Book Review: Reinventing the Sacred, by Stuart A. Kauffman.

Gershenson, C. (2009). Book Review: "Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion". Stuart A. Kauffman. Artificial Life 15(4):485-487

Excerpts: One of the main goals of this book is to demonstrate the inadequacy of reductionism in contemporary science. It does not negate its explanatory and predictive powers. It notes its limits, exploring several phenomena that are not predictable due to their complex nature. Thus, Kauffman argues, a shift in science is required if we want to understand these complex phenomena.

(...)

People might disagree with the answers that Kauffman puts forward. However, in my opinion the greatest contribution of this book, as with Platoʼs works, lies in the questions asked. It points out clearly which problems are currently relevant for science and society, even those that people are not aware of. Different tentative or partial solutions can be debated. However, the most difficult part is to start the discussion, and that is precisely what this book achieves.

(...)

I do not see the phenomena Kauffman discusses (evolution, economy, mind) as being “beyond science” just because they are not predictable. In a chaotic system, a future state might also be a “mystery.” However, its consideration is entirely scientific. Indeed, a change in the prevailing scientific assumptions must be made to explore these phenomena, but they can—and must—be studied within science. What we need to give up is the belief that phenomena are completely predictable.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Past, Present and Future of Cybernetics and Systems Research

Summary of "The Past, Present and Future of Cybernetics and Systems Research" Symposium M at  European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR), Vienna, Austria, April 12, 2012. Organizer: Carlos Gershenson This guided reflection on the challenges and opportunities of cybernetics and systems research (CSR) included initial interventions by panelists Peter Erdi, Helena Knyazeva, Stefan Thurner, Peter Csermely, and Alexander Lazlo. Afterwards, the floor was opened to interventions from the general public and further interventions by panelists. Commentaries were made from a broad variety of perspectives, but several general ideas can be distilled from the discussion. CSR have strongly influenced all scientific disciplines. As an example, the term "system" is used commonly in daily language. One of the breakthroughs of CSR lies in the search of commonalities across disciplines. Even when this was achieved to a certain degree, there is still a lack of
Read more

flocking memes...

Some ideas just came up, after a talk I had with Klaas , who is making a PhD on memetics... In cultural transmission of fads and so on, I've heard that there are models in which the majority imitates an elite, and the elite tries to go away from the crowd, and that gives you the dynamics... The idea is that maybe another way of looking at this phenomenon is to take the analogy of flocking: birds try to keep together (safety, direction, whatever reason), but also keep average distance to their neighbours (not to crash). If we take this mechanism into the memetic space, people will imitate many aspects surrounding them, just because of mirron neurons and the evolutionary advantage of imitation. But the separation is also important, for people assert their individuality with it... This could be seen as taking the inverse of a meme... starting to sounds like dialectics... (who would have thought that Hegel and starlings had lots in common...) Of course in the social context there are m
Read more

PhD thesis: "final" version online

After making several minor corrections, I have a "final" version of my thesis, which you can download here . I should defend it privately on April 20th, and if everything goes well, the public defense would be on May 2nd. Everybody's welcome! Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems PhD Dissertation presented by Carlos Gershenson Promoters: Prof. Dr. Bart D’Hooghe and Prof. Dr. Francis Heylighen Advisors: Prof. Dr. Bruce Edmonds Prof. Dr. Bernard Manderick Prof. Dr. Peter McBurney Prof. Dr. Ann Nowé Abstract Complex systems are usually difficult to design and control. There are several particular methods for coping with complexity, but there is no general approach to build complex systems. In this thesis I propose a methodology to aid engineers in the design and control of complex systems. This is based on the description of systems as self-organizing . Starting from the agent metaphor, the methodology proposes a conceptual framework and a se
Read more