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[1]Principia Cybernetica Web

PCP-news digest

The following is a digest of the content of the [2]Principia Cybernetica
Newsletter, distributed every two months through the PCP-news mailing list.
____________________________________________________________________________

News - Nov/Dec 2000

NEW ARTICLES

Ben Goertzel, an old acquaintaince of ours, has written an easy-to-read review of
PCP for the big German newspaper "Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung". His article,
entitled "The Principia Cybernetica Project: Placing the Web at the Center of
Man's Quest for Knowledge", can be found at: [externallink.GIF]
[3]http://www.goertzel.org/benzine/PrincipiaCybernetica.htm For the same
newspaper, Ben has also written profiles of PCP editors V. Turchin and F.
Heylighen: see [externallink.GIF] [4]http://www.goertzel.org/benzine/

Francis Heylighen has written an in-depth review of PCP for the journal
"Foundations of Science". It summarizes the motivation behind the project, its
basic philosophical assumptions, and the practical methods and experiences behind
the project's organization. This "Foundations and Methodology for an Evolutionary
World View" is available at
5]/Papers/PCPworldview-FOS.pdf">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[5]/Papers/PCPworldview-FOS.pdf

Another new paper by Heylighen, provides a quick review and introduction of web
learning and spreading activation, the methods we developed to create a "global
brain", coupled with a review of psycholinguistic research on associations
between words: "Mining Associative Meanings from the Web: from word
disambiguation to the global brain". It is available at:
6]/Papers/MiningMeaning.pdf">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[6]/Papers/MiningMeaning.pdf

GROWTH OF PCP-WEB

The number of hits on the main PCP server, http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/, hovers
around 28 000 per day, which is a significant improvement since about a year ago.
Yet, the number of hits on our Los Alamos mirror server, [externallink.GIF]
[7]http://pcp.lanl.gov is still only a fraction of that, showing that most people
reach PCP-web via links pointing to the original server in Europe.

It is good that the links point all to the same, main address, because this makes
our site more prominent for search engines, but we want to remind our readers
that in many cases (especially for users in Latin America), they may get faster
access through the mirror server in the US. To switch between servers, it
suffices to click on the "Server: EU" or "US" option in the menu bar of the main
PCP web pages.

It is interesting to compare the present hit rate with earlier ones, to study
historical development. In 1994, one year after the creation of PCP-web, we got a
mere 400 hits a day. In the beginning of 1998, we had nearly 8000/day. This means
that the number of hits roughly doubles every year. That is a faster rate than
the growth of the web, and it is interesting to look further into that trend and
try to understand it.

Since the services we offer haven't grown that much during the period (and have
actually declined relative to the overkill of special effects on other,
commercial sites), it must be that our material has become more attractive to the
average surfer. From the increasing number of reactions we receive about PCP web,
we get the impression that what we are doing is more and more generally accepted
as an excellent, needed service, rather than an interesting and somewhat
eccentric idea.

This may be due in part to the growing acceptance of "evolutionary" and
"Darwinian" approaches in various domains, and the continuing growth of complex
systems related ideas. In that general domain, we are still the only ones that
offer an integrated, philosophical outlook, but because of the better acceptance
of evolutionary-systemic thinking, our philosophy seems less outrageous to the
majority of people now. It appears our time has come!

Just to stress the point, it is worth quoting one or two of the reactions we got
recently. A reader from Indonesia, who would like to translate some of our
documents to Indonesian, notes:

"For months I've learned and inspired by your sites. It seem I was turn to a
second live.æI've found what I need in my live, at last. [...] We need a new
way of thinking, a new paradigm, but what is it? This is my question, before I
found your site. Constructivism, autopoiesis theory, cybernetics, give answers
to most of my questions. In the light of what you present in your web, I see
how we can talk and discuss peacefully, how education can make an important
contribution, etc. I can see everything in a very different way. A wat thay
promote spontaneity, cooperation, tolerance, love, justice, equality and many
others. [...]"

Another reader simply exclaims:

"No problems, just wanted to say THANK YOU! I am a student in Systems Science,
and this web site is incredible!"

JOURNAL OF MEMETICS

The journal ( [externallink.GIF] [8]http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/), which is
associated with PCP, is going through some reorganization, as the present
managing editor (Hans-Cees Speel) is about to retire. To replace him, two new
editors have joined the board, Michael Best, a computer scientist from the MIT
Media Lab, and Martin de Jong, a policy analyst from Delft University of
Technology. It was proposed that during an interim period of six months, Michael
and Martin would assist Hans-Cees in managing the paper reviews, in order to take
over completely later on.

