Exploring Interdisciplinarity

Driving in Southern Utah, over the ten thousand foot high Boulder Mountain, we came to a place where the Freemont Indians and the Anasazi were said to have intermingled. The Anasazi, also known as the Ancestoral Pueblo, stemmed from Northern New Mexico and Arizona, while the Freemont were concentrated in Southern Utah. Not surprisingly, given their proximity, there were similarities between them, which were especially evident in their pottery and art work. However, there were also significant differences. The Freemont Indians lived primarily in pit-houses, deep in the ground, whereas the Anasazi sought shelter in cliff dwellings high up in the rocks. By the end of the 13th century, both peoples had deserted the area rather precipitously, leaving scientists, ever since, to speculate and wonder about their disappearance.

My close friend Anna Sofaer, trained as a city planner, and practicing in the field of art and photography, was one of those who–once captured by the story of the Anasazi–devoted the rest of her career to studying them. I remember well the day that she met me for lunch downtown, at Mr. Henry’s, armed with a set of photos that she had taken, right before summer solstice, while photographing petroglyphs on Fajada Butte in New Mexico.

Pointing to a dagger of light that bisected a spiral, carved in the rock face, which was located behind three large slabs of rock, she whispered: “I believe it marks the summer solstice.”

Pointing to a dagger of light that bisected a spiral, carved in the rock face, which was located behind three large slabs of rock, she whispered: “I believe it marks the summer solstice.”  Dumbfounded, I thought–this is a Eureka moment! There was great excitement in her tone, as Anna anticipated what to do next. Soon thereafter, she entered into collaboration with scientists from multiple backgrounds and disciplines. She also became highly proficient in the field of archeoastronomy, and developed an excellent ethnographic style that enhanced her rapport with leaders among the Pueblo communities.
Working through her nonprofit organization the Solstice Project, Anna has, over the last thirty years, made a number of even more wonderful discoveries; the marking of the lunar cycle on Fajada Butte, the religious significance of the North Road; petroglyphs that reference the geometry of buildings in Chaco Canyon; the geometric relationships among the buildings as well as their relationships to the angles of the sun and the moon. Integrating it all, Anna partnered with other scholars to develop an interactive model that precisely replicates the astronomical functioning of the calendrical site. Adding another dimension to her findings, Anna has also presented her work in the medium of film, which conveys far more acutely the mystical aspects of it all. Both films, The Sun Dagger and The Mystery of Chaco Caynon. are narrated by Robert Redford and distributed through PBS. 

Epstein’s analysis of the Anasasi–already mentioned in a previous blog–aims to be holistic insofar as it uses a generative computational model. However, the variables that Epstein includes in his model are primarily economic. Anna Sofaer also draws her conclusions based on a computer model that incorporates the geometry of the site; but, in contrast to Epstein, her model is global in nature, taking the whole picture into account. Accordingly, her work suggests that most economic decisions made by the Anasazi were not simply individually determined; most likely, they were made by high ranking community leaders who were greatly influenced by religious/cosmological factors. Likewise, she contends that economic factors are inadequate in accounting for the sudden disappearance of the Anasazi peoples. In fact, as Anna argues, Chaco Canyon was most probably not a trading center, as many had thought, but rather a religious center located at the upper most reach of the Anasazi-related peoples. Hence, in explaining the comings and goings of the Anasazi, Anna might say that their cosmology is perhaps the best place to start. In his book, Epstein concludes that economic factors alone cannot fully account for the disappearance of the Anasazi. I wonder what more he might have learned had he incorporated the data–much of which was available at the time–that Anna had so painstakingly gathered.

 Anna Sofaer is not what one might call a classic academic scholar; but she certainly had a very good idea. Stuck in their own paradigms, many traditional scholars were, at first, unwilling to take her seriously; engage with her; and include her in their communities of practice. What a shame! But now, some thirty years later, her magnificent body of work speaks for itself.

