Fwd: New project from Francis Heylighen

[joseph simpson]

Fyi

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "mary simpson" <mjs...@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 9, 2016 14:13
Subject: Fwd: New project from Francis Heylighen
To: "Joe Simpson" <jjs...@gmail.com>
Cc:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "ResearchGate" <no-r...@researchgate.net>
Date: Sep 8, 2016 10:00 AM
Subject: New project from Francis Heylighen
To: "Mary Simpson" <mjs...@gmail.com>
Cc:

1       Discover projects from researchers you cited     Francis Heylighen is a collaborator on:     Project   http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ECCO/ECCO-Papers/GB-Protocol-proposal.pdf   Francis Heylighen   View project           Discover more projects in your field   Discover more projects       This message was sent to mjs...@gmail.com. To make sure you receive our updates, add ResearchGate to your address book or safe list. See instructions If you don't want to receive these emails from ResearchGate in the future, please unsubscribe. ResearchGate GmbH, Invalidenstr. 115, 10115 Berlin, Germany. See our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

[Aleksandar Malečić]

That's a lot of money (see that PDF document).

The problem is to figure out the nature of the synapses. I had had a Myspace profile mentioning Global Brain before they decided to delete blogs and any semi-intelligent content and Francis Heylighen was either on the list of my "heroes" or seriously considered (I know Valentin Turchin was on the list). I submitted an article for a journal in 2013 (I already had years ago email exchanges with Judith Rosen and Mihai Nadin about my activities in the now deleted "meshwork" Twine) and as I was waiting for reviews I sent it to Kent Palmer, at the time to a random person I'd found on the Web. The article was rejected and only one review out of requested two was sent to me, describing me as a terrible person. John Kineman was mentioned in that draft version. Kent Palmer knows John Kineman and Len Troncale and Len Troncale knows David Rousseau... Fast forward to 2016 and now I am the Anatol Rapoport Award "laureate". I suppose there are more prestigious awards out there, but it's the top of the world for me considering what kinds of twists and turns happened after a random hint from 2003 that included von Bertalanffy.

Aleksandar

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[joseph simpson]

Aleksandar:

Congratulations on the "Anatol Rapoport Award!".

Francis Heylighen developed a pragmatic, functional definition of a system and a meta-system.

The definition of a system is "A system is a constraint on variation."

The definition of a meta-system is " A meta-system is a constraint on the variability of variation."

These definitions have some interesting attributes.  Some of these attributes are:

 

  -- Depend on system behavior and function.

  -- Apply equally at the global system level and the local system level.

  -- Provide the foundation for a transition from one level of system abstraction to another.

  -- Are focused on the natural language system structuring relationship.

Everyone is different, but I tend to focus on what I know is is true and correct, even if everyone else, including all the experts, are telling me that I am wrong.

As I said before, it is difficult to understand criticisms that are not based on facts and data.

We have had papers rejected, as unreadable, that were published elsewhere, unchanged, and have been read thousands of times by researchers all over the world.

Rejections are important, if they are based on facts, data and presented in a way that improves the communication among researchers.

Rejections are meaningless if the do not add value to the scientific discussion on the topic.

Do not worry about unwarranted attacks, just view them as a sign that you may be getting close to a truth that everyone does not want to acknowledge.

Stick to what you know is true... and keep up the good work...

Take care, be good to yourself and have fun,

Joe

--

Joe Simpson

“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. 

Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. 

All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

George Bernard Shaw

[Aleksandar Malečić]

I guess the trick is know how to give up if someone out there is more capable or in a better position for something or to push forward if one is "quite good", i.e. how much "reasonable" (from that George Bernard Shaw's quote) one should be in a given situation. My real-life situation (politically active, but not really...) is so confusing that I chose a virtual (Skype) rather than physical presence at ISSS. There already are just two degrees of separation between me and Heylighen and it's equally likely that this interaction will increase or vanish. I am (I should be because it doesn't depend just on me) fine with both outcomes. But it would be nice if other folks spent more time thinking through why something does or doesn't happen.

Aleksandar

[Hillary Sillitto]

Jo, that's very interesting. Do you know the appropriate citation for those definitions? (Relevant to a Fellows' project I am leading, which hopefully will produce something useful next year.)

