Emergence Of Collective Phenomena Research Articles

THE MEDIATIZED CO‐MEDIATIZER: ANTHROPOLOGY IN NIKLAS LUHMANN'S WORLD

Abstract This essay explores what it means to be human in an age of infomedia. Appropriating Niklas Luhmann's systems theory/media theory in dialogue with other resources, I propose a post‐Luhmannian paradigm of (1) extended media/meaning that conceives the world as world multimedia systems processing variegated meanings, and (2) an embodied, contextualized soft posthumanist anthropology that conceives the human as emergent collective phenomena of distinct meaning making by body‐mind‐society‐technology media couplings. I argue: (1) Homo sapiens is Homo medialis distinct with mediatic communication that emerged to cope with contingencies. (2) Evolution is the mediatization/codification of the world that culminated with the outcome of Homo medialis uniquely equipped to process transcendent meanings and to mediatize the world via diverse media—Mediatized Co‐Mediatizer or Codified Co‐Codifier. (3) This anthropic universe is possibly the most “meaningful” (full of meaning possibilities) of all possible worlds. (4) Social fragmentation could be an optimization; science‐and‐religion is an infomedium optimizing religion's manifest and science’ latent observation of divine manifestations.

Model for large arrays of Josephson junctions with unconventional superconductors

We study large arrays of mesoscopic junctions made out of gapless unconventional superconductors where the tunneling processes of both particle-hole and Cooper pairs give rise to a strongly retarded effective action which, contrary to the standard case, cannot be readily characterized in terms of a local Josephson energy. This action can be relevant, for example, to grain boundary and $c$-axis junctions in layered high-${T}_{c}$ superconductors. By using a particular functional representation, we describe emergent collective phenomena in this system, ascertain its phase diagram, and compute electrical conductivity.

Heterogeneous Solids and the Micro/Macro Connection: Structure and Elasticity in Architecturally Complex Media as Emergent Collective Phenomena

Launched before the atomic hypothesis took hold, elasticity theory is a spectacular achievement. A continuum-level description, it provides a powerful toolkit for determining how architecturally simple solids such as crystals respond macroscopically to stress, whilst encoding microscopic, atomic-realm details parsimoniously, via a few parameters. Solids that are architecturally complex at the atomic level—such as vulcanized rubber, gels and glasses—are commonly addressed using elasticity theory, too. However, their microscopic-level irregularity raises new issues, not only of elasticity but also of structure: How do the elastic ‘constants’ of such media fluctuate across a sample? Do such media strain non-affinely in response to stresses? Are there regional variations in the position-fluctuations of the atoms? More generally, can the structure and elasticity of architecturally complex solids be viewed as emergent collective phenomena, determinable from their underlying microscopic thermal motion and characterizable by some suitable continuum theory?

Dislocation interactions mediated by grain boundaries

The dynamics of dislocation assemblies in deforming crystals indicates the emergence ofcollective phenomena, intermittent fluctuations and strain avalanches. In polycrystallinematerials, the understanding of plastic deformation mechanisms depends on grasping therole of grain boundaries on dislocation motion. Here the interaction of dislocations andelastic, low-angle grain boundaries is studied in the framework of a discrete dislocationrepresentation. We allow grain boundaries to deform under the effect of dislocation stressfields and compare the effect of such a perturbation to the case of rigid grain boundaries.We are able to determine, both analytically and numerically, corrections to dislocationstress fields acting on neighboring grains, as mediated by grain boundary deformation.Finally, we discuss conclusions and consequences for the avalanche statistics, as observed inpolycrystalline samples.

Paths to Synchronization on Complex Networks

The understanding of emergent collective phenomena in natural and social systems has driven the interest of scientists from different disciplines during decades. Among these phenomena, the synchronization of a set of interacting individuals or units has been intensively studied because of its ubiquity in the natural world. In this Letter, we show how for fixed coupling strengths local patterns of synchronization emerge differently in homogeneous and heterogeneous complex networks, driving the process towards a certain global synchronization degree following different paths. The dependence of the dynamics on the coupling strength and on the topology is unveiled. This study provides a new perspective and tools to understand this emerging phenomena.

Modelling social action for AI agents

In the new AI of the 90s an important stream is artificial social intelligence. In this work basic ontological categories for social action, structure, and mind are introduced. Sociality (social action, social structure) is let emerge from the action and intelligence of individual agents in a common world. Also some aspects of the way-down—how emergent collective phenomena shape the individual mind—are examined. First, interference and dependence are defined, and then different kinds of coordination (reactive versus anticipatory; unilateral versus bilateral; selfish versus collaborative) are characterised. “Weak social action”, based on beliefs about the mind of the other agents, and “strong social action”, based on goals about others' minds and their actions, are distinguished. Special attention is paid to Goal Delegation and Goal Adoption that are considered as the basic ingredients of social commitment and contract, and then of exchange, cooperation, group action, and organisation. Different levels of delegation and then of autonomy of the delegated agent are described; and different levels of goal-adoption are shown to characterise true collaboration. Social goals in the minds of the group members are argued to be the real glue of joint activity, and the notion of social commitment, as different from individual and from collective commitment, is underlined. The necessity for modelling social objective structures and constraints is emphasised and the “shared mind” view of groups and organisations is criticised. The spontaneous and unaware emergence of a dependence structure is explained, as well as its feedback on the participants' minds and behaviours. Critical observations are presented on current confusions such as that between “social” and “collective” action, or between communication and social action. The main claims of the paper are the following: (a) The real foundation of all sociality (cooperation, competition, groups, organisation, etc.) is the individual social action and mind. One cannot reduce or connect action at the collective level to action at the individual level unless one passes through the social character of the individual action, (b) Important levels of coordination and cooperation necessarily require minds and cognitive agents (beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.). (c) However, cognition, communication and agreement are not enough for modelling and implementing cooperation: emergent pre-cognitive structures and constraints should be formalised, and emergent forms of cooperation are needed also among planning and deliberative agents, (d) We are going towards a synthetic paradigm in AI and Cognitive Science, reconciling situatedness and plans, reactivity and mental representations, cognition, emergence and self-organisation.