On Technorati: Anasazi, Anna Sofaer, solstice, The Solstice Project

Driving south from Salt Lake City, I found it hard to believe that we were en route to a celebratory vacation. The landscape surrounding us looked like any other commercial strip-mall, except that it was situated in a very harsh — almost bleak — semi-arid desert terrain. To my surprise, and — I might say, great relief — it was not long thereafter that the scenery underwent a tremendous change — some might say a phase transition. Indeed, I was not disappointed. Awestruck, we found ourself face-to-face with the rising sandstone cliffs of the Capitol Reef. The only comparable vista that I have ever seen is at the site of Petra, in the land of Jordan. However, the Capitol Reef is not only much vaster — extending over a hundred miles; unlike Petra — where Man had a major role in carving out its topology and architecture — the Capitol Reef owes its unique landscape and incredible array of multi-colored sandstone canyons, castles, pinnacles, and buttes — some of them reaching right up to the sky — to Nature’s rich endowment of evolutionary forces. Here, over eons, the rain, the snow, the sun, and wind have converged, employing all of their might to render a grandiose and unforgettable landscape.

Resembling all too closely a stage set from a Pixar film, the Capitol Reef’s natural landscape appeared at first to be unreal — simulacra, so to speak.

Resembling all too closely a stage set from a Pixar film, the Capitol Reef’s natural landscape appeared at first to be unreal — simulacra, so to speak. It is only when we explored the area on foot that we were able to get a real feel for the extent of life and movement around us. For example, we followed the path of a wash through winding canyons, where new delights emerged from around every bend. Making our way along this trail, we experienced the secrets of the place unfolding before our very eyes. Each historical epoch — dating back as far as 250 million years — was revealed to us in the distinct colors and layers of the rock formations, the rare remnants of petrified wood, fossils embedded in the canyon floor, and the deposits of mammoth rocks that Nature had imported from afar. Just as in a library or archive, the record was open and there for all those inclined to see.

instead of the essence of human nature, nature’s libraries unveil the mystery of the evolutionary process itself.

Libraries have existed for centuries, archiving and documenting the history of mankind. Browsing through their stacks, turning over the pages of their voluminous books, we get a sense of human nature as a whole, not just a snapshot of the myriad, individual parts. Exploring Nature’s repositories, such as the Capitol Reef, provides much the same kind of experience. However, instead of revealing the essence of human nature, nature’s libraries unveil the mystery of the evolutionary process itself.

Recognizing their value, nearly all communities are willing to provide public support for libraries that preserve materials written by human beings. Unfortunately, in the case of Nature’s libraries, the opposite may be true.  Although Capitol Reef is protected by Federal Law, there are many exquisite landscapes that are not. One need only consider the situation in Southern Utah where all too often we saw drilling pads, clear cut logging, desert-destroying off road vehicle trails, and just plain vandalism. It’s all documented in Edward Abbey’s classic account The Monkey Wrench Gang as well as in the more recent, equally eloquent writings of Terry Tempest Williams.

On Technorati: Capital Reef, Edward Abbey, environmentalism, knowledge, libraries, Nature, Terry Tempest Williams, Utah

Six years later, we are grateful for each and every day. We no longer wonder “why us?” but rather “why not us”: Why is my husband one of the lucky minority who has survived so long?

Two days, and six loads of laundry later, we are making a quick turn-around. My husband Brock and I are on our way to visit the Huntsman Cancer Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is doing follow-up visits, having successfully staved off the dread cancer — multiple myeloma — for more than six years. The initial prognosis, when he was first diagnosed in July 2002, was dim: Make out your will — you have three weeks to live. Talk about the need to focus; to bring all of one’s intellectual, intuitive, and spiritual resources to bear! Eventually, that is precisely what we did. But at first, on hearing the news, we were shocked and dejected. Desperately trying to postpone our fate, we went for what we thought at the time would be our last walk together along the Potomac River, at Great Falls Park. We asked ourselves: Why us? Six years later, we are grateful for each and every day. We no longer wonder “why us?” but rather “why not us”: Why is my husband one of the lucky minority who has survived so long?

