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In this page we:
- Introduce some current
problems of complexity for humanity
- Explain how to use
the site.
There are two main starting points:
- The example systems
frame and
- The presentation
frame.
- And then there is how
we use the site.
The site uses lots of click through. That's so that you
can see the underlying principles that are contributing to the
system being discussed. We hope that as you internalize
and reflect on the principles the system should appear in a new
light. At this site clicking is good!
Opportunities frame |
This web page reviews persistent business challenges with
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
Exploring opportunities |
Dark webs can enhance
individual creativity, local operational autonomy, enterprise
strategic alignment and organizational learning. In this
page we summarize the opportunity.
Dark webs |
The productivity of
complex adaptive system (CAS) is reviewed highlighting the most
significant variables: access to raw
materials, agency based leverage of additional wage
laborers/consumers to build a SuperOrganism during
cliodynamic up-cycles, wealth
amplifying infrastructure build-out,
trading
network time capture offset by instability of amplifier
driven bubbles requiring strategic management and extended
phenotypic alignment and disruption; when they expand markets
for goods & services. The CAS and classical economic
approaches are compared.
Important CAS aspects are highlighted:
- CAS reflect the history of
all the events of the network of agents and their environment
- The relevant economic
history is reviewed demonstrating the contribution of
power, politics, war...
- Chemical
structures capture and preserve important recipes that
allow agents to increase search/operational effectiveness
and wealth & the
system to be robust
- Environment matched
to system strategy: Superorganism
and beetle
- Cliodynamic models of historical agent networks allows a
realistic assessment
of productivity over a full network cycle
- The models must be matched
to the proximate environment
- Internal failures
of the agent network
- Existential
threats to the agent network
Human agents must dedicate: focus, time,
coherence and skills; to productively generate wealth. And they could
do much more - learning to develop
and use formal schematic plans
during their education, and using the skill when participating
in a superorganism.
CAS level
productivity improvements are due to:
- Collective solidarity ensures evolved amplifiers are fully
expressed
- Valuable schematically defined, emergent actions must be
accessible to resource controlling and allocating schemata
and their agents
- Meta ideas that can be reused and recombined
- Distribution of these ideas allow parallel searching
- Trading to gain time
- Isolated agents can be integrated into the current network
during each growth phase, but cliodynamic assessments show
agents are dropped again from the network during the decline
phase of the cycle
- Network
effects and leverage of power drive productivity
improvements.
Human agent level productivity
- Agent level productivity
improvements of significance
- More time: Increased light,
reduced moving & travelling, quicker & better
eating, reduced rework, motivated & effective
- Broader utilization with adoption of standards &
undermining of monopoly
constraints
- Weapons & armor
- Power available: Driving
flows &
actions in required direction
- Iterative theory & practice
- Infrastructure & tools: catalytic
reduction in cost of repeated operations
- Agent level productivity improvements of
limited effect
Productivity of CAS |
Representative democracy's robustness is dependent on emotional
and cultural
aspects of humanity. The impact of YouTube's
recommendation engine on the adolescent mind has
undermined the genetic
operators provided by culture. Typical parental constraints on
the associations allowed to adolescents are undermined and
emotional links are built to the most emotive ideas, based
simply on their capacity to sustain attention to YouTube.
An outline
mechanism is described that reintroduces 'parental'
constraints. Legislative enforcement of the capability is
required.
Details of the theoretical complex adaptive system (CAS)
requirements of genetic operations are introduced. The
minds implementation of the schematic operators is
explained. Traditional cultural constraints limiting large
changes in the schema base are outlined.
Aligning YouTube & democracy |
Organizations can benefit from understanding and leveraging
creativity. In this page we review what creativity is,
highlight the
opportunity - including when it is
appropriate to apply, how to do
that organizationally, and when it might
be avoided, and the challenges with
enabling it when it is desirable.
We introduce the aspects of the creative process.
Leveraging creativity |
In Gray Matter Michael Graziano asks Are we Really
Conscious? He argues that we build inaccurate models of
reality and then develop intuitions based on these problematic
models. He concludes we can't use intuitions to understand
consciousness. Instead he promotes 'brain science' as more
accurate and argues it suggests we are not conscious. In
this page we summarize his article and then use complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory to review his
arguments. Constrained by CAS theory and mechanisms of
emergence we see a requirement for consciousness.
Graziano's consciousness |
Consciousness is no longer mysterious. In this page we use
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory to describe the high-level
architecture of consciousness, linking sensory networks,
low level feelings and
genetically conserved and deployed neural structures into a high
level scheduler. Consciousness is evolution's
solution to the complex problems of effective, emergent,
multi-cellular perception based strategy.
Constrained by emergence and needing
to avoid the epistemological
problem of starting with a blank slate with every birth,
evolution was limited in its options.
We explain how survival value allows evolution to leverage
available tools: sensors, agent relative position, models, perception
& representation; to solve the problem of mobile
agents responding effectively to their own state and proximate environment.
Evolution did this by providing a genetically
constructed framework that can
develop into a conscious CAS.
And we discuss the implications with regard to artificial
intelligence, sentient robots,
augmented intelligence, and
aspects of philosophy.
On the nature of conscious things |
John Searle's influential thought experiment implied to him that
computers cannot understand. Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory indicates that this is
not the case.
Understanding the Chinese room |
In his talk 'The Science of Ending Aging' Aubrey de Grey argues
we should invest more in maintenance of our bodies. In
this page we summarize his video comments and then use complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory to
review his arguments. Focusing the lens of CAS theory and
mechanisms of emergence on the system we highlight the pros and
cons of ending aging.
Ending aging |
The essence of
a library complex adaptive system (CAS) is defined.
Implications
for the future development of contemporary libraries
are reviewed.
Libraries evolving |
This web page reviews opportunities to benefit from modeling
agent based flows using complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Agent based flows |
Fitness landscapes |
This web page reviews opportunities to enhance computing theory
and practice by using biological mechanisms and complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
Biologically inspired computing |
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Representation of fitness landscapes
Summary
This web page reviews opportunities to find and capture new
niches, based on studying fitness landscapes using complex
adaptive system ( This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS) theory.
CAS SuperOrganisms are
able to capture rich niches. A variety of CAS are
included: chess, prokaryotes,
nation states, businesses, economies; along
with change mechanisms: evolution
and artificial
intelligence; agency
effects and environmental impacts.
Genetic algorithms supported by fitness functions are compared to
genetic operators.
Early evolution
of life and its inbuilt constraints are discussed.
Strategic clustering, goals, flexibility and representation of
state are considered.
Introduction
The geneticist Sewall Wright suggested that each point in a
genetic combinatorial set be assigned a measure of its adaptiveness in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary. . As a
three dimensional representation this has been described as a
fitness landscape.
While its an attractive metaphor and it has inspired key work on
This web page reviews opportunities to enhance computing theory
and practice by using biological mechanisms and complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
evolutionary computation the vision
of a landscape can be misinterpreted. Stuart
Kauffman's 'adjacent
possible' seems to better illustrate the way Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents explore niches to enhance This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
survival and reproduction. That
fitness is, according to Dawkins, a suitcase word with at least five meanings in biology: - Darwin and Wallace thought in terms of the capacity to survive and reproduce, but they were considering discrete aspects such as chewing grass - where hard enamel would improve the relative fitness.
- Population geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane; consider selection at a locus where for a genotype: green eyes vs blue eyes; one with higher fitness can be identified from genotypic frequencies and gene frequencies, with all other variations averaged out.
- Whole organism 'integrated' fitness. Dawkins notes there is only ever one instance of a specific organism. Being unique, comparing the relative success of its offspring makes little sense. Over a huge number of generations the individual is likely to have provided a contribution to everyone in the pool or no one.
- Inclusive fitness, where according to Hamilton, fitness depends on an organism's actions or effects on its children or its relative's children, a model where natural selection favors organs and behaviors that cause the individual's genes to be passed on. It is easy to mistakenly count an offspring in multiple relative's fitness assessments.
- Personal fitness represents the effects a person's relatives have on the individual's fitness [3]. When interpreted correctly fitness [4] and fitness [5] are the same.
changes as the
agents and The complex adaptive system (CAS)
nature of a value delivery system is first introduced. It's a network
of agents acting as relays.
The critical nature of hub agents and the difficulty of altering
an aligned network is reviewed.
The nature of and exceptional opportunities created by platforms are discussed.
Finally an example of aligning a VDS is presented.
environment alter adds
further complications.
The early adjacent possible is going to be limited. Entities are, according to Abbott, a class including people, families, corporations, hurricanes. They implement abstract designs and are demarcatable by their reduced entropy relative to their components. Rovelli notes entities are a collection of relations and events, but memory and our continuous process of anticipation, organizes the series of quantized interactions we perceive into an illusion of permanent objects flowing from past to future. Abbott identifies two types of entity: - At equilibrium entities,
- Autonomous entities, which can control how they are affected by outside forces;
were highly
constrained. The operation
of autonomous
entities are entities which: - Are far from equilibrium
- Consume and save low entropy
- Can use accessible low entropy to maintain themselves
must be constrained to preserve the low entropy,
far from equilibrium dependency. So Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraint is expected to be present
in all complex adaptive systems ( This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS).
Capture of additional niches can undermine the control scheme
with rapid shifts in wealth is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche.
and power: British
merchant expansion during the reign of Queen Anne was
untaxed, empowering the merchants and undermining the landed
aristocrats and monarchy; until additional constraints are
built. Eventually, Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraint
based phenomena enable Darwinian competition. Such This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergent agents are Turing machines, a machine specified by mathematician Alan Turing which is the blueprint for the electronic programmable computer. It consists of an infinite tape on which symbols can be written. A movable read/write tape head which can move about the tape and write on or read symbols from the tape. A set of rules that tell the head what to do next.
enabled by enzymatic, a protein with a structure which allows it to operate as a chemical catalyst and a control switch.
control. One can imagine that early This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolved agents had access to a very
small set of Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic plans, types
of Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
sensor or The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models
of the environment. Indeed the agents may well have been
identical and placing each other under heavy threat in using the
same strategies to compete
directly for the few niches they could utilize.
