Complexity and the Human Experience

Complexity and the Human Experience PDF Author: Paul A. Youngman
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9814463264
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Questions of values, ontologies, ethics, aesthetics, discourse, origins, language, literature, and meaning do not lend themselves readily, or traditionally, to equations, probabilities, and models. However, with the increased adoption of natural science tools in economics, anthropology, and political science—to name only a few social scientific fields highlighted in this volume—quantitative methods in the humanities are becoming more common. The theory of complexity holds significant promise for better understanding social and human phenomena based on interactions among the participating "agents," whatever they may be: a thought, a person, a conversation, a sentence, or an email. Such systems can exhibit phase transitions, feedback loops, self-organization, and emergent properties. These dynamic systems lend themselves naturally to the kind of analysis made possible by models and simulations developed with complex science tools. This volume offers a tour of quantitative analyses, models, and simulations of humanities and social science phenomena that have been historically the purview of qualitative methods.

Complexity and the Human Experience

Complexity and the Human Experience PDF Author: Paul A. Youngman
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9814463264
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book

Book Description
Questions of values, ontologies, ethics, aesthetics, discourse, origins, language, literature, and meaning do not lend themselves readily, or traditionally, to equations, probabilities, and models. However, with the increased adoption of natural science tools in economics, anthropology, and political science—to name only a few social scientific fields highlighted in this volume—quantitative methods in the humanities are becoming more common. The theory of complexity holds significant promise for better understanding social and human phenomena based on interactions among the participating "agents," whatever they may be: a thought, a person, a conversation, a sentence, or an email. Such systems can exhibit phase transitions, feedback loops, self-organization, and emergent properties. These dynamic systems lend themselves naturally to the kind of analysis made possible by models and simulations developed with complex science tools. This volume offers a tour of quantitative analyses, models, and simulations of humanities and social science phenomena that have been historically the purview of qualitative methods.

Computation and Human Experience

Computation and Human Experience PDF Author: Philip Agre
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521386036
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
By paying close attention to the metaphors of artificial intelligence and their consequences for the field's patterns of success and failure, this text argues for a reorientation of the field away from thought and toward activity. It offers a critical reconstruction of AI research.

The Human Touch

The Human Touch PDF Author: Michael Frayn
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312426286
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work sets out to make sense of our place in the scheme of things. Surveying the spectrum of philosophical concerns from the existence of space and time to relativity and language, Frayn attempts to resolve what he calls "the oldest mystery": the world is what we make of it.

Complexity and the Experience of Managing in Public Sector Organizations

Complexity and the Experience of Managing in Public Sector Organizations PDF Author: Ralph Stacey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134210523
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
A fundamental problem of public sector governance relates to the very way of thinking it reflects; where organization is thought of as a ‘thing’, a system designed to deliver what its designers choose. This volume questions that way of thinking and takes a perspective in which organizations are complex responsive processes of relating between people. Bringing together the work of participants on the Doctor of Management program at Hertfordshire University, this book focuses on the move to marketization and managerialism, paying particular attention to human relationships and group dynamics. The contributors provide narrative accounts of their work addressing questions of management, pressures, accountability, responsiveness and traditional systems perspectives. In considering such questions in terms of their daily experience, they explore how the perspective of complex responsive processes assists them in making sense of experience and developing practice. Including an editors’ commentary which introduces and contextualizes these experiences as well as drawing out key themes for further research, this book will be of value to academics, students and practitioners looking for reflective accounts of real life experiences rather than further prescriptions of what organizational life ought to be.

On Complexity

On Complexity PDF Author: Edgar Morin
Publisher: Hampton Press (NJ)
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
"This volume contains some key essays by French thinker Edgar Morin on the subject of complexity, and specifically on what Morin calls complex thought."--Pub. desc.

