Chaos Theory

Addendum - More Seminal Ethics Implications

by Mark Singer

Tandem works include: "Seminal Ethics," "Kant Concept Art," "More Seminal Ethics Implications" - also on this site.

This paper includes the "Possibility Implications" of the Kantian, Machiavellian, and Nietzschean Ethical Standards.

Trois Générations de Théories de la Complexité: Nuances et Ambiguités

by Michel Alhadeff-Jones

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2008). Trois Générations de Théories de la Complexité: Nuances et Ambiguités. Programme Européen MCX “Modélisation de la Complexité”. Disponible à l’adresse: http://www.mcxapc.org/docs/conseilscient/0805michel.pdf

Le recours contemporain à la notion de "complexité" renvoie fréquemment à des démarches ayant tendance à... more Le recours contemporain à la notion de "complexité" renvoie fréquemment à des démarches ayant tendance à unifier sa définition. En langue anglaise, sa réduction à une forme singulière (complexity theory ou complexity science) s'avère ainsi susceptible de masquer la variété des théories permettant de rendre compte des implications inhérentes au recours à cette notion. Cet article, en prenant en considération à la fois les traditions de recherche latines et anglosaxonnes, associées à la notion de complexité, suggère une approche plus nuancée, évitant la simplification de cette notion à certaines des conceptions dominantes qui y sont associées. Partant d'une approche étymologique, cet article propose d'envisager de façon chronologique l'émergence de trois générations de théories de la complexité; ce faisant, certains de leurs enracinements épistémologiques et socio-culturels sont introduits. D'un point de vue épistémologique, la réflexion proposée met en évidence certaines des interprétations hétérogènes sous-jacentes à la définition de ce qui est perçu comme complexe. Suivant une perspective anthropologique, ce texte évoque également la portée à la fois émancipatrice et asservissante susceptible d'être associée à l'idée de complexité. Sur la base des ambiguitiés mises en évidence, cet article suggère finalement de concevoir les contributions renvoyant aux théories contemporaines de la complexité, au même titre que la remise en question de leur légitimité épistémologique et éthique, à partir des boucles et des dynamiques dont elles sont constitutives. Ce faisant, les chercheurs et les praticiens en Sciences de l'éducation devraient considérer leurs pratiques en tant que processus
d'apprentissage dont la complexité renvoie autant aux transformations qu'ils étudient ou provoquent, qu'aux transformations inhérentes aux systèmes de représentations
auxquels ils ont recours pour les conceptualiser. 

Three Generations of Complexity Theories: Nuances and Ambiguities

by Michel Alhadeff-Jones

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2008). Three Generations of Complexity Theories: Nuances and Ambiguities. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40, 1, 66-82.

The contemporary use of the term ‘complexity’ frequently indicates that it is considered a unified concept. This may... more The contemporary use of the term ‘complexity’ frequently indicates that it is considered a unified concept. This may lead to a neglect of the range of different theories that deal with the implications related to the notion of complexity. This paper, integrating both the English and the Latin traditions of research associated with this notion, suggests a more nuanced use of the term, thereby avoiding simplification of the concept to some of its dominant expressions only. The paper further explores the etymology of ‘complexity’ and offers a chronological presentation of three generations of theories that have shaped its uses; the epistemic and socio-cultural roots of these theories are also introduced. From an epistemological point of view, this reflection sheds light on the competing interpretations underlying the definition of what is considered as complex. Also, from an anthropological perspective it considers both the emancipatory as well as the alienating dimensions of complexity. Based on the highlighted ambiguities, the paper suggests in conclusion that contributions grounded in contemporary theories related to complexity, as well as critical appraisals of their epistemological and ethical legitimacy, need to follow the recursive feedback loops and dynamics that they constitute. In doing so, researchers and practitioners in education should consider their own practice as a learning process that does not require the reduction of the antagonisms and the complementarities that shape its own complexity.

chaos and attention seeking behaviour problems (this paper explores some ideas from chaos theory and attention seeking behaviour problems)

by Nigel Mellor

(2012e) Biological Systems as Systems of Increasing Entropy

by Diego Gabriel Krivochen

DRATF. NEW IMPROVED VERSION COMING SOON. Part of the project "Differentiated linguistic and genetic explorations of language impairments and disorders within a biolinguistic approach on language faculty and language design (UG)", directed by Prof. Dr. Habil. Peter Kosta (Universität Potsdam)

