What, Why & How do we Know ?
I’ve often noted that I hold an information monism – its processing & communication – to be underlying both the physical and the mental. In fact as recently as my previous post, I include it in a summary of my position linking information & entropy with systems & cybernetics. My “What, Why and How do … Continue reading “Fundamental Information & Computation”
Thinking about an upcoming dialogue, I thought I’d compose a brief outline of what I’m about in 2023. A conversation starter. I’m doing “Systems Thinking”. For 20+ years, I would have called it “Cybernetics” by which I mean the original sense of the term – how humans as living things decide and govern ourselves for … Continue reading “What Am I Thinking?”
Iain McGilchrist gave a keynote speech to the “AI (Artificial Intelligence) World Summit 2022” in the full plenary session on October 12th in Amsterdam. The Video is available here and the full transcript here for members of Channel McGilchrist. [Can’t embed the Vimeo here.] I thought it significant that Iain chose to redefine “AI” for … Continue reading “McGilchrist & Natural Information Processing”
I aired my interest in IDEF0 as a diagramming language in May and August this year. First time in passing as one of the needs slowing my own writing progress, second time as a kind of “spec” for what I might expect from a community interested in systems thinking (the Active Inference group killing two … Continue reading “IDEF0 Diagramming Tools”
Opening Gambit [Links being added] [Q (21 Aug)]: “I understand that you have a professional engineering background and a strong interest in systems theory … If you would like to discuss this very important topic one on one I would be interested.” [A (22 Aug)]: “Sure, I most recently I summarised my interest here (18 … Continue reading “Strained Conversation”
I’ve previously only mentioned Friston as the source of Friston’s Free Energy Principle as the backdrop to Mark Solms proper bio-psychological account of consciousness. I listened to this discussion – hap tip to the Active Inference folks – and already made a few footnotes to the two previous posts. It’s the first time I’ve listened … Continue reading “Karl Friston and Good Fences”
As well as dallying about at conceptual / philosophical levels with cybernetics and systems thinking in recent decades, I’ve had several abortive attempts at getting some useful tools going. In fact in those decades I was also working with and for software developers / solution providers on “generic” tools mainly in the “capital facilities” business. … Continue reading “Systems Functional Needs”
Watching this wonderful “Krebs Cycle” RI lecture by Nick Lane – last mentioned him here – and just wanted to note two things for now. One, there is an obvious topological parallel (*) between (System) Markov Blankets and (Mitochondria) Lipid Membranes at two quite different levels of abstraction – information processes and biochemical processes. And … Continue reading “Markov Blankets vs Lipid Membranes”
I have a long overdue (several years, half-drafted) piece called “Good Fences” that goes right back to basic “classification & identification, definition & description” of stuff we deal with in the real world: How we subdivide the world into different kinds of stuff and different things and give them various names. It occurs everywhere from … Continue reading “Good and Bad but not Black and White”
I’ve just taken possession of Kevin Mitchell’s (2018) “Innate – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are”. No idea why it’s taken me so long to acquire a copy, he’s been on my book list for some time and I’ve been following him for a few years on Twitter – he’s a … Continue reading “Innate by Kevin Mitchell”