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Joslyn, Cliff: (1997) "Semiotic Aspects of Control and Modeling Relations
in Complex Systems",to appear in: Control Mechanisms for Complex Systems,
ed. Michael Coombs, in series: Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences
of Complexity, Addison-Wesley, Redwood City CA.
ABSTRACT. Modeling and control as canonical systems-environment relations;
constraint descriptions; semiotics of selection constraint.
ftp://kong.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/joslyn/compcont.ps.gz
(Other Joslyn papers at http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~joslyn/papers.html)
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Heylighen F. (1997): "Objective, subjective and intersubjective selectors
of knowledge", Evolution and Cognition (to be published in the Spring issue
devoted to D.T. Campbell's evolutionary epistemology)
ABSTRACT. It is argued that the acceptance of knowledge in a community
depends on several, approximately independent selection "criteria". The
objective criteria are distinctiveness, invariance and controllability, the
subjective ones are individual utility, coherence, simplicity and novelty,
and the intersubjective ones are publicity, expressivity, formality,
collective utility, conformity and authority. Science demarcates itself
from other forms of knowledge by explicitly controlling for the objective
criteria.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/knowledgeselectors.html
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Heylighen F. (1997): "Towards a Global Brain. Integrating Individuals into
the World-Wide Electronic Network", in: Der Sinn der Sinne,
Uta Brandes & Claudia Neumann (Ed.) (Steidl Verlag, Goettingen) [in press]
ABSTRACT. It is argued that the future of the senses should best be studied
through the metaphor of society as a superorganism. The precise
correspondence of functions between society and a multicellular organism is
outlined. The information processing functions (nervous system) of the
social superorganism are strongly enhanced by the on-going network
revolution. This leads to the view of the future world-wide web as a
"global brain", encompassing many individuals.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Gbrain-Bonn.html
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Johan Bollen & Francis Heylighen (1997): Dynamic and adaptive structuring
of the
World Wide Web based on user navigation patterns. Proceedings of the
Flexible Hypertext Workshop (ACM)
ABSTRACT. We have implemented and tested a system that uses user navigation
paths to dynamically adjust and establish connections in hypertext
networks, by operating on their related associative measures of connection
strength. The dynamically updated network structure is manifested through
an ordering of connections that displays connections with strongest
associative weight first. In spite of the limitations of the WWW's paradigm
of distributed hypertext networking, this system can globally optimise
hypertext network structure so that its final structure reliably and
validly reflects its browsers' associative intuitions.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/FlexHT/Bollen97.html
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Johan Bollen (1997): Cognitive Complexity vs. Connectivity: efficiency
analyses of hypertext networks, in: F. Heylighen (ed.) The Evolution of
Complexity (Kluwer, Dordrecht). [in press]
Introduction. Hypertext networks are in many ways highly similar to human
long term memory, structurally as well functionally. Both hypertext
networks and human long term memory store information by coding its meaning
in a distributed network of relations between semantic sub-components. Both
are used and browsed for retrieval in similar ways. The results from
psychological research concerning the relationship between the complexity
of stored items and the speed with which they are recovered from human long
term memory, might aid in understanding why certain hypertext networks
perform better than others.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/bollen/bolleneinmag.html
________________________________________________________________________
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