12th Annual International Conference
The Society For Chaos
Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences
CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
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Alphabetical listing of
abstracts by last name of first author.
Questions? Contact conference
coordinator Dick Bird at: Dick Bird
ADAMSON Charles : School of Nursing, Miyagi University, Miyagi Prefecture, Address School of Nursing, Miyagi University, 1 Gakuen, Taiwa-cho,
Miyagi Prefecture, Japan 981-3298 Voice phone: 022-377-8342 EMAIL: adamson@myu.ac.jp
TITLE: A chaos theory
based model of learning
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: With only slight modification, the Terraced Labyrinth model
of evolution, developed by Crutchfield and van Nimwegen, becomes a model of
learning, where learning is represented as the evolution of mastered features,
or units of learning, rather than species as in the original model. In this new
model the nodes of a tree-like structure represent terraces, fitness
landscapes, that indicate the probability of the learner correctly using that
feature. Specific combinations of the independent variables within the fitness
landscape, termed constellations,
represent portals accessing a higher level terrace. The model will be described
in some detail and then the characteristics of the units of learning (features
represented by the terraces) will be explored and their implications for
education will be discussed briefly. Also the problem of the
learning/acquisition distinction will be addressed by discussing the model's
implications in terms of language study where this distinction has caused great controversy.
(Research supported, in part, by a grant from Miyagi University). 1
ALI Domenic : Coordinator, Brief Psychotherapy Traineeship ADDRESS:
Coordinator, Brief Psychotherapy
Traineeship AIDS Health Project EMAIL:
dali@itsa.ucsf.edu
TITLE: Clinical Conversations:
An Integrative Brief Psychotherapy Model
DAY: 3/8/04 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: Chaos theory has been an enticing metaphor to
practicing clinicians since the late 1980's. Despite the inherent promise of
this approach, however, little progress has been made in applying the concepts
of nonlinear dynamics to develop a psychotherapy model. This
presentation reports current efforts to develop a brief psychotherapy model
grounded in complexity theory and phenomenology. The central concept is that of
a clinical conversation which is viewed as jointly created by both therapist
and client during the course of therapy. The
characteristics of this conversation are explicated and developed as a
non-linear dynamical system. Consideration of the clinical process within this
model argues that, for therapy to be efficacious, the clinical
conversation must evolve into a therapeutic dialog. The therapeutic dialog
differs from the clinical conversation in that it involves: 1) the client
discussing issues which generate confusion for him, and 2) requires the
therapist to actively maintain this confusion by asserting a sustained
intention. The interplay between the clinical conversation (which is
principally driven by nonlinear dynamics) and the therapeutic dialog (which has
the linear component of sustained intention) leads to the New [Experience Action Narration], a
self-organizing and self-sustaining structure critical to resolving the
client's presenting problem. The above model is
consistent with many of the premises of developmental systems theory and
contemporary cognitive science, allowing for integration with
these family of theories. 2
ARROW Holly : Department of Psychology, University of ADDRESS: Department
of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene OR, USA, 97403-1227. Voice phone:
541-346-1996 EMAIL: harrow@darkwing.uoregon.
TITLE: Perturbations and
reorganization of identity and social
networks: Ideas inspired by al Qaeda and September 11th
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1030-1100
ABSTRACT: As the literature on the "small world"
phenomenon demonstrates, we are all connected by a sparse, decentralized
network of interpersonal links (Watts, 1999). Most people are also members of
multiple small groups, ranging from families to friendship groups to work
groups, which function as dense clusters of interconnected nodes within the
global social network. We also belong to numerous social categories (women,
Muslim, American) with which we identify to various degrees (Roccas &
Brewer, 2002). These social identities create affective links of depersonalized
attraction and empathy for people we have never and likely never will meet in
person, and who may be quite distant from us in the social network. These
affective links can inspire people to join organizations such as al Qaeda, or
to identify with and send aid to families of the September 11th attacks. In
this paper, I present some ideas about how dramatic perturbations such as
terrorist attacks may reorganize social and group identities at the individual
level and how this might affect the structure of boundaries and links that
connect and divide people within and across national boundaries 3
BAUSCH Ken : Ken Bausch ADDRESS: Ken Bausch Ongoing
Emergence 2449 S. Barrington #202 Los Angeles, CA 90064 EMAIL:
kenbausch@attbi.com
Title Brittle Hegemony
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1000-1030
ABSTRACT: The United States is the hegemon. As the world’s
superpower, it dominates political discourse and economic policy. In the realm
of realpolitik, it is self-aggrandizing in the extreme in favor of the elites
of elites, within a theory that unfettered global markets generate wealth for
everyone because commerce is not a zero-sum game. Around the world, our
hegemony inspires in turn admiration, intimidation, anger, retaliation, and
despair. What is the future of our hegemonic world? Is it viable? How will it maintain order? There are two generic
answers to this last question: impersonal systemic processes and rational
decision-making. The systemic answer can be subdivided into equilibrium and
non-equilibrium systems. The rational answer can be either hierarchical or
web-like. In our situation of accelerating globalization, web-like
decision-making within a context of non-equilibrium dynamics offers a viable
alternative, with on proviso. Efficacious methods of participatory democracy
must be utilized. Co-Laboratories of Democracy offer such an efficacious method. 4
BIRD Dick : University of Northumbria ADDRESS:
Division of Psychology University
of Northumbria Newcastle upon Tyne NE1
8ST 44 191 227 4521 EMAIL: dick.bird@unn.ac.uk
TITLE: Terror and
Response: General Introduction
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1330-1400
ABSTRACT: Some issues sorrounding the study of terror and the
response to it are discussed. It is suggested that terror presents
new challenges in the light of a new and potentially highly destructive
movement and that terror studies forms a viable area for scholarly research . 5
BLAKENEY Charles : Institute for Clinical Developmental Psychology, Los ADDRESS: Dep.
Erziehungswissenschaften, Universite de Fribourg, Regina Mundi, 1700 Fribourg
Switzerland. Voice phone: 041-26-300-7585 EMAIL: ronnie.blakeney@unifr.ch
AUTHOR2: Ronnie Blakeney
TITLE: Understanding
Addiction and Recovery: Chaos, Complexity, and Integrity
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1130-1200
ABSTRACT: We report the preliminary results of an ongoing
longitudinal study of 105 long term alcoholics and addicts. We examine the
fractures at Time 1 among four domains: ego development, moral development,
religious development and locus of control. The 105 subjects report a total of
1290 years of addictive substance abuse, beginning, on average, at age 19. We suggest that the
substance abuse breaks down the developmental feedback
mechanism. Addicted brains, like dead stars, are dark matter which does not
obey general laws of physics, biology or human development. Participation in a
faith based moral community creates the atmosphere shift necessary for
recovering Integrity. Integrity is presented as a general law which includes
the fit and flow between domains, plus a developmental factor of One. 6
CHIASSON Phyllis : The Davis Nelson Company ADDRESS: The Davis Nelson Company, 810 Polk Street, Port
Townsend, Washington 98368 EMAIL: drprane@qwest.net
AUTHOR2: Prane, Jada
TITLE: Chaos, Complexity,
& The Quest for Certainty
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1530-1600
ABSTRACT: A serious problem since September 11 has been figuring
out how to understand and outwit ideological terrorists. Most chaos theorists
agree that complexity straddles the center range of a continuum for every known
process situated between the hypotheticals of "absolute chaos" and
"absolute order." Using a non-verbal theory of reasoning we will
explain how terrorist acts (and all human acts as expressions of this
continuum) involve both overt (language-laden) and covert (habituated,
non-verbal) decision-making processes. One of the significant insights of
psychological science over the past 20 years is that unconscious processes
influence virtually all of human behavior (Uleman
& Bargh, 1989; Hassan, Uleman, & Bargh, in press). Non-verbal reasoning
habits vary among people and are deeply ingrained. As habits, these processes,
when revealed, can be used to profile (and select) leaders and followers. To this
end, we will first discuss the relationship between individual and
organizational perceptions of chaos and complexity, as well as degrees of
certainty various individuals or groups need to function comfortably. Secondly,
we explain that only the basis of "absolute certainty" can prompt an
individual or group to produce the sort of terror we experienced last fall.
Thirdly, we will present a non-verbal
assessment system for determining degrees of cognitive and contextual
complexity in individuals and organizational structures. Taken together,
cognitive and contextual complexity levels comprise a concise matrix from which
to more accurately predict how a particular individual or organization will
instigate (and respond) to various circumstances. 7
DAS Atin : Department of Mathematics, Jadavpur University ADDRESS:
Department of Mathematics, Jadavpur
University, Jadavpur, Calcutta, India 700 032. EMAIL: atin_das@yahoo.com
AUTHOR2: Pritha Das
TITLE: Dynamics of neural
networks under external periodic
influence.
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: The dynamics of a mathematical model of network
consisting of three neurons with all possible connections was studied in our previous
works (2000,2001). The equations of control are given by three differential
equations with nonlinear, positive and bounded sigmoidal response function of
the neurons. The system passes from stable to periodic and then to chaotic
regimes and returns to stationary regime with change in parameter values of
synaptic weights and decay rates. But physiological systems are often
superposed with different type of external influences. A good example of this
is cardiac rhythms influenced by cellular mobile phone signals which are indeed
sinusoidal in nature and have the capacity to alter physiological states- at
least theoretically. In line with idea of incorporating external influences, we
have added to the previously tested artificial neural network model an external
perturbation in the form of a periodically driven and time varying input. The
purpose is to study its effect on states of the neural network; particularly
whether such type of external perturbations can set a steady state to a chaotic
one and vice-versa. These changes in state dynamics have important
physiological implications in brain functioning. We offer analytical
and numerical analysis of the model. We conclude that the frequency of the
input can have a devastating effect on the network dynamics like switching from
stable to chaotic regime. 8
DOOLEY Kevin : Laboratory for Organization, Communication, and ADDRESS: Arizona
State University, PO Box 875906, Tempe, AZ, 85287-5906 EMAIL:
Kevin.Dooley@asu.edu
AUTHOR2: Steve Corman
TITLE: The dynamics of a
terrorist event: Tracking media
content about 9-11 and anthrax
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: Electronic media coverage of the events of September 11
was pervasive. We will present an analysis of related Reuters' articles from
September 11 to November 15, 2001, using Centering Resonance Analysis (CRA).
