50 Years of Systems and Pirsig

Ostensibly I’m re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in order to review the 50th Anniversary edition, but as usual I’m finding more significant note-worthy connections with my ongoing systems thinking work than there are pages in the original. The read – the story – is of course very familiar, I’m reading it for … Continue reading “50 Years of Systems and Pirsig”

Attention as a Moral Act

Progress on Priorities A strangely productive week since my previous “Resolution” post – I’m obviously focussed on the right priorities at last. Namely getting my “technical content” better organised for review. Started using free versions of Academia.edu and Orcid.org – posting some of my key (older and/or half-drafted pages and pdf’s – mostly just testing … Continue reading “Attention as a Moral Act”

Bronowski’s “Ascent of Man”

I’ve made reference, and noted others doing the same, to Dr Jacob Bronowski’s 1973 BBC TV series “The Ascent of Man”. As a 17 year old I was already doing the sciences for A-level and intending to do engineering at Uni, but tremendously influential on the history and evolution of science and humanity. Interesting right … Continue reading “Bronowski’s “Ascent of Man””

Shedding the Shackles of Determinism

This is a science-journalism article in Quanta Magazine by Philip Ball that covers many of the people and thoughts I’ve been pursuing here in recent years. “A New Idea for How to Assemble Life“ As soon as I saw the title, I asked myself is “assemble” being used here in the same way as “construct” … Continue reading “Shedding the Shackles of Determinism”

Zero to Pirsig

This is a 2023 Annotation of a 2005 paper prepared originally for the Liverpool Conference on Robert Pirsig and his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). The text is unchanged except for correcting a few obvious typos and formatting errors, and to keep me honest the original “It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid” remains here complete with old broken … Continue reading “Zero to Pirsig”

The Information Ontology Metaphysics

[Work in Progress – Draft will be edited without notification.] [Feedback appreciated on the “See / Refs” – where more are needed? Meantime all those indicated will be elaborated and worked into the text. And obviously on the intelligibility of the text so far. Drafting arose out of the “Three Essays” post, particularly “Algorithms for Humans” and … Continue reading “The Information Ontology Metaphysics”

Dave Snowden and Mike Jackson

I saw the excellent Dave Snowden speaking at the Annual Mike Jackson lecture at Hull University yesterday evening. [Post Note: The recording now available here.] Excellent in every way – Dave’s presentation and his conversation with Mike. All, that is, except for the absence of audience questions and discussion which meant I came away frustrated … Continue reading “Dave Snowden and Mike Jackson”

Fundamental Information & Computation

I’ve often noted that I hold an information monism – its processing & communication – to be underlying both the physical and the mental. In fact as recently as my previous post, I include it in a summary of my position linking information & entropy with systems & cybernetics. My “What, Why and How do … Continue reading “Fundamental Information & Computation”