The emergence of brain and mind amid chaos through maximum‐power evolution

A new brain algorithm based Neurological Positivism (NP) is described that is reconcilable with emergent evolution. The maximum‐power evolution of brain and mind amid chaos is described. It is proposed that with the maximum‐power evolution of mind (a) a chaotic/fractal dynamical algorithmic isomorphy among world, brain, and mind is erected, and (b) we witness the origin of the mechanism of evolutionary epistemology—the origin of knowing energy. The maximum‐power evolution of symbols is described as resulting from features of chaos and fractal geometry. Finally, a neurological positivistic explanation of the workability of mathematics in the real world is proposed.     

Chance,command, and chaos in ancient military engagements 1

The Greeks and the Romans believed that commanders ought to exercise their foresight to preclude risks in combat. They also tried to inculcate and to preserve order in their military systems by the use of initiatory mechanisms, repetitive drill, and replication of the military order in social, economic, and spatial arrangements. In spite of their efforts to minimize entropy within their military units, these systems sometimes underwent chaotic transformations during set‐piece engagements on the battlefield. These set‐piece battles which followed a simple, formulaic pattern provide the data for a case‐study in the behavior of military systems within a relatively simple set of constraints. The results suggest that command functions can have little influence once a system is actively engaged with the enemy and that small effects can drive even simple military systems irreversibly over thresholds into chaos. They illustrate the dangers in any analysis of military phenomena which assumes linear rather than chaotic change. They also suggest that prediction, let alone control, of the course of an engagement is considerably more difficult than is often assumed. It is even difficult to label known outcomes as victories or losses, since the same result may appear differently to two observers occupying different vantage points. Military analysts should take into account values held by society at large.     

Systems evolution,structures of long‐waves,and systems management

By classifying the evolution of systems into inter‐level evolution and intra‐level evolution and dividing the intra‐level evolution into four stages which are interrelated but quite different from each other, we discuss structures of several typical systems long‐waves, and strategies of systems management.     

The Study of Socioethical Issues in Systems Biology

Systems biology is the rapidly growing and heavily funded successor science to genomics. Its mission is to integrate extensive bodies of molecular data into a detailed mathematical understanding of all life processes, with an ultimate view to their prediction and control. Despite its high profile and widespread practice, there has so far been almost no bioethical attention paid to systems biology and its potential social consequences. We outline some of systems biology's most important socioethical issues by contrasting the concept of systems as dynamic processes against the common static interpretation of genomes. New issues arise around systems biology's capacities for in silico testing, changing cultural understandings of life, synthetic biology, and commercialization. We advocate an interdisciplinary and interactive approach that integrates social and philosophical analysis and engages closely with the science. Overall, we argue that systems biology socioethics could stimulate new ways of thinking about socioethical studies of life sciences.     

The Journal of Couples Therapy Entelechy Institute CEU Quiz

SUMMARY

The majority of gay male couples are not monogamous. Relationship clinicians can help gay male couples to have a healthy sexually open relationship by working from a family systems perspective. This approach requires the therapist to have an understanding of family systems theory, the Enneagram (a personality topology), gay male sexual culture, as well as being clear of negative countertransference. Assessment of functionality of sexually open gay male relationships is described.     

Development of Bimanual Skill: The Search for Stable Patterns of Coordination

In 2 experiments, dynamic systems theory predictions concerning intrinsic dynamics and variability of bimanual coordination were examined at different developmental stages. In Experiment 1, ten 4-, 6-, 7-, 8-, and 10-year-old children and adults performed unimanual dominant, unimanual nondominant, and bimanual continuous circle drawing. All tasks were performed at the participants' preferred rate, size, and mode of coordination. The 4-, 6-, and 7-year-old children produced larger circles with longer durations than those of the 8- and 10-year-olds and the adults. That finding demonstrates that younger children display different intrinsic dynamics than older children and adults. The 4-, 6-, and 7-year-old children also displayed more variability in bimanual coordination (more time in less stable patterns of coordination, higher standard deviation in relative phase) and produced more transitions between coordination patterns than the 8- and 10-year-olds and the adults. In Experiment 2, the same participants performed bimanual circles at increasing rates. Consistent with predictions of the HKB model (H. Haken, J. A. S. Kelso, & H. Bunz, 1985), the number of transitions decreased as speed increased. Some support was found for the notion that age-related variables of attention and rate contribute to the increased variability in young children's bimanual coordination.     

Integrating Spirituality and Domestic Violence Treatment

Summary

This article provides a brief reflection on how the Change of Seasons treatment model developed and the reasons for its success with Aboriginal men. Parallels between Aboriginal perspectives, or worldviews, and Ken Wilber's transpersonal psychology, Rupert Sheldrake's fields theory, and Peter Senge's systems thinking are also discussed. Practical rituals and ceremonies that have been successfully integrated into psychoeducational group counselling as practiced in the Change of Seasons model are explained. These musings are included to initiate further dialogue on holistic approaches to counselling and other community initiatives.     

A Dynamical Systems Approach to Manual Tracking Performance

Manual tracking performance was investigated from the perspective of dynamical systems theory. The authors manipulated the type of visual display, the control system dynamics, and the frequency of the sinusoidal input signal to examine couplings with various phases between the visual signal and control movements. Analyses of the system output amplitude ratio and relative phase showed that participants (N = 24) performed poorly with 90° relative phase coupling. All the couplings became less stable as the movement frequency increased. The authors developed an adaptive oscillator model with linear damping to describe the coupled system consisting of the human performer, the visual display, and the control system dynamics. A geometric account of the stability of performance at different relative phases is also presented.     

Beyond Curve Fitting to Inferences About Learning

In this commentary, the authors elaborate on the issue of going beyond curve fitting to the drawing of inferences about motor learning. They argue that the agenda of A. Heathcote and S. Brown (2004) is largely a theory-free, curve-fitting enterprise that can be useful for certain aspects of describing behavior change, but that its gold standard of percentage of variance accounted for can also be misleading in its relevance to the theory of learning. Clearly, analysis methods are necessary and some are better than others, but the researcher can more fully exploit the relevance of methods to the construct with a priori theorizing than with a data-driven strategy of maximizing percentage of variance accounted for in curve fitting.     

There are at least two kinds of probability matching: evidence from a secondary task

Probability matching is a suboptimal behavior that often plagues human decision-making in simple repeated choice tasks. Despite decades of research, recent studies cannot find agreement on what choice strategies lead to probability matching. We propose a solution, showing that two distinct local choice strategies—which make different demands on executive resources—both result in probability-matching behavior on a global level. By placing participants in a simple binary prediction task under dual- versus single-task conditions, we find that individuals with compromised executive resources are driven away from a one-trial-back strategy (utilized by participants with intact executive resources) and towards a strategy that integrates a longer window of past outcomes into the current prediction. Crucially, both groups of participants exhibited probability-matching behavior to the same extent at a global level of analysis. We suggest that these two forms of probability matching are byproducts of the operation of explicit versus implicit systems.