Hot on the heels of Andy Clark’s Supersizing the Mind comes yet another “extended mind” type book with a colorful title Out of Our Heads, the writer Alva Noë. Noë is one of the sharpest guys around – his last book Action in Perception has established itself as a recent classic. Great to see the…
Here’s an article that talks about using mechanical drones to efficiently monitor the vast area that is Australia’s bush fire zone. The article mentions Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and stigmergy – two notions that are of particular interest to my work. The article: Learning from birds to study fires on the fly
The Brain: How Google Is Making Us Smarter Humans are “natural-born cyborgs,” and the Internet is our giant “extended mind.” Science journalist Carl Zimmer writes about the extended mind thesis in the latest issue of Discover. Whatever one might think about the Clark-Chalmers argument, Zimmer offers a well-needed corrective to the recent rash of articles…
I want to bring your attention to the first issue of the on-line journal Studies in Emergent Order (papers are freely available). I was privileged to attend the recent conference associated with the Journal. A more eclectic and interesting group one couldn’t hope to find. To listen to and chat with Gus diZerega, David Emanuel…
The BBC are broadcasting a two-part programme on swarm behaviour. It’s worth checking it out for the terrific footage – not having had the sound on, I don’t know if anything conceptually interesting is discussed. I will revisit the programme with sound soon. Click here to view part 1.
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!).
In a post on the OUP blog Adrian Vermeule writes: The basic problem with “The Use of Knowledge in Society” is what we might call the Hayek Fallacy: a false comparison between the aggregate product of many minds and the product of a single mind. Perhaps that comparison is relevant in special contexts, such as…
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…
Once again a superb posting by Vitorino Ramos on his blog. Heretofore I’d not been aware of the existence of hobo signs or the gum election, both of which nicely illustrate the various conceptual lenses associated with distributed cognition/knowledge. I’ll definitely be invoking these ideas. Good stuff! I also notice another posting about Brian Arthur’s El Farol Bar…
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)…
manwithoutqualities 