Stigmergy | GeorgieBC's Blog

Stigmergy | GeorgieBC's Blog

"A new system of governance or collaboration that does not follow a competitive hierarchical model will need to employ stigmergy in most of its action based systems. It is neither reasonable nor desirable for individual thought and action to be subjugated to group consensus in matters which do not affect the group, and it is frankly impossible to accomplish complex tasks if every decision must be presented for approval; that is the biggest weakness of the hierarchical model. The incredible success of so many internet projects are the result of stigmergy, not cooperation, and it is stigmergy that will help us build quickly, efficiently and produce results far better than any of us can foresee at the outset."

Alternative libertaire - Jacques Rancière : « La démocratie est née d'une limitation du pouvoir de la propriété »

Alternative libertaire - Jacques Rancière : « La démocratie est née d'une limitation du pouvoir de la propriété »

"... pouvoir des États et des grandes organisations interétatiques qui est, plus que jamais aussi, un pouvoir anti-politique, un appareil destiné à confisquer et à détruire la capacité collective."
...
"la démocratie se trouve en quelque sorte remise à elle-même, à sa propre capacité d’élargir son espace et d’inventer son avenir."

Neural Bridges: Brain-to-Brain Application Possibilities? | 360 Degrees of Mindful Living

Neural Bridges: Brain-to-Brain Application Possibilities? | 360 Degrees of Mindful Living

"- using a “neural bridge” to attempt to jumpstart (i.e. awaken from within) a comatose brain (a proof-of-principle experiment would involve a PNS-to-PNS experiment where a non-comatose/normal subject has his/her hand motor neurons jacked into a wrist of a comatose subject via a neural bridge; imagine a volunteer relative with guarding mandate have a neural bridge spliced into his, say, right hand motor neurons with the other end of the neural bridge spliced into the severed hand nerves of a comatose relative; following the neural adaptation phase of the neural bridge growing into the PNS of each respective host, a a normal subject could attempt to manipulate the hand of a comatose relative; etc, etc; up and up the spinal cord with the eventual CNS-to-CNS linkup)"

An information-processing approach to the origin of life | KurzweilAI

An information-processing approach to the origin of life | KurzweilAI

“In biological causation, subject to informational control and feedback, the dynamical rules will generally change with time in a manner that is both a function of the current state and the history of the organism (suggesting perhaps that even the concept of evolution itself may be in need of revision.”

Risk of collective failure provides an escape from the tragedy of the commons

Risk of collective failure provides an escape from the tragedy of the commons

"Instead of large-scale endeavors involving most of the population, which as we argue, may be counterproductive to achieve cooperation, the joint combination of local agreements within groups that are small compared with the population at risk is prone to significantly raise the probability of success."

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City | NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

"As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power."

The Tyranny of Stuctureless

The Tyranny of Stuctureless

"While engaging in this trial-and-error process, there are some principles we can keep in mind that are essential to democratic structuring and are also politically effective:

1) Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures. Letting people assume jobs or tasks only by default means they are not dependably done. If people are selected to do a task, preferably after expressing an interest or willingness to do it, they have made a commitment which cannot so easily be ignored.
2) Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to those who selected them. This is how the group has control over people in positions of authority. Individuals may exercise power, but it is the group that has ultimate say over how the power is exercised.
3) Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible. This prevents monopoly of power and requires those in positions of authority to consult with many others in the process of exercising it. It also gives many people the opportunity to have responsibility for specific tasks and thereby to learn different skills.
4) Rotation of tasks among individuals. Responsibilities which are held too long by one person, formally or informally, come to be seen as that person's "property" and are not easily relinquished or controlled by the group. Conversely, if tasks are rotated too frequently the individual does not have time to learn her job well and acquire the sense of satisfaction of doing a good job.
5) Allocation of tasks along rational criteria. Selecting someone for a position because they are liked by the group or giving them hard work because they are disliked serves neither the group nor the person in the long run. Ability, interest, and responsibility have got to be the major concerns in such selection. People should be given an opportunity to learn skills they do not have, but this is best done through some sort of "apprenticeship" program rather than the "sink or swim" method. Having a responsibility one can't handle well is demoralizing. Conversely, being blacklisted from doing what one can do well does not encourage one to develop one's skills. Women have been punished for being competent throughout most of human history; the movement does not need to repeat this process.
6) Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible. Information is power. Access to information enhances one's power. When an informal network spreads new ideas and information among themselves outside the group, they are already engaged in the process of forming an opinion -- without the group participating. The more one knows about how things work and what is happening, the more politically effective one can be.
7) Equal access to resources needed by the group. This is not always perfectly possible, but should be striven for. A member who maintains a monopoly over a needed resource (like a printing press owned by a husband, or a darkroom) can unduly influence the use of that resource. Skills and information are also resources. Members' skills can be equitably available only when members are willing to teach what they know to others.