Prokaryotic, a single cell system with two main types: (1) Archaea, and (2) Eubacteria. Prokaryotes have their own DNA and infrastructure within a single enclosure. They are biochemically very versatile: Photosynthesis -> Electron transport & phosphorylation, Enzymatic regulation and catalysis of chemical reactions, Catabolize -> phosphate bond energy, ATP cycle, glycolysis, TCA cycle, Electron transports, oxidative phosphorylation, oxidation of fatty acids, oxidative degradation of amino acids; Biosynthesis & utilization of phosphate bond energy -> carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, muscle & motile structures; membrane barriers & active transports, hormones; Replication, Transcription, Translation, Regulation of gene expression; self-assembly; They utilize cell membrane receptors and signalling to support symbiotic cooperation with other cellular entities, including: in the microbiome, and as chloroplasts and mitochondria within eukaryotic cells. populations
can use Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
mutation to explore the adjacent possible.
And due to prokaryotes focus on
[bio]chemistry, mutation indirectly gains access to the
chemical and physical forces that enable: action, energy
capture and leverage, low level and computationally intrinsic Representing state in emergent entities is essential but
difficult. Various structures are used to enhance the rate
and scope of state transitions. Examples are
discussed.
structurally enhanced state, and
reversible creation of chemical building blocks. These
capabilities support This page introduces the many ways a complex modeling and coordination activity can
be implemented using agent-based
programming (see presentation).
It describes how salient
schematic alternative strings can be used to model a
situation and make a
decision under evolved control.
It also introduces bottom
up model codelets and complex techniques that are covered
more fully on other pages.
Constraints on the modeling process including requirements for timeliness, parallelism, synchronization
and emergence of new models are discussed.
Once a schematic sequence is selected by a
group codelet or any additional type of modeling codelet
the codelet will initiate an iterative cycle of detect, signal,
match, deploy. This allows the actions of a schematically
selected sequence of model codelets to aggregate into a focused
agent.
A series of example signals sent by complex modeling codelets
along with their associated operons
and subgroup schematic sequences are included. The
signals are sent by the:
- merge streams spdca
builder - The initiator of merge streams's pdca cycle (see schematic pdca).
- merge streams dcycip
builder - The initiator of the planning phase of the
merge streams's pdca cycle.
- merge streams cassert
builder - The initiator of the mergestreams's case resolved assert true
conditional cascade. It is a structurally
enhanced codelet which activates at the end of the
'do' phase and signals the nucleus.
- merge streams indsloc
builder - The start locator codelet finds the
application schemata's start operon
- merge streams shsloc
builder - A start locator codelet that finds an
alternative start operon in the application schematic operon
- merge streams rchpair
builder - A receptor
that detects and relays an application signal
- pdca ecycdop
builder - A cyclin
simulation codelet which signals entry to the 'do' phase of
the pdca.
- pdca acycchp
builder - A cyclin simulation codelet which signals
entry to the 'check' phase of the pdca.
- pdca bcycacp
builder - A cyclin simulation codelet which signals
entry to the 'act' phase of the pdca.
And the Slipnet configuration which
activates the schematic subgroup sequence <mergestreams>
<for> <case> <resolved> <assert>
<true> is included.
schematic modeling.
This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
Evolution by Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
natural
selection will support beneficial phenotypes is the system that results from the controlled expression of the genes. It is typically represented by a prokaryotic cell or the body of a multi-cell animal or plant. The point is that the genes provide the control surface and the abstract recipe that has been used to generate the cell. , through
survival and reproduction. But without a way to share
these enhancements, clones with different beneficial mutations
will interfere
competitively is a model that explains the relatively slow stabilization, and potential disappearance (fixation of the competing variant), of a beneficial mutation in asexually reproducing populations. Herman Muller developed the model in 1932. Muller noted that beneficial mutations are distributed within the population by sexual reproduction's recombination operator, which does not exist in the basic asexual mechanism. Different beneficial mutations occurring in different organisms in the population will compete, and so through this interference some may be lost. Muller suggested clonal interference would impact the asexual organism's ability to adapt and proposed it as a justification for sexual reproduction. Experimental data showed asexual and sexual organisms with similar adaptation rates, because of DNA sharing through plasmids. , and beneficial mutations will spread slowly
and through genetic
drift is the random change in the population of specific gene alleles from one generation to the next. may be lost from the population. Prokaryotes
overcome this problem to a significant extent by sharing plasmids provide bacteria with a way to transfer parts of their DNA complement with one another. The effect is to ensure that useful mutations can become rapidly distributed within a population of bacteria. Because the plasmid reproduces asexually beneficial mutations will result in competition between hosts containing different plasmid variants through clonal interference. .
SuperOrganism is a wealthy autonomous entity needing and controlling the richest niches in the proximate environment, that emerges from the bundled cooperation of schematically aligned agents. The term is based on the social insect model, used by: ants, termites, and bees; and identified by Holldobler & E.O. Wilson. These genetically identical insect superorganisms cooperatively limit their reproduction to align with the resources available in the niche. Wilson asserts these insects all developed nests to which they returned to raise their offspring, and when the nest sites were of limited capacity some family members responded by focusing on defending the nest and foraging while their mother became an egg laying queen, enabled by "a single genetic change which silenced the brain's program for dispersal and prevents the mother and her offspring from dispersing to create new nests," Wilson explains. He adds climate control of the nest and disease resistance, just like the human immune system, demand individually focused diversity. So the queen's genome consists of low variety alleles for the extended phenotypic 'robot' worker caste agents and their organization - queen and workers competing as one, with other colonies and individual insects - and other parts which are high where the genome includes significant diversity. For humans it is an evolved cultural strategy used when the environment is supportive, but it is dependent on our imperfect cognitive assessment of kinship as well as group selection driven emotions: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious; and group oriented pressures to conform and remain: religions. And the adjacent possible must be recreated and modeled culturally through the emergence of processes such as democracy. It depends on inter-agent signalling. In both insects and humans it allows specialization, and encourages operations and flows that are tightly controlled, limiting waste, leveraging parallel activity, supporting coherence. Superorganisms reflect cliodynamic flows. A superorganism has a development and operational phase. As additional agents are coopted into the superorganism they align, participate in supply and demand activities and so contribute to the evolutionary amplification. Damasio notes that prokaryotes, in rich environments, can similarly operate in a symbiotic fashion expressing cultural behaviors.
configurations, exemplified by social insects, can extend the
actions they use to forage, to The squeaky wheel gets attention in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
additionally
describe to their siblings The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models
of where food and water sources are. Other members of the
colony use the models they develop in response to initiate their
own participation in the cooperative capture of resources.
The bundling of
various strategies allows insect 'superorganisms' to
evolutionarily out compete specialist insects that cannot bear
the cost required for each individual to be competitive.
The 'superorganism' is far more To benefit from shifts in the environment agents must be flexible. Being
sensitive to environmental signals
agents who adjust strategic priorities can constrain their
competitors.
flexible.
It can coordinate lines of attack to This page discusses the benefits of bringing agents and resources to the
dynamically best connected region of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
the
central area of action, be the master of communications,
focus colony members on the This page discusses the strategy of going around the
competitor's flank to reach and assault its rear.
envelopment
of large prey insects and leverage the resulting evolutionary
amplifier.
In less beneficial This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS). Kauffman describes the mechanism
by which the system expands across the space.
environments the
solitary strategies of beetles, spiders and other competitors of
'superorganisms' win out. The pre-conditions for
'superorganism' success include access to enough resources to
sustain an active colony. Evolution ensures that focused
strategies can be efficiently aligned with specific constrained
niches.
Also the cooperative communication infrastructure leveraged by
'superorganisms' leaves them open to Rather than oppose the direct thrust of some environmental flow agents
can improve their effectiveness with indirect responses.
This page explains how agents are architected to do this and
discusses some examples of how it can be done.
indirect
attack by competitors who are able to manipulate the signalling, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy.
infrastructure and This page discusses the strategy of confusing the control system
of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
unbalance the
emergent responses of the colony.
Prokaryotes, a single cell system with two main types: (1) Archaea, and (2) Eubacteria. Prokaryotes have their own DNA and infrastructure within a single enclosure. They are biochemically very versatile: Photosynthesis -> Electron transport & phosphorylation, Enzymatic regulation and catalysis of chemical reactions, Catabolize -> phosphate bond energy, ATP cycle, glycolysis, TCA cycle, Electron transports, oxidative phosphorylation, oxidation of fatty acids, oxidative degradation of amino acids; Biosynthesis & utilization of phosphate bond energy -> carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, muscle & motile structures; membrane barriers & active transports, hormones; Replication, Transcription, Translation, Regulation of gene expression; self-assembly; They utilize cell membrane receptors and signalling to support symbiotic cooperation with other cellular entities, including: in the microbiome, and as chloroplasts and mitochondria within eukaryotic cells. form
SuperOrganisms and symbiotic is a long term situation between two, or more, different agents where the resources of both are shared for mutual benefit. Some of the relationships have built remarkable dependencies: Tremblaya's partnership with citrus mealybugs and bacterial DNA residing in the mealybug's genome, Aphids with species of secondary symbiont bacteria deployed sexually from a male aphid sperm reservoir and propagated asexually by female aphids only while their local diet induces a dependency. If the power relations and opportunities change for the participants then they will adapt and the situation may transform into separation, predation or parasitism.
partnerships, demonstrating the To benefit from shifts in the environment agents must be flexible. Being
sensitive to environmental signals
agents who adjust strategic priorities can constrain their
competitors.
flexibility
of the Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic strategies that Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic operators can find and deposit
in the phenotypic is the system that results from the controlled expression of the genes. It is typically represented by a prokaryotic cell or the body of a multi-cell animal or plant. The point is that the genes provide the control surface and the abstract recipe that has been used to generate the cell. tool
bag to maintain homeostasis is, according to Damasio, the fundamental set of operations at the core of life, from the earliest and long-vanished point of its beginning in early biochemistry to the present. It is the powerful, unthought, unspoken imperative, whose discharge implies, for every living organism, small or large, nothing less than enduring and prevailing. Damasio stresses that the operations that ensure prevailing ensure life is regulated within a range that is not just compatible with survival but also conducive to flourishing, to protection of life into the future of an organism or a species. Prevailing implies mechanisms for monitoring and modeling the state of the organism, controlling and constraining the flows of energy and resources through schematic agency, and to facilitate exploring the environment and acting on signals of modeled opportunities and threats. Global homeostasis of multi-organ animals requires endocrine, immune, circulatory and nervous 'systems' and results in the emergence of minds, feelings, consciousness, machinery of affect and complex movements. The emergence of feelings allowed the homeostatic process to become enhanced by a subjective representation of the organism's state and proximate environment within the mind. Feelings operating in minds allowed conscious decisions to extend homeostasis to the sociocultural domain. .