CRA identifies influential words within texts, and the connections between
them, in the form of a network. We find at
least six major themes running through the 66 days of news: the World Trade
Center attack itself, economic impact, airport security, political response,
military response, and anthrax. Further, these six themes change dynamically
over time, suggesting different micro-historical epochs. This suggests a
process model of how a terrorist event impacts society as enacted through media
content: a trigger event is followed by internal and external institutional
responses, and societal impact. 9
DOOLEY Kevin : Laboratory for Organization, Communication, and ADDRESS: Arizona
State University, PO Box 875906, Tempe, AZ, 85287-5906 EMAIL:
Kevin.Dooley@asu.edu
AUTHOR2: Gus Koehler
TITLE: Temporal dynamics of
legislative bill production
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1330-1400
ABSTRACT: One of the key functions of state legislatures is bill
production. The goal of this study was to examine temporal patterns in the
production of bills. In particular, we examined whether there was correlation
between the amount of time it takes for a bill to progress through various
stages of the bill production process, and whether the topic of the bill, its
originating house, or the session it
progressed through had any linkage to the successful passage of the bill. Over
150 bills dealing with manufacturing or health care were identified within
California's legislative system, from 1993-2000. Analysis showed that the cycle
times through various stages of the bill production process were largely
independent, and that the bill's ultimate passage or failure could not be
predicted from any of these cycle times. This suggests that bill production is
largely a "machine"-like process from a temporal
perspective-institutional rules and deadlines dictate the temporal
flow of legislature, not content or other substantive issues. Visualization of
this temporal data verified this hypothesis. This further suggests that the
bill production process can be best understood as providing temporal "windows
of opportunity", and the effective simulation of the bill production
process can be undertook with a very simple model. We also present a
preliminary analysis of the dynamics of a bill's discursive content as it
undergoes re-writing through its passage in committees and houses. 10
FILIPPI Mark : Private
practice in Larchmont, NY ADDRESS: EMAIL:
addchiro@mindspring.com
TITLE: Clinical
Impressions -- Facing the Limits of Applying Non-Linear Dynamics
DAY: 38/02 TIME: 1530-1600
ABSTRACT: We have reached the point where in order to apply
non-linear dynamics to the clinical encounter, a new type of design is
required. Unlike traditional intervention-oriented designs, chiropractic is
arranged as a process-based interaction. Both the doctor and the patient
participate in the somatic education of the client. The present collection of
non-linear clinical tools often fails to address this aspect. After presenting
some background material, I'd like to openly discuss several "ghosts"
in the machine of chaos with the attendees . In the past year, I've designed a
tracking system that lacks a formal factor analysis. I'll show how this
is has the potential to blend "new science with old 11
FLEEMAN Brigitte : Department of Educational Psychology, University of ADDRESS: Brigitte
Fleeman, Ph.D., 5807 Lookout Mountain Drive, Austin, TX 78731, USA, PH (512)
323-2661, EMAIL: b.fleeman@mail.utexas.ed
TITLE: A Case Study of Diversity
in Making Sense of a Change Intervention: Lessons Learned with Insights
from Complexity Science
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1630-1700
ABSTRACT: Using Weick’s (1995; 2001) framework of sensemaking
and the insights gained from research on complex adaptive systems, I was
interested in empirically investigating the question of whether and how
diversity among agents affect the sensemaking processes of small groups as
complex adaptive systems and the consequences of diverse perspectives on group
understandings. In an interpretation of diversity from a complexity science
perspective, it is seen as an asset; by contrast, in the organization
literature, diversity has been seen more as a liability than an asset. The
study as a naturalistic inquiry followed a change intervention intended to
improve the financial situation of a startup healthcare site. Findings
indicated that functional background influenced the understandings of the
change intervention by a group of managers some of whom were nurses and some not.
Sense emerged from group interactions with several contradictory understandings
of the change intervention. The strong tie of nursing to the identity of
individuals made the transition from clinical background to business
responsibilities hard. Functional diversity was a stabilizing and a
destabilizing factor, an asset and a liability. The findings suggest that
diversity as a property of complex adaptive systems can support
self-organization by destabilizing the system (Goldstein, 1994). Diversity proved
to be a valuable contribution to the intervention and ultimately to the
financial turnaround of the healthcare site by thwarting established group
dynamics of equilibrium-seeking tendencies. Finally, the study points to the
need to explore current conceptions of leaders and change agents as sensegivers
with a view of sense as an emergent quality resulting from interactions with
diverse agents. 12
FLINT Garry : Registered Psychologist ADDRESS: Garry A. Flint, Ph.D. Phone: 250
558-5077 Fax: 250 558-5044 EMAIL:
gaflint@emotional-freedom
TITLE: Active Structures
of the Personality based upon a Chaos Model Used in Individual
Psychotherapy
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1330-1400
ABSTRACT: In a previous presentation, Baltimore, 1994, a theory
was presented that was roughly based on Freemen’s work with a self-generating
chaos model. A model of memory, based upon clinical methodology, was explained
with a learning theory-chaos model. Since then, the basis for the subconscious
and the etiology of the personality has been
developed and refined in the clinical setting. Though one can see it as a
metaphor, unusual problems gave rise to the development of constructs to describe
internal processing and behavior. All constructs have been validated and used
with many patients. This model provides a powerful treatment intervention and
has excellent face validity with patients. The presentation will include a
description of the basic structure of the system that generates our behavior,
the formation and structure of memory, the effects of
severe trauma, the active ingredients of treatment, and how similar systems run
all other brain and body functions. Exposure to this mechanistic model will
expand a theorist’s conception of the structure and complexity of the
personality. This presentation may a starting point for persons who want to
model human brain activity and behavior. It also offers the basis for
conceptualizing brain processing as an electromagnetic field process. 13
FOX Pat : California Institute of Integral Studies. ADDRESS:
Pat Fox, Ph.D. 340 W. Sunset Way, Apt
A-204, Issaquah, WA 98027. Phone: (425) 391-6845 EMAIL: forestfox@earthlink.net
TITLE: Exploring a
sustainable relationship with information in the interconnected universe
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1530-1600
ABSTRACT: I will present my theoretical and experiential process
oriented dissertation research that designed and employed a new qualitative
methodology. The research process employed
synchronicity as a method of information acquisition. Important assumptions
include a structural reality of
information, and the innate ability of "right brain" or intuitive
processes to apprehend, comprehend, and participate in complex emergent
processes. The methodology includes certain figure-ground process framing that
facilitates the experience of synchronicity. The initial data
was then engaged in liminal space, stimulating the emergence of a recursive
second order data to become a complex system of inquiry. Building on a
foundation informed by chaos theory, popular works on quantum physics, and
participative models of inquiry, the findings
emerged as a performative web-based environment and articulated a new
Trans-Structural Paradigm. The paradigm, its aligned methodology, and the
performative text may augment other research paradigms in which experience
and/or information concerning the felt reality of the research process is lost
or edited. It provides a theoretical foundation for the validation
of using synchronicity, intuition, and other intuitive structures to expand
research and research reporting. It shows that sudden illumination and
serendipitous discovery should be made an explicit and transparent part of the
research process. 14
GABBAY Michael : Information Systems ADDRESS: Michael Gabbay, Ph.D.,
Information Systems Laboratories, Inc., 10070 Barnes Canyon Rd, San Diego, CA
92121, voice: (858) 535-9680 Ext. 8108 EMAIL: mgabbay@islinc.com
TITLE: Nonlinear
Dynamical Model of Small Group Decision
Making
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0930-1000
ABSTRACT: We present a quantitative model of small group
decision making by foreign policy elites in which group member positions or
opinions with respect to a given policy issue evolve in response to the
influence of other group members, external
events, and incoming information. The form of the model is guided by social
psychology theories on attitude change and information processing
and cognitively-based approaches to foreign policy decision making. The model
dynamics are implemented via a set of coupled nonlinear differential equations
for the state vector of member opinions. Computational simulations of the model
display a range of phenomena central to foreign policy decision making in the
small group context, such as groupthink, factionalism, and group-induced
polarization shifts, as well as open and balanced deliberations. We show
results indicating the regimes in parameter space where one would expect a
given mode of group behavior to be predominant. Methods for empirical
implementation of the model are discussed 15
GOLDSTEIN Jeffrey : Adelphi University ADDRESS: Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530 USA, phone
(516) 877-4635; fax: (516) 877-4607 EMAIL: GOLDSTEI@adelphi.edu
TITLE: Wholes without Holism:
The Construction of Emergent
Wholeness
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: Herbert Simon once made the methodological concession,
"... in the face of complexity, an in-principle reductionist may be at the
same time a pragmatic holist." Yet, emergentists for the most part adhere
to an "in principle" holism which typically
gainsays even the value of "pragmatic" reductionism. Although in
practice it’s not often easy keeping principles apart from pragmatics, in this
paper I argue that reductionism and holism alike, both "in principle"
and "pragmatically", hinder a cogent conceptualization of the
construct of emergence by not adequately grasping what it is precisely which
constitutes the wholeness of emergent wholes. Of course,
there’s nothing new in the claim that strict reductionism is destructive of the
very emergent phenomena it’s supposed to be explaining. Accordingly, I will not
need to spend much time going over this now tedious issue except to point out
the inadequacies of what I take to be the main culprit of reductionist
destruction, namely, the way isomorphisms that are required for reduction are
established. More controversial, perhaps, is my contention that holism, as
generally understood, has a surprisingly similar destructive affect on emergent
phenomena. I will attempt to show, in other words, how both reductionism
and holism are guilty of ignoring the critical dynamics and structures taking
place on those mesoscopic levels, existing between the micro-level of parts and
the macro-level of wholes, where the wholeness of emergent wholes are
"constructed". I will focus my efforts, then, on explicating the
nature of mesoscopic levels and how emergent wholes are constructed according
to a specific meaning of "constructed" which I will propose. This
explication will include the development of a set of principles on how
wholeness is constructed, derived from research in perception (Gestalt and
otherwise) as well as aesthetic design. The resulting
depiction of the construction of emergent wholes will include elements from
dynamical systems theory, the
study of self-organizing physical systems, the computational emergence of
Artificial Life, 16
GRIFFIN Lori : Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.,Duke ADDRESS: Electrical
& Computer Engineering Dept., Duke University; 2U.S. Army Research Office,
Research Triangle Park, NC EMAIL: lori@ee.duke.edu
AUTHOR2: Bruce J. West1,2 Author3 plus some results in mathematical
logic. Topics will Author4 include: The Way Down is the Way Up:
Implications of Bridge Laws; Cracks in the Bridge:
Destructive
TITLE: Isomorphizing:
Archetypal vs. Constructed Wholes; The Scaling of
Variability in Heart Rate and Gait TIME:
Perception of Wholes; The
Design of Wholes; and, Series The Self-transcending Construction of Emergent
DAY: Wholes. Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0900-0930
ABSTRACT: The stride interval in normal human gait is not strictly
constant, but fluctuates from step to step in a random manner. The time series
for both heart rate and gait interval contain both a slowly varying part, often
called the signal, and a rapidly varying part, often called the noise. Here we
demonstrate that the "noise" contains significant information about
the process of interest. Contrary to the traditional assumption of uncorrelated random errors,
these fluctuations have long-time correlations. Furthermore, these long-time
correlations are interpreted in terms
of a scaling in the fluctuations suggesting underlying allometric control
processes for both the heart and gait. To establish this result several data
sets of gait interval and heart rate for various age groups were processed.
From these times series, we use allometric scaling and show by systematically
aggregating the data that the correlation in the stride-interval and heart rate
are similar to other allometric relations in biology. Fractal dimensions are
determined for each time series and allometric scaling determines the
variability of the fractal dimensions. A decrease in variability with increase
in age was typical for both heart rate and gait data. We conclude that
quantitative measures of variability can be used as indicators of health. 17
GRIGSBY Jim : Department of Medicine, Division of ADDRESS:
University of Colorado Health Sciences
Center 1355 South Colorado
Blvd. #306 Denver, CO 80222 USA Phone: 303 226 8915 Fax: 303 759 8196 EMAIL: jim.grigsby@uchsc.edu
TITLE: “Physiologic state
and the regulation of behavior”
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1030-1200
ABSTRACT: This presentation is concerned with the dynamics of
state. An individual’s state is an emergent property of the self-organizing
activity of the brain, acting as an organizer of experience, and influenced by
experience itself in a variety of ways. State at any moment reflects the
current activity of a widely distributed, self-organizing modular system, the
biological substrate of which involves a number of neural and endocrine
systems. It is a complex, multi-dimensional set of control parameters
influencing psychological activity by affecting the probabilities associated
with activation of specific neural networks underlying perception, cognition,
emotion, and behavior. These systems interact in a nonlinear manner, so that
the contribution of any one variable may change as a function of the
individual’s global state, or of other local factors contributing to state. 18
GUASTELLO Stephen : Dept. Psychology, Marquette University ADDRESS:
Dept. Psychology, Marquette University, P.
