Submerging Emerging in the Proposed Center for Emergence Studies University of Texas at Dallas
Fred Turner, Robert Stern, Tina Qin, Taylor Hincliffe, Roger Malina, Priya Roy, Omer Ahmed and….join us
To contact the group send email to: rxm116130@utdallas.edu
Aug 7 2024
Next week a group of colleagues will be meeting with the Dean of our Bass School of Arts Humanities and Technologies.
Our ‘ask’ is to start setting up a Center for the Study of Emergence. See document at the end of this article/blog.
We have begun the research and dissemination of our results:
2. Study of the emergence of the arts and humanities at UTD: in press
3. Emergence of Senexism, a Re-Renaissance with the growth of % of people over 65
and
15 Years ago I, Roger F Malina, published the Open Observatory Manifesto, appended and available on line at : https://www.leoalmanac.org/an-open-observatory-manifesto-by-roger-malina/ . Also appended at the end of this document.
One concern at the time was the growing tele-surveillance, or the growing collection of data on each of us; it advocated that each of us should collect and disseminate data/knowledge ourselves. This has largely happened but:
Little did I anticipate how AI would emerge: apparently 50% of all data on line now is not generated by humans, but by Artificial Intelligence.
According to: Nina Schick
“I think we might reach 90% of online content generated by AI by 2025, so this technology is exponential,” she said. “I believe that the majority of digital content is going to start to be produced by AI.
At the time, also, I was concerned about global population growth and the impact on global poverty and the ecologies.
I did not anticipate the decline in population growth today. According to an AI Being:
- The global population reached nearly 8.2 billion by mid-2024 and is expected to grow by another two billion over the next 60 years, peaking at around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. It will then fall to around 10.2 billion, which is 700 million lower than expected a decade ago.
Our Proto-Center for Emergence Studies has identified a key pattern; the growing number of people over the age of 65, and the declining number of people under 25. We call this Senexism.
We optimist identify the emergence of a New Republic of Letters, and a Re-Renaissance due to the growing number of people , over 65, who are no longer motivated by job hunting or their own personal visual appearance and other brain stimulations that change thinking.
Populating decline is a demergence, increasing number of experienced people is an emergence.
So what should we do to encourage these phenomena in desirable ways ?:
Expand our Center for Emergence Studies and get it focused on problems that need to be addressed.
Establish new forms of institutions for Senexes to accelerate the Re-Renaissance.
Here, appended B is my 2010 Open Observatory Manifesto; time to update it ?
And
Here is our current elevator pitch for the proposed UTD center for emergence studies. Sorry it’s a bit long .
Please contact me at rxm116130@utdallas.edu to participate or negate.
Open Observatory Manifesto is appended at the end:
Proposed Creation of a UTD “Center for Emergence Studies”
AUGUST 6 2024
Table of Contents
1. Initial motivation and backstory
2. Introduction to the center
3. Defining emergence
4. Examples of Emergent Phenomena
5. Emergent methodologies (general list)
6. Observing, finding, and tracking emergence
7. Fostering emergence
8. Steps so far
9. The need
10. UTD Center for Emergence Studies
11. The ask
12. Appendix A/B: Emergence visuals, C/D: Additional emergence examples, E/F:
Additional emergent methods
Initial Motivation and Backstory
• During & after the pandemic, a group of UTDallas faculty noticed things going on that
the university and elsewhere that “administrations” had not anticipated or planned
• Led to a discussion of the phenomenon of “emergence’ in complex systems .
Artscilab has worked in the science of complex networks.
• In complex systems, including human societies & the natural world, some things
happen ‘bottom up’ or ‘autopoetically’
• The initiators Prof Robert Stern (geosciences), Fred Turner (Bass), and Roger F Malina
(Physics and Bass) went on to publish
• An article on ‘emergence’ and its study in the Athenaeum
• Article on emergence of the arts and humanities at UTD in press
Introduction
The Center for Emergence Studies (C4ES) aims to function as an
observatory for the study and tracking of societal and natural emergent
phenomena, both past and present, in order to better understand,
predict, and foster beneficial emergent growth in the future.
Emergence…
Can be defined as collective systems phenomena that arise through
complex interactions of their components (factors), unpredictable
through the examination of individual parts/factors alone.
Emergent behavior by definition is often associated with ‘growth’, but can
encompass any significant, unpredictable changes to a system, including
unexpected disappearances, decreases or instability (or stability).
