Feel free to distribute this announcement to anyone who might be interested.
You are hereby invited to an international, half-day workshop in our
interdisciplinary seminar series on <http://ecco.vub.ac.be>Evolution,
Complexity and Cognition (ECCO).
When?
Monday, October 13, 2008, 2-7 pm.
Where?
Room B 0.036 (building B, level 0, close to the human sciences
computer rooms), on the
<http://www.vub.ac.be/english/infoabout/campuses/index.html>VUB
Campus Etterbeek (Brussels, Belgium). Coffee and drinks are
available. Free entrance: everybody welcome!
Workshop: Future Evolution of Mind and Universe
Background
As an immediate follow-up on its conference
"<http://evodevouniverse.com/wiki/index.php/Conference_2008>Evolution
and Development of the Universe" (Paris, Oct. 8-9, 2008), the
<http://ecco.vub.ac.be>ECCO group organizes a half-day international
workshop in Brussels, on a related subject. The speakers, all
affiliated with ECCO, come from four continents to discuss the
implications for the future of humanity that follow from their
research on information, knowledge, and consciousness, and their
functions in society and the larger universe. The workshop intends to
discuss some of the core themes of the interdisciplinary domain of
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition", with a focus on future
developments.
Program
14.00 - 14.30: <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html>Francis Heylighen
(director ECCO, VUB):
An Introduction to the ECCO Theme, and its Implications for Future Development
14.30 - 16.00:
<http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/Data/Objects/n/nagarjun/viewObject>Nagarjuna
G. (Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, India):
Constructing a World out of Nodes and Links: Structure and Dynamics
of Knowledge
16.00 - 16.20: Coffee Pause
16.20 - 17.40: <http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/>John Stewart
(ECCO, Australia):
The Future Psychological Evolution of Humanity
17.40 - 19.00:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smart_(futurist)>John Smart
(Acceleration Studies Foundation, USA):
Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture
The longer presentations last about 40 minutes each, with a similar
amount of time devoted to questions and discussion during and after
the presentation.
More information about the talks and speakers:
Nagarjuna G.- Constructing a World out of Nodes and Links: Structure
and Dynamics of Knowledge
Abstract
At the <http://www.gnowledge.org/>gnowledge.org lab in Homi Bhabha
Centre, TIFR, Mumbai, we have been developing, based on several of
the available semantic network models, a distributed collaborative
knowledge base (<http://www.gnu.org/software/gnowsys/>GNOWSYS) where
all data is handled as nodes and links between them. All knowledge
assertions are handled as links between nodes, and the system can be
used to study dynamics of knowledge (change in knowledge, conceptual
change, growth of knowledge networks), etc. The talk will include a
brief demonstration of one of the web-based applications developed
using GNOWSYS called "dependency network of concepts". However, the
focus of the talk will be on the node/link-centered philosophy of
science, and how it can transform the ontological and epistemological
foundations of science. A set of hypotheses will be stated for
measuring and comparing degree of formal character of knowledge.
About the speaker
Dr.
<http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/Data/Objects/n/nagarjun/viewObject>Nagarjuna
G is a Reader at <http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/>Homi Bhabha Centre
for Science Education, Tata institute of Fundamental Research, based
in Mumbai, India. His major focus of research is structure and
dynamics of knowledge. A biologist and philosopher by training, he
uses and develops libre software for research and education using
knowledge representation techniques.
John Stewart: The Future Psychological Evolution of Humanity
Abstract
Evolution on Earth has a trajectory. The scale over which living
processes are organized cooperatively has increased progressively, as
has their evolvability. Evolution on Earth now appears to be on the
threshold of producing a cooperative organization that is coordinated
on the scale of the planet. Extrapolating further, the scale of
cooperative organization would continue to increase as a result of
the linking up of life that emerges in separate locations in the
universe. Recent theoretical advances raise the possibility that this
trajectory is itself part of a wider developmental process that could
lead to the reproduction of the universe itself. When life emerges
on a planet, it moves along this trajectory of its own accord.
However, at a particular point evolution will continue to advance
only if organisms emerge that decide to advance the evolutionary
process intentionally.
To complete this transition to intentional evolution, the organisms
must free themselves from the dictates of the goals and values
implanted in them during their biological and cultural past, enabling
them to find motivation and satisfaction in whatever needs to be done
to advance the evolutionary process. Critical questions to be
discussed are: has humanity got the potential to develop this new
psychological capacity? If so, how might the capacity be acquired?
What other potentials exist for enhancing human psychological
capacities? The presentation will draw on information processing
models of the functioning of consciousness and of the practices of
religious and contemplative traditions to address these questions.
About the speaker
<http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/>John Stewart is an
Australia-based member of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition
(ECCO) group. His main interest is in the development of an
evolutionary worldview that reveals to us who we are, and what we
should be doing with our lives. He has published several papers in
international journals that outline a theory of the directionality of
evolution and its implications for humanity. He is the author of the
book '<http://users.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/>Evolution's Arrow: the
direction of evolution and the future of humanity'. More recently he
has finalized '<http://www.evolutionarymanifesto.com>The Evolutionary
Manifesto', which outlines an evolutionary worldview and explores its
relevance to humanity.
John Smart: Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture
Abstract
The underlying paradigm for cosmology is theoretical physics. We
explore ways this framework might be extended with insights from
information and computation studies and evolutionary developmental
(evo-devo) biology, and what it implies for cosmic culture. We will
briefly model our universe as an information processing, evolutionary
and developmental system. Our framework will try to reconcile the
majority of unpredictable, evolutionary features of universal
emergence with a special subset of potentially statistically
predictable and developmental universal trends, including:
accelerating advances in universal complexity, a pattern seen over
the last half-but not the first half-of the universe's history
increasing spatial and temporal locality of universal complexity development
apparently hierarchical emergence of increasingly matter and energy
efficient and matter and energy dense 'substrates' (platforms) for
adaptation and computation
the apparent accelerating emergence, on Earth, of increasingly
postbiological (technological) systems of physical transformation and
computation.
About the speaker
John Smart is an evolutionary developmental systems theorist who
studies science and technological culture with an emphasis on
accelerating change, computational autonomy and theories of
intelligence. He directs the
<http://www.accelerating.org/>Acceleration Studies Foundation, a
non-profit research organization, is an affiliate of the ECCO
research group at VUB and a co-founder of the
<http://evodevouniverse.com/>Evo Devo Universe research community.
John has a BS in business from UC Berkeley, has done graduate work in
physiology and medicine at UC San Diego, and post-baccalaureate work
in biological, cognitive, computer and physical sciences at UCLA, UC
Berkeley, and UCSD. Most recently he finished an MS in Futures
Studies at the University of Houston in 2007.
--
Francis Heylighen
Evolution, Complexity and Cognition group
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
"... a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention" -
Herbert A. Simon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon>