O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881. Tel.: 414-288-6900 EMAIL:
Stephen.Guastello@marqu
AUTHOR2: Robert W. Bond, Jr.
TITLE: Coordination
Learning in Stag Hunt Games with
Application to Emergency Management
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0830-0900
ABSTRACT: Response teams for emergencies, such as earthquakes,
require coordinated and self-organized efforts for rescue, medical services,
damage containment, and evacuation (Comfort, 1999; Koehler, 1999; Guastello,
2002). The unfolding of events depends on initial conditions of specific time,
location, and preparedness of the response teams. This experiment considers a
new range of emergency response situations where the perpetrator is not a
natural phenomenon, but a sentient being that learns with repeated exchanges.
The strategy for emergency management is conceptualized as a stag hunt
coordination game on the part of the human agents. The
experimental study examined the iterative gaming outcomes of a group of humans,
with military and civil resources, against a Godzilla-type monster that is
intent on devastating a city. The gaming medium is an obscure board game, The
Creature that Ate Sheboygan, wherein a team of three humans played against one
monster player. The monster gained points by destroying buildings and human
combat power. The humans gained points by wearing down the monster’s defences
and containing damage caused by the monster. Experimental manipulations tested
hypotheses similar to those testing in other types of coordination games in
previous research: Does the communication blackout affect the efficacy of
humans’ response, or assist the monster? Do either the humans or monster
improve their strategy over time? Can greater degrees of chaos or effective
self-organization be observed in different experimental conditions? 19
GUERIN Stephen : President, RedfishGroup ADDRESS: (505) 577-5828 mobile (413) 812-8509 fax EMAIL:
stephen.guerin@redfish.co
TITLE: Do All Ecological
Agents Cycle to Work? : Complexity at
Work
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1030-1200
ABSTRACT: There is a growing commercial and governmental interest
in the application of self-organizing systems to address complex business and
social problems. Concepts from the emerging field of Complexity Science are
finding real world applications which is increasing the demand for the
analytical skills held by SCTPLS members. This talk will include overviews of
illustrative projects from RedfishGroup, Complexica, and BiosGroup, three
complexity consulting companies based in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. The remainder of the talk will explore the application of ecological psychology to
the loose art of agent-based modeling in the simulation and design of
self-organizing systems. Within this context, an introduction will be made to
applied research of in-silico ecologies of autocatalytic systems that reproduce
and perform at least one thermodynamic work cycle. These systems, dubbed
"Autonomous Agents" by BiosGroup's Stuart Kauffman, offer a tentative
answer to the question "What must the physical system be, such that it can
act on its own behalf?" 20
HALL Stuart : Health
Development Agency,= ADDRESS: 15 Northlands St,
London S= E5 9PL UK EMAIL: stuarth@stuart-hall.com
TITLE: An alternative
model for approaching system theory,
design and opera= tion.
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Reporting a study into an alternative model for
designing systems.. Of particular interest are the possible benefits the model
provides over the current "complicated/easy" model. For example the
desk-top computer is more complicated than the hand-held abacus, but not
necessarily more complex. The former is designed with a hugely sophisticated
back-end in order to provide an easy-to-use GUI front-end interface. The abacus
conversly relys on a greater interaction between the user and the technology in
order to provide value, it is therefore
both complex and simple. However, analysis suggests that the current paradigm
has a number of in-built weaknesses which the alternative model can help
resolve, such as in the design of systems which require a high-degree of
usability and stability for end users. It is based on an understanding of
system design which formely has put user and system outside each other, whereas
the complex/simple model has the relationship as co-involved. Several practical
suggestions about the value of the model for extracting greater value for
organisational management will also be explored. Indeed it offers government
bureaucracy a way out of its inefficencies of thought
and action, enabling a effective tackling of the global
terrorist threat from top to bottom. 21
HAYDEN Teresa : Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, ADDRESS: 4442
Hillcrest Dr., Madison, Wisconsin, USA 53705; (608) 238-4514 EMAIL:
tdhayden@facstaff.wisc.ed
TITLE: Why we should
teach psychotherapy clients about a
nonlinear systems way to think about
themselves.
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0830-0900
ABSTRACT: Psychotherapy could be more efficient and effective if
we and our clients shared a basic nonlinear, complex systems understanding of
their problems. I propose an accessible systems model of human problems which
we can show/share with/teach our clients, and then present data pertaining to
the usefulness of this model for insight and change. Data will be presented
pertaining to ease of client’s insight (recognition of) underlying disturbing
motives, coping strategies, and recurrent patterns in themselves and others.
I’ll also discuss types of therapy situations in which teaching the model to
clients would be most useful, and demonstrate a few methods for communicating
the model to our clients. 22
HOGANSEN Jennifer : Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, ADDRESS: Jennifer
M. Hogansen, MS, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR,
United States of America, 97403. Voice phone: 541-346-4930; EMAIL:
jhoganse@darkwing.uoreg
AUTHOR2: K. Deater-Deckard Author3 T. Hollenstein Author4
TITLE: Parent-child mutuality
in families with identical twins: A
dynamic systems analysis.
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1530-1600
ABSTRACT: In the current study, the fields of developmental
psychopathology and dynamic systems theory are integrated in order to examine
the parent-child relationship in families with twins. Specifically, we
investigated the construct of dyadic mutuality: the bidirectional, reciprocal,
and responsive duality of interaction that describes well-functioning
relationships. Previous research on this sample, using a
quantitative genetic design, documented differences within families (between
mother and each twin), demonstrating that mutuality is relationship-specific
even for genetically identical children. However, traditional research
methodology has not been able to address how these different relationships
emerge. Thus, we extended the investigation of the mutuality construct by using
the methods of dynamic systems theory. Identical twin pairs were videotaped in
their home during two 10-minute segments of structured interaction, so that
each twin was observed separately with their mother. These direct observations
were coded second by second for the following four variables: mother
responsiveness, twin responsiveness, mother affect, and twin affect. Using the
recently developed methodology of State Space Grids (SSGs, Lewis, Lamey, &
Douglas, 1999; Granic & Lamey, in press) we
examined the trajectories of real-time interaction between mothers and each of
their twins for eight families. From these SSGs, we created
variables for additional analysis, including measures of flexibility
in interaction styles, and identified attractors in each dyadic state space.
Preliminary results suggest that differences in
flexibility and attractors can be discerned for mothers that are more
responsive with one twin and less responsive with the other twin. Implications
of these results are discussed. 23
JOHNSTON William : University of Utah ADDRESS: Department of Psychology University of Utah Salt Lake
City, UT 84112 EMAIL: johnston@psych.utah.edu
TITLE: Mind as Medium in
the Dynamics of Third Nature
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: Three forms of human nature may be distinguished: First nature is material
(we are made of atoms), second nature is biological (we are made of living
cells), and third nature is ideological (we are carriers of memes
or belief systems). Third nature comprises a vast web of institutions (e.g.,
economy, polity, religion, science), the ideas on which they are based (e.g.,
progress, democracy), and the technologies and artifacts they produce (e.g.,
automobiles, computers, weapons). The human mind is the medium for the
self-organizing and self-perpetuating dynamics of third nature. The events
pertaining to 9/11 may be viewed as third-nature dynamics and perturbations.
Clashes of world views in third
nature are analogous to competition within the evolutionary dynamics of second nature.
Just as first and second natures have complexified and self-organized across
various evolutionary phase transitions, so is third nature, by far the youngest
of the three natures, struggling through its own "growing
pains". Human minds and behavior are the media through which the
evolutionary dynamics of third nature are playing out. 24
KNYAZEVA Helena : Institute
of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, ADDRESS: Institute of Philosophy Russian Academy of Sciences,
Volkhonka St. 14, 119992 Moscow, Russia Fax: 007 (095) 200 32 50 Tel.: 007
(095) 203 91 28 EMAIL: knyazeva@iph.ras.ru
TITLE: The Riddle of
Personality: A Human Singularity of
Co-evolutionary Processes
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0930-1000
ABSTRACT: The theory of self-organization of complex systems
studies laws of sustainable co-evolutionary development of structures having
different speeds of development as well as laws of assembling of a complex
evolutionary whole from parts when some elements of "memory" (the
biological memory, i.e. DNA, the memory of culture,
i.e. the cultural and historical traditions, etc.) must be included. The theory
reveals general rules of nonlinear synthesis of complex evolutionary
structures. The most important and paradoxical consequences of the holistic
view, including an approach to solving the riddle of human personality, are as
follows: 1) the explanation why and under what conditions a part (a human) can
be more complex than a whole (society); 2) in order to reconstruct society it
is necessary to change an individual but not by cutting off the supposed
undesirable past, since a human being as a microcosm is the synthesis of all
previous stages of evolution, and as a result of repression of, it would seem,
the wild past one can extinguish a "divine spark" in
his soul; 3) in the physical sense, singularity denotes a moment of
instability, phase transition; one can talk about the human singularity of
co-evolutionary processes, since in such a moment of instability individual
actions of a human can play a key role in determining a channel of further
development as well as in appearance of a new pattern of collective behavior in
society; 4) as the models of nonlinear dynamics, elaborated at the Keldysh
Institute of Applied Mathematics in Moscow, show, there is a possibility of a
direct influence of the future and even a touch of an infinitely remote future
in certain evolutionary regimes and under rigorously definite conditions, more
over, it turns out that such a possibility exists only for a human (admittedly,
through a specific state of being inherent to him the sleep
without dreams) but not for the human society. 25
KOEHLER Gus : Principal Consultant, Time Structures, 717 Blackmer ADDRESS:
Adjunct, Public Policy and Regional
Econmic Development, University
of Southern California. EMAIL: SMTP:koehleg@do.losrios.
TITLE: EU Transport
Foresight Planning: Comments on How
Chronocomplexity Limits Such Strategic Planning Efforts
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: The European Union uses the Foresight methodology to
help develop transportation system public policy. The method
is intended to clarify policy choices that the European Union is facing and
will face in the nearfuture as it attempts to
address transport problems associated with integration of old Eastern Block
Countries into Western Europe, the time-space requirements of global
competition, preservation of uneque cultures, and increasing environmental
pollution. Using the process and results of a recent Foresight excersize, which
included identification of the temporal aspects of transport policy
development,this paper makes a number of observation about temporal biases in
assumptions driving such public policy planning efforts. Recent work on
chroncomplexity, emphasizing complex time-ecologies, heterochrony, and related
concepts is used to explicate these difficulties. On the other hand, the
Foresight excersize also clarifies the limitations of number of key concepts
used in the latter approach. 26
KOOPMANS Matthijs : Metis Associates ADDRESS: EMAIL: Mkoopmans@aol.com
AUTHOR2: Porter
TITLE: Taking N-Bind From
Theory To Practice: An Assessment Of The Problems And Pitfalls
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1330-1630
ABSTRACT: N-bind theory
proposes that schizophrenia is associated with dysfunctional interaction in the
family. I will suggest some approaches to investigate the hypotheses put
forward by the theory to collect the much-needed empirical evidence, and to
discuss the implications of that research for clinical practitioners. 27
KREINDLER David : (Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, ADDRESS: Dept.
of Psychiatry, Rm. F-62 Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre
2075 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario M4N 3M5 EMAIL: david.kreindler@utoronto.c
AUTHOR2: Charles J.
