Workshop

Emergent Semantic and Computational Processes in Distributed Information Systems (DIS)

http://www.c3.l anl.gov/~joslyn/pcp/workshop98.html

August 10-11, 1998
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM, USA

Coinciding with the 1998 meeting of the Principia Cybernetica Project in Santa Fe, an invited workshop was organized involving the Knowledge/Information Systems community of New Mexico. This was an opportunity for these research groups to introduce themselves to each other, and to lay the foundation for future collaborative work. Here we include information about the workshop, including background information and a list of speakers with their talk titles, abstracts, and (sometimes) copies of transparencies or links to further informaiton.

Primary Contacts: Cliff Joslyn and Luis Rocha

Motivation and Orientation

Specific Topics

Participating Organizations

Future Plans

Presentations (Speakers, Titles, Abstracts, and Supporting Material)

Original Workshop Announcement

Motivation and Orientation

We are committed to a view of Distributed Information Systems (DIS) broadly conceived as computer-assisted information environments for the representation and organization of knowledge, involving interactions among communities of human users, non-human agents, and autonomous computational processes.
The growth of Cyberspace, the Internet, and the Web certainly is a motivating force, and clearly primary examples of DIS include Webs and Nets. But in an attempt to develop the scientific basis of such systems, we explicitly seek to expand our conceptions to general computational and informational models and examples.
However, we assert that studying only the formal properties (syntax) of such systems is not sufficient, but rather representations of the meaning (semantics) and use by human communities (pragmatics) of the information in such systems is also necessary.

We assert that such DIS will be the transformative technology of the 21st century, with an unprecedented capability in organizational and societal problem solving resulting from symbiotic activity of human communities and DIS.

Specific Topics

Structure and Dynamics of DIS
Emergent Optimization in DIS
Semantic and Ontological Representations in DIS
Collaborative Environments for the Development of DIS
Emergent Computation, Semantics, and Knowledge in DIS
Adaptive and Evolutionary Mechanisms in DIS
Hypertext and Comunicative Protocols for DIS
Symbiotic Relations between Human Communities and DIS
DIS, Social Evolution, and the Future of Humanity

Participating Organizations

Future Plans

We are now soliciting papers following the Workshop, for publication as an internal LANL Report, in order to document the workshop.
We are also developing plans for a larger, international workshop next year.
From this second workshop, we plan to develop a significant new anthology on issues in emergent properties in DIS.

Presentations

WELCOMES AND INTRODUCTIONS

Robin Morel and Marianna Kantor

Computer Research and Applications, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Symbiotic Intelligence Project

Introduction to the Workshop

Cliff Joslyn and Luis Rocha

Computer Research and Applications, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Principia Cybernetica
Symbiotic Intelligence Project

Introduction to the Principia Cybernetica Projct

Francis Heylighen

Center Leo Apostel, Free University of Brussels
Principia Cybernetica

Introducion to the Symbiotic Intelligence Project

Norman Johnson

Fluid Dynamics, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Symbiotic Intelligence Project

Introduction to the NMSU/LANL Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence NSF Research Proposal

Reinhard Laubenbacher

Mathematical Sciences, New Mexico State University

DIS FOR DECISION SUPPORT ENVIRONMENTS

"INSURANCE WORLD: A Laboratory for Studying the Dynamics of the Global Insurance Industry"

John Casti

Technical University of Vienna
Santa Fe Institute

"Higher Order Intelligence, Consensus Building, and Decision Support for Complex Issues"

Steen Rasmussen

Geoanalysis, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Symbiotic Intelligence Project
Santa Fe Institute

FORMAL MODELS OF DIS

"Combinatorial Models for the Dynamics of Complex Decision Systems"

Michael Coombs, Reinhard Laubenbacher, and Karen Schlauch

Physical Science Laboratory, Mathematical Sciences, New Mexico State University

"Formal Language Constrained Path Problems" (abstract) (postscript 141K, pdf 329K). (Viewgraphs of a talk on the same material in May 1998: Postscript 188K, pd f 423K. (LA-UR-98-1739))

VISUALIZATION AND REPRESENTATION OF DIS

"Visualization and Analysis of Abstract Information Spaces Through the use of Geospatial and Cartographic Metaphors"

Steven Smith

Distributed Computing, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Symbiotic Intelligence Project

EMERGENCE AND SELF-ORGANIZATION IN DIS

"Mechanisms of Emergent Computation in Cellular Automata" (overheads) (abstract) (full paper)

Wim Hordijk, James Crutchfield, and Melanie Mitchell

Computer Science, University of New Mexico
Santa Fe Institute

"Towards a Global Brain: techniques to support the emergence of collective intelligence on the Net" (abstract) (overheads)