Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or two to teach people about collective decision-making. There’s an article in the Economist entitled “Decisions, decisions: What people can learn from how social…
I want to give an early plug for Rob Rupert’s forthcoming book Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind. Though I haven’t read the book, I have read pretty much everything else Rob has written. Rob is one of the most serious-minded and one of the most talented philosophers around. Rob doesn’t merely crank out “clever” stuff…
Jerry Fodor reviews Andy Clark’s Supersizing the Mind in the London Review of Books. Dave Chalmers responds on his blog.
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!).
I’d like to give a plug to a blog that’s just been started by some members of the Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economic Processes at the Department of Economics, New York University – ThinkMarkets. With names like Mario Rizzo, Bill Butos, Gene Callahan and Roger Koppl involved (this is no slight on the other contributors…
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…
manwithoutqualities 