Lumsden,
TITLE: Self-organized
criticality in bipolar disorder – a case
study.
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Time series analysis has documented properties of
human mood variation that are consistent with nonlinear mechanisms, including
power spectra with power-law characteristics that distinguish healthy persons
from affective-disordered ones. We have suggested that a self-organized
critical (SOC) state of mood regulation in the brain can explain such power-law
spectra while predicting a power-law behavior of mood amplitude fluctuations
(Kreindler & Lumsden 1998). We have now tested this key prediction using a
naturalistic mood record of 2150 mood ratings gathered over two decades by a
middle-aged male with chronic bipolar disorder. Methods: Power spectra and magnitude-vs.-frequency
histograms for the mood record as a whole and for 4-year epochs were
calculated. Power-law models were fitted to each power spectrum and to each
amplitude histogram. Results: Power spectrum analysis of entire record revealed
power-law scaling with exponent alpha = ~ -1.6; with epoch values for alpha =
{ -2.4, -1.8, -1.9, -1.5}. . The
magnitude-frequency histograms for each epoch were well fit by power laws of
the form sm, m = {-2.0, -3.2, -2.8, -2.7}. These values are similar to those
recently determined for complex systems that respond to the slow accumulation
of environmental stress with the abrupt, SOC-like changes in system state
(Turcotte 1999). Conclusion: The pattern of change in this large time series is
compatible with SOC behavior and further characterizes the mood-change process
a dynamical model must explain. 28
LAPP Bill : ADDRESS:
193 Warren Drive, San Francisco, CA 94131 EMAIL:
wm1@IREF.org
TITLE: Sights and Sounds
of Chaos: A Digital Exploration of Strange Attractors with Synchronized Sound
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1500-1530
ABSTRACT: The "Butterfly Attractor" is an icon of
chaos theory that most people recognize nowadays, though most would be hard
pressed to explain it. Edward Lorenz formulated the butterfly attractor to
model turbulent air currents that culminate in storms, so it is a dynamic
entity by its very nature. However, most of us are accustomed to seeing a
snapshot of this and other strange attractors; i.e., the composite history of
its unfolding within its phase space, but few have witnessed the dynamic
unfolding of this chaotic strange attractor over time. Lorenz's butterfly attractor is formed by
the iteration of three basic equations:
x' = 3(y - x) y' = -xz + 26.5x - y z' = xy - z Although it is a "strange attractor" meaning that it
is not possible to predict where a given point will fall
at a given time, it is possible to define the surface upon which it will fall.
Even more surprising is that given the same initial conditions, the Lorenz
attractor sketches out the same surface over time in the same patterned
sequence. The present talk will examine how the Lorenz attractor changes as a
function of various initial conditions and the audience will see the patterns
unfold in colorful graphics that have been effectively synchronized with sound.
We will see and hear the differences that occur with randomly selected initial
conditions, test the limits of the system to find where it collapses into a
single point or line, and discuss what this might mean for real world systems. 29
LEE Daphne : Private Practice, Culver City, California;Visiting
Faculty, ADDRESS: 5106 Huck Finn
Lane, Culver City, California, USA 90230; (310) 836-3385 EMAIL: daphlee@earthlink.net
TITLE: Family System
Interventions for the Fractal Family
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0930-1000
ABSTRACT: Understanding the fractal nature of the family system
allows for more effective intervention into maladaptive patterns. I will
present a family case study, based on actual clinical practice, highlighting
the multigenerational repetition of self-similar patterns and discuss
the implications of change for the system as a whole. 30
LEVY Lawrence : Department of Psychology, University ADDRESS: Department
of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2. Voice
phone: 519-661-3696. EMAIL:
rneufeld@uwo.ca
AUTHOR2: J. L. Jette Author3 Dr. R. W. J.
Neufeld Author4
TITLE: Application of
chaos theory to a model of stress and
coping: Simulational evidence and empirical validation
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: Rigorous simulational investigations of a 6-dimensional,
non-linear dynamical system of psychological stress and coping developed by
Neufeld (1999) has revealed that the model is capable of equilibrial, periodic,
and chaotic attractors (global behaviours over time). Moreover, crucial system
parameters have been elucidated. These findings have both clinical
ramifications and implications for subsequent empirical investigations.
Recently, a daily diary study has been conducted for a period of 60 days using
a battery of time-sensitive stress measures. Findings will be elaborated upon with respect to the
utility of non-linear dynamical systems theory (chaos theory) for understanding
1. the mechanisms and dynamics of stress and coping phenomena and 2. potential
clinical interventions. (Research supported, in part, by an Ontario Graduate
Scholarship in Science and Technology and a Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council Scholarship) 31
LINK John : VOLVOX, Inc. ADDRESS: 1662 Waters edge Lane Reston, VA 20190 703-709-9217 703-904-8330
Fax EMAIL: johnwlink@hotmail.com
TITLE: The Nonlinear and
Complexity Dynamics of Knowledge Management in the Classified World
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Homeland Defense is encountering an entrenched culture
of intelligence and law enforcement organizations that have classically been
reluctance to share knowledge. For over 50 years, this culture has appeared to
work satisfactorily – or has it? Now, it is clear
that the intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks resulted at least
in part from a failure of knowledge management.
This
presentation addresses the problems of maintaining secure information, while
attempting to share critical knowledge required to deal with an elusive and
sophisticated enemy. Homeland Defense urgently needs the ability to generate
conversations across organizational divides that have previously been unthinkable.
The focus of this presentation is on identifying the nonlinear and complexity
dynamics of knowledge management in a classified context, contrasting Cold War
approaches with emerging needs to wage the War on Terrorism. Based on actual
practice and action research, we will examine organizational culture dynamics
and knowledge management processes through a complexity lens to understand the
failures of 9/11, and suggest ways of utilizing the insights of complexity to
deal with the problems of knowledge management in a classified context. 32
LIPSCOMB Patricia : University of Washington School of Medicine. ADDRESS:
1007 - 14th Ave. East Seattle,
WA 98112 206-726-1409 EMAIL:
hurdygurdygirl@molehaven
TITLE: Pseudomathematics
in the Human Sciences
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1030-1100
ABSTRACT: In recent years journals in the human sciences have
published a profusion of articles claiming to “apply” mathematics (especially
the mathematics of nonlinear dynamics) to various areas of study. While some of
these contributions are excellent in both their mathematical and their primary
content, a great many others contain basic and fundamental errors in their
treatment of the very mathematics invoked. The journals that publish these
articles presumably attempt to maintain standards of
scholarship that would exclude manuscripts based on pseudoscience. However, it
appears that similar standards do not necessarily apply when submissions
contain arguments predicated on pseudomathematical references. The problem is
compounded when later authors fail to recognize the errors of earlier ones,
whose work they use as a starting point for their own similarly flawed writing.
This results in a growing edifice of theory built on a foundation riddled with
errors in fact and logic.
Responsible scholarship requires that authors avoid overreaching their
mathematical understanding and that editors subject manuscripts that are
ostensibly mathematically oriented to much greater scrutiny than has apparently
been the norm. Toward this end members of the SCTPLS may be able to play a
valuable role, since evaluation of manuscripts by reviewers with bona fide
expertise in the areas of mathematics cited by the authors is essential to
distinguish those manuscripts that make sense mathematically from those that
are based on mathematical nonsense. 33
MALLOY Thomas : Department
of Psychology ADDRESS: University of Utah
Department of Psychology 380 S. 1530 E., Rm 502 Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0251 EMAIL:
tom.malloy@csbs.utah.edu
AUTHOR2: Gary C. Jensen
TITLE: Modeling Discrete
Dynamic Systems with Online Java
Tools
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1130-1200
ABSTRACT: This paper will describe e42 which is an online,
Java-based tool, see http://www.psych.utah.edu/stat/examples/ , for creating discrete
dynamic systems. The e42 tool allows systems to be constructed randomly or
custom-built following designs implied by a wide range of theoretical
assumptions. The software outputs dynamics as sounds expressed in musical
scales and as several different
visual representations. So the user has the option of detecting dynamical
patterns (attractor basins) in several perceptually distinct ways. The tool also has a
mathematical analyzer to find and to identify rigorously each attractor basin a
dynamic system has (if any). Thus the human detection of pattern (via sound and
visual outputs) can be validated against a mathematical analysis of attractor
basins. The e42 tool allows three ways
of perturbing a dynamic system if the system has fallen into a basin. It allows
the user 1) to change the state (on or off) for a given percent of the elements
in the system; 2) to change the relationship that each element has with other
elements; and 3) to change what other elements a given element relates to. The
e42 program will be discussed as a general model of psychological/biological
phenomena. 34
MARKS-TARLOW Terry : Clinical Training Faculty, Southern California ADDRESS: 1460
7th Street, Suite 304, Santa Monica, California, USA 90401 EMAIL:
markstarlow@hotmail.com
TITLE: Fractal Dynamics
of Psychological Boundaries
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1330-1500
ABSTRACT: The concept of
psychological boundaries is ubiquitous, pervading every major clinical school
of psychological thought. In this paper, I briefly review the psychoanalytic
history of this concept and the utility of a fractal model for articulating
Winnicott_s paradoxical space between mother and child, therapist and patient.
Implications for diagnosis and the theoretical construct of projective
identification will be highlighted. 35a
MARKS-TARLOW Terry : Clinical Training Faculty, Southern California ADDRESS: 1460
7th Street, Suite 304, Santa Monica, California, USA 90401 EMAIL:
markstarlow@hotmail.com
AUTHOR2: Porter Bob
TITLE: Fractals in direct
clinical interventions during individual
psychotherapy
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0900-0930
ABSTRACT: This clinical paper addresses the utility of
introducing a fractal model of the
psyche directly during depth psychotherapy with adults. I will present two
cases from my clinical private practice. In both, a fractal metaphor was used
to increase the sophistication of patients’ implicit models of psychological
functioning. In both, the intervention cut through denial, proving a pivotal
point for change. In the first case, the infinite depth suggested by fractals
helped the patient relax during initial stages of treatment. In the second
case, which involved final stages of therapy, the patient’s expectation for
complete symptom disappearance was replaced with a more realistic sense of
‘endless frontiers’, albeit on smaller scales of observation. 35b
MCCOWN William : University of Louisiana Monroe ADDRESS:
Bill McCown, Ph.D., Professor and
Director, Louisiana Institute for Behavioral Studies EMAIL:
mccown@bayou.com
AUTHOR2: Abraham, Fred, Author3 Palmer, Jack, Author4 Young, Tony:
TITLE: Personal Belief of
Personality Nonlinearity and Positive Responses to 9/11
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1200-1230
ABSTRACT: The experiences of 9/11 certainly were phase
transitions. For some humans, 9/11 was a call that the "global
village" required more immediate attention than it has received from Post
Industrialized Society. Yet others responded similar to a number of non-human
primate societies, where many individuals (particularly males) are preoccupied
with concerns related to dominance status, group affiliation and group integrity.
