Complexes

This essay explores the limits of Turing machines concerning the modeling of minds and suggests alternatives to go beyond those limits. Gershenson, C. (2011). Are Minds Computable? C3 Tech. Report 2011.08.  http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.3002

1. Law of  Information Transformation . I nformation will potentially be transformed by interacting with other information. 2.  Law of Information Propagation .  Information propagates as fast as possible.  3.  Law of Requisite Complexity . M ore complex information will require more complex agents to perceive, act on, and propagate it. 4.  Law of Information Criticality .  Transforming and propagating information will tend to a critical balance be- tween its stability and its variability. 5.  Law of Information Organization .  Information produces constraints that regulate information production.  6.  Law of Information Self-organization .  Information tends to its preferred, most probable state.  7.  Law of Information Potentiality .  An agent can give different potential meanings to information.  8.  Law of Information Perception .  The meaning of information is unique for an agent percei...

UPDATE: Video also on youtube . You can find here the video (32 min) of a talk I gave at the last Lakeside Research Days in Klagenfurt, Austria. I speak about the results presented in this paper: Gershenson C (2011) Self-Organization Leads to Supraoptimal Performance in Public Transportation Systems. PLoS ONE 6 (6): e21469. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021469 The main idea is that self-organization can regulate public transportation systems in such a way that passengers wait less than the theoretical optimum. Of course, this means that the theory was wrong. Well, more precisely, theory made misguided assumptions. I thank Christian Bettstetter and Wifried Elmenreich for organizing the Research Days and Chrisitan Philipp for making the video. Tip: The video is high quality, so it takes some time to download, even if one chooses right click -> Switch to low quality. Cultivate patience...

Today was the last day of competitions for my first RoboCup . Already on its 15th year, one of its goals is to have by 2050 human-size robots playing against the soccer world champions and winning. I thought that was far fetched, but after seeing some robots in action, it doesn't seem that impossible anymore. There are several different leagues, playing in simulations, wheeled and humanoid robots of different sizes. The simulated leagues can have complex strategies and make nice moves. Wheeled robots can move very fast and are very good at kicking. Team Water from China defeated TechUnited Eindhoven from The Netherlands in the final in an exciting 6-5. Those bots play good! At the human-robot match, Water tied 5-5 against an allowing group of team leaders. Humans could have easily won if they wished, but it was more of a friendly game... The humanoid robots are a bit slower, but still there is action packed excitement in some matches. The Nao robots are a bit slow, but they ca...

Gershenson C (2011) Self-Organization Leads to Supraoptimal Performance in Public Transportation Systems. PLoS ONE 6 (6): e21469.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021469 Abstract : The performance of public transportation systems affects a large part of the population. Current theory assumes that passengers are served optimally when vehicles arrive at stations with regular intervals. In this paper, it is shown that self-organization can improve the performance of public transportation systems beyond the theoretical optimum by responding adaptively to local conditions. This is possible because of a “slower-is-faster” effect, where passengers wait more time at stations but total travel times are reduced. The proposed self-organizing method uses “antipheromones” to regulate headways, which are inspired by the stigmergy (communication via environment) of some ant colonies.

Excerpt : By definition, noncommunicable diseases cannot be transmitted. However, there is recent evidence of the op- posite, involving a change of scientific paradigm. We have a notion that cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes are noncontagious. Actually, there are no physical mechanisms that help spread these diseases. Nevertheless, risk factors of several noncommunicable diseases—such as obesity, al- coholism and smoking—are spread across populations. Epidemiology and social networks , Carlos Gershenson,  Cir Cir  2011; 79 :199-200 Full Text : In English: [ pdf ] [ html ] En Español: [ pdf ] [ html ]

//Please forward to whom may be interested. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has an open call for postdoctoral fellowships. Candidates should have obtained a PhD degree within the last three years and be under 36 years, both to the date of the beginning of the fellowship. In previous years, there has been a 50% acceptance rate. Candidates are evaluated mainly by their number of papers published in ISI-indexed journals. The area of interests of candidates should fall within complex systems, artificial life, information, evolution, cognition, robotics, and/or philosophy. Interested candidates should send CV and a tentative project (1 paragraph) to cgg-at-unam.mx Projects can be inspired from: http://turing.iimas.unam.mx/~cgg/projects.html Postdoctoral fellowships are between one and three years (renewing each year). Spanish is not a requisite. Accepted candidates would be working at the Computer Science Department of the IIMAS ( http://turing.iimas.unam.mx...