Two other members of the editorial board, Liane Gabora and Susan Blackmore, have
asked to retire as they are too busy with other activities, but they will
normally remain as members of the advisory board. Several people have been
nominated to join the editorial board, and a general reorganization of the
board's activities are planned, but these proposals must still be discussed in
depth before they can be implemented.

GLOBAL BRAIN

The Global Brain mailing list (9]/GBRAIN-L.html)">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[9]/GBRAIN-L.html) is
becoming more active lately. Out of this activity, at least one concrete plan has
emerged: to organize a conference on the Global Brain. At present, an organizing
committee is being constituted. It will include PCP editors Francis Heylighen and
Cliff Joslyn, and Global Brain Group members Ben Goertzel (overall chair) and
Gottfried Mayer-Kress. The likely venue will be San Francisco, near Silicon
Valley, and the proposed date would be the end of 2001. A Call for Papers and
preliminary program are being prepared. They will be distributed via this and
other mailing lists.
____________________________________________________________________________

News - Jan/Feb 2001

NEW ARTICLES

Joslyn, Cliff (2001): "The Semiotics of Control and Modeling Relations in Complex
Systems", Prepared for a special issue of Biosystems, a festschrift for Howard
Pattee.

[10]ftp://wwwc3.lanl.gov/pub/users/joslyn/biosystems.pdf

Howard Pattee's concept of semantic or semiotic closure has been foundational for
a school of theoretical biology derived from systems theory and cybernetics. This
paper proposes a conceptual analysis of some of the ideas and principles from
systems theory which underlie semiotic closure, and which are fundamental to the
philosophy of Principia Cybernetica. In particular, atomic control systems and
models are described as the canonical forms of semiotic systems in relation to
their environments. While they share measurement relations, they differ
topologically in that control systems are circularly and models linearly related
related to their environments.

Heylighen F. & Joslyn C. (2001): "Cybernetics and Second Order Cybernetics", in:
R.A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology (3rd ed.),
(Academic Press, New York). [in press]

[externallink.GIF] [11]http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/Papers/Cybernetics-EPST.pdf

Although it is obviously very difficult to summarize all the main ideas of
cybernetics in a single paper without remaining very superficial, we believe we
have managed to do a quite decent job of it, especially since several colleagues
told us they would recommend it to their students. The paper provides an
introduction to and overview of the main concepts (e.g. variety, feedback,
closure, control, constructivism, ...) and principles (e.g. law of requisite
variety, requisite hierarchy, self-organization, ...) of cybernetics. Where
possible, the ideas have been made explicit using simple formulas and diagrams.

ANOTHER ACCOLADE FOR PCP WEB

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), a long standing organization
publishing such prestigious volumes as the Science Citation Index and Current
Contents, has selected PCP web for inclusion in its new Current Web Contents:

"You are publishing important, high-quality material on the Web. For this
reason, ISI has selected your site 12]/DEFAULT.html">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[12]/DEFAULT.html
for inclusion in Current Web Contents ( [externallink.GIF]
[13]http://www.isinet.com/isi/products/cc/cwc/webselect.html), a new section
of Current Contents Connect TM.

CC Connect ( [externallink.GIF]
[14]http://www.isinet.com/isi/products/cc/ccconnect/cccind.html) offers Web
access to Current Contents, the ISI premier current awareness database that
provides information in the fields of science, social science, technology, and
the arts & humanities. For more than 40 years, ISI has delivered this
multidisciplinary table-of-contents database to researchers, scientists and
information professionals around the world. Since its inception, this
journal-based resource has reflected the strict guidelines for selection
developed by the ISI Editorial Development Staff. The result is the most
prestigious database available internationally.

High standards of selection -- and data quality -- have made ISI a leader in
the information industry. ISI has now applied similarly high selection
standards ( [externallink.GIF]
[15]http://www.isinet.com/isi/hot/essays/23.html), specialized to the medium,
in the creation of Current Web Contents, an ever-growing collection of
high-quality, scholarly Web sites. ISI editors have visited your site,
reviewed it, developed a standardized descriptive record, written an abstract
and created a link from CC Connect to your site".

IN MEMORIAM

Two of the most important thinkers in the cybernetics and systems field have
passed away during the last month: Herbert A. Simon (on Feb. 9) and Claude E.
Shannon (on Feb. 24).