Anything that is perceived as a threat to their place in the group is a
powerful source of fear and trepidation. Extreme xenophobia (fear of the
strange) is manifested when other groups of conspecifics are encountered.
Studies of proto-cultural transmission in Japanese macaques show that the
females and their young acquire new innovations but hierarchically enmeshed
adult males are virtually closed to new experience. This xenophobic,
closed-minded, control-driven individual, ready to submit to dominants and
equally ready to oppress subordinates certainly continues to exist in our
species as well and has been an unfortunate manifestation of 9/11 for many
people. Along with a group of
faculty and students of various ethnicities, religions, nationalities and
experiences with 9/11, we will attempt to
explore nonlinear factors that encouraged the experience as a positive avenue
for global change, as compared to an attractor for authoritarianism.
Comparisons of subjective experiences as open and closed systems will be
considered, as well as data regarding. The Kauffman/Langdon hypothesis
regarding optimal organization at the edge of chaos will be explored
phenomenologically, with empirically derived human data, and with computer
simulations. Although the conclusions
of this round table are still emerging, the consensus seems to be that those
that people who encompassed the global order as a far from equilibrium system
demonstrated fewer negative effects and saw the catastrophic evil of this day
as an opportunity for growth. Individuals whose personalities were dominated by
personal constructs that mandated the belief that that the input of a system
equal its output (i,e, "naive linear theorists") experienced the
greatest posttraumatic stress,
desire for vengeance, and more physical symptoms of a probable psychosomatic
origin. Treatment and humanistic implications will be discussed since terrorism is not likely to be isolated or limited
in the future. 36
MCCOWN William : University of Louisiana Monroe ADDRESS:
Bill McCown, Ph.D., Professor and
Director, Louisiana Institute for Behavioral Studies EMAIL:
mccown@bayou.com
AUTHOR2: Linda Chamberlain Author3 Jack Palmer Author4 Kim Zimmerman
TITLE: Addiction as a
Dysfunctional Fitness Landscape
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1030-1100
ABSTRACT: Several authors have assumed that addictions may be
related to nonlinear phenomena. In this presentation we present a model that
addictions, whether biological or nonpharmacological, represent variants of
fitness landscapes. A particularly relevant
variant of Kauffman's NKC-model for the co-evolution of haploid
organisms is shown to have two phases relevant for addiction acquisition and
maintenance; a classically recognized "frozen" phase in which
addictive behavior eventually reach local fitness maxima and stops evolving,
and a chaotic in which a fraction of all behaviors are at local maxima, while
another fraction evolve towards maxima. Following earlier work, closed
expressions are given for this order parameter and for the system's relaxation
time. This series of findings leads to specific clinical interventions,
appropriate to subpopulations of addicted persons, often with surprising
implications. 37
MCCOWN William : University of Louisiana Monroe ADDRESS:
Bill McCown, Ph.D., Professor and
Director, Louisiana Institute for Behavioral Studies EMAIL:
mccown@bayou.com
AUTHOR2: Jack Palmer Author3 Glen Carlson Author4 Linda Chamberlain
TITLE: Is Complexity in
Humans a Viable Concept in Psychopathology Research?
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Whether complexity has direct relevance to human
psychopathology is unclear. We present a theory and accompanying data that
suggests that the Rorschach variable EA in the Ender’s scientifically validated
Compressive Scoring System may be an appropriate approximate measure of both
Chataim’s concept of algorithmic complexity and also of current systemic
definitions relevant to in intervals. We emphasize that EA and complexity both
tap into a construct involving high adaptivity, multiple levels of
organization, self organization, dispersion rather than centralization, systemic
memory, creativity, and maximal existence near chaos. Data drawn from 9/11
patients in treatment for stress and drug
related disorder is used to illustrate how this measure may have quantitative
predictive value, inasmuch as it is a measure of humans involved in systemic
processes, rather than people possessing inflexible traits as current
psychology seems to emphasize. 38
MCCOWN William : University of Louisiana Monroe ADDRESS:
Bill McCown, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Louisiana Institute for
Behavioral Studies EMAIL: mccown@bayou.com
AUTHOR2: Linda Chamberlain, Author3 Jack Palmer Author4 Kim Zimmerman
TITLE: Novel Treatments
for Traumatic Stress and Addiction:
Implications of Skarda and Freeman’s Theories
of Limbic Storage Tested after 9/11
Stress
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1630-1700
ABSTRACT: According to Skarda and Freeman, learning takes place
when a novel stimulus with reinforcement leads to the emergence of an
unpatterned chaotic state during an orienting response. The chaotic activity
provides the substrate from which a new nerve cell assembly can form, leading
to a new attractor and its basin of attraction. This process constitutes a
bifurcation that may underlie adaptive voluntary behavior, but also addiction
and traumatic stress, where there is an obvious evolutionary advantage to rapid
encoding. This brief paper will review research regarding the stabilization of
bifurcating systems-whether in the individual or the family. Following 9/11, we
were able to more extensively test therapeutic methods involving both
stabilizing dysfunctional systems (including people) and our former methodology
of the use of white noise to prevent bifurcation. Our
data now suggests that traumatic stress and addiction share common
limbic-encoded facets and may represent not only aberrant fitness landscapes,
but also rapidly encoded memory algorithms, where the infinite variety of human
experience regarding trauma is encoded fractally. This self similar encoding represents
an evolutionarily advantageous shorthand. This genetic advantage is probably
best presented in the simple formula of the Mandelbrot set, namely the locus of
points, C, for which the series Zn+1 = Zn *
Zn + C, Z0 = (0, 0) is bounded by a circle of radius two, centered on the
origin. Since this simple algorithm separates points of the complex plane into
two categories, maximizing discriminative ability with minimal encoding and
decoding efforts is possible and probably biologically advantageous in detecting
danger or reward. Novel treatments for trauma and addiction may involve
introduction of alterative paramatator planes, such as Quanternion Julia Sets.
Because a collection of quadratic polynomials can be parameterized in different
ways, a number of treatment strategies for overcoming addiction and stress are
suggested. One seemingly powerful method may involve the 1/(µ+.25)-plane and is 39
MCKELVEY Bill : The Anderson School at UCLA ADDRESS:
The Anderson School at UCLA 110 Westwood
Plaza Box 951481 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481 phone: 310-825-7796 EMAIL:
mckelvey@anderson.ucla.e
TITLE: Studying vs.
De-energizing Terrorism: Lessons from
Complexity Science illustrated in detail.
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: Most social science studies and models of terrorist
activity are attempts at symptomatic solutions. This is fine if one simply
wants to study terrorism. But doing this in the hope of finding ways to stop
terrorism is like trying to stop a pot from boiling without turning down the
heat. European complexity science is much clearer than the Santa Fe version in
focusing on the Bénard process as the fundamental engine of self-organized
order creation. Prigogine, Haken, Mainzer, et al., use the 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics and the energy differential between high order (energy) and
entropy, coupled with the critical value concept drawn from fluid dynamics
theory, to define the region of self-organization. A review of basic complexity
science across quantum theory, biology, and econosphere (including Gell-Mann,
Prigogine, Lorenz, Haken, Mainzer, Salthe, and Kauffman), shows that there is
an emerging "0th law of thermodynamics" the order-creation law. An
application of this law suggests that terrorists will simply keep
self-organizing into many novel emergent
structures until the driving energy differential is reduced below the 1st
critical value. A quick review of some of the apparent causes of terrorist activity
follows. The joint probability of these several causes suggests a power law.
The power law effect in creating the energy differential means that several
sources of tension will have to be significantly reduced before the composite
(power law) effect falls below the critical value at which point self-organized
terrorist activity stops. Bottom line? Military funded agent models of
terrorist self-organization distract the attention of key players in the
Federal Government away from the essential problem. Bush’s War on Terrorism
more likely energizes rather than de-energizes or eradicates terrorist
activities. 40
MENDES Vivaldo : Department of Economics ADDRESS: Vivaldo Mendes ISCTE, University of Lisbon Avenida
Forcas Armadas, Edificio ISCTE 1649-026 Lisbon Portugal EMAIL:
vivaldo.mendes@iscte.pt
AUTHOR2: Diana A. Mendes
TITLE: Active Interest
Rate Rules, Chaotic Dynamics and
Control,
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Since the early 1990s we have witnessed an increasing consensus
in the conduct of modern monetary policy. The central elements of this
consensus are that the crucial instrument of monetary policy ought to be the
short term interest rate, that policy should be focused
on the control of inflation, that inflation can be efficiently controlled by an
aggressive increasing of short term interest rates, and that the central bank
should conduct monetary policy adopting a strategy of commitment in a
forward-looking environment (instead of discretion). Besides the remarkable
success of monetary policy in the US and other OECD countries throughout the
1990s, the elegance, the appealing and the logical power of the theoretical
arguments of active interest rate rules convinced the large majority of
academics and policy makers that these type of rules were very powerful in
stabilizing the economy. However, over the last two/three years, Benhabib, Schmitt-Grhoé and
Uribe, have shown in a series of papers that active interest rules may lead to
very unexpected consequences. "Even the simplest and most innocuous
monetary models, using the most standard assumptions may easily lead to
indeterminacy, deflation traps, large cyclical instability, and even chaotic
dynamics. From our point of view, and in opposition to
dominant opinions in the discipline, we do not take this chaotic instability as
a curse for monetary policy under active interest rate rules. Quite the
opposite. We show how this type of chaotic dynamics can be easily controlled by
small pushes and pulls applied at the right places (on the parameters that the
central bank controls), a case which would hardly be possible in a non-chaotic
system. Moreover, the control of chaos in this type of dynamics would also
suggest that in order to fully stabilize the economy, the central bank may also
be forced to resort to discretion whenever that is required 41
METZGER Mary
Ann : University of
Maryland UMBC, Department of ADDRESS: Mary Ann Metzger,
PhD, 1010 Dyre Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA EMAIL: metzger@umbc.edu
TITLE: Communication
dynamics associated with alcoholism
and domestic violence: quantifying
patterns of interaction.
