Philosophy

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gwof20 World Futures Journal of General Evolution ISSN: 0260-4027 (Print) 1556-1844 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gwof20 Evolution of communication in perfect and imperfect worlds Patrick Grim , Trina Kokalis , Ali Tafti & Nicholas Kilb To cite this article: Patrick Grim , Trina Kokalis , Ali Tafti & Nicholas Kilb (2000) Evolution of communication in perfect and imperfect worlds, World Futures, 56:2, 179-197, DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2000.9972799 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2000.9972799 Published online: 04 Jun 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 30 Citing articles: 6 View citing articles Evolution of Communication in Perfect and Imperfect Worlds PATRICK GRIM, TRINA KOKALIS, ALI TAFTI, and NICHOLAS KILB Group for Logic & Formal Semantics, Department of Philosophy, SUNY at Stony Brook (Received November 20, 1999; accepted December 20, 1999) We extend previous work on cooperation to some related questions regarding the evolution of simple forms of communication. The evolution of cooperation within the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma has been shown to follow different patterns, with significantly different outcomes, depending on whether the features of the model are classically perfect or stochastically imperfect (Axelrod, 1980a,b, 1984, 1985; Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981; Nowak and Sigmund, 1990, 1992; Sigmund, 1993). Our results here show that the same holds for communication. Within a simple model, the evolution of communication seems to require a stochastically imperfect world. KEYWORDS: communication, computer modeling, stochastic, imperfection, evolution, cooperation 1. INTRODUCTION Meaning has long been at the core of philosophical investigation. The classical philosophical tools for approaching meaning, however, have been introspection and linguistic intuition. In a tempting caricature of such an approach, one intuits what meaning is by rolling one's eyes into one's head and looking inwardly. We are not alone in thinking that this is precisely the wrong approach.1 A helpful analogy, perhaps, is the history of our understanding of biological life. Life remained a mystery as long as we tried to understand it as a simple something possessed by an individual at a particular time-an attempt to understand life that characterizes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, for example. Contemporary understanding, in contrast, treats life as a complex continuum of World Futures, 2000, Vol. 56, pp. 179-197 © 2000 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V. Reprints available directly from the publisher Published by license under Photocopying permitted by license only the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of The Cordon and Breach Publishing Group. Printed in Malaysia. 179 180 PATRICK GRIM ET AL. properties that characterize a community of organisms evolving over time. Our conviction here, and the underlying philosophical motivation for the model we want to present, is that the same may be true of meaning: that the proper way to understand meaning may be not as an inner possession of an individual at a time but as a complex continuum of properties characteristic of a community-a community of communicators-evolving over time. In what follows we outline a simple computer model for the evolution of communication. We are interested in particular in the circumstances under which strategies of communication will be selected for and can spread within a community. The particular finding we emphasize here is the importance of a stochastically imperfect world for that evolution: within the model outlined, it is only in an imperfect world that a strategy of communication proves successful. 2. IMPERFECTION AND COOPERATION IN THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA What we want to explore below is a simple model for communication. It is important to note a number of ways, however, in which that model builds on earlier work regarding cooperation. For the last twenty years or so, the formal tool of choice for investigating cooperation and competition has been the Prisoner's Dilemma. In classical form, each of two players in the Prisoner's Dilemma has the option of cooperating with her opponent or defecting against her, with points awarded as follows: Player A Cooperate Defect Player B Cooperate Defect 3, 3 0, 5 5,0 1,1 Here a payoff 5, 0 indicates that 5 points go to player A and that 0 points go to player B. A payoff 0, 5 indicates 0 points for A and 5 points for B. EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 181 Given this pattern of payoffs, it is clear that defection is the 'dominant' choice in a one-shot game: whichever choice the opponent makes, a player will gain more points by defecting than by cooperating. It is also clear, however, that if both players follow such a strategy everyone will do significantly worse than if both choose to cooperate. The iterated Prisoner's Dilemma consists of a series of such games. Here the situation is more interesting, and strategies for continued play emerge: a strategy of cooperating in all cases (A11C), of defecting in all cases (A11D), or of responding to the opponent's previous play in kind. This last is the cooperative strategy of Tit for Tat (TFT), which responds to defection on the other side with defection but rewards a cooperative move with reciprocal cooperation. The classic work on the success of TFT in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma is that of Robert Axelrod. In two tournaments based on an open call for strategies, TFT emerged as the winner in roundrobin competition of each strategy against all others (Axelrod, 1980a,b, 1984, 1985).2 TFT also displaced all competing strategies in a more sophisticated model in which strategies reproduce on each round in proportion to their success (Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981). Axelrod's models, however, demand 'perfect' worlds of cooperation and defection. There is never any doubt about whether an opponent is cooperating or defecting on a particular round, and given a particular pattern of play all strategies specify full and faultless cooperation or defection on any round. More recent work by Martin Nowak and Karl Sigmund, in contrast, models a stochastically imperfect world in which cooperation or defection is specified only in terms of some imperfect degree of probability (Nowak and Sigmund, 1990, 1992; Sigmund, 1993). The attempt is to add a measure of realism: here information may be imperfect regarding an opponent's play or a strategy may be able to execute a response only with a 'shaking hand'. The world of Nowak and Sigmund's models is thus an imperfect world of ubiquitous and inevitable stochastic noise. In such a model TFT, for example, appears only in a slightly imperfect guise: here TFT responds with cooperation to an opponent's cooperation with a probability of 0.99, rather than 1. In this imperfect world TFT similarly responds 182 PATRICK GRIM ET AL. with defection to an opponent's defection with a probability of 0.99. Using c to represent a strategy's probability of cooperating in the face of cooperation, and d to represent a strategy's probability of cooperating in the face of defection, we can think of strategies in Nowak and Sigmund's imperfect world as pairs <c,d>.3 TFT thus appears in an imperfect world as <0.99, 0.01 > . The surprise is that in this imperfect world, with a model in other respects like Axelrod and Hamilton's (1981), it is not TFT that proves the final victor. Using a sampling of 121 strategies, imperfect Tit for Tat <0.99, 0.01 > does dominate the population early in the game. TFT is then supplanted, however, by a strategy <0.99, 0.1 > which returns cooperation with cooperation at probability 0.99 but forgives defection with a probability of 0.1 rather than merely 0.01. This more generous strategy is in turn replaced by a still more generous version <0.99, 0.2 > which forgives defection with a probability of 0.2, and finally in the course of 12,000 generations by a version which forgives defection with a probability of 0.3. The ideal strategy for an imperfect world, in fact, is a 'Generous Tit for Tat' < 1 - €, 1/3 >, returning cooperation for cooperation at a rate infinitesimally close to 1 but responding generously to defection with cooperation at a rate of 1/3 (Figure 1). Figure 1 Evolution of Cooperation in an Imperfect World (Nowak and Sigmund). Population Proportions for Labeled Strategies shown over 12,000 Generations for an Initial Pool of 121 Stochastic Strategies <c,d> at 0.1 Intervals, Full Value of 0 and 1 Replaced with 0.01 and 0.99. EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 183 In previous work, we have extended Nowak and Sigmund's attempt at realism by using a model that is spatial as well as stochastic. In a spatialized model, individuals are envisaged as cells in a cellular automata array. Cooperation and competition take place only locally-each cell plays an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma with only its eight immediate neighbors. Strategy change occurs locally as well; if an immediate neighbor has a higher score, a cell will adopt that neighbor's strategy. Within a spatialized and stochastic Prisoner's Dilemma, we've found, convergence is to a still higher level of generosity: a 'Bending over Backwards' or 'Forgiving Tit for Tat' < 1 - e, 2/3 > that returns cooperation with near-perfect cooperation but forgives defection with a probability of 2/3 (Grim, 1995, 1996; Grim, Mar and St. Denis, 1998). Our attempt here is to borrow some of these formal tools from previous work on cooperation in order to construct a computer model for elementary forms of communication. The question of perfect and imperfect worlds that has characterized research on cooperation is also one we want to carry over to the case of communication: how might communication evolve in stochastically perfect and imperfect worlds? 3. A SIMPLE MODEL FOR COMMUNICATION Building on previous work, we again modeled our 'individuals' spatially as cells in a two-dimensional array.4 In the current model, however, there are no games of competition in the style of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Here we envisage instead a swarm of food sources moving across the spatial array, with individual cells gaining points by successfully feeding and losing points by failing to feed. In this model the behavioral repertoire of our cells also includes the ability to make a simple sound, which is heard locally by immediate neighbors and is potentially of use for purposes of communication. Each cell, acting in parallel, carries a strategy which specifies its behavior: when it will open its mouth for feeding, when it will make the one sound at its disposal, and how it will react to hearing a sound from its immediate neighbors. Cells gain points by successfully feeding, and lose points by opening their mouths but failing to feed. After a number of generations 184 PATRICK GRIM ET A L each cell surveys its immediate neighbors. If any neighbor has a higher score, it converts to the most successful local strategy. Successful strategies can thus be expected to spread within the spatial array. Should communication prove a successful strategy, we should expect to see the spatial triumph of communicating communities spreading across the array.a In somewhat more detail, the model is as follows. We use a randomized 64 x 64 two-dimensional cellular automata array of eight different strategies (Figure 2). Technically, the array forms a torus, 'wrapping around' so that individuals on the bottom edge have neighbors at the top edge, those at the left edge have neighbors on the right, etc. The cells themselves are thought of as stationary, something like coral in a reef. There are also, however, fifty bits of food that migrate in a random walk through the array.6 If a bit of food lands on a cell with its mouth open, that individual 'eats' and thus gains points. Our food sources were not eliminated or consumed, however: after an individual has 'eaten', that food source Figure 2 Initial Randomized Array of 8 Simple Strategies. Communicators < 1,1,0 > are Shown in White. EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 185 continues to migrate. A cell with an open mouth when no food is present loses some smaller number of points. On each (synchronous) generation, each individual's strategy specifies its behavior with respect to sound and silence: whether it makes a sound audible by its immediate neighbors when it eats or not, whether it reacts to such a sound from its neighbors by opening or closing its mouth, and whether it reacts to silence from its neighbors by opening or closing its mouth. The strategies in this simple model can thus be conceived of as triplets <s,h,o>. The first variable s represents whether the individual makes a sound or not when it successfully feeds-when a food source has landed on its open mouth. The second variable h represents a reaction to hearing such a sound: whether a strategy opens its mouth in response to hearing a sound (from itself or its immediate neighbors) or not. The third variable o represents a reaction to hearing no sound: some strategies will open their mouths on the next generation when they heard no sound at all. With three binary variables, we have a total of eight possible strategies: < 0,0,0 > Makes no sound when feeding, never opens mouth < 0,0,1 > Makes no sound when feeding, opens mouth only when it hears no sound <0,l ,0> Makes no sound when feeding, opens mouth when hears sound < 0,1,1 > Makes no sound when feeding, mouth always open < 1,0,0 > Sounds when feeding, never opens mouth < 1,0,1 > Sounds when feeding, opens mouth when hears no sound < 1,1,0 > Sounds when feeding, opens mouth when hears a sound, not otherwise < 1,1,1 > Sounds when feeding, mouth always open Starting with a randomized array of our eight strategies, we run 100 generations of food migration, scoring for points gained or lost in feeding or missing food. After each such 'century' a subroutine is run, governing strategy change. At that point each cell compares its total score over the past 100 generations with each of its immediate neighbors. If any neighbor has a higher score, it switches to that 186 PATRICK GRIM ET AL strategy. If no neighbor has a higher score, it retains its original strategy. The idea is thus an evolutionary competition between different strategies governing sounding and eating. Those strategies which prove more successful-and gain more points-can be expected to 'spread' as their surrounding neighbors converted to their strategy. Evolutionarily disadvantageous strategies can be expected to disappear. 4. THE FAILURE OF COMMUNICATION IN A PERFECT WORLD What we were primarily concerned with was the prospect for 'communicating' strategies. Considered a priori, the prime communicator would appear to be the seventh strategy listed above: < 1,1,0 >. An individual with this strategy sounds when it eats and correspondingly reacts to sound by opening its mouth. A < 1,1,0 > individual who is successfully eating, then, will sound when doing so. Individuals in the immediate neighborhood who share the same strategy will open their mouths in response to that sound. Since the food item has a 1/9 possibility of migrating to each of those mouths in the next generation, each of those < 1,1,0 > neighbors will then have a 1/9 chance of eating on the next generation.7. If no sound is heard in the immediate neighborhood, on the other hand, < 1,1,0 > cells will keep their mouths closed, preventing them from the loss of points charged for a mouth open when no food is present. The one detail we haven't yet specified is what values are to be assigned for the 'gain' of successful feeding and the loss of opening one's mouth but failing to feed. For what gain and loss will communication prove evolutionarily advantageous in such a model?8 Throughout our investigations we in fact used a 'loss' of 0.1; the question thus becomes what behavioral strategies would be favored given different sizes of 'gain' relative to this loss. The surprising answer was that our 'communicator' strategy < 1,1,0 > took over in none of our runs. For low gains-gains of 1 through 3, for example-<l,l,0> establishes a static equilibrium with strategies <0,0,0>, <0,l ,0>, EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 187 and < 1,0,0 >. All sound eventually ceases, and all four of these strategies remain with their mouths closed. As a result all get uniform scores of 0. No cell changes strategies in the subroutine, and the result is a frozen world occupied by several static strategies (Figure 3a). At the high end of the scale-for a gain of 9, for example-the significant players are strategies <0,0,l> and <0,1,1 >. One or the other of these, and sometimes a combination, generally occupy the bulk of the array. Some other single strategy may survive for a significant period in smaller islands, however: <0,0,0>, <0, l ,0>, <l,0,0>, or our 'communicator' < l , l , 0 > . Here too, however, sound disappears quite quickly. Strategies in possession either have their mouths open all the time or closed all the time-our 'communicator' has no variable input of sound, and thus no variable output as a result. These are not static worlds, since territories of different strategies continue to shift (Figure 3b). But from the point at which silence is reached, evolution of the array becomes simply a random «»"ifîfKsifÏKilà'iï "I ' " "® • . : : : . • . •:•• 3B&M ^ & u & il#ifs!ï«!ll..!i!i'i"N:iiiIr* .T. : • • • • • • » •«^••••••»»»»«••B Hgure 3a Gain 1, Loss 0.1, with 'Communicators' < l , l ,0> Shown in White: a Static Silent World. 