*Please distribute to others who may be interested...* You are hereby invited to the next weekly seminar in our interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108>(ECCO).
*Time*:* Friday, June 10th* 14:00-16:00 p.m (note: this year, all seminars take place on Fridays, 14-16 pm, unless announced otherwise) *Place*: Room B 0.036 (building B, level 0, close to the human sciences computer rooms), on the VUB Campus Etterbeek (Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels), in collaboration with MOSI. Coffee available. Free entrance: everybody welcome! * * ------------------------------ *Challenges, Agents and Coordination:* *how an action ontology can help us tackle both practical and foundational problems* Francis Heylighen <http://pcp.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html> (ECCO, VUB) *Abstract:* The classical scientific worldview is founded on a materialist ontology: it reduces reality to the movement of particles in space and time. This static, reductionist view cannot explain emergent phenomena such as life, mind, society, purpose, meaning, consciousness, or cognition. Therefore, I propose a radically new ontology based on actions as constituents (Heylighen, 2011a0. An action is an elementary process, transforming a state A into a state B: A -> B. Examples are chemical or physical reactions, but also actions performed by organisms or individuals. While actions are formulated as transformation of states, states can be defined as collections of potential actions (Turchin, 1991). Therefore, the actions are truly fundamental. Starting from this simple notion of action, I will sketch how higher order physical concepts may be derived, including time, space, and causality. I will go into more detail about "mental" and "social" concepts by deriving the notions of agent (a stable catalyst of actions), challenge (a condition that elicits an action from an agent), and coordination (the synergetic combination of actions). This gives us a basis to tackle all major metaphysical questions about the nature of reality, intentionality and consciousness, epistemological questions about the nature of knowledge, and ethical questions about values, conflict and cooperation. Finally, these basic concepts suggest a number of methods and tools for tackling real-world problems. These methods include stigmergy, connectionist networks, and mobilization systems. The general idea is to promote the self-organization of coordinated action via the propagation of challenges. * * * * *More info:* Heylighen F. (2011) Self-organization of complex, intelligent systems: an action ontology for <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/ECCO-paradigm.pdf>transdisciplinary integration, Integral Review (in press) Heylighen F. (2011) Self-organization in Communicating Groups: the emergence of coordination, shared references and collective intelligence<http://pcp.vub.ac.be/Papers/Barcelona-LanguageSO.pdf>, in: Language and Complexity (Barcelona University Press) Heylighen F. (2009): Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews<http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Life-Adventure.pdf>(ECCO working paper 2009-11) Turchin, V. (1993). The Cybernetic Ontology of Action. Kybernetes 22, p. 10-30. ------------------------------ *Upcoming Seminars* *June 17 *David R. Weinbaum (Weaver) <http://be.linkedin.com/in/weaver9> (ECCO, VUB) Complexity and the philosophy of becoming * June 24 *Viktoras Veitas<http://vveitas.blogspot.com/2011/05/who-is-that-guy-viktoras-veitas-anyway.html>(Economic Research Centre, Vilnius) * *Public policy design: formulating a mess. * July 1* Mixel Kiemen (ECCO, VUB) TBA * * More info about the ECCO seminar program: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108