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1200-1230
ABSTRACT: Couples entering marital therapy for husband’s alcoholism
were classified into two sets according to their history: either previously
violent (V) or not previously violent (N). Before beginning therapy couples
were each videotaped while they discussed an item they
considered a marital problem. Videotaped behaviors were coded by standard
methods, yielding time-series of communication variables such as quality of
affect and emotional distance. Since the time-series could
not be assumed to be either linear or stationary, the method of multi-process
models was applied to quantify differences between V and N in dynamic patterns
of interaction. The method was applied to half of the couples in each set. The
remainder of the couples constituted test sets of V and N. Characteristic, but not
exclusive, patterns were found for V and N. The most likely sequences of
communication patterns were determined for each couple. Sequences of V or N
patterns were used to classify test couples as V or N, and to predict for each
couple whether or not there would be post-treatment violence. Each of these was
accomplished with some modest success, suggesting the method is well-suited for
quantifying meaningful patterns of interaction. 42
MIROW Susan : Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Utah School of ADDRESS: EMAIL:
Susanmirow@aol.com
AUTHOR2: Porter
TITLE: Attachment,
Attunement And Ultradian Fractals
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1330-1630
ABSTRACT: Attachment and attunement between mother and newborn
may be tracked as time series of coupled biorhythms. Specifically, those
biorhythms shorter than 24 hours, ultradian rhythms, are markers of this
process. The fractal nature of ultradian rhythms provide a
measurement tool to study the dynamical nature of attachment: iterated,
self-organizing patterns of increasingly complex interactive behaviors. 43
MITINA Olga : Moscow State University, Dept. of Psychology, Russia, ADDRESS: 123060,
Moscow, Raspletin str., h. 15, app. 77, EMAIL: omitina@yahoo.com
TITLE: A Nonlinear
reflective model of estimation in personal value preferences
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: Considering the fact that the presence of reflection
makes the process nonlinear, the use of models that takes reflection into
account seems important in the NDS theory. This work suggests
the application of the Lefebre reflective choice model of for the analysis
personal value preferences system. V.Lefebre proposed to calculate "the
function of subject's readiness for a choice" using the following formula:
A=`1+(1-`1)(1-`2)`3, where `1 is the real pressure of social environment for a
choice of this or that alternative which is not
realized by the subject, but is felt at the subconscious level, a2 - is
subject's mental representation about the pressure of social environment, a3 is
subject's plans for a choice of one of alternatives. In other word s his/her
individual intentions or desires which s/he would like to carry out by the
choice. Value of the formula A is the alternative which the subject is ready to
choose really. Thus, within the framework of model
we distinguish the real readiness of the subject to make a choice differ
objective and his/her subjective intention to do it. In the work we
investigated the attitudes to the large set of basic values (including
Rokeach's values) as alternatives of the choices. To operationalise, i.e. to
calculate the values of all components included in the formula the scheme of E.Bern's
transact analysis was selected. Child's demands are compared with the real
pressure of social environment, Parent's demands are compared with mental
representation of the subject about the pressure of social environment, and
Adult'a demands are compared with the subject's intentions or desires. The
correlation between the personal traits determined by
various tests of personality and subjective values choices by calculated by the
offered way was analyzed. The obtained results substantially
corresponded to the hypothetical
assumptions, formulated using the different personality's theories. This
results confirm the legitimacy of use of the offered formula with help
transacts operational model. 44
MPITSOS George : The Mark O. Hatfield Marine Science Center ADDRESS:
EMAIL: george.mpitsos@hmsc.ors
TITLE: Attractors:
Architects of Network Organization
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1630-1800
ABSTRACT: An attractor is defined here informally as a state of
activity toward which a system settles. The settling or relaxation process
dissipates the effects produced by external perturbations. In neural systems
the relaxation process occurs temporally in the responses of each neuron and
spatially across the network such that the activity settles into a subset of
the available connections. Within limits, the set of neurons toward which the
coordinated neural firing settles can be different from one time to another,
and a given set of neurons can generate different types of attractor activity, depending
on how the input environment activates the network. Findings such as these
indicate that though information resides in the details of neuroanatomical
structure, the expression of this information is in the dynamics of attractors.
As such, attractors are sources of information that can be used not only in
adaptive behavior, but also to effect the neural architecture that generates
the attractor. The discussion will focus on the latter possibility. A
conjecture will be offered to show that the relaxation dynamic of an attractor
may ‘guide’ activity-dependent learning processes in such a way
that synaptic strengths, firing thresholds, the physical connections between
neurons, and the size of the network are automatically set in an optimal,
interrelated fashion. The inter-relatedness among network parameters would not
be expected from more classical, ‘switchboard’ approaches to neural
integration. The ideas will be discussed within the context of
‘pulse-propagated’ or equivalently ‘spike-activated’ networks in which the
specific order in time intervals between action potentials carries important
information for cooperative activity to emerge among neurons in a network. Though
the proposed areas are forward-looking, being based on preliminary work in
biological and artificial networks reconstructed from identified neurons in
cell culture and in simulation models of them. 45
NELSON Charles : The University of Texas at Austin, ADDRESS:
Division of Rhetoric & Composition,
The University of Texas at Austin, TX 78712 EMAIL: charlesnelson@mac.com
TITLE: Cross-over and
knowledge flows in a second language composition classroom
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1630-1700
ABSTRACT: Using John Holland’s (1995) model of complex adaptive
systems, this paper investigates how nonnative speakers of English learned to
participate and to write in a first-year university rhetoric and composition course.
Of particular interest is the development of students’ internal models for
writing through the cross-over of schema building blocks and through networks
of flows within and across classroom boundaries that
multiply and recycle sources of knowledge. As opposed to the traditional view
of the classroom as self-contained and teacher-directed, the findings in this
paper suggest that educators should take students’ knowledge networks into
consideration and provide structural support for students to incorporate them
into their learning environments. 46
OLIEN Glenn : North
Thompson Community Skills Centre, Clearwater, ADDRESS: Box 1107, Clearwater, British Columbia, Canada, VOE
1NO Voice Phone: 250-674-3530, EMAIL:
TITLE: Fractured Phase
Space Portraits for the Non-Expert.
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1000-1030
ABSTRACT: The author will report on a new technique (fractured
phase space portraits) for non-experts to apply the tools and concepts of chaos
and complexity science to everyday problems. The author and 237 others have
given 10,000 people the experience of creating fractured phase space images as
a new way of "seeing" change. The results of a Canadian Federal
Government/ British Columbia Provincial Government study of income assistant
clients who created fractured phase space
self-portraits of their employment transition potential will also be presented.
Of particular interest is the way fracturing phase space into prime influences
reveals fractal structures. 47
OLSON Edwin : Organization development consultant ADDRESS:
University of Maryland, University College EMAIL:
edolson@complexod.com
TITLE: Self-Organizing in
a Bureaucracy
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: Leaders of a large government bureaucracy wished to
develop a more open and collaborative environment. Organization Development
consultants approached the project with a model of
self-organizing systems. This paper describes how organizational diagnosis and
intervention can be successful with a complexity perspective. The aspects described are: · Collection of behavioral data that
facilitated the desired organizational environment and those behaviors that
were hindering its development. · Sorting
the data into the three conditions of self-organizing (Olson and Eoyang, 2001):
containers, significant differences, and transforming exchange. · Determination of the organizational
aspects that were too tightly or too loosley constrained and thus unable to
self-organize. · Feedback of the data
to organizational leaders with the Stacey Decision
Matrix. · Immmediate actions taken on
issues of high agreement and certainty, linkage of the data to the Performance
Management system, and planning to involve organizational members on complex
issues which require methods of self-organizing. Preliminary results indicate that interventions in any
one of the three conditions of self-organizing has a positive impact on the
other conditions. Leaders' evaluations praise the complexity science methods
which provided clarity of the issues and identified specific areas for their
interventions. 48
ORSUCCI Franco : Rehabilitation Unit, DSM RM-B ADDRESS:
Franco Orsucci, MD, PhD Rehabilitation
Unit, DSM RM-B & Institute for
Complexity Studies Roma EMAIL:
franco.orsucci@collegiumw
AUTHOR2: Porter
TITLE: Co evolution,
synchronization and control: mind
autonomies.
DAY: WITHDRAWN
ABSTRACT: The history of psychotherapies id the history of
attempts of controlling mind processes. Several examples of this myth of human
civilizations are reviewed. Several solutions found over centuries are
re-examined. Closures and openings are evaluated. A possible solution under the
new lights of dynamical systems theory is proposed. 49
OYER-OWENS Stephen : University of Texas at Dallas ADDRESS:
Stephen Oyer-Owens Doctoral Candidate
Humanities University of Texas at Dallas EMAIL: StephenFOwens@aol.com
TITLE: Complexity and
Conflict in the Twenty-First Century: Black Elk’s
Fractal Technology for Human
Transformation
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1130-1200
ABSTRACT: In today’s world of increasing complexity and recurring
conflict, a little-understood narrative/text, The Sacred Pipe,
by the Lakota holy man Black Elk merits special scrutiny. Within the s of this text,
Black Elk provides a fractal process, also linked to Chaos Theory, by which
human beings can encounter a radical transformation of being. In this paper, I
argue that this transformation can fundamentally alter human identity, laying
the foundations for peace between nations. The technology required entails a
transition from what I wish to call Linear State Being, through Intermittent
Chaos, into Unified State Being.This transition can be created for human beings
as individuals, as well as for communities. Also brought to wholeness by The
Sacred Pipe’s technology can be the physical universe and the source of being,
identified by the Lakota as Wakan-Tanka. The transitional conditions at each of
these levels may be identified as phase states, occurring by analogy within
nonlinear dynamical systems, and involving iterations, feedback, and strange
attractors. They may also be represented as fractal loops. The resulting
condition of wholeness unfolds a
fractal or "in-between" ontology which hyper-dimensionally marries
living and dying, order and chaos. This new state, as Black Elk clearly
believed, can generate a subtly-nuanced, fundamentally new way for human beings
to relate to self, others, and the world. 50
PALMER Kent : Trace
Studies Institute. ADDRESS: Trace Studies Institute, Box 1632, Orange
CA 92856. Voice phone: 714-633-9508; EMAIL: palmer@exo.com
TITLE: Reflexive
Autopoietic Dissipative Special Systems
Theory
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1200-1230
ABSTRACT: A socially founded model of consciousness of living
things basedon Hyper-complex Algebras is presented. This model is inherently
fractal based on the Pascal triangle of hypercomplex algebras that extends
infinitely into non-division
algebras from its basis in complex, quaternion, octonion and sedenion algebras.
The loss of properties at each algebraic stage is translated into a systems
theoretic description of a special kind of system that exemplifies the loss of
those mathematical properties. This model
is structured according to P. Azel's theory of non-well-founded sets. It is a
model of interpenetration that is at the base of the emergent levels of
negatively entropic dynamic systems, living consciousness and the social which
has a specific structure giving rise to the three Special Systems called Reflexive,
Autopoietic and Dissipative which are ultra-efficacious. Reflexive Systems are
based on the work of reflexive sociologists Sandywell and O'Malley. Autopoietic
Special Systems are based on the work of Maturana and Varella. Dissipative
Special Systems are based on the work of Prigogine. However, this theory brings
mathematical rigor to these theories and articulates a unified fractal theory
of emergent phenomenal levels corresponding to specific thresholds of
complexity and organization. Dynamically these special systems arise on the edge
of chaos but have persistence due to their sustained negative entropy. 51
PASCALE Richard : ADDRESS: Phone:
415/922-3443 Fax: 415/922-2723 EMAIL: rtpascale@aol.com
TITLE: Laws of the Jungle
and The New Laws of Business
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1530-1600
ABSTRACT: There are two imperatives for survival in many
industries today. The first requires agility in the face of high levels of
strategic ambiguity. The second is a shift in culture and capability
from slow, deliberate organizations to forms that behave like living organisms,
fostering entrepreneurial initiatives, consolidating learning and moving
rapidly to exploit winning positions in the marketplace. One of the best places
for leaders to learn how to meet these challenges is by looking at life itself.
