The Secret is not without its critics, of course. And the real question in my mind is, if it’s so widely watched/read and if so many people are attempting to put its principles into practice, why haven’t we noticed the positive effects on large swaths of society (at least American society where it’s been marketed the most)? There are countless answers to this question, including, “it takes time,” “the effects are mostly internal,” and “it doesn’t work.” I have a different take on it. (more…)
Posted in Agency, Autocatalysis, Evolution, tagged Agency, Autocatalysis, Evolution on September 30, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The distinction between “genotype” and “phenotype” is an artificial one that obfuscates understanding past a certain point. As Dawkins points out in his selfish gene argument, from the standpoint of the gene, the gene is the phenotype and the organism is the genotype. This is not to say that we should go overboard and anoint the gene as supreme. “Genotype” and “phenotype” are concepts. From a complex system’s standpoint, they are two frozen snapshots (stages) in an ongoing autocatalytic cycle. Other stages between could be singled out and studied (e.g. ontogenesis), but we are not good at conceptualizing dynamic processes and prefer to look at relatively stable forms. We forget that these stable forms are a part of the autocatalytic process, which is ongoing. (more…)
Posted in Agency, Autocatalysis, Cooperation, Emergence, Evolution, Levels, Stability, tagged Agency, Autocatalysis, Cooperation, Emergence, Evolution, Levels, Stability on September 20, 2007| 4 Comments »
Stability can be thought of as a measure of agency. That is, the more stable a system is, the better we are able to recognize it as a distinct agent, a system that actively, structurally or by happenstance persists through time, space and/or other dimensions. Burton Voorhees defines a concept of virtual stability as a “state in which a system employs self-monitoring and adaptive control to maintain itself in a configuration that would otherwise be unstable.” He clarifies that virtual stability is not the same as stability or metastability and gives formal definitions of all three.* By making a distinction between stability, metastability and virtual stability, we can gain further clarity on agency itself and the emergence of new agents and new levels of organization. (more…)
Emergent Tweets | Brad on Equity Micro-Investing |
 | rafefurst on Equity Micro-Investing |
 | Alex Golubev on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
| Alex Golubev on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
 | kevindick on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
| Alex Golubev on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
 | George on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
| kevindick on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
| Brad on Equity Micro-Investing |
| Alex Golubev on Is Money an Emergent Phen… |
The Emergent Fool 
Best Reader Comment Award
Posted in Autocatalysis, Blog Comment, Economics, Incentives, Interconnectedness, Markets, Non-linearity, Stability, tagged Autocatalysis, Blog Comment, Economics, Incentives, Interconnectedness, Markets, Non-linearity, Stability on April 25, 2009| 1 Comment »
I’m giving my “2009 Q1 award for most concise, lucid comment” to Paul Phillips for this gem:
Read Full Post »