Interestingly enough, as I sit in the waiting room at the hospital, while my husband undergoes his first test of the day — a PET scan — I find myself reading the very same book that I read while waiting, six years ago, in the radiologist’s office. The book is Baribasi’s Linked: The New Science of Networks. Describing and explaining the evolution of our thinking about networks, this book has been useful to me in the intervening years in a number of ways. For one, I was teaching a course at the time called “The Networked Economy,” and Barabasi makes a convincing case — useful for contextualizing this course for my students — as to why networks provide a wonderful unit of analysis. But, perhaps more important to me at the time was Barabasi’s discussion of cancer cells from a network perspective. I breathed a sigh of relief upon reading that our knowledge of networks, and how they operate, held promise for discovering a cure for cancer. By understanding the architecture and the topology of the cancer cell network, he said, we could find ways to stress the system and undermine the way its components — the cells — communicated and interacted, thereby wiping it out. Never before had my intellectual life and personal life been so intertwined!

He even went so far as to organize his fighting cells into famous military units — Israel’s Golani Brigade, Britain’s famous Red Devils parachute brigade, the Union Army’s Iron Brigade, and the 1st Marine Division from its days in Korea.

In the last six years, science and the medical profession has come a long way in its efforts to conquer multiple myeloma. To be sure, their medical advances constitute one way of exerting mind (in the form of scientific knowledge) over matter (the diseased body). However, as I witnessed my husband rise to the occasion, resolutely determining that he would fight the cancer back, I came to appreciate more fully the role that an individual can play is using his or her mind to guide the body back to health. Drawing on his own internal resources, my husband practiced guided visualization¹, going down into his body and rallying his good cells to fight the cancer. He even went so far as to organize his fighting cells into famous military units — Israel’s Golani Brigade, Britain’s famous Red Devils parachute brigade, the Union Army’s Iron Brigade, and the 1st Marine Division from its days in Korea. Having marshalled his best troops, he would visually reenter his body at night and strategize with them. Occasionally he would award them medals for their outstanding bravery and sacrifices.

It was only an hour ago that I witnessed what can happen when these two different ways of employing the mind are joined together.

He turned to us with a broad grin, announcing “Perfect–it couldn’t be better. There is no trace of the cancer.”

While we waited anxiously, Dr. Zangari reviewed the results of my husband’s tests. He turned to us with a broad grin, announcing “Perfect — it couldn’t be better. There is no trace of the cancer.” Savoring the joy of it all, and anticipating a trip into the Utah mountains, I thought to myself: If all of our mental powers can be brought together to defeat something as terrible as cancer, can we not also employ them to address the many other challenges that we face in life? Part of the answer, I though to myself, is to keep our minds open to all possibilities.

On Technorati: Body, Brock, cancer, Dualism, Military, Mind, myeloma, oncology, SaltLakeCity, Utah, visualization

The Office of Technology Assessment was deprived of its funding by the 104th Congress.  The Agency, which we as staffers labeled “Congress’ Own Think Tank,” had become official in 1972, and was tasked with taking a long-term look at the implications of technology on all aspects of society.  By most accounts, we did a phenomenal job.  Although Congress has yet to rally enough support to reauthorize the Office of Technology Assessment, the former Agency’s loyal supporters and advocates have written frequently about the role the OTA could be playing in public discourse.  They have also recently launched an on-line archive of all of OTA’s work, which also depicts and details its 20+ year history.

From a posting on an FAS listserv by Nate Hafer, of the Federation of American Scientists:

Today the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) launched the Office of Technology Assessment Archive, http://www.fas.org/ota . The site allows the public to access over 720 reports and documents produced by OTA during its 23 year history, including many that have not been available to the public previously. OTA served as an independent branch of the U.S. Congress that provided nonpartisan science and technology advice from 1972 until it was defunded and forced to close in 1995.

