We have seen through many examples that data science and artificial intelligence can reinforce structural inequalities like sexism and racism. Data is power, and that power is distributed unequally. This book offers a vision for a feminist data science that can challenge power and work towards justice. This book takes a stand against a world that benefits some (including the authors, two white women) at the expense of others. It seeks to provide concrete steps for data scientists seeking to learn (...) how feminism can help them work towards justice, and for feminists seeking to learn how their own work can carry over to the growing field of data science. It is addressed to professionals in all fields where data-driven decisions are being made, as well as to communities that want to better understand the data that surrounds them. It is written for everyone who seeks to better understand the charts and statistics that they encounter in their day-to-day lives, and for everyone who seeks to better communicate the significance of such charts and statistics to others. This is an example-driven book written with a broad audience of scholars, students, and practitioners in mind. It offers a way of thinking about data, both their uses and their limits, that is informed by direct experience, by a commitment to action, and by the ideas associated with intersectional feminist thought. (shrink)

This book is a state-of-the-art review on the Physics of Emergence. Foreword v Gregory J. Chaitin Preface vii Ignazio Licata Emergence and Computation at the Edge of Classical and Quantum Systems 1 Ignazio Licata Gauge Generalized Principle for Complex Systems 27 Germano Resconi Undoing Quantum Measurement: Novel Twists to the Physical Account of Time 61 Avshalom C. Elitzur and Shahar Dolev Process Physics: Quantum Theories as Models of Complexity 77 Kirsty Kitto A Cross-disciplinary Framework for the Description of (...) Contextually Mediated Change 109 Liane Gabora and Diederik Aerts Quantum-like Probabilistic Models Outside Physics 135 Andrei Khrennikov Phase Transitions in Biological Matter 165 Eliano Pessa Microcosm to Macrocosm via the Notion of a Sheaf (Observers in Terms of t-topos) 229 Goro Kato The Dissipative Quantum Model of Brain and Laboratory Observations 233 Walter J. Freeman and Giuseppe Vitiello Supersymmetric Methods in the Traveling Variable: Inside Neurons and at the Brain Scale 253 H.C. Rosu, O. Cornejo-Perez, and J.E. Perez-Terrazas Turing Systems: A General Model for Complex Patterns in Nature 267 R.A. Barrio Primordial Evolution in the Finitary Process Soup 297 Olof Gornerup and James P. Crutchfield Emergence of Universe from a Quantum Network 313 Paola A. Zizzi Occam's Razor Revisited: Simplicity vs. Complexity in Biology 327 Joseph P. Zbilut Order in the Nothing: Autopoiesis and the Organizational Characterization of the Living 339 Leonardo Bich and Luisa Damiano Anticipation in Biological and Cognitive Systems: The Need for a Physical Theory of Biological Organization 371 Graziano Terenzi How Uncertain is Uncertainty? 389 Tibor Vamos Archetypes, Causal Description and Creativity in Natural World 405 Leonardo Chiatti . (shrink)

El presente artículo indaga sobre dos categorías del pensamiento de Gilles Deleuze relacionadas con el régimen escolar que son ‘evaluación inmanente’ y ‘aprendizaje esencial’. Estas categorías exhiben su pertenencia genérica a las tradiciones del régimen escolar, pero permiten traspasar las segmentaciones disciplinarias y desenvolver la comprensión diferencial de la educación y lo educativo. A la vez, se reflexiona acerca de la interacción de ambas nociones para potenciar la emergencia de lo nuevo en la noción de vida.

Cet ouvrage, fruit d'une étroite collaboration entre des enseignants-chercheurs appartenant aux laboratoires GEPECS et C3S ainsi qu'au Pôle Arts, culture, théâtre, musique de l'université de Franche-Comté, porte sur le regard esthétique. Les contributions retenues, présentées pour la plupart lors d'un colloque interdisciplinaire qui s'est tenu à Besançon le 21 octobre 2011, ont été regroupées en deux grandes parties. La première, de nature historique et conceptuelle, fournit des éléments de cadrage et croise notamment des perspectives philosophiques et sociologiques. La deuxième propose (...) des illustrations et des études de cas relatives à l'analyse de tableaux (le Serment du jeu de paume), d'affiches (prix de Diane et du Jockey Club), d'expériences archétypales (comme la visite de Freud à l'Acropole), de mises en scène de corps en mouvement (chez Georges Demeny, par exemple) ou de débats autour de l'abstraction (la "trahison" de Jean Messagier) et de l'esthésie. (shrink)

Industrial shrimp farming has been promoted by international development and financial institutions in coastal indebted poor countries as a way to obtain foreign exchange earnings, reimburse external debt, and promote development. The promotion of the shrimp industry is a clear example of a more general trend of support of export-oriented primary products, consisting in monocultures of commodities, as opposed to the promotion of more diverse, traditional production directed to feed the local population. In general, it is assumed that export-oriented aquaculture (...) and agriculture, in a framework of liberalization policies, facilitates economic growth and this is associated with poverty reduction and the improvement of food security. However, it has been shown that the promotion of export-oriented production, mostly in the hands of big corporations, can have detrimental consequences for the livelihoods of local populations and the environment. As a result, international institutions, NGOs, and the industry aim to minimize these impacts by promoting sustainable export-oriented production. But some impacts may remain, since the main issue is the primary focus on international deregulated markets and the search for cheap primary products. To illustrate the relationships between the mainstream concept of development, the environmental and social impact of industrial farming systems, and the promotion of export-oriented production in developing countries, this article analyzes the case of the shrimp aquaculture industry. (shrink)

We consider processes of emergence within the conceptual framework of the Information Loss principle and the concepts of systems conserving information; systems compressing information; and systems amplifying information. We deal with the supposed incompatibility between emergence and computability tout-court. We distinguish between computational emergence, when computation acquires properties, and emergent computation, when computation emerges as a property. The focus is on emergence processes occurring within computational processes. Violations of Turing-computability such as non-explicitness and incompleteness are intended to represent partially the (...) properties of phenomenological emergence, such as logical openness, given by the observer’s cognitive role; structural dynamics where change regards rules rather than only values; and multi-modelling where multiple non-equivalent models are required to model such structural dynamics. In this way, we validate, from an epistemological viewpoint, models and simulations of phenomenological emergence where the sequence of events constitutes the natural, analogical non-Turing computation which a cognitive complex system can reproduce through learning. Reproducibility through learning is different from Turing-like computational iteration. This paper aims to open a new, non-reductionist understanding of the conceptual relationship between emergence and computability. (shrink)

