@ketanjoshi.co i would say #collapse in systems dynamics describes a shift in dominance of feedbacks. in the context of complexity theory it is used to describe rapid breakdown of complexity. but it is never used in any of these professions as a technical term. they have their own, very specific jargon and definitions of different concepts of collapse.
too many people #talkcollapse who never read any #systemstheory.
2025 is looking like a great year for work at the intersection of #categorytheory, #systemstheory, #controltheory, #machinelearning and #probabilitytheory, this thread will be a very biased collection of works (in no specific order) I'm hoping to read as soon as possible!
Starting with:
"Logical Aspects of Virtual Double Categories"
https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_mathCT_bot/113921693949589956
Theory and Therapy of Representations • 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/25/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-5-b/
Re: R.J. Lipton and K.W. Regan • Legal Complexity
• https://rjlipton.com/2022/09/04/legal-complexity/
❝I do not pretend to understand the moral universe;
the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways;
I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by
the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.
And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.❞
🙞 Theodore Parker
• https://web.archive.org/web/20200302045624/https://books.google.com/books?id=eHgYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q&f=false
The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice — there's hope it will.
For the logic of laws to converge on justice may take some doing on our part.
Resources —
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
Survey of Differential Logic
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/25/survey-of-differential-logic-7/
Survey of Inquiry Driven Systems
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/28/survey-of-inquiry-driven-systems-6/
#AdaptiveSystems #Cybernetics #SystemsTheory #Governance #Democracy
#Plato #Peirce #MaxWeber #Accountability #Representation #Statistics
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #Observation #Expectation #Intention
Theory and Therapy of Representations • 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/24/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-4-b/
Re: Ontolog Forum • Paola Di Maio
• https://groups.google.com/g/ontolog-forum/c/Ek_7cCCyFkQ/m/qI0kQv4UAgAJ
JA: What are the forces distorting our representations of what's observed, what's expected, and what's intended?
PDM: The short answer is — the force behind all distortions is our own unenlightened mind, and all the shortfalls this comes with.
I think that's true, we have to keep reflecting on the state of our personal enlightenments. If we can do that without losing our heads and our systems thinking caps, there will be much we can do to promote the general Enlightenment of the State.
On both personal and general grounds we have a stake in the projects of self‑governing systems — whether it is possible for them to exist and what it takes for them to thrive in given environments. Systems on that order have of course been studied from many points of view and at many levels of organization. Whether we address them under the names of adaptive, cybernetic, error-correcting, intelligent, or optimal control systems they all must be capable to some degree of learning, reasoning, and self‑guidance.
Resources —
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
Survey of Differential Logic
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/25/survey-of-differential-logic-7/
Survey of Inquiry Driven Systems
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/28/survey-of-inquiry-driven-systems-6/
#AdaptiveSystems #Cybernetics #SystemsTheory #Governance #Democracy
#Plato #Peirce #MaxWeber #Accountability #Representation #Statistics
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #Observation #Expectation #Intention
Theory and Therapy of Representations • 3.2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/23/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-3-b/
Scene 2. Theory and Therapy of Representations • 1
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/21/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-1-b/
Statistics were originally the data a ship of state needed for stationkeeping and staying on course. The Founders of the United States, like the Cybernauts of the Enlightenment they were, engineered a ship of state with checks and balances and error-controlled feedbacks for the sake of representing both reality and the will of the people. In that connection Max Weber saw how a state's accounting systems are intended as representations of realities its crew and passengers must observe or perish.
That brings us to Question 2 —
• What are the forces distorting our representations of what's observed, what's expected, and what's intended?
Resources ─
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
Pragmatic Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
#AdaptiveSystems #Cybernetics #SystemsTheory #Governance #Democracy
#Plato #Peirce #MaxWeber #Accountability #Representation #Statistics
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #Observation #Expectation #Intention
Theory and Therapy of Representations • 3.1
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/23/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-3-b/
Representation is a concept we find at the intersection of cybernetics, epistemology, logic, mathematics, psychology, and sociology. In my studies it led me from math to psych and back again, with sidelong glances at the history of democratic governance. Its time come round again, I find myself returning to the scenes of two recurring questions.
Scene 1. Pragmatic Truth • Discussion 18
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2019/11/14/pragmatic-truth-discussion-18/
We do not live in axiom systems. We do not live encased in languages, formal or natural. There is no reason to think we will ever have exact and exhaustive theories of what's out there, and the truth, as we know, is “out there”. Peirce understood there are more truths in mathematics than are dreamt of in logic — and Gödel’s realism should have put the last nail in the coffin of logicism — but some ways of thinking just never get a clue.
That brings us to Question 1 —
• What are formalisms and all their embodiments in brains and computers good for?
Resources ─
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
Pragmatic Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
#AdaptiveSystems #Cybernetics #SystemsTheory #Governance #Democracy
#Plato #Peirce #MaxWeber #Accountability #Representation #Statistics
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #Observation #Expectation #Intention
Theory and Therapy of Representations • 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/22/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-2-b/
In a complex society, people making decisions and taking actions at places remote from you have the power to affect your life in significant ways. Those people govern your life, they are your government, no matter what spheres of influence they inhabit, private or public. The only way you get a choice in that governance is if there are paths of feedback permitting you to affect the life of those decision makers and action takers in significant ways. That is what accountability, response-ability, and representative government are all about.