The site also features a new video interview with Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), who has been spearheading the effort on Capitol Hill to revive OTA. According to Rep. Holt, “if OTA were here, doing this kind of work, we would have better legislation for school safety, chemical exposure, grain dust explosions, the R&D tax credit, on and on.” He goes on to describe some current policy issues that OTA could address and explains why Congress should bring back OTA.

“The OTA was an invaluable resource that informed Congress about an incredibly broad range of science and technology issues,” said Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists and a former OTA staff member. “Numerous reports, on subjects such as transportation, energy, health care, and information technology remain relevant, more than 10 years after OTA issued its final report.”

“OTA produced the first report raising the possibility of genetic discrimination in the workplace almost 17 years before the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act was passed,” according to Michael Stebbins, Director of Biology Policy at FAS. “That kind of foresight into major policy issues is sorely missed in Washington today.”

The Archive will track efforts to bring back OTA and will also highlight items not previously available to the public in a “Document of the Day” feature. The website also includes a new search engine that allows users to quickly and easily find specific content in OTA reports.

Visit the Office of Technology Assessment Archive at http://www.fas.org/ota

As a former OTA employee, I would like to add a tribute of my own.  From my perspective, the OTA not only provided Congress and the public with outstanding policy foresight on technology-related issues, in so doing, it also greatly advanced interdisciplinary research.  As Einstein once commented, problems cannot be solved within the context in which they were originally created.  The methods and practices at OTA implicitly took this insight into account.  Because many of its reports were problem-centered, OTA analysts reached out across a variety of venues to garner information and engage in cross-disciplinary dialogues.  As a result, those analysts frequently generated a number of creative, and often quite successful, policy solutions.

I owe my interest and devotion to interdisciplinary scholarship in part to the twenty years that I was fortunate enough to have worked at the Congressional Office of Technology.  Today, I try to maintain that legacy by bringing what I learned at OTA to Georgetown University’s interdisciplinary program — the Communication, Culture and Technology Program — where I presently serve as Director.  I like to believe that, in teaching my students to think holistically, and to conceptualize their research in an interdisciplinary framework, I am planting the seed corn for the time when Congress regains its wits and revives the OTA.

On Technorati: blogosphere, Congress, Interdisciplinarity, OTA, policy, research, science

Often, when I am planning to travel to an Italian, German, or Spanish-speaking country, my foreign language skills improve the closer and closer I get to the trip. Then, when I arrive at my destination, and begin to immerse myself in the foreign experience, the language becomes ever so more natural to me. Eventually, I feel at home. But, to my surprise, towards the end of the trip, an inverse process occurs — I stumble on grammar, am reduced to the present tense, and forget all sorts of familiar, every-day words.

Experimenting with this blog has been much the same for me as learning a new language.

Experimenting with this blog has been much the same for me as learning a new language. I had to seek help, stumble a lot, and make many mistakes before I could begin to get the hang of it. And now that I have, my vacation here at Lake Hawthorne is coming to an end: We are about to leave this idyllic place for home — forsaking the frogs in favor of sirens in Washington DC. Sitting, for the last time, on the porch in the early morning, watching the reflecting sun ripple like diamonds across the water, I take my leave, wondering: Have I met my husband’s challenge to use the blog to relate theory to practice and practice to theory? More specifically, has blogging affected how I experienced my own vacation at our cabin, here on the lake? Did it alter the way I think about and perceive what I am reading? Will I keep blogging, or will my new found enthusiasm deteriorate, much the way my skills at a foreign language might, when I return home to Washington and become engrossed in the world of work?

I speculate… Yes, to be sure, blogging has made a difference. I am more attuned to, and reflective about, what is happening around me. I find that, when reading, writing, and reflecting on my own experiences, I bring my whole self to bear on a problem, issue, or observation. Every object around me is brought into greater relief, and I can recall it in the greatest detail. Thus, I can still see in my mind’s eye the three pileated woodpeckers, their red top-nots bobbing, hammering away simultaneously at the dead tree adjacent to our house. At the same time, however — as is true when looking at any set of objects and activities in all their complexity — I experience how the whole is greater than any of the parts. So I see the frogs, the birds, the midnight sky, my grandchildren — even the deer ticks — as part of a wondrous on-going process: The substance of life, as well as the material for the blog. As Ron Burt might agree, it is the interaction among the diverse senses that is the source of good ideas.