Best regards

Hillary

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[joseph simpson]

Hillary:

Please see our publication, "Formal Systems Concept," 2006 where we discuss this topic.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237080797_Formal_Systems_Concepts

And the direct citation is:

"Heylighen, Francis, “(Meta)Systems as Constraints on Variation – A classification and natural history of metasystem transformations.” Free University of Brussels Research Paper sponsored by Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (NFWO), Brussels, Belgium, 1994."

Take care, be good to yourself and have fun,

Joe

[Hillary Sillitto]

Joe

Many thanks.

Interesting that in a 2011 paper he has a more conventional definition:

system: a group of agents held together by a shared constraint or network of bonds. This cohesion distinguishes it from the environment, which groups any other agents with which there is a weak(er) interaction. The agents in the system can be seen as the system’s components. Insofar that the agents in the system share a goal, the system functions like a higher-order agent. A multicellular organism is an example of such a superagent consisting of cells as individual agents. 

Self-organization of complex, intelligent systems: an action ontology for transdisciplinary integration

Francis Heylighen
Center Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Krijgskundestraat 33, 1160 Brussel, Belgium

 http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/ECCO-paradigm.pdf

This paper is very interesting, and covers a lot of ground.

Cheers

Hillary

[Hillary Sillitto]

The 1994 paper is at this URL:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/mst-convar.pdf

Cheers

Hillary

[Hillary Sillitto]

Joe, all

I have just skimmed the 1994 paper. An early important impression is that Heylighen's 'constraint on variety' definition seems to be closely related to Jack's 'only authorised responses to only authorised stimuli'.

Best

[joseph simpson]

Hillary:

From the 1994 paper:

"What both definitions have in common is that a system must at least have some structure or distinction, allowing it to be separated from its background or environment. Starting from that feature of distinction, I would like to propose a definition that is more precise than the subjectivist one, yet more general than the objectivist one. What I believe to be lacking in the subjectivist one, is that there is not only a distinction between system and non-system, but also a number of distinctions internal to the system itself. It is this internal structure that makes us recognize something as a system, rather than as a simple appearance or sensation."

To me this is a key concept set.

When a structural modeling activity is started, the system objects have been identified and the structuring natural language relationship is known.  This information makes a distinction between system and non-system.

The system internal structure is identified and communicated during the execution of the rest of the structural modeling process.  This additional structural information allows us to engage the complete system from the current point of view.

Take care, be good to yourself and have fun,

Joe

[Hillary Sillitto]

Joe

I don't think it's quite as clear as you suggest. Read carefully his 1994 discussion about an electron, which he suggests is a single entity and yet a system. The systemic structure is of its state space trajectory, not of its enduring physical form.

[joseph simpson]

Hillary:

You may be right..

This may be a case of different system description points of view...

There are system state descriptions and 

There are system process descriptions...

There are many different descriptions of an 'electron system.'

Herbert A. Simon, in "The Sciences of the Artificial," addresses some of these communication and description issues...

Take care and have fun,

Joe

[Jack Ring]

Hillary, and others,

Pls do not conclude that Heylighen’s view is ‘closely related’ to mine. As I will show when I get time to do so, his view and most others are seriously naive about ‘system.’

Claim 1. A system definition or description must address both the content and structure that achieves stimulus:response. Most ‘definitions’ address only content and relationships but not the notion of results.

Claim 2. Most definitions of ‘system’ presume a two party situation, notably, system and context of system whereas in Systems of the Third Kind, INCOSE INSIGHT, we noted that two or more parties or agents interacting are in fact one system and any part of any that do not interact are not members of the system although they may be members of a configuration. For the Everything is Interconnected crowd this can be accurate regarding configuration but not for system unless everything is interacting in the best interests of everything — not likely.

I am not available to dialog about this right now, just wanted to warn against any premature comparisons.

Jack

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[Aleksandar Malečić]

Is "naive" the right word? I felt as if I was about to faint during that Skype presentation while I was pretending to know and understand what I was talking about.

Perhaps someone might find something interesting here http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/9/2/223.dodig (Info-computational Constructivism and Cognition) either in the article or in the commentaries. I could attach it in this message (they require registration for their free articles), but I'm "friends" with them because they are reviewing my submission. I won't highlight anything because there are many twists and turns in the discussion.

Aleksandar