r.ewell

(text) **sanford kwinter** african genesis

humans are products of their environments in that we retain social and nervous workings developed during earlier hunter/gatherer times. though we have "advanced" significantly we are still influenced by these habits or rhythms. It is important that rhythms rely on one another and especially in african art do not stand alone. Every acoustic pitch is periodic oscillations, a fast rhythmic pattern caused by one of several means, but arguably the "foundation of all form in the universe". the idea of change forcing disagregation and recombination of raw information through the chreod or guidance of forces to "what it is in their power to do" is essential toward understanding the seeminly random "constellations of harmonic resonance". that and the law that only the simplest solution will be selected dictate the course of nature.

(text) from grid to network

one of the biggest tragedies of capitalism was the association of economic benefit with "reasonable" activity. as a result reason "tends to establish and reinforce social hierarchies and economic inequalities" The system actually runs on disequilibrium and desire. the analogy of extending the assembly line beyond the factory and into the rest of life is not a stretch and makes one question the amount of freedom they have in this society.

(text) **stan allen** from object to field

"beauty is the consonance of parts such that nothing can be added or taken away" Alberti describes the beauty of organic geometric unity. proportions are hierarchical and parts to whole relationships are clearly developed. the moment of inersection is also critical, in that it has several architectural responses, namely a moment of "articulation of the intersection of two materials" or a "locus of an intensive design energy that proceeds outwards to condition the form of the whole". Also consider part of this consonance is the site or surroundings and there are joints between that material and others.

(text) noise in formation

a few good points: - the increase of entropy in any closed system is inevitable and irreversible - "the energy of the universe is a constant. the entropy of the universe tends toward a maximum" -"observation or description of any object requires the selection of instruments of observation, which influence how the object is understood" - information is directly related to probability this implies the universe is a closed system. the importance of the selection of instruments supports the creation of new tools for new tasks, and explains the wide variety of understandings among scientists. many systems that we observe are of course part of the close system of the universe, but are themselves open systems, open to "extrinsic sources of energy or information" and therefor not subject to entropy. regarding the information, more is communicated the less the event communicating the information is anticipated. when an event is anticipated or gotten used to it "dissolves into noise" and it's information is lost. This explains why many fascinating or "illusive" things can be right under our nose without our knowing or noticing. This also references the road to enlightenment specifically the goal of unbiased observation of life.

(text) **seth schiesel** some Xbox enthusiasts microsoft didn't aim for

another use for linux, one endeavour supports more, in this case the Xbox is capable of functioning as a midrange PC and "hackers" do this by installing a mod chip. There is much arguement over the legality of this practice because the mod chips use modified microsoft BIOS code. The important issue here is that people retain the ability, in fact the motivation to modify your possesions and manifest your ideas. This is a great example of creative reuse of a product and exploitation of a capitalist system which supports and enourages mindless wasting of money.

(text) **MIT media laboratory** pianos not stereos

it's a good point to teach kids how to create not just how to manipulate and exposure to the ideas of decentralized systems is great because there are so many at work in our world today, and there should in fact be many many more. particularly in the areas of government and other regulatory systems. central control is unnecessary and leads to corruption and abuse of power. the starlogo program provides exploration of ant colonies, traffic jams, economies etc and as such is a valuable learning tool.

(text) **gary rivlin** leader of the free world

Linux is a great example of how immediate absorbtion of information by the community, constant peer review and further development by users leads to the rapid and refined advancement of a technology. This highlights the efficiency of an alternative system to capitalism which should infiltrate society as much as possible.

(text) the hacker work ethic; the academy and the monastary

Learning and "approaching the truth" are fueled by teaching through critical dialogue where everyone is subject to peer review, people ask questions to gain expertise, and one's teaching further engrains and develops the knowlege in themselves. It is critical that new discoveries are immediately absorbed into the community so that they may be subject to mass review and further development by individuals. This is the notion of a self-correcting process, a good example is the development of Linux. It is important that the teacher not simply imparts knowlege but helps the students to "give birth to things from their own starting points".