When these principles are applied, they insure that whatever structures are developed by different movement groups will be controlled by and responsible to the group. The group of people in positions of authority will be diffuse, flexible, open, and temporary. They will not be in such an easy position to institutionalize their power because ultimate decisions will be made by the group at large. The group will have the power to determine who shall exercise authority within it."

Understanding the Theory Behind Occupy Wall Street’s Approach | Rortybomb

Understanding the Theory Behind Occupy Wall Street’s Approach | Rortybomb

"So in this case, the question becomes: What sort of social theory would actually be of interest to those who are trying to help bring about a world in which people are free to govern their own affairs?"

Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » The Trouble with the View from Above

Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » The Trouble with the View from Above

"The window and door tax illustrates something else about "state optics"; they achieve their formidable power of resolution by a kind of tunnel vision that brings into sharp focus a single aspect of an otherwise far more complex and unwieldy reality. This very simplification makes the phenomenon at the center of the field of vision more legible and hence more susceptible to careful measurement and calculation. Combined with similar observations, an overall, aggregate, synoptic view of a selective reality is achieved, making possible a high degree of schematic knowledge, control and manipulation."

James C. Scott, Farmer and Scholar of Anarchism - NYTimes.com

James C. Scott, Farmer and Scholar of Anarchism - NYTimes.com

"“He’s one of the people who has really demonstrated all the unintended bad consequences of people who think they can plan a city or economy or whole society, but he’s not ideological about it,” the conservative political theorist Francis Fukuyama said."

Death by Algorithm: West Point Code Shows Which Terrorists Should Disappear First | Danger Room | Wired.com

Death by Algorithm: West Point Code Shows Which Terrorists Should Disappear First | Danger Room | Wired.com
“If you arrest that guy, the number of connections everyone else has becomes more similar. They all become leaders. You force that terror group to become more decentralized. You might be making it harder to defeat these organizations,” Shakarian says.

Terrorisme : l'algorithme qui tue - ÉTATS-UNIS - FRANCE 24

Terrorisme : l'algorithme qui tue - ÉTATS-UNIS - FRANCE 24
De la toile à l’étoile
D’où leur idée : trouver un moyen de rendre ces organisations plus centralisées afin qu’un coup porté à leur tête devienne plus efficace. C’est là que l’algorithme rentre en jeu : “il permet d’identifier les cellules du réseau les mieux connectées pour en faire des cibles prioritaires”, décrypte pour FRANCE 24 un mathématicien aixois qui a préféré garder l’anonymat.

Deepak Chopra: From Quanta to Qualia: The Mystery of Reality (Part 4)

Deepak Chopra: From Quanta to Qualia: The Mystery of Reality (Part 4)
"It's time to realize that subjectivity is the elephant in the room. It must be taken into account. Setting aside any other argument, the most basic reason for qualia science is that, in the words of the late physicist John Wheeler, we live in a participatory universe. What does our participation consist of? Three things: observer, observed and the process of observation."

Why are Jews so powerful? Dr. F. Saleem

UNBELIEVABLE AND WRITTEN BY A MUSLIM

It sure makes interesting reading... particularly coming from a Pakistani official. 

By: Dr Farrukh Saleem

The writer is the Pakistani Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies,

a think tank established in 2007, and an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.

 

Why are Jews so powerful?

There are only 14 million Jews in the world;

seven million in the Americas ,

five million in Asia ,

two million in Europe

and 100,000 in Africa .

For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims.

Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together.

Ever wondered why?

Jesus of Nazareth (recognized by Christians as son of God) was Jewish.
Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time

and TIME magazine's 'Person of the Century', was a Jew.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew.
So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity:

Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle.
Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.
Albert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine.
Gertrude Elion gave us a leukemia fighting drug.
Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B.
Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis.

Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.
Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission.
Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology.
Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy.
Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill.
George Wald won a Nobel for our understanding of the human eye.
Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology.

Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes

while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes).

 

Why are Jews so powerful?

 

Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip.
Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor;
Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable;
Charles Adler, traffic lights;
Benno Strauss, Stainless steel;
Isador Kisee, sound movies;
Emile Berliner, telephone microphone;
Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include
Ralph Lauren (Polo),
Levis Strauss (Levi's Jeans),
Howard Schultz (Starbuck's) ,
Sergey Brin (Google),
Michael Dell (Dell Computers),
Larry Ellison (Oracle),
Donna Karan (DKNY),
Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins)

and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew.