On Technorati: blogs, DC, Lake Hawthorne, New Jersey, praxis, Theory

Not long ago, seated for lunch in a meeting of academics, I participated in a discussion about the future of the university. The subject of what it takes to be an intellectual came up. Imagine my surprise when one of the scholars at the table contended that academics were the only people who could lay claim to that title. Having spent twenty years of my life at the Office of Technology Assessment, engaging in what I had always thought to be intellectual pursuits, I was truly taken aback! I asked, But what about Erasmus? What about experiential learning? My colleague looked at me, somewhat disdainfully, from across the table, a wry smile on his face. And I experienced what I imagined Arnold Toynbee might have felt, in the face of his critics.

I asked: But what about Erasmus? What about experiential learning? My colleague looked at me, somewhat disdainfully, from across the table, a wry smile on his face.

Ironically, many of today’s scholars are seeking to flesh out a number of theoretical propositions by conducting empirical experiments that are aimed to provide them a better grasp of what constitutes experience, and how it affects not only behavior, but also their own, specific realms of inquiry. In my previous blog, I mentioned the work of Joshua Epstein, who uses computational technologies to model artificial communities. Equally relevant, especially in the context of the recent discussion of the nature of cooperation, is the volume, edited by Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert T. Boyd, and Ernst Fehr, entitled Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundation of Cooperation in Everyday Life (MIT, 2005). Going somewhat further than Brian Skyrms’ narrative in The Stag Hunt, the editors, together with a diverse collection of authors, claim that the inclination to cooperate, and to act equitably, is inherent in mankind, and reinforced through the evolutionary process. Their arguments are based not only on the logic of game theory; as well, they build on a variety of human-based experiments. In another mode, Martin Nowak, Professor of Biology and Mathematics at Harvard University, has used mathematical models to formally account for cooperative behavior, using an array of cases that rival Toynbee’s history, ranging, for example, from a study of cancer cells to more generalized types of human behavior. Beautifully written, so as to be accessible to the lay reader, Nowak’s book, Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life is an absolute tour de force. Most appealing to me, as a professor in the Communication, Culture and Technology Program, obsessed by networks in whatever their form, is the author’s claim that the thing that evolves in any networked organism or organizational entity is information itself.

So I ask myself, do ideas and intellectuals evolve in much the same way that cooperation and language do? Are they the result of interactions? Ron Burt, who I mentioned in an earlier post, would — I believe –respond affirmatively to such a claim. In his recent book, Brokerage and Closure (2005), Burt talks about what is it that characterizes good ideas. According to Burt, people are likely to have good ideas to the extent that they reach out and engage in multiple directions, thereby incorporating a variety of new — and as importantly — diverse perspectives. In contrast, according to Burt, people who limit their conversations to the narrow set of members in their own group, or — as I might add, to their own disciplines — are unlikely to go very far. In Burt’s characterization, they might as well be in an echo chamber, where ideas are endlessly recycled. Under these circumstances — that is to say, when surrounded by poor ideas — few intellectuals can survive.

As Burt suggests, the answer has to do with crossing boundaries — organizational as well as disciplinary.

According to my understanding, the goal of universities, as well as intellectuals, is to generate good ideas. Doing this will require taking on new challenges, some of which — compared to our traditional way of doing things — may appear risky. The question is how do we break out of our traditional ways of doing things without sacrificing that which is best about them? As Burt suggests, the answer has to do with crossing boundaries — organizational as well as disciplinary. As a recent convert to blogging, I would suggest that this is a good place to start.