Nobel laureate Herbert Simon was a truly universal mind, with contributions
ranging from economics, psychology, management, evolutionary theory, and
philosophy to artificial intelligence, a domain he helped to found. His focus was
on the problem solving techniques that adaptive systems (people, organizations,
computers, ...) use to cope with complexity. His book "The Sciences of the
Artificial" provides a good introduction to his ideas. It includes his classic
essay on "The Architecture of Complexity", where he proposed an evolutionary
explanation for hierarchical organization, thus formulating one of the basic
principles that came to underly our PCP philosophy.

Claude Shannon is the creator of the mathematical theory of information (or
communication), and one of the founding members of the cybernetics group at MIT
in the 1940's. A classic paper of his, "A mathematical theory of communication"
(1948) had just been added the month before to our Principia Cybernetica Library.
It is available at: 16]/books/Shannon-TheoryComm.pdf">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[16]/books/Shannon-TheoryComm.pdf

More info: [externallink.GIF]
[17]http://news.altavista.com/scripts/editorial.dll?ei=2402814&ern=y (Shannon
obituary)

[externallink.GIF] [18]http://www.cmu.edu/home/news/herb_simon.html (Simon
obituary)

GLOBAL BRAIN

The plans to organize a conference on the Global Brain are starting to get a more
concrete shape. An organizing committee has been formed, together with some
mailing lists for the members. At present, the plan is to hold a small-scale
preparatory workshop this summer (probably hosted by the PCP office at the Free
University of Brussel), and a large conference next year (probably at San Jose
State University) in Silicon Valley. Several prominent people are being invited
to participate, including Bill Gates and computer pioneer Douglas Engelbart. A
conference website and MUD are also being prepared.
____________________________________________________________________________

News - Mar/April 2001

There is little news in this issue of the Principia Cybernetica Newsletter, as we
all have been very busy, preparing a workshop and the PhD defense of PCP
assistant editor Johan Bollen among other things.

GLOBAL BRAIN

The Global Brain workshop in Brussels (July 3-5) is shaping up nicely, with some
20 scheduled talks by members of the Global Brain Group, invited speakers, and
contributors whose abstract was selected by the organizing committee. There are
still a few places available for last minute contributions, provided they are
submitted shortly and are precisely on target. It may also be possible to attend
without presenting a talk, provided you have a special interest in the matter.
For all details about the program, available abstracts of talks and submissions,
see .19]/Conf/GB-0.html">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[19]/Conf/GB-0.html

JOURNAL OF MEMETICS

The new Volume 5, Issue 1 - 2001, is available, with the following content:

Articles

Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious
Canons by John Gottsch (211Kb)

Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics by Paul Marsden (47Kb)

Towards a Cognitive Memetics: Socio-Cognitive Mechanisms for Memes Selection and
Spreading by Cristiano Castelfranchi (74Kb)

Reviews

The Human Agency Of Meme Machines - An extended review of The Meme Machine by
Gary Boyd (26Kb)

Available at: [externallink.GIF]
[20]http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/2001/vol5/index.html#issue1
____________________________________________________________________________

News - May/Aug 2001

As we were all very busy with the activities sketched below, the last issue of
the Newsletter (to appear beginning of July) was skipped. Therefore the present
issue will cover the full past 4 months.

GLOBAL BRAIN WORKSHOP

The Global Brain workshop (21]/Conf/GB-0.html)">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[21]/Conf/GB-0.html) in
Brussels (July 3-5), the first ever international meeting, on this topic was
quite succesful. Some 20 talks were given by members of the Global Brain Group,
invited speakers, and contributors whose abstract was selected by the organizing
committee. Each of the three days was concluded by an extensive discussion
session.

Moreover, we had some remote participants, interacting virtually from the US.
Luis Rocha, a PCP associate, followed the first two days via videos of the
presentations that had been made available on a private website, and then
presented his talk via webcast, commenting on some of the ideas presented
previously. Kirstie Bellman and Chris Landauer gave a short demonstration of the
interactive possibilities of MUDs (text-based virtual environments). Some photos
and videotaped comments from participants are available at [externallink.GIF]
[22]http://www.comdig.de/Conf/GB0/

The topics and approaches discussed were wide-ranging, from the emotional values
that should govern the Global Brain (GB), to the use of collective intelligence
for forecasting of stock prices, and the possibilities of direct brain-machine
interfaces. (The page 23]/Conf/GB-0-abs.html">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[23]/Conf/GB-0-abs.html lists the
abstracts of all talks that were presented, and full papers or slide
presentations for most of them.) This experience shows that there is still quite
some work to do to focus GB-related thinking, and integrate the various
approaches. On the other hand, the workshop succeeded in creating a real
enthusiasm for further discussion and collaboration, showing that there really is
a GB community emerging.