In this paper we will try to provide a formalization of some characteristics of the development of biological systems... more In this paper we will try to provide a formalization of some characteristics of the development of biological systems aiming at the highest level of adequacy: justificative adequacy, that is, not only what we observe (descriptive adequacy) and how we think it occurs (explanatory adequacy) but also what architectural properties (in terms of matter configuration, for example) license the occurrence of certain phenomena. Following the line of Kosta, Peters and Krivochen (2011) –and references therein-, in the case of a biological instantiation of a physical system, justificative adequacy is to be found in the genotype-phenotype dynamics. Moreover, we will claim that this dynamic should be analyzed from a mathematical point of view, since the genotype is hypersensitive to initial conditions: a small change in a certain state of the system may have drastic effects on the output (what is commonly known as “the butterfly effect”). Our inquiry will lead us to revisit the concept of specific language impairment and its relation to other potential phenotypic states of the relevant biological system. Regarding methodology, we will use chaos theory applied to biology and also physical genetics in order to frame our research and give it theoretical weight.

Timbuktu und die selbstorganisierenden Gesellschaften der Vorzeit

by Douglas Park 

Douglas P. Park (2012). WESPENNEST Vol. 162.

This is an article written for popular consumption and published in German in the widely circulated Austrian publication WESPENNEST. Official print publication will be available in May 2012:

Article title in English is: Timbuktu and the Self-Organizing Societies of the Ancient World Article title in English is: Timbuktu and the Self-Organizing Societies of the Ancient World

Anti-System Politics. Alternative Normative Attractors in Chaotic Political Systems:The Case of the Front National

by Nicolas Baygert

Master’s thesis

“Spells Out The Word of Itself, and Then Dispelling Itself”: The Chaotics of Memory and The Ghost of the Novel in Jeff Noon’s Falling out of Cars

by Andrew Wenaus

Forthcoming: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

This article is a study of British author Jeff Noon’s most recent novel Falling out of Cars (2002) as a literary... more This article is a study of British author Jeff Noon’s most recent novel Falling out of Cars (2002) as a literary experiment engaged in raising the ghost of the modern novel, long hailed as dead.  Here, Noon samples canonic literature then transforms, manipulates, and reconfigures it in much the same way a message is transformed when being passed through a communication circuit. The result is a kind of poetic prose Noon terms “metamorphiction”: an elegant experimental mode of fantasy in which signs mutate within certain systemic parameters.  In metamorphiction, the textual past literally haunts the textual present.  This formal experiment is mirrored in the content: the novel concerns a middle aged woman mourning the death of her daughter.  Ultimately, Falling out of Cars is both a virtuosic piece of fantastic fiction and a serious meditation on the contemporary state of the novel.     

(2012d) Prospects for a Radically Minimalist OT

by Diego Gabriel Krivochen

First Draft. Special thanks to Mike Putnam, to whom I owe all I know about OT.

This paper has a simple and at the same time ambitious purpose: to open the door for mathematical learning algorithms... more This paper has a simple and at the same time ambitious purpose: to open the door for mathematical learning algorithms in a Radically Minimalist crash-proof version of Optimality Theory. This objective will be pursued with Minimalism as a program -not as a theory- in its most radical version; and the theoretical substance will be provided by OT. A secondary but not less important aim of this paper is to show that mathematical formalizations of natural languages do not necessarily imply a “metaphor”, but it is possible to work with the hypothesis that natural objects are in themselves mathematical structures (Tegmark, 2007). Such a formalization will be the first step in order to allow a more fluent interdisciplinary scientific exchange with formal sciences.

Datamoshing and the emergence of digital complexity from digital chaos

by William Brown

Co-authored with Meetali Kutty, published in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 18:2 (May 2012), pp. 165-176.

In this essay, we explore the aesthetic possibilities that are opened up by datamoshing, a practice whereby... more In this essay, we explore the aesthetic possibilities that are opened up by datamoshing, a practice whereby audiovisual artists actively downgrade the quality of digital images in order to render a more ‘raw’ aesthetic on screen. We follow this up by exploring the ways in which datamoshing as a practice (together with ‘glitch art’ more generally) highlights the decay that digital images undergo over time. Because it takes place through the deliberate compression of images, we here argue that the aforementioned loss of quality is an ‘artistic’ form of entropy, which leads us to the possibility for a theory of ‘digital chaos’. However, since the loss of data is reworked by artists in order to create new forms, we argue that this is a form of digital ‘emergence’ of ‘order out of chaos’, or ‘digital complexity’.

