Several months ago I floated the idea of compiling a database for all things “stigmergical”. I’m pleased to say that Simon Garnier has come up with a much better conceived idea (and database platform) for all things SWARM (which includes stigmergy). This is a timely project since the literature has of late witnessed an exponential increase in…
Some seven months ago I highlighted the work of the Sabre Foundation. Once again I want to bring the work of this fine charity to your attention. Many charitable organizations attend to humanitarian needs associated with displacement and hunger. What is often lacking is the foresight to provide humanitarian aid for the mind: support for the…
Following up on my earlier posting on hearing of Peter’s death, here is a nice personalized obituary in today’s Guardian. Here is the Telegraph obituary.
I’ve recently become the Associate Reviews Editor of the Journal of Mind and Behavior (JMB). JMB is a well-regarded refereed journal, now in its 27th year, with an impressive subscription base. What I find congenial is that JMB appeals to a multidisciplinary audience, offering a healthy and ecumenical dialogue. Subject areas include: The psychology, philosophy,and sociology of experimentation and…
This from the latest issue of The New Yorker – I assume an allusion to the Hollywood writer’s strike.
A nice review of Maggie Boden’s Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science in American Scientist by Gil Harman.
I was shocked to learn of Peter Lipton’s death. Just this past June, Peter delivered a bravura performance at the EPISTEME Rutgers conference – inference to the best explanation – was unsurprisingly central to his talk. We were thrilled that Peter also agreed to join EPISTEME as an Associate Editor. Peter and I had a correspondence early…
On a rare few hours off, I took time out to visit the MIT Museum and MGH’s Ether Dome. The former is a super journey through the 20th Century’s exponential technological developments; the latter the home of anesthesiology. The photos: with Kismet/ether dome – the painting dramatising the first experiment in anesthesiology.
Cass Sunstein writes on the TPM Blog that Hayek’s ideas of distributed knowledge “bear directly on open source software, wikis, prediction markets, and perhaps much more”. Yes, indeed. The mechanism that captures this aggregating phenomenon is called STIGMERGY: the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Indeed, much of what goes on in the complex…
Some four months ago I commented on how swarm behavior is entering the public consciousness. Well there is an article in yesterday’s the science section of the New York Times that continues this trend. But if you want a really good recent article on swarm intelligence, I would refer you to the paper “The biological principles…
manwithoutqualities 