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15-17 March 2010
Palermo, Sicily
Emergence: The Relation between Static Network Structure and the Dynamic Qualities of Landscapes
Gregory Bateson (2000, 2002 , & [with M. C. Bateson] 1987) laid a foundation for the nature of learning and
for epistemology in general that unites mind and nature as a necessary unity, a unity in which the processes of
knowing and the processes of evolution share fundamental principles (2002, p.4).
We are using an NK Boolean System (Kauffman, 1993) to formalize Bateson's (2000, 2002) ecological epistemology
within a modern nonlinear dynamic systems approach. This formalization has three fundamental premises.
- First, the map (what humans and other sentient beings know) is not the territory (that which is known).
Moreover, what gets onto maps from territories are differences in the territories.
- Second, mental process can be abstracted as a flow of differences in a richly connected network. We model
this flow with Boolean dynamic systems. Thus James' stream of consciousness becomes a complexly patterned stream
of differences hinted at by the simulation shown here. This stream of differences in dynamic systems terms can be
construed to flow within the constraints of an adaptive landscape consisting of many basins of attraction, each
with an attractor and, usually, many tributaries.
- higher order knowledge emerges in the process of taking differences in the flow of differences (Bateson, 2000,
p. 454ff). In the formal Boolean model this process of finding differences in the flow of differences begins with
finding discrete derivatives (TAO's) and continues with finding differences among the derivatives themselves
(Meta-TAO's). Considered meta-theoretically, this three-premise perspective is extremely simple compared to the
complexity of many cognitive approaches.
Stuart Kauffman (1993, 1995, & 2000), in a line of thought independent of Bateson's, has laid a foundation for
the origin of order in biological evolution that establishes self-organization and selection as co-principles
"weaving the tapestry of life." One tool in his investigations are Boolean network computer simulations
which constitute a useful model for a difference-based approach to epistemology and learning. Boolean networks
generate a lanscape of multiple basins of attraction; each basin consists of tributaries whereby the stream of
process flows into attractors where it cycles until perturbed. We map these simulated landscapes onto the flow of
mental process, onto the stream of consciousness as it were. The mental landscape consists, then, of dynamic patterns
related to each other by the structure of the landscape. It is useful to think of mental landscape as an open
dissipative system; dynamic patterns flow into and out of the system. These escapements and dissipations from the
larger mental context affect the nature of the dynamics of mental process. For example, as an open system eddies
(attractor cycles) into which mental process falls are, at a minimu, suseptible to perturbation and tranformation.
Some eddies in the flow mental process will be highly stable in the face of perturbation and others not.
Our general framework is complexity theory, nonlinear dynamic systems (NDS), and the set of theoretical frameworks
that are associated with complexity and NDS. Therefore, we view knowleddge as a dynamic process. In the papers, web
pages and interactive Java experiments shown below simulations of the NK Boolean systems, invented by Kauffman to
study evolution, are developed to study, extend, and make more precise and specific Bateson's epistemology along
with his insights into the nature of learning. These simulations open up new phenomena and hypotheses, including:
- Emergent levels of cognitive-perceptual categories,
- Dynamic form perception,
- Abstraction of principles from a single sensory experience without the necessity of experiencing multiple examples
from which principles are abstracted
- A new way for how mental process (for Bateson, evolution is a mental process) moves in a landscape. This new way
of moving in a landscape is one way of specifying what Bateson might have meant by "differences that make a difference."
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