_Riassunto_: Il presente lavoro affronta il delicato tema dell’isolamento digitale e della profonda svolta antropologica scaturita dall’uso delle nuove tecnologie elettroniche. Le nostre relazioni amicali, lavorative e familiari fanno sempre più ricorso alla comunicazione telematica e meno al confronto personale. La conversazione vis-à-vis, che è quella più umanizzante, sta lasciando il posto a quella mediata da computer e smartphone. Tutto questo rischia di provocare un nocivo isolamento digitale, interrompendo ogni forma di dialogo e di introspezione personale. L’isolamento viene spesso abbinato (...) a un utilizzo intenso di Internet e di videogiochi. Le relazioni _online _non possono sostituire completamente quelle che nascono nel mondo reale né, d’altra parte, è pensabile frenare l’avanzata dei contesti virtuali entro i quali siamo immersi consapevolmente e, talvolta, inconsapevolmente. Non si tratta di essere pro o contro la tecnologia. Bisogna solo ritrovare il gusto dell’incontro, della conversazione faccia a faccia, della relazione fisica. Dislocare le nostre relazioni fisiche nel mondo digitale non ha nulla di rischioso. Il pericolo, semmai, è determinato dal contrario. Se la navigazione sul web diventa lo spazio esistenziale in cui vagare liberi e senza meta, con la convinzione che solo lì è possibile ottenere un’immagine vera di sé stessi, il rischio di rimanere prigionieri della propria solitudine potrebbe essere alto. Se, al contrario, le tecnologie sono usate coscientemente, possono portare a riflessioni capaci di esplorare il nostro Io. _Internet _non può eludere il bisogno di avere a che fare con gli altri nel mondo reale, perché solo questo tipo di rapporto fa di noi ciò che siamo realmente. _Parole chiave_: Inclusione digitale; Solitudine; Connessione; Empatia; Salute mentale _A contactless era? From empathic I to digital self_ _Abstract_: This paper addresses the sensitive issue of digital isolation and the profound anthropological shift that has resulted from the use of new electronic technologies. Friendship, work, and family relationships all increasingly rely more on telematic communication and less on personal encounters; face-to-face communication is giving way to modes of communication mediated by computers and smartphones. Does circumventing all forms of dialogue and personal introspection lead to dangerous digital isolation? The risk is real. Only through a balanced use of digital resources can we mitigate the harmful effects of social isolation. _Online _relationships cannot completely replace those that take place in the real world. At the same time, we cannot stop the advance of the virtual contexts within which we are consciously and sometimes unconsciously immersed. It is not a question of being for or against technology. We just need to rediscover our taste for human encounters, face-to-face conversations, and physical relationships. Displacing our physical relationships to the digital world is not in itself risky. The danger, if any, arises from another direction. If web surfing becomes the existential space in which we can roam freely and aimlessly, in the belief that only there is it possible to obtain a true image of oneself, then the risk of remaining a prisoner of one's own lonelinesss rises with devastating consequences at a psychological level. In contrast, technologies are used consciously, they can lead to valuable reflections that help us explore ourselves. The Internet should never circumvent or replace our need to deal with each other in the real world, because it only these kinds of real world relationship that make us who we really are. _Keywords_: Digital inclusion; Loneliness; Connection; Empathy; Mental Health. (shrink)

This article theorizes the relationship between two ways of “seeing” and organizing urban mobility markets: the abstract, algorithmic vision of the mobility platform and the experiential, relational vision of the platform driver. Using the case of mobility platforms in Jakarta, we empirically demonstrate how drivers experience the limitations of the platform's visions and how they deploy their own alternative visions of work and the city. We offer this drivers’ “View from Within” as a counterpoint to the visions of the platform, (...) decentering the platform's visions as the sole arbiter of change and optimization in the city. At the same time, we disrupt the assumed binary between these views, showing how they exist in a complex dance of complementarity and contestation. We conclude with a discussion on the opportunities this entanglement presents for worker agency in the algorithmic market, the hurdles toward more “worker centered design” in platform economies and the tensions between globalizing technological solutions and their localized instantiations. Through this article, we argue for seeing deep, embedded relationships as culturally and historically important modes of urban life which technology has to interact with but cannot fully capture nor do away with. (shrink)

An organismic viewpoint is a welcome alternative to modern mechanistic consciousness, with the latter’s excessive epistemic reliance on analysis, its ontological presumption of atomism, and its value commitments to competition, quantification, reduction, and predictability. These ideas have had negative social and environmental consequences and require replacement. Organismic ethics, grounded in the “wisdom of life”--especially the dialectical triad of creativity, homeostasis, and holism-is far healthier. But organicism alone has serious defects sometimes overlooked by environmental enthusiasts : life’s creativity wastes individual organisms, (...) and life’s holism neglects the unique value of parts in favor of larger unities. Is it possible to work out a genuinely personalistic organicism? Traditional personalistic idealism will not do, but insights into essential personal qualities may enrich the concepts of creativity, homeostasis, and holism enough to offer a start toward a more adequate ethic. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Technology and Premodern Concern Technology and Modern Debate Technology and Conceptual Issues Technology and Postmodern Ideals Technologies for the Future Works cited.