A New High-Efficiency, Linear Power Amplification Design Technique Derived From Nonlinear Dynamical Systems

by Chance Glenn

Mutually Orthogonal Chaotic Multiplexing

by Chance Glenn

Combining theater and complexity theory to facilitate the use of the internet for social change: spect-actors as strange attr-actors

by Alecia Wolf

Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community

by Klaus Joehnk

Benincà, E., Huisman, J., Heerkloss, R., Jöhnk, K.D, Branco, P., Van Nes, E.H., Scheffer, M. & Ellner, S., 2008. Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community. Nature 451: 822-825.

Chaos in Planktongemeinschaften

by Klaus Joehnk

Jöhnk, K.D., 2008. Chaos in Planktongemeinschaften. Spektrum der Wissenschaft 7/2008, 16-19.

Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community - Supplementary information

by Klaus Joehnk

Benincà, E., Huisman, J., Heerkloss, R., Jöhnk, K.D, Branco, P., Van Nes, E.H., Scheffer, M. & Ellner, S., 2008. Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community. Nature 451: 822-825.

Coupled predator–prey oscillations in a chaotic food web

by Klaus Joehnk

Benincà, E., Jöhnk, K.D., Heerkloss, R., Huisman, J., 2010. Coupled predator-prey oscillations in a chaotic food web. Ecology Letters 12, 1367-1378.

Calculating the Middle Ages? Quantitative Research and Social Network Analysis as New Tools for Historical Studies

by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller

Guest Lectures at the Romanian Academy of Sciences, Calea Victoriei, 125, Bucharest, Council Room (Ground-floor), Wednesday, 18th of January 2012, 10.00, Slides online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Talks/71263/Calculating_the_Middle_Ages_Quantitative_Research_and_Social_Network_Analysis_as_New_Tools_for_Historical_Studies

Overview on the possibilities of quantitative research and Network Analysis for Medieval Studies.

Three... more Overview on the possibilities of quantitative research and Network Analysis for Medieval Studies.

Three main focuses:
* Quantitative data from the natural sciences: climatic and natural phenomena

* Quantitative data from medieval sources: economic and demographic quantities

* The complexity of medieval societies: social network analysis on the basis of medieval sources

Conclusio:
* Complexity allows us to establish a framework for comparative research across time and space > the patterns of interaction between environment and society and within societies are and were always complex.
* We can analyse how similar crisis phenomena influenced the development of societies with different (or similar) traditions, religions, institutions, geographies or ecologies > differences matter!
* At the same time, we do not  loose track of essential commonalities (the “strange parallels”) of environmental impacts and historical change in pre-modern societies.
* We recognize the high significance of endogenous social dynamics in the polities in this period, on which exogenous changes (such as climatic) and extreme events had an impact, but not along the lines of an overwhelming linear causation as postulated in (older and) recent research.

A simple CMOS chaotic integrated circuit

by Josep L. Rossello

Fractal Narrative, Paraspace, and Strange Loops: The Paradox of Escape in Jeff Noon's Vurt.

by Andrew Wenaus

Science Fiction Studies #113 = Volume 38

This article examines how Jeff Noon grafts concepts from chaos theory to literature in order to develop a playful... more This article examines how Jeff Noon grafts concepts from chaos theory to literature in order to develop a playful narrative form appropriate to representing multiple ontological levels. I argue this by looking closely at the roles of form, metaphor, and content in Noon’s stylish debut novel, Vurt (1993). The novel’s movement from order to disorder and finally towards a new order suggests that the structure of Vurt may operate mimetically according to the vision of reality proposed by chaos theorists. In this way, Noon experiments with literary form by reinterpreting the narrative spaces of virtual reality through the metaphors of fractal geometry, a spatial phenomenon that so delighted the popular imagination at the time of the novel’s publication. I explore the relationship between metaphor and content through the trope of conflict between order/chaos and meaning/hopelessness, and by applying Douglas Hofstadter’s theory of consciousness and his concept of the paradoxical “strange loop.” These tropes may cast light on the complexities of the characters’ intense desires for transcendence and how the form of the novel itself makes this ambivalent quest difficult, if not impossible. Accordingly, chaos functions not only as a reminder of the turbulence inherent in human experience but also of the exciting aesthetic possibilities this theory extends to literature.