188 PATRICK GRIM ET AL. Figure 3b Gain 5, Loss 0.1. A Stage of Silent but Dynamic Equilibrium between <0,0,1 >, <0, l , l> (with Open Mouths), < l , l ,0> (shown in White) and <0,l ,0>. matter of where food happens to fall, and thus of whether individuals with consistently open mouths get a better balance of 'gain' and 'loss' than the constant zero awarded to cells which never open their mouths (Figure 3c). That factor which correlated most clearly with relative gain, and the best predictor of array evolution, was time to silence. For gains 1 through 9 (that is, 10 to 90 times the value for a loss), all sound in the array eventually ceased. Since there were then no strategies on the board making sounds when fed, there was no longer any possibility for the selective reaction to sound characteristic of communication. The time to silence showed a clear increase with the ratio of gain to loss: for a gain of 1 silence was reached in about two centuries. For a gain of 4 it was reached in about 10 centuries. For gains of 5, 6, and 7 the time to silence was approximately 30, 35, and 45 centuries. For low gains, favoring closed-mouthed strategies with uniform scores of 0, silent worlds are frozen worlds: all strategies have a uniform score of 0 and thus no 'conversion' takes place. For higher gains silent worlds need not be frozen: < 0,0,1 > and < 0,1,1 >, EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 189 Figure 3c One Possible Evolution for Gain 9, Loss O.I: a Silent World Dominated by <0,l,l > but with Islands of < 1,1,0>. both of which sit in silence with their mouths open, continue to gain points in even a silent world, and random migration of food can result in change of territory. Not surprisingly, the higher the ratio of gain to loss, the more quickly open-mouthed strategies occupy major parts of the array. In no case did our 'communicator' grow to occupy the entire array. Within the perfect world of this first model, communication did not have the advantage we hypothesized for it. Why did our communicator < 1,1,0 > do so poorly? In retrospect, it seems clear that the communicators in this perfect world are disadvantaged by the fact that they cannot initiate successful communication. A < 1,1,0 > cell will respond to eating by making a sound heard by its neighbors. But it will open its mouth-the necessary prerequisite to eating-only if it hears a sound. Thus food items introduced into a uniform field of < l , l ,0> would forever migrate uneaten: No-one would have heard the sound necessary to open their 190 PATRICK GRIM ET AL mouths, and thus no-one will have fed. If no-one has fed, no-one will make the sound necessary for others to open their mouths. Consider therefore a duster or community of < 1,1,0 > (among cells of other strategies) at some point in the development of this model. As long as a member of that community is successfully feeding, the food will continue to be eaten by its neighbors-one will be able to watch the food migrate across the cluster of cooperative strategies, always landing on an open mouth. Once the food migrates to a strategy which does not make a sound when it feeds, however, it can migrate back across the communicator cells without being eaten at all. At that point the < l , l ,0> community has to hope for a neighbor who makes a sound, preferably when eating but possibly when not (giving the opportunity for a random 'feed'). In this first perfect world, communication does not have the evolutionary advantage we expected because our perfect communicators are literally non-starters. With external input they can continue a successful trail of feeding. But without it they cannot, since as perfect communicators in a perfect world they open their mouths only in reaction to sound, but sound only when feeding. 5. THE EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION IN AN IMPERFECT WORLD In our second series of trials we quite deliberately made our strategies less perfect by introducing a stochastic element in all third values o of our strategies <s,h,o>. Here we varied strategies 1, 3, 5, and 7 above so as to allow a probability of 5% of open mouths even when no sound is heard. Strategies 2, 4, 6, and 8 are varied so as to allow a probability of 5% that they will close their mouths even when a sound is heard. All strategies, in other words, are made slighdy imperfect in their reaction to sounds or silence. Following die work of Nowak and Sigmund regarding cooperation, our attempt in the second series of trials was to model an imperfect world for communication. In this second model, then, a perfect strategy such as < 0,0,1 > is replaced with the imperfect variation <0,0,0.95>, which has a small probability of closing its mouth even when it hears no sound. Our perfect communicator < 1,1,0 > is replaced with the imperfect EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 191 < 1,1,0.05 >, which has a small probability of opening its mouth and successfully feeding even if unprimed by sound. In this stochastically imperfect world our results were emphatically in favor of communicators. For gains from I to 8, the 'communicator' strategy < 1,1,0.05 > eventually spread to cover the field in all cases (Figures 4a and b). The time to conquest Figure 4a Conquest of'Communicator' with a Gain of 5, Loss 0.1, Shown over 600 Centuries. Figure 4b Conquest of'Communicator' with a Gain of 8, Loss 0.1, Shown over 600 Centuries. 