Over millions of years, nature has devised strategies for coping both with
prolonged periods of gradual change and occasional cataclysms in which only the
most agile survive. This latter condition, in particular, teaches us much about
how species deal with turmoil. Four
principles, running counter to many current and conventional management
beliefs, stand out as the primary lessons from life. Equilibrium is a
precursor to death. A static system is less responsive to changes occurring
around it. This places it at maximum risk. In the face of threat or
opportunity, species move toward the edge of chaos. This is a permeable,
intermediate state through which order and disorder flow, not a finite line of
demarcation. Moving to the edge of chaos creates
upheaval but not dissolution. It evokes greater variation of approach, often
leading to fresh solutions. Once this excitation takes place, the components of
living systems self-organize, and new forms and repertoires emerge from the
turmoil. This property of life is called “self-organization and emergence. 52
PAVEL Misha : Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland OR, ADDRESS: Department
of Biomedical Engineering OGI School of Science
and Engineering Oregon Health and
Science University 20000 NW Walker Rd.,
Beaverton, OR 97006 EMAIL: pavel@ece.ogi.edu
AUTHOR2: Larry Maloney Author3 Maria F. Dal
Martello Author4
TITLE: Optimality of
Randomized Response Strategies
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 MUST BE TIME: 1530-1600
ABSTRACT: In selected experimental situations, human
participants confronted with decision under uncertainty appear
to behave suboptimally. One example of such behavior is so called probability
matching. in predicting stochastically independent trials, they match the
probability, even though the optimal strategy in such situations is to always
predict the most likely event. In this talk, we will first review some of the
experimental evidence and then show that this strategy, which is sub-optimal
for an individual, is actually the optimal strategy when a society is faced
with similar decision making tasks under uncertainty. I will discuss the optimality of such
decisions under uncertainty in search (foraging) and in gambling situations.
Moreover, I propose that the demonstrable tendency of humans to find patterns
in sequences of events even when told the sequences are random
(superstitious-like behavior) might be an important component of achieving
social optima under many realistic conditions. 53
PEDERSON Stacey
M. : Department of
Psychology, University of Oregon, ADDRESS: Department of Psychology,
University of Oregon, Eugene/OR, USA, 97403-1227 EMAIL: spederso@darkwing.uoreg
TITLE: The Emotional
Landscapes of Daily Living
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: People who differ in temperament, experience, and
physiology may have very different emotion responses to what seems,
objectively, to be the "same" stressor. These different emotion
responses to stressors can, in turn, lead to
differential impairment or enhancement of cognitive performance. Given that
emotion is inherently dynamic, modeling the temporal organization of emotion
responses to stress may capture subtleties of the emotion process that mediate
those differential responses to stress. This study presents a first step in the
exploration of the individual differences in the temporal organization of
emotion in response to naturally-occurring stressors over a two-week diary
study of emotion and mood. Through the construction of state space grids from
valence, intensity, and behavioral approach/withdrawal variables, it examines
the type (content) and variability of emotion responses, time to particular
emotion responses, the ability to transition from one emotion to another, and
the conditions that constrain or support this ability. It is hypothesized that
these intra-individual emotional landscapes will then constrain the range of
possible patterns toward which emotional self-organization to stressors can
evolve in real time. 54
PEIL Katherine : EFS International, Kirkland Washington, USA 98033 ADDRESS:
12626 NE 114th Place, Kirkland, WA 98033;
Voice Phone: (425) 828-4114; FAX (425) 828-4544; EMAIL: ktpeil@aol.com
TITLE: The perception of
behavioral self-regulation: The
Emotional Sense
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1330-1400
ABSTRACT: A homeostatic feedback model of emotion as a
self-regulatory sense is proposed. The model suggests that humans are privy to
perceptual information regarding the self-organizing behavioral dynamics that
govern the electromagnetic dynamics of matter in motion, sensory information
that orchestrates mode-locking behavioral adaptation within, across, and between
“self-units” and their relative environment. The positive and negative hedonic
categories perceived as subjective categories of distress (fear, anger,
sadness, etc) and eustress (joy, love, wonder, etc) with their accompanying
repel/avoid or attract/approach action tendencies offer perceptual guidance
concerning the body’s self-preservationary and self-developmental adaptive
responses to environmental changes to which the mind’s behavioral choices must
align to ensure optimal biological harmony---a naturally “right” state of
homeostatic balance. The model suggests that such culturally symbolic concepts
of good, bad, right, and wrong are highly skewed, but ultimately based upon two
right and good values of stability and growth within nature related to
periodicity and chaos. The implications of an unrecognized, yet innate and
universal, sensory mechanism for behavioral regulation upon human development,
value judgments, ethics, and morality are discussed. 55
PINCUS David : M.S., Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ADDRESS:
M.S., 655 Hilltop Dr. #58, Redding, CA
96003. 530-246-3406, EMAIL: Pincusd@aol.com
TITLE: Borderline
personality disorder: A case presentation based in concepts from nonlinear dynamical
systems.
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: Severe borderline personality disorder (BPD) presents an
extreme challenge to mental health professionals with respect to risk
management, parataxic phenomena (e.g., transference), treatment resistance and
the intractability of symptoms. While some recent advances have been made in
understanding, treating and de-stigmatizing individuals with BPD, there is as
of yet no general framework through which one may
parsimoniously understand the structure, dynamics, development, pathology and
treatment of this disorder. The current
presentation will discuss a course of treatment for BPD utilizing an integrated
framework based on the principles of bifurcation and self-organization. These
principles will be used as map to understand the hypothetical structural
relationship that exists between fragility (i.e., structural flaws) in the self
systems of individuals with BPD and the role of self-defeating habits in
protecting these fragile systems. In addition to the difficulties often
encountered in the treatment of individuals with BPD, the model will attempt to
explain the hypothetical role that double-binds may play in creating these
fragile self-systems. Finally, guidelines for optimizing treatment
effectiveness will be discussed. 56
PINCUS Dave : Department of Psychology, Marquette University, ADDRESS: 655
Hilltop Dr. # 58, Redding, Ca 96003. (530) 246-3406. EMAIL:
pincusd@aol.com
TITLE: Complexity,
Fractal Patterns, and Interpersonal
Dynamics: An Empirical Test of The 5-R Model in Group Therapy
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1000-1030
ABSTRACT: Since the 1930’s and 40’s, substantial gains have been
made in understanding small group processes. Yet, this field has undergone a substantial degree of
fragmentation over time, particularly among the investigations of group
therapy, family systems theory and small group theories within the field of
social psychology. At the same time, methodological limitations have restricted
empirical investigations of group dynamics within each of these domains. The
current study was designed to test an integrated model of
small group processes (the 5-R model) developed from theoretical concepts from
family systems, small groups and nonlinear dynamical systems. The conversation
of one group therapy session was analyzed using orbital decomposition. An
optimal string length of four was found along with evidence of coherent
complexity (chaos), with Lyapunov dimensionality equal to 2.12, Shannon’s
entropy equal to 6.44 and fractal dimension equal to 1.64. Furthermore, the frequency
distribution for recurrences corresponded to a 1/fb distribution (R2 = .95).
Finally, the degree of patterning in strings (log-frequency of recurrence) was
tested for correlations with the relationship constructs of control, closeness
and conflict among the members. Significant correlations were found between
patterning and: observed control (r = .58), observed closeness (r = .36) and a
combined index (self-report and observed) for conflict (r = .51). Correlations between
patterning and self-reported control and self-reported closeness were not
significant. Theoretical and practical implications of the results
are discussed including the possibility of dynamics-based assessments and
interventions in small groups from various contexts. 57
PORTER Bob : ADDRESS: EMAIL:
TITLE: An Appraisal Of
The Role Of Nonlinear Dynamics And
Clinical Practice
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1330-1630
ABSTRACT: Symposium Facilitator 58
PRANE Jada : B.S. Psychology; Ph.D. Philosophy, Independent ADDRESS: Island
Park Professional Center, 175 West “B” Street, Bldg. N-3, Springfield, Oregon
97477. Voice phone: 541-726-0664 EMAIL: drprane@qwest.net
TITLE: Dissociation,
Terrorists, and Fractured Lives
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1130-1200
ABSTRACT: This changing world requires a new account of
"dissociation" if we are to understand the
"split-personality" capabilities of "Kamakazi" terrorists.
Ian Hacking, in Rewriting the Soul, considers it unfortunate that dissociation
is"pathologized" in our society. Dissociation has been relegated to
the fringe of human experience, categorized in problems (daydreaming, attention
deficit disorder, schizophrenia) and referred to
most often in its extreme as Multiple Personality Disorder. Hacking suggests, A
reverse account is waiting to be given, one that sees multiple personality as
one way to use or abuse the ability to go into a trance. De-pathologizing
dissociation furnishes a good starting point but,
even his and others’ views ignore the power of using non-trance dissociation.
For, even though terrorists switch between vastly divergent lifestyles, they
are not considered as having multiple personalities, or of being in a
trance-like state. So, how are we to understand terrorists’ Jekyll-Hyde ability
to convincingly entrench themselves in an American lifestyle participating
fully in capitalism, superficiality, sexualized television, and American
friendships, while plotting to kill Americans for those very things of which
they, the terrorists, appeared to revel in? Dissociation’s non-pathologized,
common, and everyday form can help make sense of seemingly contrary lives,
those of terrorists as well as our own. A non-sensationalized view of
dissociation, one derived from acting theory and chaos theory,
helps us to understand both the twisted lifestyles of terrorists and the
fragmentation of Self that occurs in a chaotic world riddled with conflicting
demands. 59
RADIN Michael : Rochester Institute of Technology ADDRESS: 85
Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, New York 14623 EMAIL: marsma@rit.edu
TITLE: Boundedness,
Periodicity, and Applications of
Max-Type Difference Equations
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1600-1630
ABSTRACT: We will examine the boundedness and periodic character
of the positive solutions of the following max-type difference equation: x[n+1]
= max { 1/x[n], A[n]/x[n-1] } and discover how the long term behavior of the
positive solutions depends on the relationship between the parameters, not on
the initial conditions. In addition, we will also discover
future applications in the following areas: (1) Electrical Engineering (2)
Neurodynamics 60
RAIKHLIN Raddai : ADDRESS: 9,
Hassidei Umot HaOlam St., Haifa, 32985, ISRAEL 972-4-8325677 EMAIL:
raikhlin@actcom.co.il
AUTHOR2: Dick Bird
TITLE: Terrorist
organization in regards to synergy and society evolution
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1500-1530
ABSTRACT: Conditions necessary for gang formation: 1.Establishing
communication among the terrorist gang members. It is necessary for density of
potential terrorist in the society to grow. Such process takes place when
society degrades and loses unity falling into anarchy. The society is then
split into nationalists and internationalists. The latter have a new ideology
or religion. The degradation of society is accompanied by growth of those who
are not satisfied with status quo. 2 Formation of
ideology or religion that unites the gang. The ideology is
usually centered around freedom-fighting and building a new better society.
Freedom can mean national or class liberation. New society can be located as
far as another world. Ideology is just justification
and covering for the fight. The true reasons are described above. 3.Making
connections among potential gang members is not enough for the terrorist
organization to appear. There is a stage of gang formation that needs to take
place. Only after this stage a gang can become a stable organization. The
length of this stage is unknown due to the lack of research in this area, but
it’s safe to suppose that at least ten members must join the gang for it to
become an organization. If the gang is not stable, it will disappear. Stable
gang will behave as a tumor, growing and spreading by metastasis. The
conditions described above are vital for stability of the organization. Then
the gang needs to take care about financing that is required for weapons and
communication devices, propaganda materials, etc. Usually the internationalists
are generously supported from abroad. Conditions for
evolution and development: 4.A gang is a form of
mutation in the society. As biological mutations they are an element of
evolution and society adaptation. Mutations can be positive or negative, mainly
negative. 5. As any mutation, a
gang is society’s test for stability. This test could be a civil war. If the
society is unstable then the gang with its ideology wins and grabs the power.