Naturally, some people are against that.
In the United States there has been a concerted campaign for as long as I can remember — but even more concerted since the Reagan Regime — to get the People to abdicate their hold on The Powers That Be and just let some anonymous corporate entity send us the bill after the fact. They keep trying to con the People into thinking they can starve the beast, to limit government, when what they are really doing is feeding the beast of corporate control, weakening their own power over the forces that govern their lives.
That is the road to perdition as far as responsible government goes. There is not much of anything one leader or one administration can do unsupported if the People do not constantly demand a government of, by, and for the People.
Resource ─
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
#AdaptiveSystems #Cybernetics #SystemsTheory #Governance #Democracy
#Plato #Peirce #MaxWeber #Accountability #Representation #Statistics
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #Observation #Expectation #Intention
Theory and Therapy of Representations • 1
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/02/21/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-1-b/
❝Again, in a ship, if a man were at liberty to do what he chose, but were devoid of mind and excellence in navigation (αρετης κυβερνητικης), do you perceive what must happen to him and his fellow sailors?❞
─ Plato • Alcibiades 135 A
Statistics were originally the data a ship of state needed for stationkeeping and staying on course. The Founders of the United States, like the Cybernauts of the Enlightenment they were, engineered a ship of state with checks and balances and error‑controlled feedbacks for the sake of representing both reality and the will of the people. In that connection Max Weber saw how a state's accounting systems are intended as representations of realities its crew and passengers must observe or perish.
The question for our time is —
• What are the forces distorting our representations of what's observed, what's expected, and what's intended?
Repercussions ─
The Place Where Three Wars Meet
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/06/21/the-place-where-three-wars-meet/
Resource ─
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
#AdaptiveSystems #Cybernetics #SystemsTheory #Governance #Democracy
#Plato #Peirce #MaxWeber #Accountability #Representation #Statistics
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #Observation #Expectation #Intention
Thread 1/?
Been a bit more cognitively blunt since a infection some 16 weeks ago that was followed by not being able to smell #Tea leaves.
As treatment, going to read through the following article and pick out things of interest.
No claim that things of interest will be widely significant or accurately considered.
Looks like this intersects with #Computing, #AI, #SystemsTheory and #Philosophy.
Are Biological Systems More Intelligent Than Artificial Intelligence?
#StaffordBeer states the case for a new science of #systemstheory and #cybernetics. Designing Freedom ponders the possibilities of liberty in a cybernetic world.
The 1973 CBC Massey Lectures, "Designing Freedom"
#CBCRadio #radioteledyn #nowplaying
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1973-cbc-massey-lectures-designing-freedom-1.2946819
so i am going to post a thread of some graphs about the human situation on the planet. some show data, some show concepts. all of them are going to be pretty depressing, so buckle up.
Well. I have become a person who reads books that look like this now. #systemstheory
Constraints and Indications • 1.2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/02/constraints-and-indications-1-a/
Re: Peirce List • Kaina Stoicheia and the Symbol Grounding Problem
• https://web.archive.org/web/20121231182129/http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/9165
Reference —
• Ashby, W.R. (1956), Introduction to Cybernetics, Methuen, London, UK.
Resources —
Survey of Cybernetics
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/25/survey-of-cybernetics-4/
Survey of Inquiry Driven Systems
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/28/survey-of-inquiry-driven-systems-6/
Survey of Pragmatic Semiotic Information
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/03/01/survey-of-pragmatic-semiotic-information-8/
#Peirce #Ashby #Cybernetics #InquiryDrivenSystems #PragmaticSemioticInformation
#Constraint #ControlSystems #Indication #Information #Inquiry #IntelligentSystems
#AdaptiveSystems #ErrorControlledRegulation #Feedback #SystemsTheory #Uncertainty
#Determination #Intentionality #Learning #Reasoning #SemioticInformation #Semiotics
TALKING WITH FRITJOF…
Morag Gamble’s permaculture Festival of Ideas certainly lived up to its name when she went live with it in May of this year. So, thanks Morag.
One of the highlights, well, the main highlight for me was the appearance of Fritjof Capra, the scientist whose book ‘The Tao of Physics’ , inspired and intrigued me when it was published decades ago. Fritjof went on the integrtate systems theory into his synthisis of modern science and traditional spiritual systems.
“Systems thinking and understanding networks are key attributes to understanding the world and how it works”, he said, they are key patterns in nature. They are also key concepts underlying the structure and application of permaculture.
Hello everyone, I am Diego (aka videco)! I love making music with code and also with other instruments (#electricguitar, #drums, #lumatone).
Among the music projects where I participate, probably the most relevant for this server is Pirarán, a networked ensemble.
My favorite coding tool/language is #overtone (#clojure) for which I've developed libraries related to #microtonality and #polytemporality, as well as a port of #tidalcycles called #piratidal. I also like #tidalcycles #supercollider and #hydra.