192 PATRICK GRIM ET AL seemed to fluctuate, depending perhaps as much on random initial configuration as on the value assigned for gain. The following are results from a single series of runs: With a gain of 1 (as opposed to a loss of 0.1), the communicator < 1,1,0.05 > conquered in 83 centuries (scoring series based on 100 generations of play). With a gain of 2, it conquered in 117 centuries, with a gain of 3, in 129 centuries, and with a gain of 4 in 98. With a gain of 5, <1,1,0.05 > conquered in 60 centuries, with a gain of 6 in 93, with a gain of 7 in 92, and with a gain of 8 in 84 centuries. A gain of 9 showed a victory for < 1,1,0.05 > as well, but only after 1,510 centuries. For gains of 10 or greater, on the other hand, our communicative strategy was eliminated entirely (Figure 4c). Here evolution favored instead one or both strategies <0,0,0.95 > or <0,l,0.95>, with the latter generally dominant. Neither < 0,0,0.95 > nor <0,1,0.95 > makes any sound when feeding, and both open their mouths with a probability of 0.95 when they hear no sound. The only difference between them is that <0,1,0.95> opens its mouth and <0,0,0.95> closes its mouth when they hear a sound. Our cooperative <1,1,0.05 > sounds when feeding, thereby benefitting both itself and neighboring <0,l,0.95>, but opens its mouth only on hearing a sound. In a neighborhood of dominant strategies < 0,0,0.95 > or <0,1,0.95 >, then, our cooperator will avoid the 0.1 Figure 4c 'Communicator' Extinguished with a Gain of 10, Loss 0.1, Shown over 600 Centuries. EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 193 loss they pay for an unfed open mouth but will often go unfed in cases in which these other strategies feed-a food item will have migrated from an area of the other strategies without a warning sound. < 1,1,0.05 >'s advantage in avoiding loss for an open mouth unfed is thus paid for with a greater probability of failing to capture food with an open mouth. With an array of our size containing 50 food items, it turns out, a gain of 10 makes this trade-off disadvantageous and our communicators are extinguished as a result. How low can the gain be and still show an advantage for our communicator? In order to find out, we ran a further series of tests using gains of 0.1 through 0.9 against the standard loss of 0.1. Our 'communicator' < 1,1,0.05 > was eliminated entirely for gains of 0.6 or lower: strategies <0,0,0.05>, <0,l,0.05>, and < 1,0,0.05 > tended to hold the field entirely, with no communication and scores tending toward zero throughout. For a gain of 0.8, on the other hand, <1,1,0.05 > might conquer the entire field at 237 centuries, and for a gain of 0.9 it might conquer after 137 centuries. A gain of 0.7 seemed to mark a very extended competition, going eventually to our 'communicator', but only after a number of centuries that varied from 500 to 1,000 (Figures 5a and b). Figure 5a Rocky Evolution Toward Communication with a Gain of 0.7, Loss 0.1, Shown over 600 Centuries. 194 PATRICK GRIM ET AL. Figure 5b Conquest by Communication with a Gain of 0.9, Loss 0.1, Shown over 600 Centuries. 6. CONCLUSION What these simple models seem to indicate is that communication proves to be an evolutionary advantage only in a world that is not communicatively perfect. For communication to flourish, advantaged responses such as opening one's mouth must also happen independently of receipt of a communicative message, even if they happen only randomly. If all action depends on communication, the benefits of communication disappear. We think these results tie in quite nicely with the earlier work on cooperation in perfect and imperfect worlds. Nowak and Sigmund's work has made it clear that an imperfect world favors greater cooperation in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. The work above indicates that an imperfect world is required in order to advantage simple forms of communication as well. These two classes of models are very different in a number of regards, of course-here the competition of the Prisoner's Dilemma plays no role, for example. Nonetheless the general conclusion that an imperfect world favors communication as it does cooperation should perhaps have been expected. Communication is, after all, a particular form of cooperation. EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 195 Notes 1. Opposition to the classical approach might be characterized as Wittgensteinian, though that may also be where our affinities with Wittgenstein end. 2. In the round-robin tournaments each strategy was pitted against every other, plus itself and a single 'strategy' producing a random scries of plays. The winner was that strategy with the most points over all. 3. In Nowak and Sigmund's work, unlike Axelrod's, the model is built in terms of a mathematical fiction of an infinitely iterated game. Given stochastically imperfect strategies, an infinite scries of games will swamp the effect of any initial play, and strategies can therefore be specified without mention of the initial move. See Grim 1995, 1996. 4. All software is available upon request from the authors. 5. There are very few previous models for communication of the sort we outline here. MacLennan 1991 proposes a model in which 'senders' and 'receivers' are both rewarded in cases of successful communication involving arbitrary symbols, and in which communicative strategies are perfected through the application of a genetic algorithm. A major limitation of the model is that communication in no way arises 'naturally': communicative matches are judged from the outside, as it were, and not only those receiving the message but those sending it are rewarded from the outside when a match is made. As Ackley and Littman 1994 note, the result is an arrtificial situation "where 'truthful speech' by a speaker and 'right action' by a listener causes food to rain down on both." Werner and Dyer 1991 introduced a feature that our model shares-a spatially distributed population. Their model is limited to communication which facilitates reproduction by allowing 'males' and 'females' to find each other more rapidly, however, and the fact that a globally-mixing rather than a local reproductive strategy is used seems to limit the benefits of spatialization. Here again, moreover, communication is modeled as a process which somehow rewards both sender and receiver simultaneously. Ackley and Littman 1994 attempted to improve on these earlier attempts by studying the evolution of communication in at least a limited spatial environment and in response to food and predators-a construction which rewards communication only indirectly as it contributes to