[PDF] Future Of Complexity The Conceiving A Better Way To Understand Order And Chaos eBook

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : World Scientific
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 19,16 MB
Release : 2007-10-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 981447469X

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Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many contemporaries in our time, the popularity of studying complexity is fast becoming a new fad in the intellectual scene. However, can the study of complex phenomena truly reveal recognizable patterns (with predictable outcomes) to enhance our understanding of reality, especially when it is embedded within the messy web of complexity? If so, what then are the limits? This book strives to demolish some of the myths surrounding the nature of complexity and, in the process, to provide an original theory to understand it in this world and beyond. It introduces the author's dialectic theory of complexity, together with the theoretical debate in the literature. It expounds on the concept of complexity from various perspectives, including chemistry, micro- and macro-physics, biology and psychology. It also examines the nature of complexity from societal and cultural perspectives.This book presents a broad view on the nature of complexity, adequately introducing the reader to this emerging field.

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : World Scientific
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 28,4 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Science
ISBN : 9812709002

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Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many contemporaries in our time, the popularity of studying complexity is fast becoming a new fad in the intellectual scene. However, can the study of complex phenomena truly reveal recognizable patterns (with predictable outcomes) to enhance our understanding of reality, especially when it is embedded within the messy web of complexity? If so, what then are the limits? This book strives to demolish some of the myths surrounding the nature of complexity and, in the process, to provide an original theory to understand it in this world and beyond. It introduces the author''s dialectic theory of complexity, together with the theoretical debate in the literature. It expounds on the concept of complexity from various perspectives, including chemistry, micro- and macro-physics, biology and psychology. It also examines the nature of complexity from societal and cultural perspectives. This book presents a broad view on the nature of complexity, adequately introducing the reader to this emerging field. Sample Chapter(s). Foreword (38 KB). Contents: Introduction OCo The Challenge of Complexity; Natural Complexity; Mental Complexity; Societal Complexity; Cultural Complexity; Conclusion OCo The Future of Complexity. Readership: General readers and academia."

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 37,82 MB
Release : 2009-01-14
Category : History
ISBN : 1443804312

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Why should mass media be informational and accurate as much as its proponents would claim—and, conversely, disinformational and propagandistic as much as its critics would argue? Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many since the modern era of mass media, neither of the two opposing views is correct, to the extent that a total analysis of media influence has yet to be adequately explored and understood. Something fundamentally vital to the analysis of communication has been missing. This is not to say, however, that the literature on media studies hitherto existing in history has been much ado about nothing; on the contrary, indeed, much can be learned from different theoretical approaches in the field. But the important point to remember here is that this book aims to show an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of mass media (which goes beyond both the pros and cons in the literature on media influence, while learning from them all). If true, this seminal view will alter the way of how mass media are to be understood, with its enormous theoretical implications for going beyond the existing paradigms on the future of communication, in a small sense—and for predicting the future of open and closed societies, in a large sense.

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Elsevier
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 25,86 MB
Release : 2008-03-31
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1780631286

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The Future of Information Architecture examines issues surrounding why information is processed, stored and applied in the way that it has, since time immemorial. Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many scholars in human history, the recurrent debate on the explanation of the most basic categories of information (eg space, time causation, quality, quantity) has been misconstrued, to the effect that there exists some deeper categories and principles behind these categories of information - with enormous implications for our understanding of reality in general. To understand this, the book is organised in to four main parts: Part I begins with the vital question concerning the role of information within the context of the larger theoretical debate in the literature. Part II provides a critical examination of the nature of data taxonomy from the main perspectives of culture, society, nature and the mind. Part III constructively invesitgates the world of information network from the main perspectives of culture, society, nature and the mind. Part IV proposes six main theses in the authors synthetic theory of information architecture, namely, (a) the first thesis on the simpleness-complicatedness principle, (b) the second thesis on the exactness-vagueness principle (c) the third thesis on the slowness-quickness principle (d) the fourth thesis on the order-chaos principle, (e) the fifth thesis on the symmetry-asymmetry principle, and (f) the sixth thesis on the post-human stage.

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 23,57 MB
Release : 2009-03-26
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1443807494

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Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many, Dr. Peter Baofu argues that the current popularity of postmodernism in the humanities (especially though not exclusively in relation to the arts) will not last, as it constitutes an aesthetic fad in this day and age of postmodernity. This thesis has important implications for understanding beauty, ugliness, and other aesthetic categories, be the era in the past, present, or future, to the extent that the current theoretical debate on aesthetic experience is as much misleading as obsolete. The current debate also obscures something more tremendous in the long run, in relation to the emergence of what Dr. Baofu originally proposes as the great transformations of aesthetic experience in the coming future that humans have never known, both here on Earth and later in deep space, in accordance to the five theses of his “transformative theory of aesthetic experience.” To understand this, the book is organized into four major parts (i.e., in relation to nature, the mind, culture, and society).

