Emergence \ The connected lives of ants, brains, cites and software \ Steven Johnson

By:

Johnson, Steven

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: Great Britian : The penguin press 2001 Edition: 1Description: 288 pContent type:

texto

Media type:

no mediado

Carrier type:

volumen

ISBN:

0713994002

Subject(s):

INGENIERÍA DE SISTEMAS

DDC classification:

003 J661

Contents:

1.The Myth of the Ant Queen2.Street Level3.The Pattern Match4.Listening to Feedback5.Control Artist6.The Mind Readers7.See What Happens8.Notes9.Bibliography10.Acknowledgments11.Index

Abstract: All existing theories of associations are concerned with the problem of how one thing comes to follow another in the stream of thought or language. Most existing theories are cast in the form of stimulus and response and stem from the basic assumption that a particular stimulus-response sequence occurs in the thought or language because it has occurred that way before. This study presents a new theory of association, concentrating on the structural relations between distributions of associations to particular words in a language, and provides the historical and critical background for that theory in the psychology of associations. The techniques of factor analysis and other methods of structural analysis are brought to bear in an effort to discover the basic structural typesof association. Two basic types are dis covered in English, and evidence is presented to show that the effects of these types are to be found not only in associative data but in ordinary English discourse and in judgments about language.It has implications for psychological studies of language-particularly meaning for the teaching of aspects of language, and for theories of human cognitive development.An ant colony behaves with an intelligence no particular ant possesses; a brain is conscious although no particular brain cell is; a city develops districts and neighbourhoods no planner could impose. In each case, complex problems are solved by a profusion of relatively simple elements. Order arrives from the bottom up, not top down. Such systems display emergent behaviour: the movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication. Media, technology and cultural critic Steven Johnson ranges from computer games that simulate living ecology to the guild system of twelfth-century Florence; from the initial cell division that marks the very beginning of life to software that lets you listen to the sound of your own brain. The connections between these systems are not the links of poetic metaphor. Everywhere the same laws are obeyed, the same swarm logic is at work. Johnson unearths a secret history of decentralized thinking, looking at those like Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels and Alan Turing who contributed to the study of self-organization long before this became a recognized science. But most of all Johnson pursues emergence in the present, investigating the software that will soon allow artificial emergence to trans form our media, bringing sweeping cultural and political change in its wake. This compelling and revelatory book is rich with insights into that future. Emergence allows us to witness the exhilarating arrival and sudden ascendancy of a potent new idea.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Notes	Date due	Barcode
Libros	Biblioteca UHEMISFERIOS TECNOLOGÍA	003 J661 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Ej.1	Available	Acervo General de Libros		23670

P. 265

1.The Myth of the Ant Queen2.Street Level3.The Pattern Match4.Listening to Feedback5.Control Artist6.The Mind Readers7.See What Happens8.Notes9.Bibliography10.Acknowledgments11.Index

All existing theories of associations are concerned with the problem of how one thing comes to follow another in the stream of thought or language. Most existing theories are cast in the form of stimulus and response and stem from the basic assumption that a particular stimulus-response sequence occurs in the thought or language because it has occurred that way before. This study presents a new theory of association, concentrating on the structural relations between distributions of associations to particular words in a language, and provides the historical and critical background for that theory in the psychology of associations. The techniques of factor analysis and other methods of structural analysis are brought to bear in an effort to discover the basic structural typesof association. Two basic types are dis covered in English, and evidence is presented to show that the effects of these types are to be found not only in associative data but in ordinary English discourse and in judgments about language.It has implications for psychological studies of language-particularly meaning for the teaching of aspects of language, and for theories of human cognitive development.An ant colony behaves with an intelligence no particular ant possesses; a brain is conscious although no particular brain cell is; a city develops districts and neighbourhoods no planner could impose. In each case, complex problems are solved by a profusion of relatively simple elements. Order arrives from the bottom up, not top down. Such systems display emergent behaviour: the movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication. Media, technology and cultural critic Steven Johnson ranges from computer games that simulate living ecology to the guild system of twelfth-century Florence; from the initial cell division that marks the very beginning of life to software that lets you listen to the sound of your own brain. The connections between these systems are not the links of poetic metaphor. Everywhere the same laws are obeyed, the same swarm logic is at work. Johnson unearths a secret history of decentralized thinking, looking at those like Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels and Alan Turing who contributed to the study of self-organization long before this became a recognized science. But most of all Johnson pursues emergence in the present, investigating the software that will soon allow artificial emergence to trans form our media, bringing sweeping cultural and political change in its wake. This compelling and revelatory book is rich with insights into that future. Emergence allows us to witness the exhilarating arrival and sudden ascendancy of a potent new idea.

Ingles.

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