Tools associated by transcription is the process where DNA is converted into messenger m-RNA. A complex of enzymes cooperates to bind to the DNA and generate the m-RNA copy. There are a number of such transcription complexes which are based on RNA polymerase I, II or III.
and translation is the process where messenger m-RNA is cross coded by Ribosomal agents and t-RNA into an amino-acid polymer. with
the schematic DNA (DNA), a polymer composed of a chain of deoxy ribose sugars with purine or pyrimidine side chains. DNA naturally forms into helical pairs with the side chains stacked in the center of the helix. It is a natural form of schematic string. The purines and pyrimidines couple so that AT and GC pairs make up the stackable items. A code of triplets of base pairs (enabling 64 separate items to be named) has evolved which now redundantly represents each of the 20 amino-acids that are deployed into proteins, along with triplets representing the termination sequence. Chemical modifications and histone binding (chromatin) allow cells to represent state directly on the DNA schema. To cope with inconsistencies in the cell wide state second messenger and evolved amplification strategies are used. building
blocks.
The most unlikely SuperOrganism, because of the heterogeneous
DNA of the Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents, E O. Wilson argues that campfire gatherings on the savanna supported
the emergence of human creativity. This resulted in man
building cultures and
later exploring them, and their creator, through the humanities. Wilson
identifies the transformative events, but he notes many of these
are presently ignored by the humanities. So he calls for a
change of approach.
He:
- Explores creativity:
how it emerged from the benefits of becoming an omnivore hunter-gatherer,
enabled by language & its catalysis of invention, through stories told in the
evening around the campfire. He notes the power of
fine art, but suggests music provides the most revealing
signature of aesthetic
surprise.
- Looks at the current limitations of the
humanities, as they have suffered through years of neglect.
- Reviews the evolutionary processes of heredity and
culture:
- Ultimate causes viewed
through art, & music
- The bedrock of:
- Ape senses and emotions,
- Creative arts, language, dance, song typically studied
by humanities,
&
- Exponential change in science and
technology.
- How the breakthrough from
our primate past occurred, powered by eating meat,
supporting: a bigger brain, expanded memory &
language.
- Accelerating changes now driven by genetic cultural coevolution.
- The impact on human nature.
- Considers our emotional attachment to the natural world: hunting, gardens; we are
destroying.
- Reviews our love of metaphor, archetypes,
exploration, irony, and
considers the potential for a third enlightenment,
supported by cooperative
action of humanities and science
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames these from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory:
- The humanities are seen to be a functionalist framework
for representing the cultural CAS while
- Wilson's desire
to integrate the humanities and science gains support from
viewing the endeavor as a network of layered CAS.
is the human cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS, which is enabled by cognitive
identification of relatives Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
.
This CAS has allowed humanity to leverage language to innovate is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. Keynes noted it provided the unquantifiable beneficial possibility that limits fear of uncertainty. Innovation operates across all CAS, being supported by genetic and cultural means. Creativity provides the mutation and recombination genetic operators for the cultural process. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy. and Sven Beckert describes the historic transformation of the
growing, spinning, weaving, manufacture of cotton goods and
their trade over time. He describes the rise of a first global
commodity, its dependence on increasing: military power, returns for
the control points in the value delivery system(VDS), availability of land
and labor to work it including slaves.
He explains how cotton offered the opportunity for
industrialization further amplifying the productive capacity of
the VDS and the power of the control points. This VDS was quickly
copied. The increased capacity of the industrialized
cotton complex adaptive system (CAS) required more labor to
operate the machines. Beckert describes the innovative introduction of wages
and the ways found to
mobilize industrial labor.
Beckert describes the characteristics of the industrial cotton
CAS which made it flexible enough to become globally interconnected.
Slavery made the production system so cost effective that all
prior structures collapsed as they interconnected. So when
the US civil war
blocked access to the major production nodes in the
American Deep South the CAS began adapting.
Beckert describes the global
reconstruction that occurred and the resulting destruction of the traditional ways
of life in the global countryside. This colonial expansion
further enriched and empowered the 'western' nation
states. Beckert explains how other countries responded
by copying the colonial strategies and creating the
opportunities for future armed conflict among the original
colonialists and the new upstarts.
Completing the adaptive
shifts, Beckert describes the advocates for industrialization in
the colonized global south and how over time they joined
the global cotton CAS disrupting the early western manufacturing
nodes and creating the current global CAS
dominated by merchants like Wal-Mart
pulling goods through a network of clothing manufacturers,
spinning and weaving factories, and growers competing with each
other on cost.
Following our summary of Beckert's book, RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The transformation of
disconnected peasant farmers,
pastoral warriors and their lands into a supply chain for a
highly profitable industrial CAS required the development over
time: of military force, global transportation and communication
networks, perception and representation control networks, capital stores and flows,
models, rules, standards and markets; along with the support at
key points of: barriers, disruption, and infrastructure and
evolved amplifiers. The emergent
system demonstrates the powerful constraining influence of
extended phenotypic alignment.
initiate a global CAS.
Chess has supported the
exploration of a large number of proximate niches by a Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematically driven This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS. It does not explore This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergence or the appearance of new physical
technologies are defined by Beinhocker as methods and designs for transforming matter, energy, and information from one state into another in pursuit of a goal or goals. The effects of nuclear and genetic physical technologies are already challenging. Beinhocker adds artificial intelligence and nanotechnology as emerging physical technologies that support access to huge new niches and introduce additional challenges. . But it clearly associates schematic
strings of Flows of different kinds are essential to the operation of
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Example flows are outlined. Constraints on flows support
the emergence of the systems.
Examples of constraints are discussed.
flows of move pairs with
development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. and
deployment of two SuperOrganism is a wealthy autonomous entity needing and controlling the richest niches in the proximate environment, that emerges from the bundled cooperation of schematically aligned agents. The term is based on the social insect model, used by: ants, termites, and bees; and identified by Holldobler & E.O. Wilson. These genetically identical insect superorganisms cooperatively limit their reproduction to align with the resources available in the niche. Wilson asserts these insects all developed nests to which they returned to raise their offspring, and when the nest sites were of limited capacity some family members responded by focusing on defending the nest and foraging while their mother became an egg laying queen, enabled by "a single genetic change which silenced the brain's program for dispersal and prevents the mother and her offspring from dispersing to create new nests," Wilson explains. He adds climate control of the nest and disease resistance, just like the human immune system, demand individually focused diversity. So the queen's genome consists of low variety alleles for the extended phenotypic 'robot' worker caste agents and their organization - queen and workers competing as one, with other colonies and individual insects - and other parts which are high where the genome includes significant diversity. For humans it is an evolved cultural strategy used when the environment is supportive, but it is dependent on our imperfect cognitive assessment of kinship as well as group selection driven emotions: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious; and group oriented pressures to conform and remain: religions. And the adjacent possible must be recreated and modeled culturally through the emergence of processes such as democracy. It depends on inter-agent signalling. In both insects and humans it allows specialization, and encourages operations and flows that are tightly controlled, limiting waste, leveraging parallel activity, supporting coherence. Superorganisms reflect cliodynamic flows. A superorganism has a development and operational phase. As additional agents are coopted into the superorganism they align, participate in supply and demand activities and so contribute to the evolutionary amplification. Damasio notes that prokaryotes, in rich environments, can similarly operate in a symbiotic fashion expressing cultural behaviors.
armies (social
technologies are defined by Beinhocker as methods and designs for organizing people in pursuit of a goal or goals. He views the three most significant social technologies as: markets, science, and democracy. A war example is Fuller & Liddell Hart's theory of high-speed tank warfare, subsequently instantiated by Guderian as Blitzkrieg. ) using occupation of different squares to
project and capture power. It does this through
transformation of the The complex adaptive system (CAS)
nature of a value delivery system is first introduced. It's a network
of agents acting as relays.
The critical nature of hub agents and the difficulty of altering
an aligned network is reviewed.
The nature of and exceptional opportunities created by platforms are discussed.
Finally an example of aligning a VDS is presented.
environment by
leverage of: schematic wealth is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. ,
direct and Rather than oppose the direct thrust of some environmental flow agents
can improve their effectiveness with indirect responses.
This page explains how agents are architected to do this and
discusses some examples of how it can be done.
indirect projection of Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraints over the 64 squares on the
board enabled by the rule based capabilities of the
pieces. The necessary Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agency
depends on the schemata having been The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
modeled
in the Computational
theory of the mind and evolutionary
psychology provide Steven Pinker with a framework on which
to develop his psychological arguments about the mind and its
relationship to the brain. Humans captured a cognitive niche by
natural selection 'building out'
specialized aspects of their bodies and brains resulting in a system of mental organs
we call the mind.
He garnishes and defends the framework with findings from
psychology regarding: The visual
system - an example of natural
selections solutions to the sensory challenges
of inverse
modeling of our
environment; Intensions - where
he highlights the challenges of hunter-gatherers -
making sense of the objects
they perceive and predicting what they imply and natural
selections powerful solutions; Emotions - which Pinker argues are
essential to human prioritizing and decision making; Relationships - natural selection's
strategies for coping with the most dangerous competitors, other
people. He helps us understand marriage, friendships and war.
These conclusions allow him to understand the development and
maintenance of higher callings: Art, Music, Literature, Humor,
Religion, & Philosophy; and develop a position on the meaning of life.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) modeling allows RSS to frame Pinker's arguments
within humanity's current situation, induced by powerful evolved
amplifiers: Globalization,
Cliodynamics, The green revolution
and resource
bottlenecks; melding his powerful predictions of the
drivers of human behavior with system wide constraints.