On Technorati: Burt, Gintis, MIT, Nowak, OTA, Skyrms, Toynbee

When I was a young girl living in New Jersey, my father would try to console me, whenever my world seemed upside down, by talking about Toynbee’s optimum challenge. He noted that the historian Toynbee had concluded — based on his comparative history — that societies prosper when they have a challenge that stimulates them into action, but one that does not overwhelm them at the same time. Accordingly, my father would interpret my situation — however unfortunate it might have been — as “an opportunity for growth as well as for the development of my character.” As one might imagine, more often than not, I would protest, sotto voce, saying that I was satisfied with the amount of character that I already had. However, with the wisdom of years, as well as the opportunities and challenges of raising a child of my own, I have come to appreciate Toynbee’s perspective and incorporate it into my own way of thinking. Just ask my son!

Perhaps it is time to give Toynbee another look. In today’s increasingly complex world, narrowly focused analyses that are based on rigid, disciplinary methodological standards sometimes miss the point.

In the academic world, Toynbee was generally appreciated for the extent of his knowledge. However, he was typically criticized — and sometime scathingly so — for what others perceived to be his scientific pretensions. His writings were ambitious, to say the least. For example, Toynbee’s A Study in History employs a number of case studies to examine the process of history. It aims to identify plausible generalizations, if not Laws, about the way in which the world works. It was in this regard that Toynbee’s work was not always well received by the scholarly community: His critics felt that he went much too far in making generalizations based on, what they claimed to be, faulty methodology, subjective interpretations, and an inadequate and incomplete empirical body of knowledge.

Perhaps it is time to give Toynbee another look. In today’s increasingly complex world, narrowly focused analyses that are based on rigid, disciplinary methodological standards sometimes miss the point. Looking comparatively, at an ever-unfolding, evolutionary process of history, Toynbee — without the benefit of today’s electronic technologies — brought into relief, even while trying to simplify, the extraordinarily complex nature of the interconnections and interactions that drive human existence forward. A similar case can be made for Fernand Braudel’s historical work, which focuses on the longue durée. One need only consider his three volume masterpiece in which he analyzes the evolution of world capitalism through the lens of all of its varied aspects — social, political, cultural, demographic, as well as economic (1992). It seems to me that Joshua Epstein’s most recent book Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling (2007), is in this tradition. Looking for a way to bring all of the social sciences to bear in accounting for societal evolution (and in particular the disappearance of the Anasazi), he takes advantage of new, computational technologies to model their behavior. Optimally challenging, this book is a major contribution to the furtherance and interaction of all academic disciplines.

While Toynbee’s work may not be scientific in the strictest sense of the word, to be sure it is very insightful and, as importantly, meaningful in providing guidance about the difficult choices that we, as intelligent humans, must make. I imagine what my life might have been like had I been risk-adverse, and not taken Toynbee’s revealing insight about optimal challenges to heart. I might never have taken courses in economics; selected in the early Sixties to have been one of only five women in my graduate class at Columbia; backpacked in the area of Glacier Peak, in the North Cascades; lived on Kibbutz Ketura in Israel’s southern desert; or survived, and even been a good caretaker, as my husband successfully battled the dread disease, multiple myeloma. As well, I might never have accepted my husband’s challenge to undertake this exciting and new blogging adventure. And, who knows, in today’s environment, Toynbee, too, might very well have been a blogger!

On Technorati: comparatism, Epstein, history, scientism, simulation, Toynbee

Last night there were no frogs. It was raining. I lay awake listening to the sounds of rain on the roof, more like the monotone tap, tap, tap of a snare drum rather than the plucking of a cello string. As the rain’s intensity increased, the individual taps appeared to merge together — or should I say emerge, in somewhat of a phase transition — culminating in the thunderous boom of the kettle drum and the clashing clang of the cymbal, just as the lightning struck. Wide awake and idling the early morning hours away, I began wondering: Are the heavens a complex, networked system, and — if so — what constitutes its parts? How do they communicate with one another? What type of signals do they use? How does change in the weather system come about? There was no possibility of falling asleep after that! Too many books, too many theories, too many questions, I thought.

