Here is an imaginative way of surveying the stigmergic activity of an ant colony. (I’m sorry that these creatures were sacrificed in the interest of science but they still “rule the world” and we have much to learn from them – respect!).
Stephen Smoliar has a post today that refers to Hayek’s The Sensory Order. I’m particularly pleased to hear that Smoliar’s sometime-colleague Brian Arthur holds Hayek in high regard. Coming from Arthur, that is high praise indeed. Smoliar also writes: Edelman himself does not appear to have acknowledged Hayek’s work, but this is entirely understandable. I’m pleased to…
If you’ve ever heard the term “extended mind” and thought it denoted some sort of hocus pocus, then this recording will set you straight. Zoe Drayson of Bristol University has recorded a superb overview of the notion and the ethical implications arising from it. Zoe’s motivation for coming to this multidisciplinary literature had resonance for…
This past weekend I had the good fortune to be able to attend the Second Conference on Emergent Order and Society held in Portsmouth, NH. The term “conference” doesn’t really characterise the format – it is more akin to a colloquium where the emphasis is on genuine discussion and conversation in an intimate group (18 in all)…
A very basic overview of embodied cognition in Science News. Why do so many researchers insist on cutifying or the Spielbergerization of robots?
Alvin Goldman, the doyen of analytic social epistemology, has a draft paper posted on his website entitled “The Social Epistemology of Blogging.” What’s gratifying to me is that via Richard Posner (whom Goldman cites), Hayek, who I have argued is the social epistemologist par excellence, makes an appearance. I have recently argued that if Hayek was centrally…
Another journal plug – this time for a special issue of Swarm Intelligence on Swarm Robotics. Check out the announcement on Simon Garnier’s blog.
I’m pleased to discover that there’s a discussion going on at the blog The Austrian Economists relating to a posting by Steve Horwitz. Other luminaries such as Roger Koppl have chimed in. For the past year I’ve been working on a paper on the contemporary relevance of The Sensory Order – hence my keen interest.
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t. …
I don’t normally plug conferences but this one is unsual in that it falls squarely within my current research interests. Check out the conference webpage here.
manwithoutqualities 