Second-order Science

Second-order Science PDF Author: Karl H. Müller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783901941474
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description

Second-order Science

Second-order Science PDF Author: Karl H. Müller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783901941474
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description


Emergence and Embodiment

Emergence and Embodiment PDF Author: Bruce Clarke
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391384
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Emerging in the 1940s, the first cybernetics—the study of communication and control systems—was mainstreamed under the names artificial intelligence and computer science and taken up by the social sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts. In Emergence and Embodiment, Bruce Clarke and Mark B. N. Hansen focus on cybernetic developments that stem from the second-order turn in the 1970s, when the cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster catalyzed new thinking about the cognitive implications of self-referential systems. The crucial shift he inspired was from first-order cybernetics’ attention to homeostasis as a mode of autonomous self-regulation in mechanical and informatic systems, to second-order concepts of self-organization and autopoiesis in embodied and metabiotic systems. The collection opens with an interview with von Foerster and then traces the lines of neocybernetic thought that have followed from his work. In response to the apparent dissolution of boundaries at work in the contemporary technosciences of emergence, neocybernetics observes that cognitive systems are operationally bounded, semi-autonomous entities coupled with their environments and other systems. Second-order systems theory stresses the recursive complexities of observation, mediation, and communication. Focused on the neocybernetic contributions of von Foerster, Francisco Varela, and Niklas Luhmann, this collection advances theoretical debates about the cultural, philosophical, and literary uses of their ideas. In addition to the interview with von Foerster, Emergence and Embodiment includes essays by Varela and Luhmann. It engages with Humberto Maturana’s and Varela’s creation of the concept of autopoiesis, Varela’s later work on neurophenomenology, and Luhmann’s adaptations of autopoiesis to social systems theory. Taken together, these essays illuminate the shared commitments uniting the broader discourse of neocybernetics. Contributors. Linda Brigham, Bruce Clarke, Mark B. N. Hansen, Edgar Landgraf, Ira Livingston, Niklas Luhmann, Hans-Georg Moeller, John Protevi, Michael Schiltz, Evan Thompson, Francisco J. Varela, Cary Wolfe

Second-order Consequences

Second-order Consequences PDF Author: Raymond Augustine Bauer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Knowledge Unbound

Knowledge Unbound PDF Author: Peter Suber
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262329565
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
Influential writings make the case for open access to research, explore its implications, and document the early struggles and successes of the open access movement. Peter Suber has been a leading advocate for open access since 2001 and has worked full time on issues of open access since 2003. As a professor of philosophy during the early days of the internet, he realized its power and potential as a medium for scholarship. As he writes now, “it was like an asteroid crash, fundamentally changing the environment, challenging dinosaurs to adapt, and challenging all of us to figure out whether we were dinosaurs.” When Suber began putting his writings and course materials online for anyone to use for any purpose, he soon experienced the benefits of that wider exposure. In 2001, he started a newsletter—the Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, which later became the SPARC Open Access Newsletter—in which he explored the implications of open access for research and scholarship. This book offers a selection of some of Suber's most significant and influential writings on open access from 2002 to 2010. In these texts, Suber makes the case for open access to research; answers common questions, objections, and misunderstandings; analyzes policy issues; and documents the growth and evolution of open access during its most critical early decade.

The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name

The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name PDF Author: Heinz von Foerster
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 082325562X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Heinz von Foerster was the inventor of second-order cybernetics, which recognizes the investigator as part of the system he is investigating. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name provides an accessible, nonmathematical, and comprehensive overview of von Foerster’s cybernetic ideas and of the philosophy latent within them. It distills concepts scattered across the lifework of this scientific polymath and influential interdisciplinarian. At the same time, as a book-length interview, it does justice to von Foerster’s élan as a speaker and improviser, his skill as a raconteur. Developed from a week-long conversation between the editors and von Foerster near the end of his life, this work playfully engages von Foerster in developing the difference his notion of second-order cybernetics makes for topics ranging from emergence, life, order, and thermodynamics to observation, recursion, cognition, perception, memory, and communication. The book gives an English-speaking audience a new ease of access to the rich thought and generous spirit of this remarkable and protean thinker.