successful feeding and avoidance of harm. Ackley and Littman immediately complicate their model, however, with a blizzard of interacting factors: individual, local and global organizational levels, scoring and processing in different ways at different points, a distinction between genotype and phenotype, the complications of 32-unit neural nets coded with both synaptic specification genes and pseudo-genes which are processed by genetic algorithm, and finally reproductive festivals declared at official holidays and a peculiar wind-driven diffusion. We consider Ackley and Iittman's work a warning against over-ambitious and baroque model building: their conclusions prove difficult to interpret precisely because the model itself is so unnecessarily over-complicated. In terms of general approach rather than model details, the closest philosophical ancestor of our work is that of Bryan Skyrms 1996, itself a sophisticated response to David Lewis's groundbreaking work in Lewis 1969. 196 PATRICK GRIM ET AL. 6. For each of 50 food items, our programming chose initial random numbers between 1 and 64 for each axis on the 64 x 64 array. Thus it is possible that less than 50 cells originally contained food items. At each generation each food item randomly 'walked' 0 or 1 cell in each direction, again with the result that less than 50 cells might contain food items at any one generation. In general the number of cells containing food items on any one generation was approximately 49. 7. Because of the complication noted in note 1, this can be taken as only a rough probability: there is a small probability that there may be two food items 'superimposed' on a cell that is feeding, in which case the probability of a surrounding cell being fed on the next generation will be significantly greater than 1/9. 8. One can easily calculate that point at which a uniformly open mouth is of equal value to a uniformly closed mouth in such a model. Where f is the number of food particles, n is the number of cells, g is our gain and 1 is our loss, the breakpoint will be: fg + (n-f)l = 0 For fifty food items, a display of 64 × 64 cells, and a loss of 0.1, the breakpoint for our gain 'is approximately 8.09. At a gain greater than that, universally open mouths are advantaged over closed mouths. At a gain lower than that, universally closed mouths have the advantage. The reason this is not the whole of the story, of course, is that we have a varied population of cells, with more sophisticated repertoires than merely open and closed mouths. Results later in the paper indicate that communication significantly complicates the picture. References Ackley, D. and Liftman, M., 1994. Altruism in the Evolution of Communication. In Rodney A. Brooks and Pattie Maes, eds., Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems (MIT Press), 40-48. Axelrod, R. 1980a. Effective choice in the Prisoner's Dilemma. J. Conf. Resolut. 24, 3-25. Axelrod, R. 1980b. More effective choice in the Prisoner's Dilemma. J. Conf Resolut. 24, 379403. Axelrod, R. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation (Basic Books, New York). Axelrod, R. 1985. The emergence of cooperation among egoists. In T. Campbell and L. Sowden, eds., Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation (Univ. Of British Columbia Press, Vancouver). Axelrod, R. and Hamilton, W. 1981. The evolution of cooperation. Science 211, 1390-1396. Grim, P. 1995. Greater generosity in the spatialized Prisoner's Dilemma. J. Theo. Bio. 173, 353-359. Grim, P 1996. Spatialization and greater generosity in the stochastic Prisoner's Dilemma. BioSystems 37, 3-17. Grim, P., Mar, G. and St. Denis, P. 1998. The Philosophical Computer: Exploratory Essays in Philosophical Computer Modeling (MIT Press/Bradford Books). Lewis, David, 1969. Convention (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA). EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION 197 Maclennan, B. 1991. Synthetic Ethology: An approach to the study of communication. In C. G. Langton, C. Taylor, J. D. Farmer, and S. Rasmussen, eds., Artificial Life II, SF1 Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, vol. X (Addison-Wesley), 631-655. Nowak, M. and Sigmund, K. 1990. The evolution of stochastic strategies in the prisoner's dilemma. Acta Applicandae Mathematicae 20, 247-265. Nowak, M. and Sigmund, K. 1992, Tit for tat in heterogeneous populations. Nature 355, 250-252. Sigmund, K. 1993. Games of Life (Oxford University Press, New York). Skyrms, B. 1996. Evolution of the Social Contract (Cambridge University Press, New York). Werner, G. and Dyer, M. 1991. Evolution of Communication in Artificial Organisms. In C. G. Langton, C. Taylor, J. D. Farmer, and S. Rasmuseen, eds., Artificial Life II, SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, vol. X (Addison-Wesley), 659-687.


UniversalâA Continent beyond Tradition

Philosophy

The global scale of contemporary human life and activity places us in a generic conflict between our identity as individuals and our awareness of the individual's global responsibilities. We face a conflict between the reassuring condition of living according to tradition and the unsettling condition of living in the "new continent" where human self-constitution has global implications. The cohesive set of shared traditional values and ideals is effectively overwritten by the possibility and necessity of innovation in response to global demands. Many paths between the ideal of universahsm and the individual's instantiation in tradition have been contemplated by philosophers and social activists. Given the current dynamics of change, most of these projects, while of good intendon, are nevertheless profoundly naÃ¯ve in their fundamental assumptions. We are at a crossroads in which we experience a condition of instability that precedes any fundamental bifurcation. But in contrast to the dominant view that instability is by definition negative, we are witnessing an extraordinary explosion of creativity.