The implications are discussed.
mind of the players:
- The rules of chess allow a vast number of moves to be
performed, with many different selections at each instance
of the game, in an attempt to checkmate the opponent's
king. The problem of finding a successful path to this
goal, even when
achieved, is only verified by repetition of the actual path
by both players, making master-chess
an exponentially-complete problem. The
This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolutionary mechanism explores
this vast environment, recording reachable aspects
schematically and The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
learning from
paths that resulted in a win.
- Knowledge imparted by coaching encourages effective
practice, shaping the mind with reinforcement refers to lasting changes to the brain that occur throughout the life span of the organism. Many aspects of the brain can be altered into adulthood. Almost anything in the nervous system can change in response to sustained stimulus. And in a different environment the changes will often reverse. The changes include:
- The strength of dendritic input alters due to genetic, neural and hormonal signals
- Hebb notes that memories require strengthening of preexisting synapses. Glutamate responsive neurons' post synaptic dendritic spines have two types of receptor: non-NMDA and NMDA. NMDA channels are responsible for this strengthening mechanism. LTP then occurs to prolong the increase in excitability of the synapse.
- The LTP operation results in calcium diffusion which triggers new spine formation in adjacent parts of the dendrite. Eventually that can stimulate dentrite growth enabling more neurons to connect.
- Short term stress promotes hippocampal LTP.
- Sustained stress promotes:
- Hippocampal & frontal cortex LTD & suppresses LTP. Subsequent reductions in NCAM then reduce dendrite and synapse density.
- Amygdala LTP and suppresses LTD boosting fear conditioning. It increases BDNF levels and expands dendrites in the BLA.
- Depression and anxiety reduce hippocampal dendrite and spine number by reducing BDNF.
- The axon's conditions for
- Initiating an action potential.
- Progesterone boosts GABA-ergic neurons response to GABA decreasing the excitability of other neurons over a period of hours.
- Duration of a neuron's refractory period. Testosterone shortens the refractory period of amygdala and amygdala target neurons over a period of hours.
- Synaptic connections being constantly removed and recreated
- Synapses being created or destroyed. Stimulation generates additional dendritic spines which become associated with a nearby axon terminal and within weeks a synapse forms. The synapse then contributes calcium diffusion through LTP triggering more spine formation. When dendritic spines recede synapses disappear.
- Cortical maps change to reflect alterations in the inputs and outputs from the body.
- Birth of brain cells in many areas of adult brains: the hippocampus (where 3% are replaced each month) and olfactory bulb and lesser amounts in the cortex.
- Restructuring after brain damage including axonal plasticity. Distant rerouting of axons is observed but no mechanism has been identified yet.
- Vision is plastic in predators, where the eyes are moved during final development. Dehaene argues for neuronal recycling supporting reading.
of salient neural
circuit, a network of interconnected neurons which perform signalling, modeling and control functions. In Cajal's basic neural circuits the signalling is unidirectional. He identified three classes of neurons in the circuits: - Sensory, Interneurons, Motor; which are biochemically distinct and suffer different disease states.
based representations of the schematic recipes
and associated high priority games. A current
grandmaster will have represented and modeled:
- The recorded history of play. This includes:
- Early Italian style attacks which depended for niche
capture on poor understanding of defense, through
- Improved defense,
- Control and leverage of the center,
- Rapid development - where each piece should be
optimally placed to provide constraints while being
touched only once,
- Leverage of pawn structures,
- Indirect constraints on the center, and
- Dynamic speed based strategies.
- The strategic consequences of following a particular
path. The open Sicilian, illustrated by this famous
Dragon
schema, leaves white with a weak e4 pawn that will demand
defense and shape black's indirect and direct
attacks.
- The fitness is, according to Dawkins, a suitcase word with at least five meanings in biology:
- Darwin and Wallace thought in terms of the capacity to survive and reproduce, but they were considering discrete aspects such as chewing grass - where hard enamel would improve the relative fitness.
- Population geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane; consider selection at a locus where for a genotype: green eyes vs blue eyes; one with higher fitness can be identified from genotypic frequencies and gene frequencies, with all other variations averaged out.
- Whole organism 'integrated' fitness. Dawkins notes there is only ever one instance of a specific organism. Being unique, comparing the relative success of its offspring makes little sense. Over a huge number of generations the individual is likely to have provided a contribution to everyone in the pool or no one.
- Inclusive fitness, where according to Hamilton, fitness depends on an organism's actions or effects on its children or its relative's children, a model where natural selection favors organs and behaviors that cause the individual's genes to be passed on. It is easy to mistakenly count an offspring in multiple relative's fitness assessments.
- Personal fitness represents the effects a person's relatives have on the individual's fitness [3]. When interpreted correctly fitness [4] and fitness [5] are the same.
generated by a specific move.
- Potential adaptations in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary.
that a specific niche enables.
- The schematic representations are recorded in books,
organized around multiply
This page discusses the tagging of signals
in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Tagged signals can be used to control filtering of an event
stream. Examples of CAS filters are reviewed.
tagged
sequences: French, King's Indian, Ruy Lopez, Sicilian
(Najdorf, Scheveningen) etc... The non-ergodic
schematic database includes prized creative sequences
representing paths to notable wins: Fischer's, as white,
Najdorf Sozin 8 f4 - expanding its perceived fitness, and
his subsequent, as black, ... 14 h5 - that undermined this
assessment; and important losses and This page discusses the methods of avoiding traps. Genetic
selection and learning to avoid traps are reviewed.
traps
to be avoided. The understanding of the stream of
leveraged niche capture then encourages other knowledgeable
players to review niches that may be reached by legitimate,
short additional schematic sequences and analogous series of
moves of pieces. Often the exploration depends on
group interest, with masters noting that investigation of
some niche areas was abandoned when they became
unfashionable. Although the recorded analyses, advice
and schemata are helpful, to utilize them over the board the
details must be learned, which involves considerable
practice.
- Through
practice and actual competition, the
Consciousness is no longer mysterious. In this page we use
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory to describe the high-level
architecture of consciousness, linking sensory networks,
low level feelings and
genetically conserved and deployed neural structures into a high
level scheduler. Consciousness is evolution's
solution to the complex problems of effective, emergent,
multi-cellular perception based strategy.
Constrained by emergence and needing
to avoid the epistemological
problem of starting with a blank slate with every birth,
evolution was limited in its options.
We explain how survival value allows evolution to leverage
available tools: sensors, agent relative position, models, perception
& representation; to solve the problem of mobile
agents responding effectively to their own state and proximate environment.
Evolution did this by providing a genetically
constructed framework that can
develop into a conscious CAS.
And we discuss the implications with regard to artificial
intelligence, sentient robots,
augmented intelligence, and
aspects of philosophy.
conscious representation of chess
games will become associated with: visual signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. , feelings are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
generated
over-the-board and especially in experiencing wins
and losses, and logical thoughts - of the DLPFC is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is:
- At the heart of decision
making - highly rational, unsentimental
- A major agent of working
memory
- The most recently evolved part of the prefrontal cortex.
- Mainly interconnected with other parts of the cortex.
- Must be inhibited or it constrains right brain creativity.
, integrated through
memory in the brain includes functionally different types: Declarative, or explicit, (episodic and semantic), Implicit, Procedural, Spatial, Temporal, Verbal; Hebb suggested that glutamate receptive neurons learn by (NMDA channel based) synaptic strengthening: short term memory. This was shown to happen for explicit memory formation in the hippocampus. This strengthening is sustained by subsequent LTP. The non-real-time learning and planning processes operate through consciousness using the working memory structures, and then via sleep, the salient ones are consolidated while the rest are destroyed and garbage collected. with the adaptive
unconscious is Timothy Wilson's idea of a set of high-level cognitive processes, which interpret 'information' quickly without conscious awareness. It supports: decision making - where it's operation suggests prior gathering of details consciously and then allowing time, including sleeping, for the adaptive unconscious to generate a preference, although it is quick to categorize and rigid and may be overruled by the slower acting consciousness; Kahneman views adaptive unconscious decision making as part of fast thinking. .
- Replication of the basic process of developing a chess
player results in robustness, and parallel exploration of
the popular niches, with the support of
This page discusses the benefits of geographic clusters of agents and resources at the center of a complex adaptive
system (CAS).
geographic clustering of these
agents.
The great variety of chess players displays how SuperOrganisms
can be developed and operated in different ways:
- Beginners have no schematic representation of the chess
CAS so they can only
Antonio Damasio argues
that ancient
& fundamental homeostatic processes,
built into
behaviors and updated by evolution
have resulted in the emergence
of nervous systems and feelings. These
feelings, representing the state of the viscera, and represented with general
systems supporting enteric
operation, are later ubiquitously
integrated into the 'images'
built by the minds of higher animals
including humans.
Damasio highlights the separate
development of the body frame in the building of
minds.
Damasio explains that this integration of feelings by minds
supports the development of subjectivity and consciousness. His chain of
emergence suggests the 'order of things.' He stresses the
end-to-end
integration of the organism which undermines dualism. And he reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness.
Damasio reviews the emergence of cultures
and sees feelings, integrated with reason, as the judges of the
cultural creative process, linking culture to
homeostasis. He sees cultures as supporting the
development of tools
to improve our lives. But the results of the
creative process have added
stresses to our lives.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Each of the [super]organisms
discussed is a CAS reflecting the theory of such systems:
- Damasio's proposals about homeostasis routed signalling, aligns
well with CAS theory.
- Damasio's ideas on cultural stresses are elaborated by CAS
examples.
call upon
their This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution based
genetic strategies and cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
memetic strategies. It is
typical that they do not construct a SuperOrganism from the
nascent army of pieces.
- Over
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time, iterative chess
play can build experience over-the-board. This will
capture strategies and tactics are goals and actions which respond to the actions of the enemy in a combat, rather than focusing on ones own strategic direction.
that the player has found help increase the odds of
winning. These ideas are built on the beginner's
approach modified by experience. Coordination of the
pieces will be rewarded, but without a schematic opening
approach, each game will be a new exploration of 'the
board'.
