Self-Organization in Science and Society

Fall 2007 Course # STSH-4961-01 Mon-Thurs 12-2, Sage 3713. Instructor: Ron Eglash.

Description:

Self-organization has become an increasingly important phenomenon in both the natural sciences and engineering. Self-assembly of carbon nanotubes and self-replicating molecules are critical to nanotechnology; self-organizing swarms of insects are modeled in biology and robotics, and so on. But recursive loops in which things govern themselves are also foundational to society: democracy is the people governing the people; social networks in both physical life and internet domains arise by self-assembly, and some decentralized indigenous societies build self-similar architecture. This course will introduce students to models of self-organization in natural science and engineering, and examine their potential application to society, politics, and ethics. No math, computing or other prerequisites are required.

To contact instructor:

Office Hours: Mon 10:00-12:00 and by appointment, 5502 Sage. Email: eglash@rpi.edu, phone: 276-2048. Course webpage: www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/selforg.html

Requirements:

The following requirements and readings constitute the undergraduate syllabus. Graduates are not required to attend all class meetings, but are expected to produce more sophisticated STS analyses and extend readings along the lines of their interests. I will be happy to meet with grads individually or separately to help them meet that goal.

Evaluation will be based on the 4 short papers (10% each), the research project paper (30%), the research project presentation (10%), and class participation (20%). Note that the syllabus tells you the reading that will be discussed for that day. You need to have done the reading before you arrive, and you are required to bring the reading to class so that we can discuss the texts in detail. Many class sessions you will need your laptop as well to play with simulations and other tools.

Short papers and research project:

Short papers should be about 3-5 pages (double-spaced, with proper citations), and are only “reflections” about the readings and discussion in class. The final research project paper should be 8-10 pages (double-spaced, with proper citations); the instructor will help you find a suitable topic for your research. Research project papers must be written by individuals, but you are encouraged to work in groups on research projects that require more than one discipline (eg math and social science, or computing and ecology). Research project presentations may also be done by the group.

Texts:

Eglash, Ron. African Fractals: Modern Computing And Indigenous Design.

Rutgers University Press1999

Kelly, Kevin. Out of control : the new biology of machines, social systems and the

economic world. Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1995.

Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo. Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means. Plume books 2003.

Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Basic Books 2003.
Course Schedule:

Part I: Fractals and self-organization in African material culture

August 27: Introduction to Self-Organization. Selections from film “fast cheap and out of control.”

Aug 30.

• African Fractals ch 1. Don’t forget to bring both your reading and your laptop to class.
• In-class laptop experiment: African fractals design tool at http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt.html using simulations from math (Koch, Peano, etc) and nature (fern, acacia, etc.).

Sept 3 Labor day no classes

Sept 6

• African Fractals ch 2-3.
• In-class laptop experiment: African fractals design tool at http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt.html using simulations from architecture. Diffusion limited aggregation at http://apricot.polyu.edu.hk/~lam/dla/dla.html.

Sept 10

• African Fractals ch 4-7 (up to page 100).
• In-class laptop experiment: Cornrows, and Mangbetu design tool, and African fractals design tool at http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt.html using simulations from various designs.

Sept 13

• African Fractals ch 7 (pp 101-108) to ch 8.
• In-class laptop experiment: Simulation of Owari at http://www.ccd.rpi.edu/Eglash/csdt/african/owari.htm. CA experiment: go to Mirek’s CA page at http://www.mirekw.com/ca/mjcell/mjcell.html. Click on “start MJ cell.” In the applet use the default “Generations” from the top drop-down menu and “BelZhab” from the next. Then use “Cyclic CA” from the top menu and “cyclic spirals” from the next.
• Optional: For a technical analysis see “Quantifying Self-Organization in Cyclic Cellular Automata” at http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/research/FN03.pdf and http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/isgem.dir/texts.dir/OwariII.pdf. For controversial claims about the social construction of CA see S. Helmreich, Silicon Second Nature.

Sept 17

• African Fractals ch 10.
• In-class laptop experiment: Experiment with negative and positive feedback by changing rules for “game of life” cellular automata using Life32 at http://www.xs4all.nl/~jbontes/ and patterns from the LifeP collection at http://www.mindspring.com/%7Ealanh/lifep.zip.
• Optional: For controversial claims about the social construction of CA see S. Helmreich, Silicon Second Nature. For a more positive view of the social implications of CA see T. Terranova, Network Culture.

Sept 20

• African Fractals ch 11-14.

Part II: Cooperation and Control

Sept 24 1^st paper due.

• Heims, S. Norbert Wiener and John Von Neumann. Ch 7, 12.
• In-class laptop experiment: http://www.sodaplay.com/constructor/.

Sept 27

• Out of Control ch 1-4.
• In-class physical experiment: Taylor’s herding game (no prep needed).
• Optional: Out of Control ch 6.

Oct 1

• Out of Control ch 5
• Hardin, Garrett. “Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162, 1243-1248 (1968) http://www.sciencemag.org.libproxy.rpi.edu/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243
• Hofstadter, Douglas R. 1983, "Metamagical Themas: Computer Tournaments of the Prisoner's Dilemma Suggest How Cooperation Evolves". Scientific American 248 (no.5):16-26
• Optional: Fox, Dennis R. “Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, and the Commons.” http://www.dennisfox.net/papers/commons.html.

