Category Archives: Science & Philosophy

The four laws of thermodynamics and the entropy

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The four laws of thermodynamics define fundamental physical quantities (temperature, energy, and entropy) that characterize thermodynamic systems. The laws describe how these quantities behave under various circumstances, and forbid certain phenomena (such as the perpetuum mobile).

The four laws were developed during the 19th and early 20th century. Many researchers consider that the zeroth and third laws follow directly from the frist and second laws, thus that there are really only two fundamental laws of thermodynamics.

Thermodynamic entropy is a measure of how evenly energy is distributed in a system. The term was coined in 1865 by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius.

In a physical system, entropy provides a measure of the amount of energy that cannot be used to do work.

Free Energy Rate Density and STEM Compression

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A metric to characterize the complexity of physical, biological and cultural systems in the universe has been proposed by Eric Chaisson. It is called Free Energy Rate Density (FERD). The Evo Devo Universe Community is looking for researchers to collaborate on investigating FERD and its larger human implications.

Birds have higher energy rate densities, compared to humans, probably because they operate in 3 dimensions.

An idea that the most complex of the universe’s extant systems at any time  use progressively less space, time, energy and matter to create the next level of complexity in their evolutionary development has been advocated by John Smart. The concept is called STEM compression (formerly MEST compression).

A list of links to websites dealing with FERD and STEM is shown hereafter :

Cybernetics

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Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory systems, their structures, constraints, and possibilities. Cybernetics is applicable when a system being analyzed is involved in a closed signaling loop and it is relevant to the study of mechanical, physical, biological, cognitive, and social systems. These concepts are studied by other fields such as engineering and biology, but in cybernetics these are abstracted from the context of the individual organism or device.

Cybernetics was defined in the mid 20th century, by Norbert Wiener as the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. It grew out from Claude Shannon’s information theory, which was designed to optimize the transfer of information through communication channels.

Cybernetics is related to System Dynamics, an approach to understand the behaviour of complex systems over time, and to Teleology.

Cybernetics is sometimes used as a generic term, which serves as an umbrella for many systems-related scientific fields.

Metasystem Transition

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A metasystem transition is the emergence, through evolution, of a higher level of organization or control. The concept of metasystem transition was introduced by the cybernetician Valentin Turchin in his 1977 book The Phenomenon of Science, and developed among others by Francis Heylighen in the Principia Cybernetica Project.

The classical sequence of metasystem transitions in the history of animal evolution, from the origin of animate life to sapient culture, has been defined by Valentin Turchin  :

  1. Control of Position = Motion
  2. Control of Motion = Irritability
  3. Control of Irritability = Reflex
  4. Control of Reflex = Association
  5. Control of Association = Thought
  6. Control of Thought = Culture

Principia Mathematica and Principia Cybernetica

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Principia commonly refers to Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a work in three books by Sir Isaac Newton, first published 5 July 1687. The Principia is considered as one of the most important works in the history of science.

The Principia Mathematica (PM) is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics, written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910, 1912, and 1913. PM is an attempt to derive all mathematical truths from a well-defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic.

The Principia Cybernetica Project is an attempt by a group of researchers to build a complete and consistent system of philosophy. Principia Cybernetica tries to tackle age-old philosophical questions with the help of the most recent cybernetic theories and technologies. Principia Cybernetica Web is one of the oldest, best organized, and largest, fully connected hypertexts on the Net. It contains over 2000 web pages (nodes), numerous papers, and even complete books.

The Principia Cybernetica Project was conceived by Valentin Turchin. With the help of Cliff Joslyn and Francis Heylighen, the first public activities started in 1989. An FTP server went online in March 1993 at the Free University of Brussels , followed a few months later by an hypertext server, which turned out to be the first one in Belgium.

The specific goals for the Principia Cybernetica Project are :

  • Collaboration
  • Constructivity
  • Active
  • Semantic Representations and Analysis
  • Consensus
  • Multiple Representational Forms
  • Flexibility
  • Publication
  • Multi-Dimensionality

MIT CCI (Center for Collective Intelligence)

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Last update : August 6, 2013

The MIT CCI (Center for Collective Intelligence) brings together faculty from across MIT to conduct research on how new communications technologies, especially the Internet, are changing the way people work together. The goal of their research is to understand how to take advantage of the new possibilities offered by systems like Google, Wikipedia and Innocentive.

Their basic question is : How can people and computers be connected so that, collectively, they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before ?

The MIT CCI was launched on October 13, 2006. Thomas W. Malone, Director of the Center, stated during the official launch that time has come to make collective intelligence a topic of serious academic study. The MIT CCI does four types of research :

  1. collecting examples or case studies
  2. create new examples to advance the state of the art and to learn new design principles
  3. do systematic studies and experiments
  4. develop new theories to help tie all these things together

The hope of the MIT CCI is that in the long run the research work done will help to understand new and better ways to organize businesses, to conduct science, to run governments, and, perhaps most importantly, to help solve the problems we face as society and as a planet.

A list of research projects is shown hereafter :