Dear Colleagues:
This email includes information on abstract submissions, registration
website, a WESS dinner meeting, and hotel information for our
symposium on March 25-26, 2006.
This is the final call for abstracts for WESS symposium,
The Emergences of Designs.
Abstracts are due Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006.
Abstracts for the WESS symposium must be sent directly to me at:
Jerry_LR_Chandler@ Mac.com
All abstracts will be reviewed before acceptance.
For individuals planning to participate in this meeting, please
register at the Washington Academy of Sciences website as soon as
possible at:
( http://www.washacadsci.org/ )
Attendance is limited and registration will be closed when the
capacity of the facility at the National Science Foundation is
reached. It is imperative to register early in order to be ensured of
entering the building. A photo ID is necessary for entry to this
Federal facility.
A WESS dinner conversation will be held on Friday evening, March 24,
2006, beginning at 6:00 PM. The dinner meting will be held at a
downtown restaurant in order to provide an opportunity for old
friends to meet with several out of town guests presenting papers at
the symposium. Please email your reservation to me by March 10,
2006, if you wish to enjoy the evening with us.
For out-of-town attendees, please note that the NSF facility is
adjacent to a Hilton Hotel,
950 N Stafford St, Arlington, 22203 - (703) 528-6000, Fax:
+1-703-812-5127.
http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=DCAVAHF
We are looking forward to learning from one another, renewing
friendships, and stimulating discussions.
Cheers
Jerry LR Chandler
703-790-1651
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Call for Abstracts
Dear Colleagues:
The Washington Evolutionary Systems Society (WESS) is sponsoring a
symposium on design concepts in evolutionary thought. Exploration of
the conceptualization of designs is the principal objective of the
symposium. The symposium is called:
The Emergences of Designs.
The fundamental nature of design is adroitly described by Susan
Oyama, in "Evolution�s Eye". � The concept of design spans multiple
disciplines. It is applicable to most disciplines � from art to
zoology and from artifacts to architectures. The design of decisive
experiments is essential to advancing physical progress.� One may
add that the design of chemical syntheses is essential to the
chemical, material, and biomedical sciences, as well as the emergence
of life.
The art and science of design can be explored from several
perspectives, as noted by Oyama. We seek to attract a wide variety of
speakers who can explore the concept of design from particular
perspectives.
During the 1960s and 1970s, two books strongly influenced the
development of systems theory, the works by Herbert Simon, "The
Sciences of the Artificial," and by Christopher Alexander, "Notes on
the Synthesis of Form."
Subsequent advances in both mathematics (catastrophe, chaos, category
theories, fractals and high speed electronic computation) and biology
(the determination of genetic sequences, cellular and neural
networks) allow us re-examine these influential texts from the
context of the early Twenty-First Century.
Major motivations for the symposium are recent advances in our
understanding of biological dynamics, especially genetic and
neurological dynamics. Numerous scholars are proposing that a
fundamental basis of biological design is the contingent relations
between internal and external dynamics. Ab ovo, the contingency of
processes appears to create opportunity for informed choices. The
concatenation of informed choices may be generative or non-
generative. The concatenation of various sources of information
(physical, chemical, biological) appears to stimulate the creativity
of future developments, the design of organisms. The works of Susan
Oyama (Ontogeny of Information, Cycles of Contingency) include
persuasive arguments for the critical dependencies relating
biological development to environmental factors. Thus, to a limited
extent, the cyclic contingency of design processes can be juxtaposed
to physical theories such as information in biomolecules or
thermodeynamic "negative entropy", as a source of motion for complex
systems. In this exploration, we desire to discuss the historical
roots as well as the historical forces that create design processes,
such as the emergence of language, tools and habitats.
We can pose several broad questions about the recent advances in the
emergences of designs:
Have new universal design principles emerged in recent decades?
Is the art of design intrinsically creative or can it be systematized?
What are the roles of symbol systems in shaping designs?
What are the functions of codes and encoding and decoding of
information in creating designs?
Can designs be limited to single disciplines or must design be
intrinsically multidisciplinary?
Do general design principles exist that are equally applicable to
both living and non-living systems?
What is the appropriate role of computation in the emergence of a
particular design?
What distinguishes the design of computational from the design of
material systems?
Can the physical principles of design be applied to the design of
social, legal and political systems?
How do the informed codes of human communication influence design
practice?
To what extent can we say ethics and morals are designed?
What should be the design of our internal security systems?
The last question is of specific and immediate public concern and is
a substantial motivation for the symposium. A practical example of
the emergence of a design is our "Department of Homeland
Security" (DHS). It is an ongoing process. This critical
governmental organization has emerged from both a variety of fears as
well as real threats to our security. To what extent has the
government designed DHS to quell the public fears? Can the DHS
become a functional design?
Behind these questions loom deeper questions about the nature of
biological evolution itself. Are the emergences of forms and
functions of living systems adequately explained by chance? The
challenge of finding the dynamic sources of biological form and
function remains even after adopting Darwinian and neo-Darwinian
philosophies. How is it that deterministic chemical and physical
processes underlie the course of biological evolution? In light of
recent mathematical advances in chaos and category theory, what is
the nature of the mathematics of evolutionary designs? The recent
highly emotional public debates on �intelligent design� merely
occlude the difficult scientific questions waiting to be addressed.
We seek to explore the nature of design by looking at the concept
from the narrower perspective of individual disciplines and from the
wider perspectives of multi-disciplinarians. An example of the
latter is NASA�s planning for a moonbase by the year 2020. In this
exploration, we plan to learn of the historical roots as well as the
historical forces that create design processes, such as the emergence
of language, tools and habitats. Various sources of the complexity
and the perplexity of the hierarchical design principles will be
sought. It may be possible to identify systematic threads of
relations that underlie the common emergences of designs in the arts
and the sciences. We also anticipate comparing the logical dynamics
that led to the separation of design strategies and tactics in
various professional disciplines. .
We invite papers concerns with both abstract and concrete
descriptions of design processes, such as architecture,
transportation systems, electronic medical services and similar
social - cultural systems that may unconceal the hidden motivations
of novel designs. We look for suggestions and principles for
emergent designs in public arena, such as the design of legislation,
the design of public safety systems, the design of legal systems and
similar topics, such as homeland security. The relative roles of
logic, mathematics, narratives and intuitions in each discipline may
provide clues toward improving design processes for social, cultural
and intercultural organizations
We invite abstracts from all relevant disciplines. We encourage
equally abstracts on the philosophy of designs and the design of
philosophies.
Abstracts are due by February 15, 2006. Abstracts will be reviewed
for relevance to the WESS community. Abstracts must be submitted
directly to WESS for consideration.
The symposium will be held at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
on March 25 and 26, 2006.
Once again, the WESS symposium will be part of the Capital Sciences
meetings that are organized and hosted by the Washington Academy of
Sciences (WAS) at the NSF. The WAS website ( http://
www.washacadsci.org/ )includes information on registration, location
and other relevant information.
Questions? Please call me at 703-790-1651 or respond to the email
address Jerry_LR_Chandler@Mac.com
Jerry LR Chandler
President, WESS
Research Professor
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
George Mason University
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Received on Mon Feb 13 11:21:54 2006