So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state),

Alan Greenspan (Fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton andBush),

Joseph Lieberman (US Senator),

Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state),

Casper Weinberger (American secretary of defense),

Maxim Litvinov ( USSR foreign Minister),

David Marshal ( Singapore 's first chief minister),

Issac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia ),

Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman and author),

Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM),

Barry Goldwater (US Senator),

Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal ),

John Deutsch (CIA director),

Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM),

Pierre Mendes (French PM),

Michael Howard (British home secretary),

Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria )

and Robert Rubin (American secretary of treasury).

In the media, famous Jews include

Wolf Blitzer (CNN),

Barbara Walters (ABC News),

Eugene Meyer ( Washington Post),

Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time),

Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post),

Joseph Lelyveld (Executive editor, The New York Times),

and Max Frankel (New York Times).

The most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world is George Soros, a Jew,

who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists

and universities around the world.

Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew,

who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals;

Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist.
Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker (Tennis) are all Jewish.

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter Falk are all Jewish?

As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew.

Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks,Oliver Stone,
Aaron Spelling ( Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky andHutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest),

Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Baghdad ) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.

So, why are Jews so powerful?

Answer : EDUCATION

 

Why are Muslims so powerless?

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet:

one billion in Asia ,

400 million in Africa ,

44 million in Europe

and six million in the Americas .

Every fifth human being is a Muslim;

for every single Hindu there are two Muslims,

for every Buddhist there are two Muslims

and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims.

Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC),

and all of them put together have around 500 universities;

one university for every three million Muslims.

The United States has 5,758 universities

and India has 8,407 universities.

In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' ,

and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent

and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent

and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school,

while less than 50 per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslimworld did the same.

Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university

while no more than two per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims.

The US has 4,000 scientists per million

and Japan has 5,000 per million.
In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000

and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs.

in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million.

Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development,

while the Christian world spends around five per cent of itsGDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge!

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators

of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society.

In Pakistan , there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis

while the same ratio in Singapore is 360.

In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000

while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge. 

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are animportant indicator of knowledge application.

Pakistan 's export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent,

while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge. 

Why are Muslims powerless?

.....  Because we aren't producing knowledge,
.....  Because we aren't diffusing knowledge,
.....  Because we aren't applying knowledge.

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.
America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion;
China $8 trillion,
Japan $3.8 trillion and
Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia , UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion;
Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion,
Catholic Poland $489 billion and
Buddhist Thailand $545 billion.

..... (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

 

So, why are Muslims so powerless?

Answer: Lack of education. 

All we do is shout to Allah the whole day !!!

and blame everyone else for our multiple failures!!!!!

Introduction

Introduction: "Their measurements are often incompatible, and the first measurement may disturb a second measurement. Thus only partial information about a complex system can be obtained at any point in time.  Combining partial information about a system into a coherent understanding of the entire system is the hallmark of quantum theory. Quantum theory provides a fundamentally different approach to logic, reasoning, and probabilistic inference."

'via Blog this'

‘Bi-Fi’ — the biological Internet | KurzweilAI

‘Bi-Fi’ — the biological Internet | KurzweilAI: Cells engineered with M13 can be programmed to communicate in much more complex, powerful ways than ever before. The possible messages are limited only by what can be encoded in DNA and thus can include any sort of genetic instruction: start growing, stop growing, come closer, swim away, produce insulin and so forth.

Brain complexity led humans to evolve differently than chimps

Brain complexity led humans to evolve differently than chimps: "One gene in particular, CLOCK, behaved very differently in the human brain. Considered the master regulator of Circadian rhythm, CLOCK is disrupted in mood disorders like depression and bipolar syndrome."

'via Blog this'

Frontiers | The role of prediction in social neuroscience | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Frontiers | The role of prediction in social neuroscience | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience: "These accounts of the mirror neuron system highlight the potential role of predictive mechanisms, particularly simulation, and inference with the predictive coding, and associative learning accounts, in social interaction. Consequently, these accounts could legitimately be extended to highlight the role of prediction, simulation and inference in other non-motor social cognitions associated with mirror neuron activity. Inference-based accounts of the mirror neuron system could potentially apply to some examples of work in social neuroscience showing that mirror neuron activity has been implicated in the distinction between self and other (Sinigaglia and Rizzolatti, 2011), mentalizing (De Lange et al., 2008; Centelles et al., 2011) and simulation of emotions (Bastiaansen et al., 2009). Even though the mirror neuron hypothesis provides a very appealing explanation for the processing of others' actions, there are other theories also related to predictive mechanisms that propose integrative frameworks for sensorimotor control and social interaction."

