Free book download: Understanding Thinking by John Evans

I scanned the book and so far I am impressed. I think folks that read the blog postings on here under the category of thinking may be interested in this book.

Evans’ website, (Fluffbuster.co.uk) has a collection of all the diagrams in the Understanding Thinking book. Along with finding more information about the book you will find a nice collection of links.

The book has quite a few diagrams, thought maps, concept maps etc. Which should be of interest for those folks interested in visual thinking and visualization.

More about the book:
http://fluffbuster.co.uk/

Download a copy of the book at:
I’m going to guess that the book will not be free forever, so you may want to pick up a copy soon.
http://www.lulu.com/content/1224917

Found this link via:
Versterberg.se: Applying Systems Thinking (See the comments area)

Related postings in this blog
System Visualization and the Art of Complex Problem Solving

Visual literacy

Problem visualization and problem solving

Changing the way we visualize cycles

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-Daniel Montano

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Niklas Luhmann Interview

Thanks to Strenge Jacke! for translating this Niklas Luhmann video interview.

In this video Luhmann covers a bit about general systems theory, and complex systems.
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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect

Class Resources: Human Macroecology

This blog hosts a nice collection of resources on systems thinking, and complex systems.

Source:

Perspectives in Human Ecology:
http://human-macroecology.blogspot.com/
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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect

Paper: Complexity and Self Organization

Marcia J. Bates and Mary Niles Maak have written a very accessible paper called Complexity and Self Organization.

Quoting from the abstract of the paper:

“Abstract: this article introduces some of the main concepts and methods of the science studying complex, self-organizing systems and networks, in a non-technical manner. Complexity cannot be strictly defined, only situated in between order and disorder. A complex system is typically modeled as a collection of interacting agents, representing components as diverse as people, cells or molecules. Because of the non-linearity of the interactions, the overall system evolution is generally unpredictable and uncontrollable. However, the system tends to self-organize, in the sense that local interactions eventually produce global coordination and synergy. The resulting structure can in many cases be modeled as a network, with stabilized interactions functioning as links connecting the agents. Such complex, self-organized networks typically exhibit the properties of clustering, being scale-free, and forming a small-world. These ideas have obvious applications in information science when studying networks of authors and their publications.”

Source:
Download the paper here (PDF format) >>
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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect

Radiohead’s Rainbow an Example of Self-Organization?

Is this an example of people self-organizing to determine a “fair market price” for music?

“According to analysis made by the Daily Swarm, Radiohead’s In Rainbow has sold at the equivalent price of$8 a CD worldwide. In just three days it has sold 1.2 million downloads and made up to $9.6m.”

Source of Quote:
Radiohead: 1.2 m downloads = $9.6m Cash on PSFK

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-<a href=”http://multispective.wordpress.com/about-this-blog/”>Daniel Montano</a>
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<span style=”color:white;”>Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect</span>

Adaptive Coevolutionary Networks

Adaptive networks appear in many biological applications. They combine topological evolution of the network with dynamics in the network nodes. Recently, the dynamics of adaptive networks has been investigated in a number of parallel studies from different fields, ranging from genomics to game theory. Here we review these recent developments and show that they can be viewed from a unique angle. We demonstrate that all these studies are characterized by common themes, most prominently: complex dynamics and robust topological self-organization based on simple local rules.

[0709.1858] Adaptive Coevolutionary Networks — A Review

Tema de evolucion co-evolucionaria en aplicaciones biologicas. Cubre la combinacion evolucionaria y topologica de la red con dynamicas en las intercecciones de la red. Tema cubre la complejidad basada en la auto-organizacion basada en simple reglas.
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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect

The Emerging Complexity of Genes

The science of life is undergoing changes so jolting that even its top researchers are feeling something akin to shell-shock. Just four years after scientists finished mapping the human genome – the full sequence of 3 billion DNA “letters” folded within every cell – they find themselves confronted by a biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.”Science is just starting to probe the wilderness between genes,” said John M. Greally, molecular biologist at New York’s Albert Einstein School of Medicine. “Already we’re surprised and confounded by a lot of what we’re seeing.”A slew of recent but unrelated studies of everything from human disease to the workings of yeast suggest that mysterious swaths of molecules – long dismissed as “junk DNA” – may be more important to health and evolution than genes themselves.

DNA unraveled – The Boston Globe
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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect

Unparticle physics?

“Howard Georgi, a physicist at Harvard University, has recently published a paper on so-called unparticle physics, which suggests the existence of “unparticle stuff” that cannot be accounted for by the standard model. Appearing in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, the paper says that unparticle stuff would be very different than anything seen before.”

The theory is related to the notion of fractals.

physorg.com: “Professor proposes theory of unparticle physics”>>

Languages are complex dynamic systems

Gloria Capelli, a teacher and researcher at the University of Pisa has an interesting post on language:

“…languages are complex dynamic systems within which different types of structures act as organizers in order to make it possible for cognition to handle the immense amount of information involved in the communicative process. Within this view…words act at the same time as cues of mental representations, triggers of ad hoc conceptual constructions, and anchors which prevent meanings from verging on the border of chaos.”

Link
Go to the blog post on Gloria Capelli’s blog >>

Related in this blog
The unconscious mind, a communication system? >>
The human tower of babel (intra-human communication systems) >>

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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect

User interface based on chaos and emergence concepts

I found this interesting Flash interface based on a concept of chaos, static order and emergent dynamic order. Skinned over the concept of a type of emergence between chaos and order. the words used there are science and culture.

Visit the site and check out the interface. It’s worth a look >>

Related rant:
In this conceptual UI, culture seems to be equated with chaos (as disorder) – I’m inclined to disagree if it’s meant as complete disorder.

Culture is a dynamic system that may show various degrees of deterministic patterns (order) and patterns that may be perceived as random (chaos).

Culture has religion, rituals, beliefs, value perception, value exchange, music, symbols, myths, literature, arts, communication patterns, fashion, politics, laws, government…etc It’s an elaborate system with rules of thought and behavior – thus it has deterministic elements – it has degrees of order.

It also has what may be perceived as random qualities, but these may include creativity, adaptations, reform, innovation etc. These items may not be as random as we think – they may be signs of a dynamic and living culture adapting and changing over time. In other words, culture and its emergent order in process.

Over time – what once seemed like chaos may show a pattern. In culture it may be the adoption of cultural hybridity, a small trend, a movement, a new cultural branch or an emerging sub-culture among many other possibilities.

Related
Visual Complexity >>
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-Daniel Montano
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Keyword: Daniel Montano, Dan Montano, user experience design, information architect