Universal: A Continent Beyond Tradition Plenary session, Third World Congress of the International Society for Universalism, Babson College, Wellesley MA, 7 August 1998 When concepts become headlines, we witness – like it or not – their funeral. With real sadness, I have to acknowledge that both universality and tradition (among other things) are in this situation today. Once appropriated in political discourse, they are emptied of what makes them important to philosophers and scientists – who in a given context express an understanding and determination of practical experiences shaped by this understanding. What have we learned from the experience of constituting the concept of tradition? That human beings tend to shelter themselves from change. Tradition expresses a longing for stability, and thus results from a cognitive effort of generalization and abstraction further translated into a prescriptive script. But let us not take the high road of analytical philosophical exercise without acknowledging the extraordinary scope of the qualifier "tradition." There is the action – expressed through the call "Become part of the tradition" – that applies from learning rules of agriculture or Latin texts to becoming a member of a marching band or paying for Fourth of July fireworks (defined as an American tradition). And there is the mystique of traditional medicine (Chinese, American Indian, Ayurvedic), of traditional cuisine (charcoal vs. gas grill, simmering vs. microwaving), of celebrations (weddings, funerals, May Day), of the ancient, pre-Christian, Druid or Mayan ways of reacting the environment. There is the discussion of a semantic tradition, an alliterative tradition, a geometric tradition. And there is much in the current state of world affairs that brings tribal traditions to mind: riots in Portadown over a parade, wars in Kosovo, Chechenya, slaughter in Rwanda and Iraq, economic recession in Japan (the list of regions and concerns can go on). The concept of universal (and implicitly universality, although the philosophic tradition requires a clear-cut distinction between the two) is a bit less subject to this extraordinary proliferation; but when it arrives in public discourse, it is as trivialized as tradition is. "Rights are universal," the president of the USA just announced to the Chinese. So are traffic signs (or they should be because people drive all over the world). And so is American English as the lingua "franca" (actually anglica, and no longer franca) of the worlds of business, air travel, and science and technology. And do not forget Ë and – to approach something I want to bring up – the Feigenbaum number, brought to us by chaos theory (the science of dynamic systems), or the Boolean logic embodied in every digital transaction. In the conceptual world of our pure thoughts, we can discuss the universal and the traditional from any imaginable perspective. But once we get down to the human experience of constituting tradition or universality through concrete actions, we soon realize that what counts is their pragmatic dimension (1). Our ability to articulate meaningful sentences about the traditional or the universal (and any other concept, for that matter), is affected by the changes we are experiencing at this time in history. The pragmatics of tradition is the sum total of everything people do under the assumption and expectation of stability. The pragmatics of the universal is no less the human action of realizing the dimension of universality even to the extent that it collides in subtle and less subtle ways with tradition. This might already have the sound and flavor of a conclusion, one that is not derived from arguments but from a conceptual perspective that I have yet to disclose. But this cannot happen before I succinctly define the purpose and method of the inquiry whose results are the object of this paper. The utopian call to philosophers – Stop contemplating the world and dedicate yourselves to changing it! – builds on a romantic notion of the role individuals (philosophers or not) play in society. It promotes activism over ideas (although it is by nature and expression idealistic), not unlike many other developments peculiar to the Industrial Society. However, many things have changed since that call was issued and eventually turned into a political program. We are now in the age of the global scale of human life and activity. Within the scale of globality, our self-constitution as individuals places us in a generic conflict: the individual – discreet existence identified on a local level – and the world in which individual awareness and sense of reciprocal responsibility unfold – existence at the global scale of what effectively constitutes humankind. More precisely, it is the conflict between the reassuring condition of living in tradition – embodied in experiences within a limited space (local or national borders) and under the assumption of permanency and progression – and life in the new continent of experiences of human self-constitution at the global scale and within an accelerated time of ever shorter durations. The cohesive set of shared values and ideals of tradition is effectively overwritten by the possibility and necessity of novelty and innovation – an expression of the necessary efficiency of human experiences at the global scale that humankind has reached. Between the ideal of universalism, corresponding to expectations of unabated meliorist enthusiasm and individual instantiation in tradition, corresponding to reified values as they were validated in past practical experiences, many possible paths have been contemplated by philosophers and social activists. The current dynamics of change is such that almost all of these well intended projects prove to be at most of good intention but nevertheless profoundly naive in their fundamental assumptions. Instability as a creative blessing We are at a crossroads in which we experience a condition of instability that precedes any fundamental bifurcation. But as opposed to the dominant view that instability is by definition a negative occurrence, we are witnessing probably the most extraordinary explosion of creativity in the entire history of humankind, matched only by the destructive forces, firmly rooted in various traditions, unleashed as well in this context. To make things clear: first, my purpose is to address change from a cognitive perspective with a focus on understanding the necessary character of change; second, my method is abduction, as Peirce called it: the constitution and pursuit of hypotheses beyond what induction (observation) can support, as well as beyond what deduction affords. (For more on abduction, please see reference section, 2.) Here is the announced abduction: The dynamics of change in any system depends on its underlying structure. In the case of