The next stage of evolution takes place. If the society is stable then gang is defeated and evolution
cycle is closed.
61
RICOTTILLI Massimo : Department of Economics, University of Bologna ADDRESS:
Massimo Ricottilli, Department of
Economics, Piazza Scaravilli2, Bologna, Italy; Phone: +390512098128 EMAIL:
ricottil@economia.unibo.it
AUTHOR2: Rainer Andergassen Author3 Franco Nardini Author4
TITLE: Innovation Waves,
Self-organised Criticality and
Technological Convergence
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1330-1400
ABSTRACT: Technical change sets in motion a dynamic process that
can appropriately be understood in terms of a virtuous circle weaving actions
and feed-backs into a pattern of self supporting and reinforcing events. This
paper deals with both innovation and imitation that upgrade the economy’s
productive structure . The economy is described as a complex system of
heterogeneous firms implementing technologies of varying degree of efficiency
and which are rationally and cognitively bounded .
Innovation and imitation are the outcome of a process of searching for
information and learning concerning technological paradigms already implemented
by other firms or organisations in possibly distant branches or sectors. This
process is, however, local and confined within neighbourhoods presenting
different entropy. The process of diffusion leading to technological
convergence is dealt with by resorting to a model of self organising
criticality which studies avalanches of innovation started off by a
technological idiosyncratic shock whose impact is driven, in the limit, to zero
to observe diffusion and spreading of a new technological paradigm in the
economy. Imitation , on the other hand, is portrayed as a dynamical process
according to which firms within a sector stand a probability of learning best
practise techniques as they appear within a sector. Finally, the paper
generates investment as a direct consequence of opportunities crated by both
imitation and innovation and describes how the structure changes in
consequence. 62
ROSSI Ernest : Science Editor, “Psychological
Perspectives"
author, "The Symptom Path to Enlightenment: The New
Dynamics
of Self-Organization in Hypnotherapy"
AUTHOR2: Bob Porter
TITLE: Genes, Dreams And
Poincaré's Creative Process
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1330-1630
ABSTRACT: The ultradian fractal dynamics of genes, dreams, and Poincaré's
creative process is explored with the Feigenbaum scenario and systems of
differential equations as presented in my new book, The Psychobiology of Gene
Expression: Neuroscience and Neurogenesis in Hypnosis and the Therapeutic Arts.
(W.W. Norton Professional Books, June 2002). 63
SEMURA Jack : Physics
Department, Portland State University. ADDRESS: Physics Department, Portland State University,
Portland, OR 97207; (503) 725-4229; EMAIL: semuraj@pdx.edu
AUTHOR2: Todd L. Duncan
TITLE: Memory, Learning,
and Thermodynamics
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: The concepts clustered around terms such as learning,
memory, and forgetting play a central role in the social sciences. In the
physical sciences, similar concepts involving information and the irreversible
loss of information are tied directly with concepts from
thermodynamics, and the associated physical concepts of information, entropy,
irreversibility, and the second law. Although certain features of the
similarities between these ideas have been discussed before,
can we make progress toward a more rigorous development? Our
purpose here is to discuss these concepts and to present a formulation of the
relationships. An examination of the correspondence between the fields enables
using thermodynamics and statistical physics to
shed light on learning, memory, and forgetting, and to better understand the
generalized possibilities and
restrictions under which we live. Of particular interest are the dual relations
between memory and information loss, forgetting and the second law, and the
filtering process where detailed information is discarded in order to recapture
properties of the world into generic categories. 64
SINCLAIR Robert : Portland State University, Department of Psychology. ADDRESS:
Portland State University, Department of
Psychology, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR, 97207 phone: (503)
725-3965/fax: (503) 725-3904 EMAIL: sinclair@pdx.edu
AUTHOR2: , Wayne Wakeland Author3 Ellen Skinner Author4
TITLE: Collaborative
teaching of dynamic systems concepts in applied psychology: Reflections from three
instructors.
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0830-0900
ABSTRACT: The dynamic systems paradigm has an enormous potential
to contribute to scientific progress, particularly in the study of human
behavior. However, graduate training still lags behind state-of-the art
research, and students in traditional social science programs often receive
little, if any, training in dynamic systems issues. Moreover, dynamic systems literature
sometimes fails to demonstrate its
immediate relevance to applied social science problems. Highly specialized
faculty training contributes to this problem. Social science faculty members
often lack sufficient technical or conceptual expertise to effectively teach
systems science concepts or analyses, while dynamic systems scholars may be
less familiar with the theoretical or practical problems in applied social
science disciplines. One way to address this problem is to offer collaborative
courses in which students learn dynamic systems concepts and analytic tools in
a specific context or discipline. Portland State University offers doctoral
training in Systems Science that involves the student simultaneously pursuing
training in Applied Psychology (e.g., developmental, industrial/organizational,
and social/community psychology) and in Systems Dynamics. The presenters have
taught such collaborative courses, wherein students learn to apply systems
dynamics concepts and tools to the theoretical and applied issues in their
particular field of interest. We will provide a very brief overview of the
Systems Science doctoral specialization in Applied Psychology, and share
examples of our specific courses (including sample syllabi). We will then
facilitate a roundtable discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of this
approach, and then suggest additional pedagogical strategies for introducing
dynamic systems concepts into traditional graduate training programs 65
SPOHN Meg : Graduate School of International Studies, University
of ADDRESS: 2515 S. Williams St.,
Denver, CO 80210. Voice phone: (303) 722-5105 EMAIL:
mspohn@du.edu
TITLE: Are violent
societies formed the same way violent
criminals are? A challenge to Levels of Analysis.
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 0900-0930
ABSTRACT: The work of criminologist Lonnie Athens clearly
outlines a distinct, four-stage pattern of the development of dangerous violent
criminals. Based on the social experiences
of nascent criminals and intensive feedback within the criminal himself and his
primary social group, any person completing all four stages of violentization
will become a dangerous violent criminal; those who fail to complete all four
stages do not. Early findings suggest that the formation of violent societies
follow a similar pattern. If this is so, it stands as a challenge to the Levels
of Analysis literature in the field of International Politics (which suggests
that political issues, problems, and processes are vastly different depending
upon whether one views them from the
personal, societal, state, or regional levels), suggesting that the chaotic
phenomenon of scaling may offer a clearer model of understanding the complex
"levels" of human interaction. 66
SWORD Deborah : University of Toronto/OISE ADDRESS:
Information before 15 July, 2002 59
Shields Ave Toronto, ON, M5N 2K3 Phone
416 480 0124 EMAIL::
ldsword@total.net EMAIL: ldsword@pop.total.net
TITLE: Complexity Theory
and Conflict Analysis: Applications
and Intersections
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Conflict can and does escalate. Conflict theory seeks
to understand this by attributing escalation to, for
example, unmet needs, social factors, scarce resources or structural
inequities. Traditional conflict analysts tend to isolate individual causes to
predict linear effects. The findings are often framed as opposites:
"Summit organizers created a gated community protected by a 3.8 kilometer
fence and 6,000 well-armed riot cops and the two solitudes might as
well have been in parallel universes for all their ability to communicate with
each other." [ Falconer, T., Watchdogs and Gadflies: Activism from
Marginal to Mainstream. 2001, Toronto: Penguin.] Using public
protests as cases studies, I apply complexity theory to analyze conflict
escalation. Viewing conflicts as complex
systems that are path dependent gets beyond the rhetoric and into the shadow
system's challenge to the dominant conceptualization of the world order. I
analyze how the systems are paying attention to each other's narratives,
despite their denials of the validity of each other's stories. I
also look at the bifurcation points that can take the parties down different
paths than they intended. My findings suggest that it is possible to change
these paths without having to wait until the conflict burns itself out,
even thought the parties are committed to their paths. I analyze the patterns
of escalating large scale, multi-party, complex public protest and suggest
future actions. Conflict studies through the lens of complexity theory can
create a more sophisticated understanding of the changing world. 67
TOIFL Karl : Neuropsychiatric Clinic for Children and Adolescents, University of Vienna ADDRESS: EMAIL: Karl. Toifl@akh-wien.ac.at
TITLE: Meaning Of Information And
Time For Self- Organization In
Living Systems
DAY: Sunday 4/8/02 TIME:
1200-1230
Some theoretical considerations about the central
impact of information and time on the self-organization of structure and
function in living systems will be presented and discussed. Information is seen as aspect of energy and
matter. Time is discussed concerning the two aspects of it. On the one hand the
irreversible course – eg from birth to death – and on the other hand the
reversible one – eg the periodic course of
oscillations--, which allows the temporary existence of structure and
function in self – organizing systems
WEINBERG Rita : Department
of Educational Psychology, National-Louis ADDRESS: National-Louis
University Fax 847 465 5617 1000 Capitol
Drive e-mail Wheeling, Illinois 60090 Phone:
847-465-0575 Ex.5117 EMAIL: rweinberg@nl.edu
TITLE: Chaos Theory,
Brain Patterns, and Personality
Assessment.
DAY: Saturday 3/8/02 TIME: 1430-1500
ABSTRACT: Chaos theory involves the study of complex systems. As we continue to learn
about complex systems, we can discern and understand their more subtle
patterns. The brain is a complex system Personality is a complex system which has
its own patterns of b unstable and from instability can arise more complex and
better organized systems. Psychologists have learned to understand many of
these patterns in their assessments of personality, particularly projective
test assessment. One area which has not been extensively researched
is the manifestation of personality attributes as reflected in perceptual-motor
patterns. This paper explores initial conditions and
brain-personality patterns as they appear in a test where the individual copies
a series of nine rather simple geometric figures. This involves no language or
words or creative drawings but simply a visual/perceptual motor task (Bender
Gestalt Test). From this we can discern many personality traits: ·The
person’s organizational ability · The degree of assertiveness
or aggressiveness · Self concept ·Relationships
with significant others · Affect such as
anxiety, depression ·Level of maturity ·
Neurological difficulties. We explore
pattern detection and how shifts in initial conditions change pattern. Trauma or
depression impact the system and destabilize it. This disrupts the pattern In
extreme conditions, the individual’s personality characteristics become more
chaotic and unpredictable. Assessment of more subtle patterns in complex
systems may lead to better
intervention, bifurcation, a new trajectory and re-organization. 68
ZIDANSEK Aleksander : Stefan Institute, ADDRESS: J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana,
Slovenia. Voice phone: 386-1-4773900 EMAIL: aleksander.zidansek@ijs.si
TITLE: Self-organization
modelling of sustainable
DAY: Friday 2/8/02 TIME: 1400-1430
ABSTRACT: Self-organization processes in time dependence of
environmental sustainability indicators are studied. Sustainable development requires
a change from quantity-based to quality-based growth. Such a development is
described quantitatively by environmental sustainability indicators. Economic,
environmental and social systems are described holistically as a self-organized
network. Time series of the indicators are observed with special emphasis on
the effect of government policy, business responsiveness and other
globalization induced processes. Analysis of these time series provides
qualitative advice for optimal strategy of individual players in the global
world from the sustainable development point of view. 69