In the morning it was still raining. Based on nature’s signals, many of which I had noted yesterday, I might have anticipated that this would be the case. As I learned from my husband Brock, a seasoned environmentalist, if you want to know how the weather will unfold, pay attention, as other species do, to a number of signals. Specifically, when at our cottage at the Lake, you might look for a shift in the ambience of the air — in particular, sudden changes in the temperature, the direction of the breeze, as well as the level of humidity. For example, a sudden drop in the air temperature, accompanied by a rising breeze from the west, indicates that a cool front, most likely preceded by a storm, is on its way. However, while this information is helpful for planning a daily itinerary, it does not explain how nature and its subsidiary parts — a complex system — know when and how to react. For sure, this is a subject of future inquiry.

On a more personal level, I might also note how we adapt to changes in the weather here in the relatively isolated woods at Lake Hawthorne. For children, this is never a problem. They simply change their venue of play. For example, as children, we took advantage of the rain, especially during the hurricane season in 1954, to create an entire waterway in our back yard, with an elaborate bridge and canal system that extended more than fifty yards. Then, we would build little boats and watch them float from one end of the tributary to the other. Today, as adults, we often “hole up,” and take a “rain sleep,” much like the man “who went to bed with a cold in his head and didn’t get up ’till morning.” There being little chance of sleep this morning, however, my husband and I decided instead to snuggle under our comforter, and spend the day listening to The Learning Company’s tapes on the History of Rome.

Call it serendipity, but I am struck at how, given my growing interest in social structure and complexity, everything that I attend to now appears to be on this subject. Consider, for example, the Learning Company lecture we heard describing the unique nature of the rise of the Roman Republic. The lecturer, Professor Garrett G. Fagan, from Pennsylvania State University, identified the way in which the Roman Republic employed a network strategy to consolidate its confederation. According to Fagan, the Romans sent many of their centurions, together with citizens of varying statuses, to strategic places throughout the peninsula, which served as intelligence nodes in an every growing and, more complex, network of governance structures. As the professor notes, this unique, networked organizational structure constituted a successful innovative strategy that allowed the Romans not only to effectively adapt to their changing environment but also to undergo their own phase transition with the evolution and establishment of an even more complex set of arrangements — the Roman Empire. Equally exciting to me, this strategy was totally in keeping with the advice of Ron Burt, one of today’s leading management experts, and author of Brokerage and Closure (2005). Burt advises businesses to do just as the Romans did: Establish links across major holes in the social structure in order to maximize innovation and control information flows.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, just as the tapes were about to end, the rain stopped. Suddenly there was silence: No frogs plinking, no birds chirping, no dogs barking, no children laughing. A momentary relief from “thinking thoroughly.” I grasped the opportunity, and fell asleep.

On Technorati: Burt, Fagan, Roman Empire, Rome, systems, TLC, weather

I was happy to read on his Smart Mobs weblog that tomorrow, Wednesday, July 15th, my friend Howard Rheingold will be awarded an honorary Doctorate of Technology by De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. De Montfort is fast becoming an important site of hybrid thinking about technology: Prof. Rheingold, D.Tech., is currently a visiting professor of at the Institute for Creative Technologies there; and the University has apparently just contributed 1 million pounds, as part of a novel partnership, to the innovative Digital Media Centre in Leicester.

Less than a year ago, Howard was gracious enough to come to our Program at Georgetown to speak to our students at length about some of his passions. They loved him.

Our online journal, gnovis, sat down with Howard after lunch to talk about new media technologies and democracy.

Congratulations, Howard.

On Technorati: CCT, gnovis, Higher Education, Howard Rheingold, New Media, Smart Mobs, Technology

In Washington, D.C., I am often awakened by the shrieking sounds of sirens, as police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances go racing past my house and down my street. But here, at Lake Hawthorne, it is the sounds of frogs — Bull Frogs to be exact — that interrupt my nightly reveries. Some say that it is chirping, but I perceive the Bull Frogs’ vocal chorus more like “plink-plunk,” as in the cello’s pizzicato notes that adorn some of Beethoven’s chamber music. Except for their mysterious, and thankfully temporary, disappearance several years ago — the Bull Frogs, together with many amphibians all across the States, constitute an eternal feature of The Lake. Thus, as is true for other aspects of my surroundings here, I have tended to take them for granted. No longer! Reading Skyrms’ The Stag Hunt, I have been inspired to ponder them, or in Jim Rosenau’s words, “to think about them thoroughly.”