Science, Order and Creativity

Science, Order and Creativity PDF Author: David Bohm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136922806
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
One of the foremost scientists and thinkers of our time, David Bohm worked alongside Oppenheimer and Einstein. In Science, Order and Creativity he and physicist F. David Peat propose a return to greater creativity and communication in the sciences. They ask for a renewed emphasis on ideas rather than formulae, on the whole rather than fragments, and on meaning rather than mere mechanics. Tracing the history of science from Aristotle to Einstein, from the Pythagorean theorem to quantum mechanics, the authors offer intriguing new insights into how scientific theories come into being, how to eliminate blocks to creativity and how science can lead to a deeper understanding of society, the human condition and the human mind itself. Science, Order and Creativity looks to the future of science with elegance, hope and enthusiasm.

Foundations without Foundationalism

Foundations without Foundationalism PDF Author: Stewart Shapiro
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191524018
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The central contention of this book is that second-order logic has a central role to play in laying the foundations of mathematics. In order to develop the argument fully, the author presents a detailed development of higher-order logic, including a comprehensive discussion of its semantics. Professor Shapiro demonstrates the prevalence of second-order notions in mathematics is practised, and also the extent to which mathematical concepts can be formulated in second-order languages . He shows how first-order languages are insufficient to codify many concepts in contemporary mathematics, and thus that higher-order logic is needed to fully reflect current mathematics. Throughout, the emphasis is on discussing the philosophical and historical issues associated with this subject, and the implications that they have for foundational studies. For the most part, the author assumes little more than a familiarity with logic as might be gained from a beginning graduate course which includes the incompleteness of arithmetic and the Lowenheim-Skolem theorems. All those concerned with the foundations of mathematics will find this a thought-provoking discussion of some of the central issues in this subject.

Comparative Metric Semantics of Programming Languages

Comparative Metric Semantics of Programming Languages PDF Author: Franck van Breugel
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780817639273
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
During the last three decades several different styles of semantics for program ming languages have been developed. This book compares two of them: the operational and the denotational approach. On the basis of several exam ples we show how to define operational and denotational semantic models for programming languages. Furthermore, we introduce a general technique for comparing various semantic models for a given language. We focus on different degrees of nondeterminism in programming lan guages. Nondeterminism arises naturally in concurrent languages. It is also an important concept in specification languages. In the examples discussed, the degree of non determinism ranges from a choice between two alternatives to a choice between a collection of alternatives indexed by a closed interval of the real numbers. The former arises in a language with nondeterministic choices. A real time language with dense choices gives rise to the latter. We also consider the nondeterministic random assignment and parallel composition, both couched in a simple language. Besides non determinism our four example languages contain some form of recursion, a key ingredient of programming languages.

Discursive Approaches to Politeness

Discursive Approaches to Politeness PDF Author: Linguistic Politeness Research Group
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110238667
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Mouton Series in Pragmatics (MSP) is a timely response to the growing demand for innovative and authoritative monographs and edited volumes from all angles of pragmatics. Recent theoretical work on the semantics/pragmatics interface, applications of evolutionary biology to the study of language, and empirical work within cognitive and developmental psychology and intercultural communication has directed attention to issues that warrant reexamination, as well as revision of some of the central tenets and claims of the field of pragmatics. The series welcomes proposals that reflect this endeavour and exploration within the discipline and neighboring fields such as language philosophy, communication, information science, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and cognitive science. MSP will provide a forum for authors who represent different subfields of pragmatics including the linguistic, cognitive, social, and intercultural paradigms, and have important and intriguing ideas and research findings to share with scholars who are interested in linguistics in general and pragmatics in particular.

Theory and Reality

Theory and Reality PDF Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022677113X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.