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 515 pages
File Size : 44,76 MB
Release : 2011-08-08
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1443833339

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Is chemistry really so valuable that, as Theodore L. Brown (2011) and his colleagues continue to claim in the twelfth edition of their work in 2011, chemistry is “the central science” in connecting the physical sciences with the life and applied sciences? (WK 2011 & 2011; C. Reinhardt 2001) This crowning of chemistry, however, can be contrasted with an opposing view, as Michael Polanyi once questioned the centrality of chemistry, when he wrote that “[n]o inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of . . . chemistry,” so other fields of study are just as important. (BQ 2011) Contrary to these conflicting views about chemistry (and other ones discussed in the book), chemistry, in relation to substances and their changes, is neither possible nor desirable to the extent that the respective ideologues on different sides would like us to believe. This challenge to the conflicting views about chemistry does not mean, however, that chemistry is useless, or that those fields of study related to chemistry like astronomy, physics, geology, mathematics, material science, biology, psychology, computer science, and so on should be ignored too. Of course, neither of these extreme views is reasonable. Instead, this book provides an alternative, better way of understanding the future of chemistry —especially in the dialectic context of substances and their changes—while learning from different approaches in literature but without favoring any one of them or integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other. This book offers a new theory (that is, the creational theory of chemistry) to go beyond the existing approaches to literature in an original way. If successful, this seminal project will fundamentally change the way that we think about chemistry, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what the author originally called its “post-human” fate.

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 405 pages
File Size : 44,61 MB
Release : 2009-05-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1443812129

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Why should some essential properties of geometry (i.e., infinity, symmetry, and dimensionality) be both necessary and desirable in the way that they have been constructed—albeit with different modifications over time—since time immemorial? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in all history hitherto existing, the essential properties of geometry do not have to be both necessary and desirable. This is not to suggest, of course, that one has nothing to learn from geometry. On the contrary, geometry has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in many ways since its inception as a field of knowledge some millennia ago. The point in this book, however, is to show an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of geometry, which goes beyond human conception, intuition, and imagination, together with worldly experience of course, as its foundation, while learning from them all—with theoretical implications for time travel, hyperspace, and other important issues. If true, this seminal view will fundamentally change the way that the nature of abstraction in the thinking process is to be understood, with its enormous implications for the future advancement of knowledge, in a small sense, and what I originally called its “post-human” fate, in a large one.

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 411 pages
File Size : 33,33 MB
Release : 2009-10-02
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1443815365

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To what extent is there really a universal structure, whether innate or not, of language for learning? Or conversely, is language learning mainly context-based? And, in the end, does the very nature of language delimit our mental world—such that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” or, in a different parlance, constitute “the prison house of language”? Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many in history, all these seemingly plausible views are highly misleading, to the extent that something vital is missing in the conventional debate, such that the nature of learning has yet to be more comprehensively and systematically understood. This is not to say, however, that the literature in the study of language (and other related fields) hitherto existing in history has been much ado about nothing. In fact, much can be learned from different theoretical approaches in the literature. The virtue of this book is to provide an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of learning, especially (though not exclusively) in relation to language—which, while incorporating the different views in the literature, transcends them all in the end, with the use of language and also beyond it. This inquiry may sound academic, but it has enormous implications not just for the narrow concern with the nature of language, but also, more importantly, for the larger concern with the nature of thinking, feeling, and doing in learning, both with the use of language and beyond it. If true, this seminal work will fundamentally change the way that we think, not only about the nature of language, in a small sense— but also about the nature of learning, with the use of language and also beyond it, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, for the human future and what I originally called its “post-human” fate, in a broad sense.

Author : Peter Baofu
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 29,70 MB
Release : 2009-03-26
Category : Science
ISBN : 144380813X

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Why should mass media be informational and accurate as much as its proponents would claim—and, conversely, disinformational and propagandistic as much as its critics would argue? Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many since the modern era of mass media, neither of the two opposing views is correct, to the extent that a total analysis of media influence has yet to be adequately explored and understood. Something fundamentally vital to the analysis of communication has been missing. This is not to say, however, that the literature on media studies hitherto existing in history has been much ado about nothing; on the contrary, indeed, much can be learned from different theoretical approaches in the field. But the important point to remember here is that this book aims to show an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of mass media (which goes beyond both the pros and cons in the literature on media influence, while learning from them all). If true, this seminal view will alter the way of how mass media are to be understood, with its enormous theoretical implications for going beyond the existing paradigms on the future of communication, in a small sense—and for predicting the future of open and closed societies, in a large sense.