As a result of the workshop, a new mailing list was created for participants to
discuss issues, together with an experimental web-based discussion system
(developed by PCP assistant editor Alex Riegler). Our plans are to further
develop an extensive GB-website, with all papers and other results presented at
the workshop, together with some interactive demonstration systems for discussion
and self-organization of ideas.

The complete workshop was registered on video by volunteers: Margeret Heath,
Sascha Ignjatovic and Gottfried Mayer (who also presented a paper). These video
recordings are now being edited, and will be made public on the web and on
CD-ROM. Margeret Heath is also preparing a transcript of all discussions, on the
basis of which she will be developing a knowledge map of the main concepts and
issues. Other volunteers were responsible for the computing infrastructure:
Corinne Ciechanow and Didier Durlinger, and for the practical issues of food:
Michael Pleumeekers.

Although a few things still didn't work out quite as planned (the drinks for the
reception that didn't arrive, and a lecture room and restaurant that were adapted
to the reigning heat wave), it can be safely said that without all this volunteer
effort, the workshop would have been a much less pleasant experience: so, a big
thank you to all of them.

PHD DEFENSE

After a number of delays and extensive discussions of various technical points,
the PhD thesis of assistant editor Johan Bollen was finally submitted to the
examination committee of the Faculty of Psychology of the Free University of
Brussels in June. The title of the thesis is "A cognitive model of adaptive web
design and navigation". It proposes and tests a theory of how people navigate the
web, together with a number of algorithms, inspired by neural mechanisms, that
would allow the web to adapt to its users, thus helping them to find the
information they are looking for in a more intelligent and intuitive way. The
full text is available at [externallink.GIF]
[24]http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~jbollen/diss_index.html

The private defense took place on July 6, the first day after the workshop. The
PhD committee, which included PCP editors Francis Heylighen and Cliff Joslyn, was
unanimous in its appreciation for Johan's achievements, and impressed by his
mastery of the subject. The official, public defense (which is basically a
formality) is planned for Oct. 23. There is no doubt that Johan will receive his
doctor's degree, thus making him the first person to develop a PhD study from the
beginning till the end within the Principia Cybernetica framework.

Although independent from PCP, it is worth noting that Liane Gabora, a researcher
at the Center Leo Apostel which houses the Brussels office of PCP, also
successfully defended her PhD thesis, on June 27. Reflecting the very wide range
of the work, the jury, including Francis Heylighen, included specialists in
disciplines as diverse as psychology, philosophy, archeology, biology, quantum
mechanics, and AI. The thesis is entitled "Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the
Origin and Evolution of Culture", and it explores a generalized evolutionary
theory that may explain the evolution of culture and especially the emergence of
the capacity of the human mind to freely develop new ideas through association.
For more info on this work, see [externallink.GIF]
[25]http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/liane/

A COURSE ON EVOLUTIONARY CYBERNETICS

For the first time students have been able to follow a course wholly devoted to
the basic concepts of PCP. The 30 hour course, entitled "Evolution and
Complexity", was given by Francis Heylighen to philosophy undergraduates at the
Free University of Brussels in Spring. The course ended in May with an oral
examination on which all students succeeded. From next year on, the course will
be opened up to students from other disciplines who are interested in the
subject.

The course started with a historical introduction to the domains of evolutionary
theory, self-organization, systems theory, cybernetics and complex adaptive
systems. It then laid the foundations for an evolutionary-cybernetic world-view,
by introducing the interrelated concepts of distinction, connection, state space,
variety, constraint, entropy and information, pointing out their relations with
the more intuitively defined concepts of order, disorder and complexity, and
illustrating their meaning with plenty of concrete examples.

To tackle the problem of evolution, variation and selection were introduced.
Their consequences were formulated as a set of basic principles, including the
second law of thermodynamics, asymmetric transitions and the stepping stone
principle. The concept of fitness was defined as the most basic selection
criterion. This background made it possible to tackle the evolution of
complexity, first discussing supersystem transitions leading to more structural
complexity, then metasystem transitions producing higher functional complexity.
The course concluded by applying this evolutionary-cybernetic framework to some
eternal philosophical questions (see
26]ETERQUES.html)".>http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/[26]ETERQUES.html).