- Reading about master chess games, talking with other
players, and especially
coaching by experts can transform the mental models
that the chess player uses to analyze and decide on moves
over-the-board. A shift in approach, to matching move
flows with schematic representations of these becomes clear
which, changes the players perception of the available
niches and how they operate.
- Master
play, supported by huge amounts of coached practice, and emotional are low level fast unconscious agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The cerebellum and basal ganglia support the integration of emotion and motor functions, rewarding rhythmic movement. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this, base emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Pinker notes a set of group selected emotions which he classes as: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious emotions. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Contempt, Disgust, Embarrassment, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Moral awe, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism.
clarity
and drive from winning regularly, adds highly schematic
operations during the opening and end-game. This
strategy can be leveraged by a master with a clear
perception of the current environment over-the-board and the
likely fitness is, according to Dawkins, a suitcase word with at least five meanings in biology: - Darwin and Wallace thought in terms of the capacity to survive and reproduce, but they were considering discrete aspects such as chewing grass - where hard enamel would improve the relative fitness.
- Population geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane; consider selection at a locus where for a genotype: green eyes vs blue eyes; one with higher fitness can be identified from genotypic frequencies and gene frequencies, with all other variations averaged out.
- Whole organism 'integrated' fitness. Dawkins notes there is only ever one instance of a specific organism. Being unique, comparing the relative success of its offspring makes little sense. Over a huge number of generations the individual is likely to have provided a contribution to everyone in the pool or no one.
- Inclusive fitness, where according to Hamilton, fitness depends on an organism's actions or effects on its children or its relative's children, a model where natural selection favors organs and behaviors that cause the individual's genes to be passed on. It is easy to mistakenly count an offspring in multiple relative's fitness assessments.
- Personal fitness represents the effects a person's relatives have on the individual's fitness [3]. When interpreted correctly fitness [4] and fitness [5] are the same.
of
each path they can select. The middle-game occurs when
their schematic overlays no longer represent the
environment. The master must now leverage the
strengths they have gained to support the tactical are goals and actions which respond to the actions of the enemy in a combat, rather than focusing on ones own strategic direction. operations
they employ.
Nation states are
typically This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergent autonomous entities are entities which: - Are far from equilibrium
- Consume and save low entropy
- Can use accessible low entropy to maintain themselves
.
The US is the United States of America. , by adopting a written
constitution and legislation developed iteratively by congress
to be operated by the executive, demonstrates a notably Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic approach to the emergence of
a national SuperOrganism is a wealthy autonomous entity needing and controlling the richest niches in the proximate environment, that emerges from the bundled cooperation of schematically aligned agents. The term is based on the social insect model, used by: ants, termites, and bees; and identified by Holldobler & E.O. Wilson. These genetically identical insect superorganisms cooperatively limit their reproduction to align with the resources available in the niche. Wilson asserts these insects all developed nests to which they returned to raise their offspring, and when the nest sites were of limited capacity some family members responded by focusing on defending the nest and foraging while their mother became an egg laying queen, enabled by "a single genetic change which silenced the brain's program for dispersal and prevents the mother and her offspring from dispersing to create new nests," Wilson explains. He adds climate control of the nest and disease resistance, just like the human immune system, demand individually focused diversity. So the queen's genome consists of low variety alleles for the extended phenotypic 'robot' worker caste agents and their organization - queen and workers competing as one, with other colonies and individual insects - and other parts which are high where the genome includes significant diversity. For humans it is an evolved cultural strategy used when the environment is supportive, but it is dependent on our imperfect cognitive assessment of kinship as well as group selection driven emotions: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious; and group oriented pressures to conform and remain: religions. And the adjacent possible must be recreated and modeled culturally through the emergence of processes such as democracy. It depends on inter-agent signalling. In both insects and humans it allows specialization, and encourages operations and flows that are tightly controlled, limiting waste, leveraging parallel activity, supporting coherence. Superorganisms reflect cliodynamic flows. A superorganism has a development and operational phase. As additional agents are coopted into the superorganism they align, participate in supply and demand activities and so contribute to the evolutionary amplification. Damasio notes that prokaryotes, in rich environments, can similarly operate in a symbiotic fashion expressing cultural behaviors. .
The approach seems analogous to chess master
play, displaying both the opening and middle-game
aspects. Most other states, do not have written
constitutional foundations and so, depend on cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
overlays to the
mixed genetic base of humanity, to support the behavioral
operation of the SuperOrganism.
Businesses are also autonomous entities are entities which: - Are far from equilibrium
- Consume and save low entropy
- Can use accessible low entropy to maintain themselves
.
They can be supported by the Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
memetic
wealth is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. the educational
institutions present to business students. The niches that
businesses compete for are also defined by their competitors: The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models, strategies and innovations is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. Keynes noted it provided the unquantifiable beneficial possibility that limits fear of uncertainty. Innovation operates across all CAS, being supported by genetic and cultural means. Creativity provides the mutation and recombination genetic operators for the cultural process. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy. ; and while
the memetic plans have not been optimized over millions of years
by This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution, the strategies developed for the
'cognitive niche,' which have, provide a good starting
point. And the influence of This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS
properties: Peter Turchin describes how major pre-industrial empires
developed due to effects of geographic boundaries constraining
the empires and their neighbors' interactions. Turchin
shows how the asymmetries of breeding rates and resource growth
rates results in dynamic cycles within cycles. After the
summary of Turchin's book complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
is used to augment Turchins findings.
cliodynamic cycles, Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraints, This page reviews the catalytic
impact of infrastructure on the expression of phenotypic effects by an
agent. The infrastructure
reduces the cost the agent must pay to perform the selected
action. The catalysis is enhanced by positive returns.
infrastructure
and This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
evolved amplifiers - including This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
network effects, This page discusses the benefits of geographic clusters of agents and resources at the center of a complex adaptive
system (CAS).
geographic clustering, This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
extended phenotypic alignment, This page reviews Christensen's disruption
of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism is discussed with examples from biology and
business.
disruption, presence or absence of Representing state in emergent entities is essential but
difficult. Various structures are used to enhance the rate
and scope of state transitions. Examples are
discussed.
structurally enhanced state, doomsday
machine integrates a: - Signal that advertises the presence of the doomsday machine
- Machine that once started can't be stopped.
- Uncontrollable initiation of the machine based on some constraint.
- Catastrophic result for all parties once the machine is started. There is the potential for both parties to participate in an arms race.
This page reviews the implications of doomsday machines in a
complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
implications; shapes
the niches in predictable ways.
A few businesses have worked on using a schematic approach to
their operations:
- AT&T's
A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and
Telegraph
(AT&T). Within this Bell Labs was at the center of
three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
Bell Labs
encouraged schematic research activities. Toyota
developed the approach in aligning their quality and
manufacturing strategies using This presentation reviews just-in-time manufacturing with
analysis based on complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
JIT
and This page reviews the strategy of architecting an end-to-end
solution in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its costs and benefits are discussed.
end-to-end architecture.
- Geisinger
leveraged the approach in their
Glenn Steele & David Feinberg review the development of the
modern Geisinger healthcare business after its near collapse
following the abandoned merger with Penn State AMC. After an overview of the
business, they describe how a calamity
unfolding around them supported building a vision of a
better US health care network. And they explain:
- How they planned
out the transformation,
- Leveraging an effective
governance structure,
- Using a strategy
to gain buy in,
- Enabling
reengineering at the clinician patient
interface.
- Implementing the reengineering for acute, chronic
& hot
spot care; to help the patients and help the
physicians.
- Geisinger's leverage of biologics.
- Reengineering healing with ProvenExperience.
- Where Geisinger is headed next.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame their ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
redesign
of the The structure and problems of the US
health care network is described in terms of complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
The network:
- Is deeply embedded in the US nation state. It reflects the
conflict between two
opposing visions for the US: high tax with safety net
or low tax without. The emergence
of a parasitic elite supported by tax policy, further
constrains the choices available to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the network.
- The US is optimized to sell its citizens dangerous
levels of: salt,
sugar, cigarettes,
guns, light, cell phones, opioids,
costly education, global travel,
antibacterials, formula, foods including
endocrine disrupters;
- Accepting the US controlled global supply chain's
offered goods & services results in: debt, chronic stress,
amplified consumption and toxic excess, leading to obesity, addiction, driving instead of
walking, microbiome
collapse;
- Globalization connects disparate environments in a network. At the edges,
humans are drastically altering the biosphere. That
is reducing the proximate natural environment's
connectedness, and leaving its end-nodes disconnected and
far less diverse. This disconnects predators from
their prey, often resulting in local booms and busts that
transform the local parasite
network and their reservoir and amplifier
hosts. The situation is setup so that man is
introduced to spillover
from the local parasites' hosts. Occasionally, but
increasingly, the spillover results in humanity becoming
broadly infected. The evolved
specialization of the immune system
to the proximate environment during development
becomes undermined as the environment transforms.
- Is incented to focus on localized competition generating
massive & costly duplication of services within
physician based health care operations instead of proven
public health strategies. This process drives
increasing research & treatment complexity and promotes hope
for each new technological breakthrough.
- Is amplified by the legislatively structured separation
and indirection of service development,
provision, reimbursement and payment.
- Is impacted by the different political strategies for
managing the increasing
cost of health care for the demographic bulge of retirees.
- Is presented with acute
and chronic
problems to respond to. As currently setup the network
is tuned to handle acute problems. The interactions
with patients tend to be transactional.
- Includes a legislated health insurance infrastructure
which is:
- Costly and inefficient
- Structured around yearly
contracts which undermine long-term health goals and
strategies.
- Is supported by increasingly regulated HCIT
which offers to improve data sharing and quality but has
entrenched commercial EHR
products deep within the hospital systems.
- Is maintained, and kept in
alignment, by massive network
effects across the:
- Hospital platform
based
sub-networks connecting to
- Physician networks
- Health insurance networks - amplified by ACA
narrow network legislation
- Hospital clinical supply and food
production networks
- Medical school and academic research network and NIH
- Global
transportation network
- Public health networks
- Health care IT supply
network
healthcare CAS
provider-insurer business model.