Complexity and the Experience of Values, Conflict and Compromise in Organizations

Complexity and the Experience of Values, Conflict and Compromise in Organizations PDF Author: Ralph Stacey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134049102
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
What role do values play in organizational life? How do they shape the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational change? This volume examines what we actually mean when we use the term values and what it means to act according to values in ordinary everyday life. The contributors to this volume provide an exposition of the circular relationshi

Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations

Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations PDF Author: Douglas Griffin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415366922
Category : Leadership
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The experienced leaders, consultants and managers contributing to this book provide an alternative way of making sense of experience in a rapidly changing world, using reflective rather than idealized accounts of everyday life in organizations.

Psychology, the Study of Human Experience

Psychology, the Study of Human Experience PDF Author: Robert E. Ornstein
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 808

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Book Description


Complexity of the Self

Complexity of the Self PDF Author: V. F. Guidano
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 9780898620122
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In this profound work, Vittorio Guidano expands upon his earlier seminal contributions on the application of cognitive and developmental principles to individuals struggling with various forms of psychopathology. Here, he fully develops the idea that individuals' experience, both positive and negative, are powerfully influenced by their personal ``psychological organizations.'Focusing primarily on the eating disorders, the phobias (with agoraphobia as the prototype) obsessive-compulsive patterns, and depression, Guidano illustrates how early developmental experiences and ongoing psychological processes may collude to perpetuate dysfunctional patterns and personal distress. The central and perhaps most exciting thesis in this new expression of Guidano's thinking is that the ``deep structure' or ``core organizing processes`` that constrain human psychological experience may be at the heart of successful intervention as well as the classical problems of resistance, relapse, and refractory behaviors. Guidano's contention is at once simple and powerful: those psychological processes involved in the development and maintenance of personal identity, or ``self' that should be the primary foci of research and intervention in psychological disorders. The meaning of Guidano's perspective for clinical practice is perhaps best expressed in the author's own words: ``Knowing the basic elements of the personal cognitive organization that underlie the pattern of disturbed behavior and emotions, the therapist can behave, from the beginning, in such a way as to build a relationship as effective as possible for that particular client. In other words, the therapist should be able to establish a relationship that respects the client's personal identity and systemic coherence and that, at the same time, does not confirm the basic pathogenic assumptions. For example, in working with agoraphobics, the therapist has to respect their self-images centered on the need to be in control. He/she can do this by avoiding any direct attack on their controlling attitudes and by leaving them a wide margin of control in the relationship. At the same time the therapist should avoid confirming their assumptions about the somatic origin of their emotional disturbances or about their inborn fragility. In short, the therapist who can anticipate the models of self and reality tacitly entertained by the client is surely better able to help the development of a cooperative and secure therapeutic relationship than the therapist who cannot make such anticipations. This timely and provocative volume offers exciting new ideas about how to conceptualize and facilitate change in the ``self system.' With the rare combination of his Renaissance intellect and integrative practical expertise, Guidano has been able to draw together many disparate themes from object relations theory, ego psychology, attachment theory, constructivist models of human cognition, and lifespan developmental psychology. It is must reading for the practicing professional, the helping apprentice, and anyone interested in glimpsing the cutting edge at the growing interface between cognitive and clinical science.

Complexity Science and World Affairs

Complexity Science and World Affairs PDF Author: Walter C. Clemens Jr.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438449038
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Why did some countries transition peacefully from communist rule to political freedom and market economies, while others did not? Why did the United States enjoy a brief moment as the sole remaining superpower, and then lose power and influence across the board? What are the prospects for China, the main challenger to American hegemony? In Complexity Science and World Affairs, Walter C. Clemens Jr. demonstrates how the basic concepts of complexity science can broaden and deepen the insights gained by other approaches to the study of world affairs. He argues that societal fitness—the ability of a social system to cope with complex challenges and opportunities—hinges heavily on the values and way of life of each society, and serves to explain why some societies gain and others lose. Applying theory to several rich case studies, including political developments across post–Soviet Eurasia and the United States, Clemens shows that complexity science offers a powerful set of tools for advancing the study of international relations, comparative government, and, more broadly, the social sciences.