Since this was the first time ever that this material was presented to
undergraduate students and organized into a self-contained whole, the course can
be seen as an experiment to test in how far these complex and abstract ideas can
be summarized and communicated to a lay public. The experiment has mostly
succeeded, as shown by the interest and enthusiasm of the students, and the fact
that they succeeded rather well in the examination. Yet, the observation that the
students had difficulties keeping an overview of the whole and that they did not
grasp some of the more abstract, technical points (one problem being that
philosophy students lack a good mathematical background, which made it difficult
for them to grasp even the most basic formula of entropy) suggests some
improvements for the future.

One planned improvement is to rework the rather improvised notes that the
students received at the beginning of each lecture into a coherent, textbook-like
whole, available at the beginning of the course. This would clearly separate the
more technical examples or applications (that require basic mathematics) from the
more general conceptual elaborations, so that students who lack the mathematical
background can skip these parts. The subsections would also be written as much as
possible in a self-contained way, so that they can be easily converted to "nodes"
for PCP web.

These lecture notes can then form the basis for a real textbook on evolutionary
cybernetics, which may provide the first true successor to Ashby's 1956
"Introduction to Cybernetics" (downloadable for free at
27]ASHBBOOK.html)".>http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/[27]ASHBBOOK.html). The ambition to write such a
textbook was in part fueled by the success encountered by our article on
"Cybernetics and Second-Order Cybernetics"
(28]/Papers/Cybernetics-EPST.pdf),">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[28]/Papers/Cybernetics-EPST.pdf), which several
colleagues, both cybernetics experts and non-specialists, have welcomed as the
best review they have read.

IN MEMORIAM FRANCISCO VARELA

Yet another important contributor to cybernetics passed away in the last few
months. Francisco Varela, co-originator of the theory of autopoiesis, died on May
28 from cancer. Varela was a deep and original thinker, who starting from a
background in neurophysiology, made contributions to the study of autonomous
systems, self-reference, cognition, artificial life, man-machine interaction,
consciousness and the working of the brain. For more details on his life and
work, check the following obituaries:

[externallink.GIF]
[29]http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v7/psyche-7-12-thompson.html
[externallink.GIF] [30]http://www.enolagaia.com/Varela.html
____________________________________________________________________________

News - Sep/Oct 2001

PARTIAL BOARD MEETING

In October, part of the Principia Cybernetica Editorial Board (Johan Bollen,
Cliff Joslyn and Francis Heylighen) met. The occasion for getting together was
Johan's public PhD defense at the Free University of Brussels on Oct. 22 (see
previous Newsletter), which was very succesful as expected. During the next few
days, we had a little (too little!) time to discuss PCP matters, such as the
concepts underlying Evolutionary Cybernetics. Afterwards, the three of us went to
Barcelona, to participate as invited speakers in a one-day workshop on "The
Intelligent Web": [externallink.GIF]
[31]http://jornada.enredando.com/ENG/index.html

Because of the events of September 11, the workshop organizers had quite some
problems to get the speakers from the USA to travel to Barcelona. Tim
Berners-Lee, the creator of the world-wide web, unfortunately had to cancel his
participation, while his "semantic web" collaborator, Jim Hendler, had to resort
to a virtual presentation, via a high-quality, interactive video link. It
initially seemed that Cliff and Johan too would not be able to travel from Los
Alamos, but the problem was fortunately resolved shortly before the planned
journey. In the end, the workshop went smoothly, and turned out to be a very
interesting and pleasant (if tiring) experience.

VARIOUS NEWS

Articles about our "Global Brain" work have been published in two authoritative
European newspapers, the German "Die Zeit" ( [externallink.GIF]
[32]http://www.zeit.de/2001/40/Media/200140_global_brain.html) and the French "Le
Monde" ( [externallink.GIF]
[33]http://interactif.lemonde.fr/article/0,5611,2857--229514-0,FF.html).

Mikhail Burtsev has written a report on Evolutionary Cybernetics that was mostly
inspired by PCP. It is available at [externallink.GIF]
[34]http://www.keldysh.ru/mrbur-web/philosophy/ecp.htm

Claus Pias is working on a new edition of the famous "Macy Conferences", which
founded the field of cybernetics. Volume 2 will contain the complete text of the
five last conferences previously edited by Heinz von Foerster (1949-1953). Volume
1 will contain a selection of documents related to the first five (unpublished)
conferences, and several essays about the influence of cybernetics on various
domains. The essays will be published first in German, but possibly also in
English translation.

