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Is Behavioral Economics Doomed?

Here is a skeptical take on the insights supposedly offered by the rise of behavioral economics as represented by Daniel Kahneman and others. Since I’m in the process of reviewing Kahneman it will be interesting to see if Levine’s take on behavioral economics jibes with my take on Kahneman in particular and behavioral economics in…

THE WEB-EXTENDED MIND

Well, this article was inevitable – first mentioned here). Francis Heylighen has been talking about this for a few years now as has myself in discussing Hayek, distributed cognition and co-evolved mind and sociality not to mention my ongoing interest in stigmergy which I argue is a species of EM. Abstract: This article explores the notion of…

Hayek and Behavioral Economics: Mindscapes and Landscapes: Hayek and Simon on Cognitive Extension

I see that the publisher now has a fully detailed page up for a volume that I’ve been privileged to be a part of. The Foreword is by a very nice chappie going by the name of V.Smith and includes luminaries such as McCloskey, Boettke, Gintis, Steel and others. My abstract: Mindscapes and Landscapes: Hayek and Simon on Cognitive Extension Hayek’s…

Agent-Based Computational Sociology

Check out this new book I’ve just come across – Wiley’s lists, across disciplines, is certainly looking very strong these days. Also check out two colleagues’ excellent Wiley offerings – Ted Lewis’ Network Science and of course Ken Aizawa’s and Fred Adams’ The Bounds of Cognition. Agent-based modelCognitionCognitive sciencecomplexityComputational SociologyExtended MindFred AdamsKen AizawaNetwork ScienceSimulationsocial epistemologySocial…

Rationalism in Politics

In anticipation of a talk I’m giving later on in the week on Oakeshott’s so-called “dispositional conservatism”, here is a nice little piece by my chum Gene Callahan serving as a good introduction to RIP. The British philosopher and historian Michael Oakeshott is a curious figure in twentieth-century intellectual history. He is known mostly as…

Collective Intelligence 2012

Just under a week until the CI2012 shindig – as it so happens I’m busy co-writing a paper and co-editing a themed issue of Cognitive Systems Research on a species of CI – surprise, surprise “stigmergy.” Artificial intelligenceAustrian SchoolCognitionCollective intelligencecomplexityExtended MindIntelligenceKnowledgeKnowledge ManagementPhilosophy of mindsocial epistemologySocial SciencesSpontaneous orderStigmergyWikipedia

Cosmos and Taxis

I chanced upon this painting entitled “Cosmos and Taxis“. The inspiration is, of course, as the artist states: One effect of our habitually identifying order with a made order or taxis is indeed that we tend to ascribe to all order certain properties which deliberate arrangements regularly, and with respect to some of these properties…

Knowledge Has Always Been Networked

Here is a rather scathing review of David Weinberger’s Too Big To Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now that the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room. The renaissance of Marshall McLuhan in the era of the Web is disappointing for a number of reasons, not the least of…

Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology

The book was published today. Here is the publisher’s webpage and the Amazon page. CognitionCognitive sciencecomplexityFriedrich HayekHayekhebbphilosophical psychologyPhilosophy of mindPsychology

Neuroswarm

This article is really creating a buzz (sorry!!) The idea has some resonance to an aspect of Hayek’s social epistemology (see the article that I just today uploaded). In much the same way that synapses are strengthened while unused linkages weaken and wither away, so too are paths to salient social knowledge strengthened or weakened –…