But most multi-national businesses shifted to focus on low cost
globalization based strategies without schematic operations: GE,
Wal-Mart.
Economics is the study of trade between humans. Traditional Economics is based on an equilibrium model of the economic system. Traditional Economics includes: microeconomics, and macroeconomics. Marx developed an alternative static approach. Limitations of the equilibrium model have resulted in the development of: Keynes's dynamic General Theory of Employment Interest & Money, and Complexity Economics. Since trading depends on human behavior, economics has developed behavioral models including: behavioral economics. currently
prioritizes Matt Ridley demonstrates the creative effect of man on the
World. He highlights:
- A list of
preconditions resulting in
- Additional niche
capture & more free time
- Building a network
to interconnect memes processes & tools which
- Enabling inter-generational
transfers
- Innovations
that help reduce environmental stress even as they leverage fossil
fuels
trade over Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraints. Sugerscape
explores fitness is, according to Dawkins, a suitcase word with at least five meanings in biology: - Darwin and Wallace thought in terms of the capacity to survive and reproduce, but they were considering discrete aspects such as chewing grass - where hard enamel would improve the relative fitness.
- Population geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane; consider selection at a locus where for a genotype: green eyes vs blue eyes; one with higher fitness can be identified from genotypic frequencies and gene frequencies, with all other variations averaged out.
- Whole organism 'integrated' fitness. Dawkins notes there is only ever one instance of a specific organism. Being unique, comparing the relative success of its offspring makes little sense. Over a huge number of generations the individual is likely to have provided a contribution to everyone in the pool or no one.
- Inclusive fitness, where according to Hamilton, fitness depends on an organism's actions or effects on its children or its relative's children, a model where natural selection favors organs and behaviors that cause the individual's genes to be passed on. It is easy to mistakenly count an offspring in multiple relative's fitness assessments.
- Personal fitness represents the effects a person's relatives have on the individual's fitness [3]. When interpreted correctly fitness [4] and fitness [5] are the same.
in a
simple trading scenario including genetic
algorithm-supported reproduction. The prioritization
of trade is supported by the fossil
fuel driven exponential increase in food supply.
This situation is Peter Turchin describes how major pre-industrial empires
developed due to effects of geographic boundaries constraining
the empires and their neighbors' interactions. Turchin
shows how the asymmetries of breeding rates and resource growth
rates results in dynamic cycles within cycles. After the
summary of Turchin's book complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
is used to augment Turchins findings.
atypical historically,
minimizes the impact of Sven Beckert describes the historic transformation of the
growing, spinning, weaving, manufacture of cotton goods and
their trade over time. He describes the rise of a first global
commodity, its dependence on increasing: military power, returns for
the control points in the value delivery system(VDS), availability of land
and labor to work it including slaves.
He explains how cotton offered the opportunity for
industrialization further amplifying the productive capacity of
the VDS and the power of the control points. This VDS was quickly
copied. The increased capacity of the industrialized
cotton complex adaptive system (CAS) required more labor to
operate the machines. Beckert describes the innovative introduction of wages
and the ways found to
mobilize industrial labor.
Beckert describes the characteristics of the industrial cotton
CAS which made it flexible enough to become globally interconnected.
Slavery made the production system so cost effective that all
prior structures collapsed as they interconnected. So when
the US civil war
blocked access to the major production nodes in the
American Deep South the CAS began adapting.
Beckert describes the global
reconstruction that occurred and the resulting destruction of the traditional ways
of life in the global countryside. This colonial expansion
further enriched and empowered the 'western' nation
states. Beckert explains how other countries responded
by copying the colonial strategies and creating the
opportunities for future armed conflict among the original
colonialists and the new upstarts.
Completing the adaptive
shifts, Beckert describes the advocates for industrialization in
the colonized global south and how over time they joined
the global cotton CAS disrupting the early western manufacturing
nodes and creating the current global CAS
dominated by merchants like Wal-Mart
pulling goods through a network of clothing manufacturers,
spinning and weaving factories, and growers competing with each
other on cost.
Following our summary of Beckert's book, RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The transformation of
disconnected peasant farmers,
pastoral warriors and their lands into a supply chain for a
highly profitable industrial CAS required the development over
time: of military force, global transportation and communication
networks, perception and representation control networks, capital stores and flows,
models, rules, standards and markets; along with the support at
key points of: barriers, disruption, and infrastructure and
evolved amplifiers. The emergent
system demonstrates the powerful constraining influence of
extended phenotypic alignment.
industrialization's
constraint based strategies and is E. O. Wilson reviews the effect of man on the natural world to
date and explains how the two systems can coexist most
effectively.
currently
inducing stress on the planet.
This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
Evolution
has the effect of Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
gathering mechanisms
that create, or gain access to, additional niches into the Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic grab bag. The pressure
to specialize and the capability to do so ensure that any action
that enhances a mechanism that creates, or improves access to,
an additional niche will be captured. Epistasis tends to help extend the
portfolio of the schematic structure. Significantly the
niches that evolution gains access to are almost all of its creation.
The Peter Medawar writes about key historic events in the evolution
of medical science.
scientific method transfers Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
evolved designs into abstract
processes that are Reading and writing present a conundrum. The reader's
brain contains neural networks tuned to reading. With
imaging a written word can be followed as it progresses from the
retina through a functional chain that asks: Are these letters?
What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound
like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? Dehaene
explains the importance of
education in tuning the brain's networks for reading as
well as good strategies for teaching reading and countering dyslexia. But
he notes the reading
networks developed far too recently to have directly evolved.
And Dehaene asks why humans are unique in developing
reading and culture.
He explains the cultural
engineering that shaped writing to human vision and the exaptations and neuronal structures that
enable and constrain reading and culture.
Dehaene's arguments show how cellular, whole animal and cultural
complex adaptive system (CAS) are
related. We review his explanations in CAS terms and use
his insights to link cultural CAS that emerged based on reading
and writing with other levels of CAS from which they emerge.
written down,
copied,
applied and can be amplified through Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative,
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
education.
Both science
and education leverage Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic
operations to improve niche access. But the Prussian design of
education removes the integration with somatic, Schematic structures which are used to support the operation of the agent. They are modified as the agent's state changes unlike the germ-line schemata. schema development
and constrains the full deployment of schematic plans to a
limited subset of Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents. This
will limit the potential for creativity.
Isaacson uses the historic development of the global cloud of
web services to explore Ada
Lovelace's ideas about thinking
machines and poetic
science. He highlights the value of computer
augmented human creativity and the need for liberal arts to
fulfill the process.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agent networks and
collaboration are discussed.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
currently utilizes a different approach. Instead of Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
operations
it leverages neural
networks are representational models that achieve high performance on difficult pattern recognition problems in vision and speech. But they need specialized training methods such as greedy layerwise pre-training or HF optimization. Researchers are gaining access to the participation of the individual 'neurons' using: visualization, attribution, dimensionality reduction, interpretability; (Mar 2018) with The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models using Samuel
weightings to create classifiers from human structured
information stores accessible in the cloud. These data
weighted classifiers provide associated Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents
with access to additional niches and enable This page introduces a series of asymmetries which encourage
different strategic approaches.
The differences found in business, sexual selection, gamete
structure, as well as in chess encourage escalations in the
interactions.
And yet the systems including these asymmetries can be quite
stable.
asymmetric competition with former
approaches to niche ownership. This page discusses the benefits of bringing agents and resources to the
dynamically best connected region of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Centralization
of the This page reviews the catalytic
impact of infrastructure on the expression of phenotypic effects by an
agent. The infrastructure
reduces the cost the agent must pay to perform the selected
action. The catalysis is enhanced by positive returns.
infrastructure and leverage
of This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
evolved amplification has pulled
wealth is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. towards the AI and
cloud infrastructure niche owners. But the collapse of
competitive niches may undermine the economy is a human SuperOrganism complex adaptive system (CAS) which operates and controls trade flows within a rich niche. Economics models economies. Robert Gordon has described the evolution of the American economy. Like other CAS, economic flows are maintained far from equilibrium by: demand, financial flows and constraints, supply infrastructure constraints, political and military constraints; ensuring wealth, legislative control, legal contracts and power have significant leverage through evolved amplifiers. supporting the new
wealth leading to its shrinkage.
Contrary to the pressure
to change are mechanisms that drive superior phenotypic is the system that results from the controlled expression of the genes. It is typically represented by a prokaryotic cell or the body of a multi-cell animal or plant. The point is that the genes provide the control surface and the abstract recipe that has been used to generate the cell. strategies into dominance and This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
extend phenotypic alignment beyond the
This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single initialized child cell. For
multi-cellular organisms this 'cell' must contain all the germ-line schematic
structures including for organelles and multi-generational epi-genetic
state. Any microbiome
is subsequently integrated during the innovative deployment of
this creative event. Organisms with skeletal
infrastructure cannot complete the process of creation of an
associated adult mind, until the proximate environment has been
sampled during development.
The mechanism and resulting strategic options are
discussed.
organism. But when resources
become scarce within a proximate niche, organisms must be ready
to respond:
- Prokaryotes, a single cell system with two main types: (1) Archaea, and (2) Eubacteria. Prokaryotes have their own DNA and infrastructure within a single enclosure. They are biochemically very versatile: Photosynthesis -> Electron transport & phosphorylation, Enzymatic regulation and catalysis of chemical reactions, Catabolize -> phosphate bond energy, ATP cycle, glycolysis, TCA cycle, Electron transports, oxidative phosphorylation, oxidation of fatty acids, oxidative degradation of amino acids; Biosynthesis & utilization of phosphate bond energy -> carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, muscle & motile structures; membrane barriers & active transports, hormones; Replication, Transcription, Translation, Regulation of gene expression; self-assembly; They utilize cell membrane receptors and signalling to support symbiotic cooperation with other cellular entities, including: in the microbiome, and as chloroplasts and mitochondria within eukaryotic cells.
respond to stress by increasing the mutation rate.
