In spite of the intervening holidays, November and December were quite busy
months for the PCP team. PCP editor Val Turchin's book "The Phenomenon of
Science" was finally published on the web, and attracted quite some
interest.
Two meetings were announced, a "Symposium on Memetics"
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMETSY.html) chaired by PCP editor F. Heylighen
and PRNCYB member Mario Vaneechoutte, and a Special Session on "Semiotics
of Autonomous Information Systems" (http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn/ISAS98/)
chaired by PCP editor Cliff Joslyn and PCP associate Luis Rocha. Though the
meetings concern different topics, they fall in about the same period,
respectively August and September 1998. The first is organized by the
"Journal of Memetics" associated with PCP and is part of the 15th Int.
Congress on Cybernetics, the second is part of the 1998 Conference on
Intelligent Systems and Semiotics.
Although not officially associated with PCP, it is worth mentioning the
creation of the new "Journal of Complex Systems"
(http://www.santafe.edu/~bonabeau/), edited by our friend Eric Bonabeau
from the Santa Fe Institute. The general subject is close to PCP themes,
and PCP editor Cliff Joslyn is member of its editorial board.
It has now been confirmed that Alex Riegler, an Austrian cognitive
scientist, will come to work at the Brussels PCP office in February.
Although his application to the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research was
not accepted, he managed to get money for a year's stay from the Austrian
National Bank.
The study group on "Progress", associated with PCP has submitted a research
project entitled "Progress in global quality of life and its indicators: an
interdisciplinary approach" for funding. The aim is to analyse a host of
statistical data in order to study in how far the on-going development and
modernization of society is associated with increase in happiness, and thus
to test the evolutionary theory underlying PCP in the domain most relevant
to our present situation. If the project is accepted, this will add another
researcher to the PCP team in Brussels, and provide us with some more
money. The promoters of the project are Francis Heylighen, Jan Bernheim,
Ruut Veenhoven and Robert Scott Gassler.
THE PRINCIPIA CYBERNETICA WEB
The last part of 1997 was quite unlucky for PCP's technical infrastructure.
First, the PRNCYB-L mailing list in Binghamton, NY, broke down for several
weeks. Then, the PRNCYB-L archive in Manchester, UK, suffered a disk crash,
so that several messages got lost. Finally, on Dec. 5, the main PCP web
server in Brussels, Belgium, had a hard disk crash, caused by an
electricity cut-off. Because of poor backing-up procedures (which will be
remedied soon), the most recent copy of the material we had was 6 months
old, so that lots of files were missing.
Happily, a call for help to this mailing list produced a deluge of
reactions from people who had kept copies of PCP files. Two of them even
had used a web robot to gather a complete copy of PCP web, which was not
more than two weeks old. This allowed us to restore all lost files, though
the robot produced a number of small formatting changes, which had to be
undone. Because of that, you may still find a few errors in URL's in
different PCP nodes. Please let us know if you find one, so that we can
correct everything.
Thanks again to all those who offered their help. Because of you, PCP web
could be restored with a minimum of delay. Your massive response showed how
PCP has gathered a wide audience of people actively interested in our
project. This group continues to grow, as shown by the 3 to 4 new
subscribers this mailing list gains every week (while very few people ever
unsubscribe), and by the many email reactions we receive.
It seems that the number of people actively interested grows more quickly
than the number of hits on our server (at present inching towards
8000/day). This is probably caused by the massive increase in servers and
web pages on the net, which compete for the attention of a more slowly
increasing number of web surfers. The result is that the new users PCP web
attracts will be lower in number, but higher in their interest for the
specific PCP themes. When PCP web was created, there were only some 200
servers in existence, and practically every server was interesting for
those exploring the new medium. Nowadays there is such an overkill in
available information, that only those really motivated to study cybernetic
philosophy are likely to discover, and do the effort to explore, PCP web.
WHAT'S NEW IN PCP WEB
The following nodes in Principia Cybernetica Web have undergone substantive
editing, or have been newly added during the months of November and
December, 1997. All documents are available via
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/RECENT.html
* Dec 2, 1997: What is the meaning of life? ("higher" values added)
* Nov 28, 1997: Mailing Lists and Newsgroups on Cybernetics and Systems
(wholesys-l added & updated)
* Nov 26, 1997: Changes-Additions 1996-97 (new!)
* Nov 26, 1997: How to use Principia Cybernetica Web (updated)
* Nov 25, 1997: Distinction (new!)
* Nov 17, 1997: Cybernetics and Systems Journals (links added)
* Nov 17, 1997: Links on Complexity, Self-organization and Artificial Life
(links added)
* Nov 12, 1997: Welcome to the Principia Cybernetica Web (updated)
* Nov 6, 1997: "The Phenomenon of Science", a book on MSTT (new!)
* Nov 5, 1997: God (edited)
* Nov 5, 1997: Eternal Philosophical Questions (edited)
* Nov 5, 1997: Happiness (new!)
DISCUSSIONS ON PRNCYB-L
The following topics were announced or discussed on the PRNCYB-L mailing
list (see http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/mail.html) during the months of November
and September. The full text of all original messages and replies is available
via the PRNCYB-L archive: http://www.fmb.mmu.ac.uk/~bruce/PRNCYB-L/thread.html
* Emergent Computation and Intelligent Manufacturing Systems - Luis Rocha
* PCP server crash -> lost files - Francis Heylighen
* Re: "The Phenomenon of Science" - Alexei Sharov
* New member: Wayne Lu - Cliff Joslyn
* New member: Georg Boomgaarden - Cliff Joslyn
* New member: James E de Jarnette - Cliff Joslyn
* New member: Mark Crosby - Cliff Joslyn
* New member: Marco Schmidt - Cliff Joslyn
* CFP: congress on discovery and creativity [fwd] - Francis Heylighen
* thinking with words - Walter Fritz
* Re: "The Phenomenon of Science" book now on PCP Web! - Cliff Joslyn
________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vub.ac.be
CLEA, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6442677; Fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html