This essay is a revision of ?Rudiments of an Ethics of News Reporting,?; which won honorable mention in the 1985 Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii/ AEJMC Prize for Student Papers on Journalism Ethics. It argues that news reporting suffers from a misplaced faith in individual autonomy, a faith that resists a sense of social duty on the basis of negative freedom; therefore, journalism stands in need of a moral theory that recognizes community and personhood as fundamental human characteristics essential to ethical (...) decision?making. (shrink)

What is this about “the practicality of metaphysics?” Everyone knows that on a scale from “practical” to “theoretical,” metaphysics stands as far toward the “theoretical” pole as one can get, except perhaps for pure mathematics; but mathematics is not about anything, unless you count numbers as “something”—which is a metaphysical question that outflanks, encompasses, and overtakes even mathematics on the theory scale. This capacity to encompass and devour other fields illustrates the unlimited comprehensiveness of metaphysics, tottering dangerously at one extreme, (...) the most theoretical of all theory. (shrink)

We describe a new experiment to measure the gravitomagnetic field of the Earth. This field, a consequence of the general relativistic formulation of Mach's principle (WEM—Wheeler-Einstein-Mach principle), has never been detected. The idea is to measure the Lense-Thirring precession of the nodal lines of two laser-ranged satellites with supplementary inclinations. In this way it is possible to separate the relativistic nodal precession from the classical nodal precession due to the multipole moments of the Earth.

This book explores the work of activists in the Americas who are documenting feminicide, arguing that feminist activists at the margins have much to teach mainstream data scientists about data ethics: how to work with data ethically amidst extreme and durable structural inequalities.

Recently the interest in Bohm realist interpretation of quantum mechanics has grown. The important advantage of this approach lies in the possibility to introduce non-locality ab initio, and not as an "unexpected host". In this book the authors give a detailed analysis of quantum potential, the non-locality term and its role in quantum cosmology and information. The different approaches to the quantum potential are analysed, starting from the original attempt to introduce a realism of particles trajectories (influenced by de Broglie's (...) pilot wave) to the recent dynamic interpretation provided by Goldstein, Durr, Tumulka and Zanghì, and the geometrodynamic picture, with suggestion about quantum gravity. Finally we focus on the algebraic reading of Hiley and Birkbeck school, that analyse the meaning of the non-local structure of the world, bringing important consequences for the space, time and information concepts. (shrink)

By understanding better how certain socioeconomic systems work, what chances for transformation they contain, and hence determining on these bases how they may evolve, we will be in a better position to look for the compatibilities and synergies that may be established among economic activities, social policies, and interventions in defense of environmental equilibria. It will also become clearer if, and how, it is possible to make these different needs interact for the better of all concerned. The research project illustrated (...) here intends to contribute to our knowledge in this sense. (shrink)

(1997). Recurrences of form in the old world as evidence of collective consciousness: A hypothesis for historical research. World Futures: Vol. 48, The Concept of Collective Consiousness: Research Perspectives, pp. 191-211.

(1993). Towards a theory of self‐organization of natural and Social systems: The theory of form. World Futures: Vol. 38, Theoretical Achievements and Practical Applications of General Evolutionary Theory, pp. 139-148.

Non c’è dubbio: la scienza è il basso ostinato del tempo, il tema principale della nostra cultura. I giornali dedicano uno spazio crescente all’ultima scoperta, i festival e le letture pubbliche veicolano le nuove visioni del mondo e la lettura scientifica dei fatti e dei comportamenti fa capolino anche nel quotidiano. Il rischio è quello di dimenticare che la scienza è una pratica cognitiva,non una piramide di verità rivelate e accumulate una volta per tutte. Educare alla scienza significa dunque spaziare (...) tra conoscenze variamente interconnesse, attraversate dalle correnti dell’incertezza, evitando cristallizzazioni ideologiche e tentazioni mediatiche di semplificazione. I saggi qui raccolti si muovono fra fisica teorica, biologia e intelligenza artificiale: l’eredità di Turing, la figura di Majorana, la scala di Planck, il bosone di Higgs, i sistemi viventi, gli agenti economici, il riduzionismo e i processi emergenti, passando per i rapporti tra scienza, letteratura e arte. Il tutto organizzato come una serie di piccole variazioni musicali sul tema delle proiezioni culturali e mediatiche della scienza e delle sue inevitabili implicazioni epistemologiche, etiche, estetiche. (shrink)