Worldviews, Science and Us : Philosophy and Complexity

by Gershenson, Carlos; Aerts, Diederik; Edmonds, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9789812705488
• ISBN10: 9812705481
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-27
• Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Inc

Summary

Scientific, technological, and cultural changes have always had an impact upon philosophy. They can force a change in the way we perceive the world, reveal new kinds of phenomena to be understood, and provide new ways of understanding phenomena. Complexity science, immersed in a culture of information, is having a diverse but particularly significant impact upon philosophy. Previous ideas do not necessarily sit comfortably with the new paradigm, resulting in new ideas or new interpretations of old ideas. In this unprecedented interdisciplinary volume, researchers from different backgrounds join efforts to update thinking upon philosophical questions with developments in the scientific study of complex systems. The contributions focus on a wide range of topics, but share the common goal of increasing our understanding and improving our descriptions of our complex world. This revolutionary debate includes contributions from leading experts, as well as young researchers proposing fresh ideas.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Restricted Complexity, General Complexity	p. 5
Complexity Science as an Aspect of the Complexity of Science	p. 30
On the Importance of a Certain Slowness	p. 53
Simplicity is Not Truth-Indicative	p. 65
Can the Whole be More than the Computation of the Parts? A Reflection on Emergence	p. 81
Why Diachronically Emergent Properties Must Also Be Salient	p. 99
On the Relativity of Recognising the Products of Emergence and the Nature of the Hierarchy of Physical Matter	p. 117
Truth in Complex Adaptive Systems Models should be Based on Proof by Constructive Verification	p. 141
Complexity as an Epistemic Revolution: Considerations on the New Science in the Context of Western Intellectual History	p. 156
Metaphors and Method: Epistemological Considerations on Complexity Science	p. 173
Some Problems for an Ontology of Complexity	p. 181
How to Love the Bomb - Trying to Solve the Prisoner's Dilemma with Evolutionary Game Theory	p. 203
Physical Complexity and Cognitive Evolution	p. 221
Informational Dynamic Systems: Autonomy, Information, Function	p. 232
Grasping the Complexity of Living Systems Through Integrative Levels and Hierarchies	p. 250
Simulation as Formal and Generative Social Science: The Very Idea	p. 266
A Compromise Between Reductionism and Non-Reductionism	p. 285
The Complexity of Information-Processing Tasks in Vision	p. 300
On the Possible Computational Power of the Human Mind	p. 315
How Does Complex Mathemical Theory Arise? Phylogenetic and Cultural Origins of Algebra?	p. 338
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