'via Blog this'

Science of the Heart, Science of Coherence, Heart Rate Variability, Institute HeartMath

Science of the Heart, Science of Coherence, Heart Rate Variability, Institute HeartMath: Dr. Armour describes the brain and nervous system as a distributed parallel processing system consisting of separate but interacting groups of neuronal processing centers distributed throughout the body. The heart has its own intrinsic nervous system that operates and processes information independently of the brain or nervous system. This is what allows a heart transplant to work: Normally, the heart communicates with the brain via nerve fibers running through the vagus nerve and the spinal column. In a heart transplant, these nerve connections do not reconnect for an extended period of time, if at all; however, the transplanted heart is able to function in its new host through the capacity of its intact, intrinsic nervous system.

A Single Brain Structure May Give Winners That Extra Physical Edge: Scientific American

A Single Brain Structure May Give Winners That Extra Physical Edge: Scientific American: "The folks that are performing more optimally are the ones who are able to use that anticipatory cue to adjust themselves and return to equilibrium."

Au lyc�e, des sciences sociales pour former les citoyens

Au lyc�e, des sciences sociales pour former les citoyens

Notes from WSIS High Level Panel on ICTs for post-conflict reconstruction

Notes from WSIS High Level Panel on ICTs for post-conflict reconstruction
"Prof. Ezzine from Tunisia looked at the dynamics of the revolution and how ICTs were inextricably entwined with the dynamics of social and political struggles for democracy and freedom from dictatorial rule. He flagged the importance of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as platforms that enabled social discussion and mobilisation that resulted in thousands taking to the streets to demand change and reform. Prof. Ezzine said that now the challenge was to strengthen the education system to embrace ICTs to augment social innovation, livelihood development and in sum, to re-engineer ICT policies and practices to make it an engine of growth. ICTs had, Prof. Ezzine noted, radically changed the dynamics between the governed and those in government."

Bizzaro Budgeting and Public Sector Innovation « Civic Innovations

Bizzaro Budgeting and Public Sector Innovation « Civic Innovations: "In addition, if we can create new incentives within the public budgeting process to reward innovation, we will build pressure to reform other government processes that stifle innovation – like the procurement process."

'via Blog this'

New cybernetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New cybernetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: ""unlike its predecessor, the new cybernetics concerns itself with the interaction of autonomous political actors and subgroups, and the practical and reflexive consciousness of the subjects who produce and reproduce the structure of a political community. A dominant consideration is that of recursiveness, or self-reference of political action both with regards to the expression of political consciousness and with the ways in which systems build upon themselves""

'via Blog this'

Power of the iMob | Chatham House: Independent thinking on international affairs

Power of the iMob | Chatham House: Independent thinking on international affairs: There are some grand claims for the movements. As The New York Times said: ‘Dot-org politics represents the latest manifestation of a recurrent American faith that there is something inherently good in the vox populi. Democracy is at its purest and best when the largest number of voices are heard, and every institution that comes between the people and their government – the press, the political pros, the fund-raisers – taints the process.'

Education in Peru: Error message | The Economist

Education in Peru: Error message | The Economist: An evaluation of the laptop programme by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) found that the children receiving the computers did not show any improvement in maths or reading. Nor did it find evidence that access to a laptop increased motivation, or time devoted to homework or reading. The report applauded the government for providing much-needed hardware: less than a quarter of Peruvian households had a computer in 2010. But it now needs to improve teacher-training and the curriculum, said Julian Cristia of the IDB. Above all, the classroom environment needs to change.

We have argued that a sociologically plausible model of the micro-mechanism underlying complex network emergence needs to meet the
following criteria. First, the locus of decision making about network changes should be at the level of individual actors. Second, individual
decisions should be derived from the optimization of individual goals based on bounded rational decision heuristics. Third, individual agents
should use only local and imperfect knowledge of network characteristics to make decisions. Finally, the model should not trivialize conflicts
between agents' interests with regard to the network changes they prefer.


'via Blog this'

ASC: Foundations: Defining 'Cybernetics'

ASC: Foundations: Defining 'Cybernetics': "Cybernetique= the art of governing or the science of government"

Finnish educator offers suggestions for American schools - Marin Independent Journal

Finnish educator offers suggestions for American schools - Marin Independent Journal: "It's part of our survival strategy, helping us to remain competitive as one of the most prosperous nations in the world."