Coming to our senses: perceiving complexity to avoid catastrophes

Abstract

INTRODUCTION PART 1: THE NATURE OF INFORMATION CHAPTER 1 THE STRUCTURE OF REALITY Theory overrides structure and promotes disaster: The Vincennes incident The Origins and Nature of Structural Information Saved by Structural Information Our Complex Perceptual Systems: J.J. Gibson's Views An Alternate View: Signal Detection Theory Complexity and Structural Information Seeing What We Believe: How the Mind Hijacks the Senses The Source of Common Sense: Our Senses CHAPTER 2 PERCEIVING STRUCTURE Recognition and Structural Information Altering Facial Proportions Alters Structure and Disrupts Recognition Care-giving by Configuration Facial Structure Face Blindness and Super-Recognizers What's Wrong with Eyewitness Testimony: Features vs. Structure Why Features Fail as Evidence Our Atomistic Worldview Leads Us Astray CHAPTER 3 STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS Catching a Child Molester Dynamic Spatial Information Oscillating Figure Eight Reveals Identity Do We Have Memories of Structural Information? Our Brain-World Interface Navigation Grids and Space Cells Walking in Other People's Moccasins Reciprocating Structures: Experiencing Empathy CHAPTER 4 RESTRUCTURING REALITY Clouded Vision: No-Outlet Levees Destroy Delta Ecosystem Controlling Nature: Eliminating Natural Structure-Tributaries and Meanders The Whole is More Than the Sum of its Parts Restoring a Meander Structural Pattern Generators and Natural Structures Branching Spirals Meanders Hexagons CHAPTER 5 REALITY'S GEOMETRY The Good Friday Alaska Earthquake: The Real World Reinstates Itself Bacteria's Quorum Sensing Immune Cells Communicate Using Structural Configurations Volatile Compounds Send Aromatic Messages Animal Environment Reciprocities Frogs Crows Geese Mating, Foraging, Escaping Migrating Through Space Human-Environmental Affordances Acquiring and Representing Structural Information Benoit Mandelbrot's Fractals Our Fractal Brain CHAPTER 6 EXPERTS' EXPERTS Repetitions without Repetition Minimally Essential Spatial Information Experts' Experts Rely on Structural Information Diagnosing Injuries: Reading the Dynamics of Movement Deviations Curing Pain in the Brain: How the Brain Can Restructure Reality Diagnosing cancer: Pathology and Structural Information Condensing the Structure of Reality: The Japanese Garden Reading the Seascape: Sea Gypsies Survive a Tsunami Translating the Structure of Reality into Words PART TWO: MANUFACTURED INFORMATION AND THE BIASED BRAIN CHAPTER 7 MIND OVER MATTER: Theories and Other Mental Fallout Flawed Theory Disfigures Cancer Patients Where do Theories Come from? Theories and the Brain Hijacking the Interpreter Unacknowledged Theories that Threaten our Survival How to Judge a Theory CHAPTER 8 ARE SCIENTIFIC THEORIES DIFFERENT? Trial by Theory: Galileo and the Holy Office of the Inquisition Alfred Wegener and the Theory of Continental Drift Barbara McClintock and the Theory of Jumping Genes How Science can Progress by Extending Our Eyes Theories and Complexity CHAPTER 9 ARE ECONOMIC THEORIES DIFFERENT? Proctor and Gamble and Gibson Greeting Cards v. Bankers Trust Replacing Reality: The Evolution of the Derivative Seeing the Structural Information that Specifies the Market The Sad Saga of Brooksley Born An Alternative Theory of the Economy CHAPTER 10 COMPLEXITY, COMPONENTS, AND MENTAL CONCEPTS Death by Financial Concept Viral Components and Complex Systems Agribusiness: Turning Sustainable Complexity into Unsustainable Simplicity A Sustainable Complex System: The Family Farm From Complexity to Simplicity: From Whole Grains to Empty Calories From Nutritional Simplicity To Obesity EPILOGUE: A Cautionary Tale