Conceptually one of my primary motivators is exploring creativity as a natural phenomena. I do so by conceiving thought/imagination as an ecosystem where different ideas get to co-evolve, and so, I try to think of the projects I work on as part of a network of relations and the products, not as things in themselves, but as parts of a bigger whole. Consequently I place great emphasis on #collaboration as diversity is most important to maintain the dynamic equilibrium of ecosystems and to keep them healthy and lively. As part of all that #chaostheory, #systemstheory, #ecology and #anarchy are also things that interest me.
You can find more information on the music at https://echoic.space
The repositories live at https://github.com/diegovdc
Pirarán's music is here: https://piraran.bandcamp.com
In their 2014 article, Jacobson, Kapur, and Reimann propose shifting the paradigm of learning theory towards the conceptual framework of complexity science. They argue that the longstanding dichotomy between cognitive and situative theories of learning fails to capture the intricate dynamics at play. Learning arises across a “bio-psycho-social” system involving interactive feedback loops linking neuronal processes, individual cognition, social context, and cultural milieu. As such, what emerges cannot be reduced to any individual component.
To better understand how macro-scale phenomena like learning manifest from micro-scale interactions, the authors invoke the notion of “emergence” prominent in the study of complex adaptive systems. Discrete agents interacting according to simple rules can self-organize into sophisticated structures through across-scale feedback.
For instance, the formation of a traffic jam results from the cumulative behavior of individual drivers. The jam then constrains their ensuing decisions.
Similarly, in learning contexts, the construction of shared knowledge, norms, values and discourses proceeds through local interactions, which then shape future exchanges. Methodologically, properly explicating emergence requires attending to co-existing linear and non-linear dynamics rather than viewing the system exclusively through either lens.
By adopting a “trees-forest” orientation that observes both proximal neuronal firing and distal cultural evolution, researchers can transcend outmoded dichotomies. Beyond scrutinizing whether learner or environment represents the more suitable locus of analysis, the complex systems paradigm directs focus towards their multifaceted transactional synergy, which gives rise to learning. This avoids ascribing primacy to any single level, as well as positing reductive causal mechanisms, instead elucidating circular self-organizing feedback across hierarchically nested systems.
The implications are profound. Treating learning as emergence compels educators to appreciate that curricular inputs and pedagogical techniques designed based upon linear extrapolation will likely yield unexpected results. Our commonsense notions that complexity demands intricacy fail to recognize that simple nonlinear interactions generate elaborate outcomes. This epistemic shift suggests practice should emphasize creating conditions conducive for adaptive growth rather than attempting to directly implant mental structures. Specifically, adopting a complexity orientation may entail providing open-ended creative experiences permitting self-guided exploration, establishing a learning culture that values diversity, dissent and ambiguity as catalysts for sensemaking, and implementing distributed network-based peer learning.
Overall, the article explores how invoking a meta-theory grounded in complex systems science can dissolve dichotomies that have plagued the field. It compels implementing flexible, decentralized and emergent pedagogies far better aligned to the nonlinear complexity of learner development in context.
Sophisticated learning theories often fail to translate into meaningful practice. Yet what this article describes closely corresponds to how The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is actually implementing its vision of education as a philosophy for change, in the face of complex threats to our societies. The Foundation conceives of learning as an emergent phenomenon arising from interactions between individuals, their social contexts, and surrounding systems. Our programs aim to catalyze this emergence by connecting practitioners facing shared challenges to foster collaborative sensemaking. For example, our Teach to Reach events connect tens of thousands of health professionals to share experience on their own terms, in relation to their own contextual needs. This emphasis on open-ended exploration and decentralized leadership exemplifies the flexible pedagogy demanded by a complexity paradigm. Overall, the Foundation’s work – deliberately situated outside the constraints of vestigial Academy – embodies the turn towards nonlinear models that can help transcend stale dichotomies. Our practice demonstrates the concrete value of recasting learning as the product of embedded agents interacting to generate systemic wisdom greater than their individual contributions.
Jacobson, M.J., Kapur, M., Reimann, P., 2014. Towards a complex systems meta-theory of learning as an emergent phenomenon: Beyond the cognitive versus situative debate. Boulder, Colorado: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Illustration © The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection (2024)
After some tuning time my new creation of a #nonlinear #DynamicalSystems example is ready for the showcase.
I call it "Dynamically Accelerated PT2" (DAPT2). The step response starts smooth as for a PT2 but reaches the final value much faster (but still smoothly).
#control #engineers and #systemstheory
I will publish the formula soon but meanwhile I encourage you to guess how it is done.
Hints: #ODE system of order 5, analytic vectorfield ( i.e., rhs is "even smoother" then C∞)
Dear fellow #control #engineers and #systemstheory nerds 
. I want to invite you on my little journey through the interesting lands of #nonlinear #DynamicalSystems.
My goal is to come up with some differential equations of dynamical systems which have some not-so-common step responses. How far and interesting this will be – I don't know, but it might get interesting.
We start with this little friend: It loads fast but unloads slow. I call it "leashed DT1 element".
Looking for this kind of confidence in a paper #systemstheory #cybernetics #controltheory