We have established contact with Robert Wright, the author of "Non-Zero. The
Logic of Human Destiny" (Pantheon Books, 2000) ( [externallink.GIF]
[35]http://www.nonzero.org/). This is a very well-written, non-technical book
that develops a similar philosophy as PCP of evolutionary progress towards
greater complexity, intelligence and eventually global integration of humankind.
Wright retells human history (and a little bit of biological history),
emphasizing the evolution of higher-order forms of cooperation and synergy
allowed by non-zero sum games.
____________________________________________________________________________

News - Nov/Dec 2001

PCP PEOPLE

After his succesful PhD defense in Brussels, PCP assistant editor Johan Bollen
has accepted a faculty position at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
He has recently moved from Los Alamos National Laboratory to ODU, where he will
teach computer science and continue his research on human-machine interaction as
applied to an intelligent web.

Michael Pleumeekers, an undergraduate student who helped us to organize the
Global Brain Workshop in Brussels last summer, has started to work on a Master's
thesis in philosophy under the guidance of PCP editor Francis Heylighen. The
subject is evolutionary and constructivist epistemology,

Nick Deschacht, a graduate student in economics who made an excellent Master's
thesis on the long-term evolutionary mechanisms underlying the information
economy, will start to work on a PhD on the same subject, with Francis Heylighen
as supervisor. He is presently writing a proposal to receive funding for this
research.

Assistant editor Alex Riegler is similarly writing a research proposal to get a
renewal of his 3 year PostDoc position. The subject is "Knowledge Acquisition and
Representation in Closed-Loop Scientific Discovery Systems".

VARIOUS NEWS

Some members of the "Association Franaise de Systmique Cognitive et Technique" (
[externallink.GIF] [36]http:// www.afscet.asso.fr , the French society for
cognitive and technical systems science) are planning to translate our
cybernetics and systems glossary into French, and to use that as a basis to
develop an interactive semantic web on the subject.

David Hales, a social system simulator, and Paul Marsden, a psychologist working
on contagion, have joint the "Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of
Information Transmission" ( [externallink.GIF]
[37]http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit) as managing editors, to replace Michael
Best.

Nanomagazine has published an interview on the web with PCP editor Francis
Heylighen, about the Global Brain and the future of the Internet:
[externallink.GIF] [38]http://www.nanomagazine.com/nanomagazine/01-11-07

Pierre Levy has joined the Global Brain Group. Pierre is a French philosopher
working in Canada on collective intelligence, the internet, globalization and
network representations of knowledge, from a perspective inspired by cybernetics
and complex systems. He has written several books and papers on the matter (in
French, but one of which, "Collective Intelligence" has been translated to
English and can be found in Amazon). He maintains an excellent collection of
links on this subject at: [externallink.GIF]
[39]http://www.mikro.org/Events/OS/wos2/Levy-pp/liensIC.html

Alex Riegler has created a flexible database of publications for the Center "Leo
Apostel", the Brussels office of PCP. This means that you can now easily search
and download all publications (some 100) of Francis Heylighen and Alex Riegler,
some of which were co-authored by other PCP editors, Bollen, Turchin and Joslyn:
[externallink.GIF] [40]http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/pub/index.shtml
____________________________________________________________________________

News - Jan/Feb 2002

VARIOUS NEWS

Not a lot of news this time, as we have all been quite busy with various
activities outside PCP proper. Johan Bollen has started to work in his new
position at Old Dominon University, where he has two PhD students who will help
him to analyse the log of our PCP web server, so as to apply and test some of our
new algorithms for learning links and spreading activation.

Francis Heylighen has finished writing his lecture notes for his course on
"Complexity and Evolution", which provides a simple and coherent introduction to
the concepts and principles underlying the PCP approach. The lecture notes are
available for free on the web, albeit only in Dutch (as the course is given in
Dutch). The text counts some 140 pages, with table of contents, index,
bibliography, execercises and illustrations. It has already received several very
positive reactions. It will form the basis for a forthcoming textbook (in
English) on evolutionary cybernetics. The course itself has started in February,
with 11 students who generally seem very interested and motivated, and whose
questions and comments will help us further clarify the subject. For more info on
the course (in Dutch): 41]/CLEA/CompEvCursus.html">http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be[41]/CLEA/CompEvCursus.html

Nick Deschacht has submitted a research project on the evolutionary dynamics of
the information economy, under the supervision of Francis Heylighen. His
excellent Master's thesis on that subject (in Dutch) is going to receive a price
from the university, and he has started to prepare a paper (in English) on the
same subject.