Oct 4

• Orstom, Elinor et al, “Revisiting the Commons.” Science 9 April 1999:Vol. 284. no. 5412, pp. 278 - 282 (http://www.sciencemag.org.libproxy.rpi.edu/cgi/content/full/284/5412/278),
• Taylor, Peter. “Non-standard lessons from the ‘tragedy of the commons.” Amartya Sen: "Population Control: Delusion and Reality."
• Optional: special issue on “tragedy of the commons” http://www.sciencemag.org.libproxy.rpi.edu/sciext/sotp/.

Oct 9 (tues is mon schedule)

• Smart Mobs ch 2 and 5.
• Optional: ch 1, 3, 4.

Oct 11

• Out of Control ch 7 and 10.
• Eglash, R, “Material Virtuality.” http://www.ccd.rpi.edu/Eglash/temp/macrosoc%20of%20nano.doc

Part III: Complexity

Oct 15 Second paper due.

• Out of Control ch 13-15
• Bleecker, Julian. “Getting The Reality You Deserve.” http://www.techkwondo.com/publications/SimCity2000.pdf

Oct 18

• Out of Control ch 17-19
• S.J. Gould, Mismeasure of Man ch 3 (107-139).

Oct 22

• Out of Control ch 20, 22, 23
• N.K. Hayles, ”How we became post-human,” Chapter 6.

Oct 25

• Bill Maurer, “Complex Subjects: Offshore Finance, Complexity Theory, and the Dispersion of the Modern." Socialist Review. 25 (3&4): 114-145 http://www.anthro.uci.edu/faculty_bios/maurer/Maurer-Complex%20Subjects-SR.pdf
• “Kevin Kelly's Complexity Theory: The Politics and Ideology of Self-Organizing Systems.”
  Steve Best and Douglas Kellner, http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/best7.htm

Part IV Networks and Social Technologies

Oct 29 Third paper due.

• Linked ch .1-4
• In-class experiment: Use http://www.x2d.org/java/projects/fluffschack.jnlp

to create an adjacency matrix.

Nov 1

• Linked ch .5-9
• In-class experiment: Use http://oracleofbacon.org/index.html to find the largest Bacon number in Kevin Bacon’s adjacency matrix.
• Optional: power laws vs log-normal distribution: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/08/a_billion_dolla.html

http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~michaelm/TALKS/Radcliffe.ppt

Nov 5

• Linked ch 10-14.

• In-class experiment: Use network visualization at http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/page/Network_Diagram.html

Nov 8

• Smart Mobs ch 7-8

Nov 12

• Benkler, The Wealth of Networks ch 6, 7 “Political Freedom”

Nov 15

• Postigo, Hector. “Emerging Sources of Labor on the Internet: The Case of America Online Volunteers,” International Review of Social History Special Supplement: Labor History of the Information Revolution. December 2003, Volume 48 Issue S11: 205-223.
• Terranova, Tiziana. Network Culture (Pluto Press 2004), ch 3 “Free Labour.”

Part V The Politics of Self-Organization

Nov 19 Fourth paper due.

• Lansing, Stephen & John Miller. “Cooperation, Games and Ecological Feedback: some insights from Bali http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lansing/coopgames.pdf
• Lansing, two-page “nugget” http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/research/Balinese%20Water%20Temples.htm
• Critique of Lansing: Stefan Helmreich. “Digitizing 'Development': Balinese water temples, complexity and the politics of simulation.” Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 19, No. 3, 249-265 (1999)
• Lansing, Stephen. “Foucault and the Water Temples: A Reply to Helmreich” Critique of Anthropology (1999) 20(3):337-346. http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lansing/Foucault.pdf

Nov 22 no class (thanksgiving break)

Nov 26

• Joy, Bill. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need US.” Wired Issue 8.04, Apr 2000. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
• Eglash, Ron. “Risk and Recursion” http://www.ccd.rpi.edu/Eglash/temp/risk%20and%20recursion3.doc

• Terranova, Tiziana. Network Culture (Pluto Press 2004), ch 4 “Soft Control.”

Nov 29

• “Self-Organization, Complexity, and Post-Capitalist Cultures” (Arturo Escobar)
• http://www.labournet.info/wsfbook2004/Arturo%20Escobar%20Draft%20-%20Other%20Worlds%20Are%20Possible/document_view.
• Chesters, Graeme.“Shape Shifting: Civil Society, Complexity and Social Movements.” Anarchist Studies, 11, 1: 42-65. http://www.shiftingground.freeuk.com/shapeshifting.htm
• Newitz, Annalee. “If Code is Free, Why Not Me?” http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/05/26/free_love/index.html

Dec 3

• Student presentations

Dec 6 Final paper due.

• Student presentations

Some texts you might find useful in your research projects for this course:

Politics of self-organization

Haila, Yrjö et al. How Nature Speaks: The Dynamics of the Human Ecological Condition. Duke University Press 2006.

Chesters, Graeme and Welsh, Ian. Complexity and Social Movements: Protest at the Edge of Chaos. Routeldge 2006.

Geyer, Robert Complexity, Science and Society, Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing 2007.

Complexity theory

R. Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1992

Complexity: the Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by Mitchell M. Waldrop 1992

How Nature Works: the Science of Self-organized Criticality by P. Bak

At Home in the Universe : the Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity by Stuart Kauffman

Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity by John H. Holland

The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems and Adaptation by Gary William Flake

Recursion and self-replication

Hofstadter, D. R., Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, NY: Basic Books, 1979.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Ralph C. Merkle, Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 2004; http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/KSRM.htm

Networks

Six Degrees : the Science of a Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts