Steve,
Oh, Wow!
You wrote:
My interest as a Visualization Scientist (Trained in Physics/Math, practiced in
CS/CE and focused mostly on the range of topics revolving around synthesized
perceptual spaces for exploration, discovery and analysis of (possibly complex)
phenomena) is in the formalization of Metaphor (Thus Analogy Making as
Perception and Category Theory models of Cognition.) I'm also convinced that
it has application to Agency (what really good, deep, Agents should have?)
We (Eric Charles Lee Rudlolph, and collaborators) are trying to resubmit
(favorable review first time around but not quite favorable enough) on the
mathematical characterization (via "configuration spaces") of emotional
behavior ("expression", if you must). The idea is to mathematically describe
visual displays that people respond to emotionally and then tweak the maths to
produce what we ethologists call "super normal stimuli"
Would you have any interest in this project? We had thought perhaps to run
some part of it through the Complex.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Smith
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 4/10/2010 8:35:24 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] invitation + introduction
John
Owen
Thanks for asking the question. In my answer, below, I describe the technical
terminology impressionistically. If you want more precision, the Wikipedia
articles are usually pretty good at giving precise definitions, along with some
sense of the underlying ideas.
Very good summary of Category Theory (CT)... very accessible and intuitive (for
anyone who already knows what groups, rings, etc. are ;)
Category theory has been mentioned several times, especially in the early days
of friam. Could you help us out and discuss how it could be applied here? CT
certainly looks fascinating but thus far I've failed to grasp it. I'd love a
concrete example (like how to address Rosen's world) of it's use, and possibly
a good introduction (book, article).
I'm left wondering how you might think it applies to Complex Adaptive Systems
(CAS)?
My colleagues, Dr. Tom Caudell (UNM) and Dr. Michael Healy (UW emeritus) are
working on a theory of Neural Architectures based on Category Theory
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1568850
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1704175.1704367
http://www.ece.unm.edu/~mjhealy/Healy-LOR-rev.pdf
that begins to encroach on the application of CT to CAS .
This fits with Leigh's announcement of Melanie's talk, or at least Melanie's
seminal work in "Analogy Making as Perception". My interest as a
Visualization Scientist (Trained in Physics/Math, practiced in CS/CE and
focused mostly on the range of topics revolving around synthesized perceptual
spaces for exploration, discovery and analysis of (possibly complex) phenomena)
is in the formalization of Metaphor (Thus Analogy Making as Perception and
Category Theory models of Cognition.) I'm also convinced that it has
application to Agency (what really good, deep, Agents should have?)
I've read through Jocelyn Paine's compilation of her own exposition in this
area:
http://www.j-paine.org/why_be_interested_in_categories.html
and find it motivating but beyond my limited capabilities.
However, Jocelyn's expose on how Excel Spreadsheets have motivated her to
investigate Category Theory and getting to that was worth the effort of reading
it through to the end!
I look forward to more unfolding on the application of Category Theory to CAS
here... if it has legs anyway.
- Steve============================================================
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