- Human adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged, encouraging male adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen; while females become highly focused on friendships and communications. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents:
- Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
ensures
increased risk, is an assessment of the likelihood of an independent problem occurring. It can be assigned an accurate probability since it is independent of other variables in the system. As such it is different from uncertainty.
taking, exploration of alternative strategies, switching
groups, challenging leadership now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. .
Hence the presence of disjoint, The complex adaptive system (CAS)
nature of a value delivery system is first introduced. It's a network
of agents acting as relays.
The critical nature of hub agents and the difficulty of altering
an aligned network is reviewed.
The nature of and exceptional opportunities created by platforms are discussed.
Finally an example of aligning a VDS is presented.
environmentally
different, niches can have the effect of assisting in additional
niche capture and support This page reviews Christensen's disruption
of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism is discussed with examples from biology and
business.
disruption
of aligned This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networks. Operations,
such as membrane, formed from a lipid (fat) bilayer which creates a barrier between aqueous (water soluble) media. In AWF a key property of membranes - their providing a catalytic environment and supporting the suspension of enzymatically active proteins within the membrane; is simulated with a Workspace list where 'active' structures can be inserted and codelets can detect and act on the structure's active promise configured as an association in the Slipnet.
formation and tooth
construction, that actively generate layered deployments
of new niches, such as in coral
reef formation, extend the adjacent possible by:
Environmental changes, such as the development or removal of Barriers are particular types of constraints on flows. They can enforce
separation of a network of agents allowing evolution to build
diversity. Examples of different types of barriers: physical
barriers, chemical
molecules can form membranes, probability based,
cell membranes can include controllable
channels, eukaryotes
leverage membranes, symbiosis, human emotions, chess, business; and
their effects are described.
barriers, transform the accessible
niches. Partitioning may induce This page discusses the strategy of modularity in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). The
benefits, mechanism and its emergence
are discussed.
modules
with separate sets of states. In any sequence of adaptive in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary. interactions, This page discusses the impact of random events which once they
occur encourage a particular direction forward for a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
frozen accidents will also ensure that
the situation will evolve in a totally unique way.
So Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic fitness is, according to Dawkins, a suitcase word with at least five meanings in biology: - Darwin and Wallace thought in terms of the capacity to survive and reproduce, but they were considering discrete aspects such as chewing grass - where hard enamel would improve the relative fitness.
- Population geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane; consider selection at a locus where for a genotype: green eyes vs blue eyes; one with higher fitness can be identified from genotypic frequencies and gene frequencies, with all other variations averaged out.
- Whole organism 'integrated' fitness. Dawkins notes there is only ever one instance of a specific organism. Being unique, comparing the relative success of its offspring makes little sense. Over a huge number of generations the individual is likely to have provided a contribution to everyone in the pool or no one.
- Inclusive fitness, where according to Hamilton, fitness depends on an organism's actions or effects on its children or its relative's children, a model where natural selection favors organs and behaviors that cause the individual's genes to be passed on. It is easy to mistakenly count an offspring in multiple relative's fitness assessments.
- Personal fitness represents the effects a person's relatives have on the individual's fitness [3]. When interpreted correctly fitness [4] and fitness [5] are the same.
seems to depend
both on the specific environmental opportunities and the
specific ordered actions of the current set of adapting agents
and a landscape metaphor should be used with caution. The
application of
fitness functions by Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic algorithms
to This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergent The complex adaptive system (CAS)
nature of a value delivery system is first introduced. It's a network
of agents acting as relays.
The critical nature of hub agents and the difficulty of altering
an aligned network is reviewed.
The nature of and exceptional opportunities created by platforms are discussed.
Finally an example of aligning a VDS is presented.
environments
certainly requires careful scrutiny. It utilizes desired
target values of selected capabilities to represent fitness is, according to Dawkins, a suitcase word with at least five meanings in biology: - Darwin and Wallace thought in terms of the capacity to survive and reproduce, but they were considering discrete aspects such as chewing grass - where hard enamel would improve the relative fitness.
- Population geneticists: Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane; consider selection at a locus where for a genotype: green eyes vs blue eyes; one with higher fitness can be identified from genotypic frequencies and gene frequencies, with all other variations averaged out.
- Whole organism 'integrated' fitness. Dawkins notes there is only ever one instance of a specific organism. Being unique, comparing the relative success of its offspring makes little sense. Over a huge number of generations the individual is likely to have provided a contribution to everyone in the pool or no one.
- Inclusive fitness, where according to Hamilton, fitness depends on an organism's actions or effects on its children or its relative's children, a model where natural selection favors organs and behaviors that cause the individual's genes to be passed on. It is easy to mistakenly count an offspring in multiple relative's fitness assessments.
- Personal fitness represents the effects a person's relatives have on the individual's fitness [3]. When interpreted correctly fitness [4] and fitness [5] are the same.
. Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
Schemata, controlling Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents which most closely meet those
targets in any particular generation, are selected to develop
subsequent generations based on the score of the associated
agent. Due to the testing of multiple offspring and the
representation of many parts of the fitness landscape within
each schematic string's component building blocks, selection
will drive subsequent generations of agents to increasingly
match the target capabilities, by iteratively including the most
successful building blocks.
The simple
environment, provided for the This page discusses a complex adaptive system (CAS) implementation of a genetic algorithm (GA), Melanie
Mitchell's robot-janitor built as a set of Copycat codelets
integrated using agent-based
programming. The improvement in the operation of the
robots over succeeding generations of applying the GA is graphed.
The CAS that generated, and operated the robot is reviewed,
including the implementation
details and codelet operational
program flow, and the challenges and limitations of this
implementation.
The schematic strings which make up
the robot's genotype, as
well as the signals which are sent
to the nucleus of the
robot's agents so
that the agents can deploy the appropriate response strings
(which activate codelets) are listed. The Slipnet configuration required by the
system to associate the schematic strings with programmatic
forces (codelets) is also listed.
The codelets and supporting perl are also listed.
In the conclusion the
limitations of the robot-janitor abstraction in studying emergence and creative evolution are discussed and
alternative experimental frameworks are proposed. One
such, the schematic cell is the subject of a separate page in this web frame.
virtual
robot, is changed by the agent's actions, and these
changes become associated, through higher scores, with the
schemata. However, this agent does not have to cope with
direct actions of competitors' in the environment.
The This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolutionary process applied to
generations of competing agents will select for optimum
competitive use of accessible niches. However, the genetic
algorithm leverages the designer's choices of capabilities and
target values to explore the fitness landscape. Evolution,
in contrast, must use the schematically associated collection of
tools available to agents, and the evolved relationship between
these and the environment that the agents exist in. With
these, evolution supports competition in indirectly forcing
adjacent possibilities into becoming accessible
opportunities. Evolution's Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic
operators probe the nature of the tool set, the impact of
proximate agents and the schematic representation of the
environment, and are supported in the search by the Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraining nature of the changes
operators can make to the schematic strings.
Adaptive in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary. agents can
successfully tie actions to schematic structures analogous to
genetic algorithms when the environment is constrained and This page discusses the physical foundations of complex adaptive
systems (CAS). A small set of
rules is obeyed. New [epi]phenomena then emerge. Examples are
discussed.
rules are known. It is also
important that the parallel search amplification of genetic
algorithms be present.
Evolving
with an adapted environment
Early complex adaptive system ( This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS)
Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents would be formed from a limited
Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic database. The
schematic building blocks of proteins, a relatively long chain (polymer) of peptides. Shorter chains of peptides are termed polypeptides.
are 20 amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. The 20 main variants differ by the nature of their side chain. Some are positively charged, others negatively charged. Some are water seeking while others are fat seeking. The genetic code mapping of DNA base pair triplets thus specifies the primary sequence of amino-acids in any protein polymer.
associated by translation is the process where messenger m-RNA is cross coded by Ribosomal agents and t-RNA into an amino-acid polymer.
with the 61 active triplets of
the genetic code (DNA), a polymer composed of a chain of deoxy ribose sugars with purine or pyrimidine side chains. DNA naturally forms into helical pairs with the side chains stacked in the center of the helix. It is a natural form of schematic string. The purines and pyrimidines couple so that AT and GC pairs make up the stackable items. A code of triplets of base pairs (enabling 64 separate items to be named) has evolved which now redundantly represents each of the 20 amino-acids that are deployed into proteins, along with triplets representing the termination sequence. Chemical modifications and histone binding (chromatin) allow cells to represent state directly on the DNA schema. To cope with inconsistencies in the cell wide state second messenger and evolved amplification strategies are used. .
The limited set of triplets constrains mutational events to
triplet deletions, triplet additions, codon, a DNA triplet that represents a specific amino-acid, or termination sequence of the genetic code. replacements as well as
missense replications. So the mutational operator is
well-defined and limited in scope.
The 20 amino acids, deployed by the translation is the process where messenger m-RNA is cross coded by Ribosomal agents and t-RNA into an amino-acid polymer. of the DNA (DNA), a polymer composed of a chain of deoxy ribose sugars with purine or pyrimidine side chains. DNA naturally forms into helical pairs with the side chains stacked in the center of the helix. It is a natural form of schematic string. The purines and pyrimidines couple so that AT and GC pairs make up the stackable items. A code of triplets of base pairs (enabling 64 separate items to be named) has evolved which now redundantly represents each of the 20 amino-acids that are deployed into proteins, along with triplets representing the termination sequence. Chemical modifications and histone binding (chromatin) allow cells to represent state directly on the DNA schema. To cope with inconsistencies in the cell wide state second messenger and evolved amplification strategies are used. schematic string, Rather than oppose the direct thrust of some environmental flow agents
can improve their effectiveness with indirect responses.
This page explains how agents are architected to do this and
discusses some examples of how it can be done.
indirectly associate the plan with chemical, molecules obtain chemical properties from the atoms from which they are composed and from the environment in which they exist. Being relatively small they are subject to phenomena which move them about, inducing collisions and possibly reactions with other molecules. AWF's Smiley simulates a chemical environment including associating the 'molecule' like strings with codelet based forces that allow the strings to react based on their component parts, sequence etc. and
physical This page discusses the physical foundations of complex adaptive
systems (CAS). A small set of
rules is obeyed. New [epi]phenomena then emerge. Examples are
discussed.
phenomena. The
translation process is limited to building blocks that can be
directly, or indirectly specified by the schematic string, and
yet it extends the forces associated with the schemata more
broadly.