(text) **manuel deLanda** nonorganic life

Dynamic equalibrium systems are inherantly more able toswitchrapidlybetween alternative stable states with very little effortthansteady orcyclic systems. It follows that the potential forchaoticoscillationsin these systems would produce more diversitythenstable systems, andwould be largely responsible forcomplexity.These dynamic systems arefound at every level from thetemperaturetriggered bifurcation thatruns the convection cells drivingplatetectonics, to the hydrosphere'sconvection currents, andbiosphere'sbiomass (flow of flesh) cycle, tothe "hydraulic computers"sortingrocks by size in a river. Anotherself-organizing phenomena isthesolton, which is a solitary wave thatmaintains its identityafterinteraction with other waves. The power ofthis is reflected in theeventof a tsunami. These systems are also hardat work in the humanbody. It isancient science that the human body isflows of matter andenergy, butthis has not caught on in westernthinking, and certainly notin westernmedecine. It is reasonable toaspire to find the right flowconsistencyand to relieve blockages inthe flow,and it's true that someearliersocieties were much better intune with their ecosystems andselforganizing tendencies then we aretoday. A good example of thesesystemsin humans is the comparison of asoliton in an optical fibre tothe"suggested mechanism of transport andstorage of biological energyinprotein." An example of an oscillatingsystem is that of thecircadianrythms and the daily bifurcation of ourinternal clock to thecycles ofday and night,analogous to the chemicalclock. Theunderstanding of thesesystems will be dangerous but willalso aidtremendously inthe understanding of the world we live in, it'scycles,and it'sinfinite variation. We should also be motivated by theprospectsof"drugfree" healthcare and a society where progress isnotconsistentlyhalted by a misguided quest for stability. Perhapsmostimportant is howthis understanding highlights connectionsbetweenseemingly disperateparts of our world and challenges us toquestionwhat we "know".

(text) **sanford kwinter** soft systems

The soft system as a flexible, adaptable, evolving, system maintainedbymany feedback loops can sustain "sensitive quasi-random flow." It isdifferent from a linear system with independant parts, in thatanonlinear system relies on the interactions of parts which can'tstandalone. "They are the products of fully integratedhierarchicalarrangements and are expressed principally through theirorganizationand form, not their structure". Arguably we are moving fromaphysics-centric understanding of our world to one focused onbiology.The discovery that a two celled embryo developed intotwo full organismswhen the cells are split, as opposed to two halforganisms marks a leaptoward better understanding the role of DNA andthe existance andgeneration of complexity. It appears that genesare only triggers in asystem with an "entirely nonlinear space ofcorrelations and continuousinteraction." Soft systems regulatethemselves through balancing outsideforces with internalmechanisms. As our existing technologies are rampedup andinterconnected to provide a mess of stimulation to the human inallsituations imaginable our voice is lost in the crowd and we losesenseof our individuality.This loss of self independent from thecollectiveleads to a decrease in variability in the system, as everyonepullseveryone else towards a baseline. This is contrasted bythesystem's ability to learn infintely more than the "users" whichcouldlead to an undesirable relationship between humans and "their"systemof technologies.

(text) **steven johnson** emergence - the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software

Slime mold is capable of something most people are not: oscillating between an independant creature and a functioning member ofa mass. On top of that while functioning as a mass there iscomplete equality among members and no central control forcoordination. This example of a bottom up system is in starkcontrast to the top down authoritative systems so common tohumans. The decision to swarm is a purely pragmatic reaction to adecrease in available food or a temperature shift passed that tolerablefor an individual organism. The release of cyclic AMP by any andall cells leaves trails behind the individual cells which are picked upas a positive feedback loop and this system leads to the congregationof all cells in the area triggered by entirely local individualevents. Another great example of a bottom up system is that ofants. Harvester ants can determine the shortest route to a foodsource (as could the slime mold) but the ant will also prioritize thesource based on distance and access to the site. It will also usethe same local behaviour inherant to swarm logic to determine it's rolein the colony based on average instances of encountering orcommunicating with other ants, or the frequency of pheromones. When searching for food the ants follow the pheromone trails left bythose before, and they know which way to go by also being sensitive tothe gradient in the trail, like a bloodhound. These are all localevents. The simple ten part communication system (nine pheromonesand one tactile) is efficient in the same way as computers use onlyones and zeros. The complexity is generated higher up. Alsomore is better in that "ten ants roaming across the desert floor willnot be able to judge accurately the overall need for foragers ornestbuilders, but two thousand will do the job admirably." It wasinteresting to see that the colonies went through predictable stagescomperable to those in other species (even human) when addressed interms of decades instead of days. Specifically with regard toyounger colonies being more aggressive. This is quite interestingbecause the ants themselves aren't any older, in fact the mail antslive no more than a day and the females, except the queen, live no morethan a year. Even so, the colony lives on up to 15 years or sowhen the queen dies, and undergoes predictable developmentalphases. This is comperable to the way humans work their wholelives in a city that doesn't notice their passing and lives onindefinitely passed them. The practical uses of this type ofsystem are large in number and incredibly varied, but a great examplewas that of the traveling salesman problem. If a virtual antafter going to all of a fixed number of "cities" marks uniformly apheromone trail as it retraces it path to the source with a finiteamount of pheromone (leading to longer paths being thinner and shorterpaths being thicker) after several sessions with different "salesmen"encouraged to function similarly but while privelaging thicker lines,the shortest path is eventually determined. Hopefully this typeof system will be used to replace the antiquated and insensitivetraffic control issues with a much more reactive system. We'vegot a lot to learn from slime mold...