2008 July - The Emergent Fool

As I discussed in Environmental Ideology and the Ascetic Meme, the Ascetic Meme is a severe form of the Frugality Meme. In this post, I’ll explore how I think it arises and the social interactions that emerge when the Ascetic Meme takes hold. ...

TED Talk: Neil Turok...

Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 07 24th, 2008 | No Comments

TED Prize Wish: African Einstein Click here for Discussion...

TED Talk: J.J. Abrams...

Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 07 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

Mystery Box Click here for Discussion...

TED Talk: Robert Full...

Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 07 22nd, 2008 | No Comments

Animal Movement Click here for Discussion...

Complex Systems Concept Summary...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Agency, Causality, Competition, Cooperation, Culture, Emergence, Epistemology, Evolution, Language, Levels, Models on 07 22nd, 2008 | 3 Comments

I figured it was time for a reset and so the following is a summary of much of the foundational posting that I’ve done on this blog so far. As always, a work in progress, subject to refinement and learning… ...

Response to "Thoughts on Ants, Altr...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Blog Comment, Cooperation, Culture, Emergence, Levels, Singularity, Society on 07 21st, 2008 | 2 Comments

[ This is an edited version of a blog comment on Brandon Kein's Wired Science post here ] The question of whether we will “break through” to a superorganism or collapse through any number of spiraling cascades or catastrophic events is the subject of Ervin Laszlo’s book, The Chaos Point,...

TED Talk: Sherwin Nuland...

Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 07 21st, 2008 | No Comments

Electroshock therapy Click here for Discussion...

Complex Quotes: John Wheeler...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Complex Quotes, Language, Limits of Knowledge on 07 20th, 2008 | No Comments

“We have to learn how to use our words. It’s a fantastic thing — we humans are so easily trapped in our own words. The word time, for instance — we run into puzzles about the concept of time and then we say, oh, what a terrible thing. We don’t realize we’re the source of the puzzles because...

A Matrix of Epithets...

Posted by kevindick in Language, Politics, Psychology on 07 7th, 2008 | 1 Comment

Arnold Kling blogs about a recent video discussion between Robin Hanson and Will Wilkinson. I commented on one of the points Arnold picked out of the debate and then realized that I could construct a matrix of epithets based on my analysis. As it involves evolutionary psychology, I thought some of you...

Hive Mindstein...

Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Computation, Crowdsourcing, Epistemology, Limits of Knowledge, Models, Singularity, Socio-technical systems on 07 5th, 2008 | 2 Comments

David Basanta’s blog has an interesting thread (quite a few of them actually). Here’s the setup but you should read the original post, including the Wired article: Apparently, some people are seeing some potential in cloud computing not just as an aid to science but as a completely new approach...