Please distribute to others who may be interested... You are hereby invited to a seminar in our tenth interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108>(ECCO 2013-2014)
Time: Friday Oct 4, 14h-16h. Place: *to be announced*, we'll keep you up to date ------------------------------ The Pathway to the Global Brain: An evolutionary anthropological perspective on cybernetics Cadell Last <[email protected]> *(*University of Toronto www.cadelllast.com <http://%20www.cadelllast.com>*) * Evolutionary anthropology is a discipline concerned with applying evolutionary theory to explain the origin of human behaviour1<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote1sym>, genetics2 <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote2sym>, migration3<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote3sym>, technology4 <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote4sym>, and civilization5 <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote5sym>. However, to the detriment of our understanding, the discipline rarely engages in analyses related to human system development, and what our past evolution can tell us about the future. In this presentation, I want to apply the theory of challenge propagation6<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote6sym>in order to fundamentally explain how the human system develops and evolves, with a specific focus on past and future metasystem transitions. The human species has undergone three major transitions where a new level of order has emerged: hunting, agriculture, and industry7<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/215#sdfootnote7sym>. Throughout these transitions there are important shared causes, timing, and diffusion patterns, which can be explained via challenge propagation. Perhaps more importantly, metasystem transitions always lead to irreversible changes to our system challenges (problems/opportunities), and how these challenges manifest both individually and collectively within institutions. From a cybernetic analysis of our species evolution we can start to form an understanding of how our social, cultural, political, religious, economic, sexual, and medical lives will change during (and potentially after) the next human metasystem transition: the formation of a Global Brain. ------------------------------ Upcoming Seminars Oct 11 Francis Heylighen (ECCO) *Return to Eden? Promises and perils on the road to a global intelligent network* Dec. 2 (Wed.) Dirk Helbing (ETH Zürich): *A Planetary Nervous System, and What to Do with It* More info about the ECCO seminar program: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108 -- Evo Evo Busseniers - Seminar Coordinator ECCO Group (VUB) <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/1> Email: [email protected] Website: http://vub.academia.edu/EvoBusseniers<http://be.linkedin.com/in/weaver9/>