Nature’s solution to this dilemma is the evolution of a signaling systems (or, as we have seen in the specific case of language, conventions) are established not by prior agreement. Rather, they evolve through interactions.

Recall that the Stag Hunt is all about cooperation, and how it might emerge and be maintained, notwithstanding that, at the individual level, non-cooperation will likely have a higher pay-off. Here we have a major social dilemma; for, although the individual may gain in such a case, society as a whole loses. Nature’s solution to this dilemma is the evolution of a signaling systems (or, as we have seen in the specific case of language, conventions) are established not by prior agreement. Rather, they evolve through interactions. As importantly — pointing to many human experiments and computer simulations — Skyrms notes that signaling systems are in equilibrium (in other words self-enforcing) in nature; hence, alternative strategies just don’t survive the evolutionary process. No wonder, then, that this kind of cooperation can be observed all around us, especially in the biological world. Thus, we find that cells merge together to create organisms; mouth bacteria join together in a community to form plaque; and myxococcis xantus aggregate themselves in mounds so as to survive food shortages. When, and how, these life forms alter their behaviors — often described as a phase transition — depends on timing and the specific situation in which they are located, as well as the types of messages that they exchange. 

At Lake Hawthorne, with Skryms’ discussion in mind, I am not only awakened by the Bull Frogs, I typically spend the next few hours, after their first “plink-plunk,” contemplating their sounds and signals. Imagining the contours in the lake’s circumference, and imaging the sequence of coves, I wonder which frogs are making what signals, where? I ask myself: What messages are they communicating? Do their different pitches signal a different message? According to my subsequent Google search, Bull Frogs communicate in order to stake out their territories, or to attract a mate and reproduce — certainly one form of cooperation. That the Bull Frogs signaling system is effective in this latter regard is verified to the extent that, according to my Google sources, female Bull Frogs — on connecting up with a Bull male — produce up to 25,000 eggs. This number assures their survival, even if, as my dog Sparky is wont to do, intruders constantly dive into the frogs’ habitat, seeking to satisfy their own curiosity about the sounds and signals.

There is another way in which The Stag Hunt is relevant to my experiences with frogs at Lake Hawthorne. As young adults, my cohorts and I initiated one more yearly tradition — the Frog Jumping Contest. It was held on the Fourth of July. To enter, and capture a contestant, we had to organize a “stag hunt.” In our little cooperative venture, one person rowed the boat, one held the flashlight, and two got in the muck (along with the leeches) to net the frog. The pay-off was having fun. In those days, we called it a “blast.” But one night, after searching all the coves, and getting all mucked up, we had little to show for our efforts — a smallish frog, no more that four inches in length. Perhaps we were over-zealous, but in our merriment, we decided to substitute our frog for a larger frog that our friends — who were also competing in the Jump — had sequestered that evening in their bathtub. Stealthily sneaking into their house, and switching our frog for theirs, was every bit as challenging, not to say entertaining, as the hunt itself. But in the morning, it didn’t seem so funny: our friends, viewing us as “defectors” who had broken the rules of the game, were no longer enthusiastic about the Jump. Understandably, there were few subsequent jumping contests after that night. And it was soon thereafter that the frogs just disappeared. My mother, who loved the frogs, said it was the fault of Frog Hunts. Post-Skyrms, I think that she might have been right — too many intruders disrupting their life cycle, or, better yet, their signaling system.

On Technorati: Bull Frogs, individual, Lake Hawthorne, Language, Nature, Rosenau, Rousseau, Skyrms, Society, Stag hunt