2. Survey, isolate and map out
contributing factors
3. Support the understanding and
growth of emergent behaviors
4. Assessing outcomes
Observing, finding, and tracking emergence
Multidisciplinary data collection network
• In-person and virtual meetings with every
department
• Crowdsourced data collection and submission
portal, feeding into to a:
• Map of emergence at UTD: real-time web
application
• Collaboration with external agencies for
additional data points (local government,
Richardson IQ center, etc)
Data analytics tools
• Application of machine learning and trend
analysis to datasets to detect anomalies
• Interactive, real-time data visualization
dashboards, including local emergence (UTD
map), global emergence (world map), and
links/interactions with public datasets and
dashboards (weather, etc)
Fostering Emergence
Educational programs and workshops
• Curriculum development focused on the
interdisciplinary study of emergence
• Experiential learning, including the creation
and sharing of simulations, real-world / external
projects and collaborations, etc
• Emergent workshops focused on both the
examination of existing emergent behaviors
and the active generation of new ones
Community engagement
• Public lectures and seminars
• Collaboration platforms, digital public forums
and experimental publishing
• Extending emergence workshops to the public
with a focus on relevance to different
communities, demographics and professions
• Emphasis on pushing findings to publication
and mixed media
Steps so far
• Several lunches were held with Dean Roemer
• The group started meeting regularly on Thursdays
• A new member joined the group : Dr Tina Turner, Bass grad and currently a bank employee
• Two students have been hired to help set up C4ES
• A new topic emerged: Senexism or the rapid growth of people over 70 all over the planet who can
create a Republic of Letters online
• Turner and Qin are writing an article on Poetry and Senexism
• Discovered that there is a correlation between the disciplines/schools at UTDallas and the age
distribution of their faculty
• There is a growing number of students at UTD over 50 years old, but we teach them the same way we
teach 20-year-olds
The Need
• Our research revealed that our university had no center for emergence studies, unlike many
others
• Some of these are in ‘think tank’ mode commissioned by others
• Some are ‘Observatories’ such as the former Internet Observatory at Stanford
• We think it would be helpful for UTD to detect social and natural ‘phenomena’ that are ‘on the
horizon’ in the local vicinity and beyond
• But to do this in a totally cross-disciplinary/cross-profession way
• And also trans-generationally: 18 years don’t notice the same things as 80 year olds
• We could help the university anticipate/prepare for the next “”pandemics”” medical or otherwise
eg social, physical..
UTD Center for Emergence Studies
• We would like to set up a ‘center’ not a research unit
• That can work across all schools and departments seamlessly
• We would connect with the Richardson/UTD IQ
• We would use seed funding from the Malina E Odonnell Chair
• Two students have been hired: Omer Ahmed (JSOM and Priyangka Roy (CS)
• We would raise internal and external funds –goal $1m year 1
• We would develop other ways of identifying ‘emergence’ than are currently used, as well as existing
good methods
• (eg 3 types Trend analysis– geographic, temporal and intuitive.)
• We would develop an innovative publishing plan including rethinking and redesigning the successful
ArtSciLab Watering Holes and Creative Disturbance Publishing platform.
The ask
• Dean Roemer- if you think this is worth pursuing
• We need administrative procedures for applying to set up a Center, similar to our successful
Bass center for translation studies
• We would start prototyping the C4ES using the artscilab as the initial bedrock
• We need help conducting competitor and method research
• Connect to other Centers such as Center for US Latin American Studies
• We would like UTD Hanover Inc to conduct a funding study with recommendations of funding
sources
• If we succeed the C4ES could be hosted in the Atheneum Phase 2
Thanks
APPENDIX B TO BLOG Open Observatory Manifesto: 2010 Roger F Malina
We live in a world of tele-surveillance; more and more our own environment and our own selves are being observed and monitored. There is a proliferation of new devices and technologies that are used by ourselves, for instance for medical examination of our bodies, or by others to observe and control our behaviours. These devices are also used to observe the universe and the earth, and allow us to understand and even predict the dynamics and processes at work.
Our ideas about privacy are evolving, as well as the systems of intellectual property. Massive data bases are being accumulated in all fields of human activity as well as observations of the world. Some of this data is openly accessible, most of it is in closed archives. There are large inequities both in data collection and data access depending on how individuals and groups find themselves in different situations across the digital divides.
Even within developed countries there are large impediments to accessing the data that has been collected about ourselves and our own environment. Most science is carried out in ‘ghettos’ of experts. There are science producing communities and science consuming communities. Governments and commercial organizations create intentional barriers to the diffusion of data. We live in a cargo cult, enjoying the products of research but without contributing to the knowledge construction or understanding. In a real sense most scientific knowledge is locked up as securely as the medieval Bibles that were chained to the pulpit and only accessible to the initiates.
We live in a dangerous age. The impact of the human population on the earth’s eco-system is driving a variety of anthropogenic changes, from climate change to eco-system transformation. We live in an age of species extinction. Our response can either be one of catatrophism, or of a cultural transformation to learn to manage the planet and maintain an equilibrium that allows sustainable development.
I would like to advance a new human right and a human obligation:
1. Each of us has the right to the data that has been collected about ourselves and our own environment.
2. Each of must contribute to the knowledge construction by collecting and interpreting data about our own world.
Most scientific data collection is funded by public tax payer funding. The public has a fundamental right to all data collected and funded by the public.
If we are to change our culture quickly enough to transition to a sustainable one, we must adapt rapidly and we must have the local knowledge to enable this.
I am not calling for a new amateur science, but rather an intimate science that involves billions of people in understanding the world around them and their impact on it.
There are encouraging developments worldwide in People’s Science and Citizen’s Science movements. The hacker and “make” communities are appropriating numerous technologies for social uses, locative media and mobile phones are becoming interfaces to the world, from personal health applications to local knowledge resources. Open innovation initiatives, distance learning networks and other shared resource movements lead to new ways of learning and researching in the digital age. Many artists in the art-science and art-technology movement function as “New Leonardos” helping to create the transformational renaissance that will be needed for us to lean to manage “Spaceship Earth”.
The right to data and the duty to collect data are part of this necessary cultural transformation. We co-own the knowledge we create with or without AI. Reach out via rxm116130@utdallas.edu