- The amino acid variable side chain introduces variations
in polarity, charge (acid and base), shape and size.
- The peptide bond links two amino-acids together by their C and N terminals. It orients the side chains. The resulting polymer has vast degrees of freedom that become limited by the specific side chains that are deployed. So the DNA sequence mapped through the genetic code is able to generate a vast variety of chemically different poly peptides. Evolutionarily retained variants include alpha helix, beta sheets, beta bends and many active site structures which in aggregate have proven to be excellent structural and enzymatic building blocks.
introduces the planar trans configuration, and main chain
hydrogen bonding, there are different types of chemical bonds. Ionic bonds stabilize two oppositely charged ionized atoms when the negative atom gives up an electron to the positively charged atom. Covalent bonds stabilize the two reactants when they adopt a more stable structure with electrons shared between them. Hydrogen bonds stabilize charged groups when they are surrounded by water molecules. In Copycat codelets can bond two Workspace objects together. In the Smiley implementation a bondbuilder adds a bonding descriptor to one of the objects bonding it to the other. to
enable alpha helices provides a structural building block (a helical tube) that can be conserved and used by natural selection. ,
parallel and anti-parallel beta sheet provides a structural building block (a sheet with consistent electrical and physical properties) that can be conserved and used by natural selection. , and beta bends, provides a structural building block (a turn) that can be conserved and used by natural selection. , and
exclusion of water molecules, multiple atoms bonded together. The physical and chemical phenomena associated with the molecule such as charge, size, shape, and potential energy reflect the constituent atoms, the types of bonds between them and the topology of the bonding. Charged molecules dissolve in aqueous solutions (water). Uncharged molecules dissolve in lipid bilayers.
from otherwise non-polar environments.
The resulting polypeptide, an intermediate length amino-acid polymer. Longer lengths are termed proteins.
chains can interact with themselves, and other instances of
polypeptides, as well as other environmental structures
expressing these polarity, charge, size and shape
phenomena.
The competitive development of schematically defined cooperative
structures with phenotypic value such as This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
substrate
complementary enzyme active sites results directly from
the Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic operations. Each
addition of new structure potentially extended the environment
and schematically reachable possibilities.
The presence of phenomenologically active building blocks that
can be built up, with incorporated free energy, and torn down,
with release of energy, by agents constructed from the same
building blocks supports the efficient development of platforms is agent generated infrastructure that supports emergence of an entity through: leverage of an abundant energy source, reusable resources; attracting a phenotypically aligned network of agents. , and The complex adaptive system (CAS)
nature of a value delivery system is first introduced. It's a network
of agents acting as relays.
The critical nature of hub agents and the difficulty of altering
an aligned network is reviewed.
The nature of and exceptional opportunities created by platforms are discussed.
Finally an example of aligning a VDS is presented.
value chains as described
above.
Strategic clustering
Inspecting the grab bag of mechanisms and how these are deployed
so creatively, in
biology, to leverage specific niche opportunities gains some
credence from the recurrence of This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
schematic
goals, such as: Flows of different kinds are essential to the operation of
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Example flows are outlined. Constraints on flows support
the emergence of the systems.
Examples of constraints are discussed.
control of flows,
This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
network effects, This page discusses the benefits of geographic clusters of agents and resources at the center of a complex adaptive
system (CAS).
geographic clustering; at each level
of This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergent Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agent.
While the structures, This page discusses the physical foundations of complex adaptive
systems (CAS). A small set of
rules is obeyed. New [epi]phenomena then emerge. Examples are
discussed.
phenomena and
mechanisms change, the This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
goals are
often similar. But the dynamics and partitioning used by
real agents, challenges the scientist's techniques. The
use of computer The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models that reflect
This page discusses how Smiley
provides deployment guarantees to its agent-based
applications.
Smiley's transaction
services are reviewed.
The complex interactions of codelets
participating in a deployment cascade are discussed
including:
- The implementation of schematic switches.
- The cooperative use of goal
suppression.
- Evaluator codelets promotion
of other siblings.
Challenges of initiation of a cascade are discussed.
Tools to associate transaction protection to an operon deployed
codelet are described.
Special support for sub-program codelets is described. Completion
of transactional sub-programs presents special
challenges. Priority and synchronization support
includes:
- Delaying the
operaton of the cascade sponsor.
- Delaying
the notgcompleting
cascade participant.
- Waiting for completion of
parallel operations with the wait and relay
service.
The need to sustain resource pools is reviewed.
The use of signals to coordinate
siblings is described.
The structural binding operon
for the wait and relay service is included.
The codelets and supporting functions are
included.
schematic cascades, partitioning and
Flows of different kinds are essential to the operation of
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Example flows are outlined. Constraints on flows support
the emergence of the systems.
Examples of constraints are discussed.
control of flows can support the
understanding of real agent's operating strategies.
The state space of real agents is represented in the aggregate
schematic structures, schematic controls and deployed
infrastructure controls. Computer programmed models demand
accurate control of the state system to function at all so they
can help reject impossible scenarios from the alternatives
scientists are struggling to rationalize. The performance
of real agents is also typically critical so Representing state in emergent entities is essential but
difficult. Various structures are used to enhance the rate
and scope of state transitions. Examples are
discussed.
the management of state is constrained by
the requirement to respond in a timely manner.
Additionally, real agents must This page reviews the catalytic
impact of infrastructure on the expression of phenotypic effects by an
agent. The infrastructure
reduces the cost the agent must pay to perform the selected
action. The catalysis is enhanced by positive returns.
amplify
significant signals so that they ensure to transform the
collective state representation of the agent.
The presence of amplified second messengers, provide an amplified form of signals within a cell. Since cells need to stabilize their overall state with many operations happening in parallel second messengers are useful in clarifying the signals effect. The second messenger strategy is seen repeatedly in CAS including: neuro-transmitter guidance signals such as dopamine distribution in the brain, corporate positioning email messages in response to new situations, newspaper articles aligning the population;
provides this service. However, it means that a specific
agent must have its Representing state in emergent entities is essential but
difficult. Various structures are used to enhance the rate
and scope of state transitions. Examples are
discussed.
deployed
infrastructure pre allocated to the required response of
the initiating Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
signal. Hence
multi-agent systems have a multitude of similar infrastructure,
from the evolved grab bag, configured for the specific responses
particular agents are responsible for. Aggregate analysis,
ignoring the distributed deployment, just ends up with a
bewildering collection of similar infrastructure apparently
responding to the same second messengers.
The schematic structures operations are also likely to be far
more To benefit from shifts in the environment agents must be flexible. Being
sensitive to environmental signals
agents who adjust strategic priorities can constrain their
competitors.
flexible than initially
conceived by geneticists. Inspection of the operation of a
computer program, such as the This page describes the Adaptive Web framework (AWF) test system
and the agent programming framework (Smiley) that supports its
operation.
Example test system statements are included.
To begin a test a test statement is loaded into Smiley while
Smiley executes on the Perl
interpreter.
Part of Smiley's Perl code focused on setting up the
infrastructure is included bellow.
The setup includes:
- Loading the 'Meta file'
specification,
- Initializing the Slipnet,
and Workspaces and loading them
- So that the Coderack
can be called.
The Coderack, which is the focus of a separate
page of the Perl frame then schedules and runs the codelets
that are invoked by the test statement structures.
Adaptive
web framework (AWF) test infrastructure, which utilizes This page discusses how Smiley
provides deployment guarantees to its agent-based
applications.
Smiley's transaction
services are reviewed.
The complex interactions of codelets
participating in a deployment cascade are discussed
including:
- The implementation of schematic switches.
- The cooperative use of goal
suppression.
- Evaluator codelets promotion
of other siblings.
Challenges of initiation of a cascade are discussed.
Tools to associate transaction protection to an operon deployed
codelet are described.
Special support for sub-program codelets is described. Completion
of transactional sub-programs presents special
challenges. Priority and synchronization support
includes:
- Delaying the
operaton of the cascade sponsor.
- Delaying
the notgcompleting
cascade participant.
- Waiting for completion of
parallel operations with the wait and relay
service.
The need to sustain resource pools is reviewed.
The use of signals to coordinate
siblings is described.
The structural binding operon
for the wait and relay service is included.
The codelets and supporting functions are
included.
schematic cascades, partitioning and
control of flows indicates that there is little benefit to
sticking with one process. The evolutionary grab bag (epi-genetic
structures represent state surfaces within cells and eggs which can be operationally modified so as to provide a heritable structure. DNA, histones and other stable structures provide surfaces where these states may be setup. Egg carriers are in a particularly powerful position to induce epi-genetic changes. Sapolsky notes [childhood] events which persistently alter brain structure and behavior via epi-genetic mechanisms including: pair-bonding in prairie voles, as they first mate, is supported by changes in oxytocin & vasopressin receptor gene regulation in the nucleus accumbens. , proteins, a relatively long chain (polymer) of peptides. Shorter chains of peptides are termed polypeptides. ,
structural domains, evolution conserves many useful structures including DNA base sequence (content) addressable binding regions, protein active sites and signal structures which can then be reused through the mutation genetic operator. ,
RNA (RNA), a polymer composed of a chain of ribose sugars. It does not naturally form into a paired double helix and so is far less stable than DNA. Chains of DNA are converted by transcription into equivalently sequenced messenger m-RNA. RNA also provides the associations that encode the genetic code. Transfer t-RNAs have a site that maps to the codon and match the associated amino-acid. Stuart Kauffman argues that RNA polymers may be the precursor to our current DNA based genome and protein based enzymes. In the adaptive web framework's (AWF) Smiley we use a similar paradigm with no proteins. and other active
structures) will be used when there is advantage in doing
so.
 Politics, Economics & Evolutionary Psychology |
Business Physics Nature and nurture drive the business eco-system Human nature Emerging structure and dynamic forces of adaptation |
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integrating quality appropriate for each market |
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