1) Francis Heylighen: "The Growth of Structural and Functional Complexity
during Evolution", to be published in: F. Heylighen & D. Aerts (eds.) "The
Evolution of Complexity" (Kluwer Academic Publishers), 1996.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/ComplexityGrowth.html
ABSTRACT. Although the growth of complexity during evolution seems obvious
to most observers, it has recently been questioned whether such increase
objectively exists. The present paper tries to clarify the issue by
analysing the concept of complexity as a combination of variety and
dependency. It is argued that variation and selection automatically produce
differentiation (variety) and integration (dependency), for living as well
as non-living systems. Structural complexification is produced by spatial
differentiation and the selection of fit linkages between components.
Functional complexification follows from the need to increase the variety
of actions in order to cope with more diverse environmental perturbations,
and the need to integrate actions into higher-order complexes in order to
minimize the difficulty of decision-making. Both processes produce a
hierarchy of nested supersystems or metasystems, and tend to be
self-reinforcing. Though simplicity is a selective factor, it does not tend
to arrest or reverse overall complexification. Increase in the absolute
components of fitness, which is associated with complexification, defines a
preferred direction for evolution, although the process remains wholly
unpredictable.
2) Cliff Joslyn: "Semantic Webs: A Cyberspatial Representational Form for
Cybernetics", in: Cybernetics and Systems '96 R. Trappl (ed.), (World
Science, Singapore). (in press)
ftp://kong.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/joslyn/emcsr96.ps
ftp://kong.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/joslyn/emcsr96.ps.gz
Abstract: Mathematical Systems Theory suggests structures which are useful
for representing cyberspatial and hypertextual systems. In particular, we
introduce semantic webs based on acyclic multirelational systems as a model
for typed link hypertexts. Such semantic webs are like semantic networks
where concepts participate in a semantic category only in one direction.
The resulting structures have indirect cyclicity in virtue of their
multiple overlapping loose hierarchies. Furthermore, they map easily into
both existing and proposed hypertext systems, and resonate with many of the
key ideas in Systems Science.
________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vnet3.vub.ac.be
PESP, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6292525; Fax +32-2-6292489; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html