human society, the way change takes place and its pace are in relation to the practical experience of human self-constitution, more precisely, the means through which this experience takes place. By self-constitution I mean how an individual or group of individuals asserts their own characteristics – biological, cognitive, emotional – in the environment of their existence. The constitution of oneself as an accountant or philosopher corresponds to the pragmatic environment, that is, the need and possibility for accounting and/or philosophy. That is, one pursues a certain path of identifications in respect to others. As a species, humans constitute themselves through their pragmatic and heuristic condition; in other words, through what they do and through dedication to inquiry. This pertains to rationality as it pertains to the emotional component of all those activities through which we identify ourselves. Rationality connects human practical experiences to consistent inferences (sometimes identified as logical conclusions) and to the ability to predict events in nature and society, or even to influence and control them. To orient oneself in a given time and environment – for example, at night while on water – one infers from information available (stars, wind direction and strength) to the goal pursued. In each and every different pragmatic framework, inference changes; and the human changes as well. The rationality implicit in oral communication is different from that of the written. In the oral, the messenger is the assurance; in the written, the authority embodied in the message. Literacy became the guarantor of inferences to the extent that experiences of self-constitution within it ended up being less the result of new cognitive effort and more of comfortable acceptance. By way of one example, it suffices to recall fascist ideology and the war it triggered in order to understand a literate inference that went wrong. The ideal of a world turned into factories (the so-called socialist model of industrialization) is another example. The notion of linear progression – that the future builds on what preceded it, as opposed to the dynamics in which the future determines a current state – is also part of this rationality archived in all literate discourse. Each historic sequence is preceded by a phase of instability. The seeds of its creative unfolding are sown during such a phase. I mentioned the Feigenbaum number as a universal descriptor of a world whose main characteristic is its dynamics. In this world, which pretty much surrounds us – take a look at the trees, clouds, ripples on a lake's surface – we encounter intervals of stability as well as intervals preceding change. There is a universality of patterns in this world of change, as there are also many distinctions that can be recognized. Although the branching of a fir tree is and will remain different from that of an oak or a palm tree, the intervals between succeeding branches become shorter in a sequence that is captured by the Feigenbaum number (which, incidentally, is = 4.669201660...). Various studies on population – not just human – show that the same pattern of change can be acknowledged. In a given ecological space, the growth of population follows a non-linear pattern in which the doubling of numbers occurs at intervals that become shorter and shorter. The population clock of humankind ticks at a rhythm quite well described by the algorithm behind the Feigenbaum number. But here I shall leave Feigenbaum behind us once again as I proceed in a direction that might cause some unease: If rationality is solely related to our ability to articulate thoughts and express them through means characteristic of literacy, we might just be at the very end of that possibility, since literacy itself is reaching its end. Indeed, due to its inherent structural characteristics, literacy is no longer the appropriate mold for the variety of practical experiences of the human self-constitution that has become necessary as human activity reaches the scale of globality. Why do I claim that literacy is reaching its end, or at least the end of its dominant role as molder of humans constituting themselves through their pragmatics? Literacy is the last and strongest embodiment (or mold, or paradigm) of human self-constitution that led to industrial society. Its main characteristics are: sequentiality, linearity, centralism, hierarchization, continuity, permanence, uniformity and, of course, universalism. Sequentiality is the creation of a chain of successive actions. Writing embodies sequentiality: one letter follows another. The word or the sentence is a larger sequence. Some sequences are linear: start with a piece of metal, process it according to a plan, pass the resulting piece to the next manufacturing procedure. Within linear sequences, cause and effect are kept close to each other. For example, the force used to hammer a hot piece of metal determines the result. The structure of sequences, linear progression, and determinism also makes way for hierarchy – what is deemed most important – and centralism – around which locus or goal an entire process revolves. All these characteristics of human work and living are embedded in the culture of reading and writing and preserved through it. Opposed to these are the non-literate characteristics of the new pragmatics in which humans beings constitute themselves. Experiences of thinking and working above and beyond literate natural language – multimedia, architecture, design, music, mathematics, visualization in the fields of medicine, physics, aviation, mathematics, meteorology, astronomy, to name a very few – are different in nature from those shaped by the literate mold. We are effectively engaged in interactions that are neither sequential, centralized, nor hierarchical in nature, and in which dependencies are non-linear. Work is distributed and highly parallel; resources (not just raw materials, but human resources as well) are drawn from the global arena, which is far from being universal in its Weltanschauung. A short history: What drove the engine of change in the very first stages of humankind was survival under circumstances of a disjoint set of "worlds" (natural and human) that made up a world in which nobody really had the upper hand. As survival was progressively replaced by expectations beyond those accounted for in the Darwinian scheme (as imperfect as it is), human beings reached a stage of ever-increasing dependencies among those belonging to it and making up their respective partial "humankinds" – the village, the city, states, nations. Overcoming singularity It is beyond the scope of this paper to detail the development in question, but let's take a shot at the broader image. The practical experiences of human beings are attested at roughly 2.5 million years ago; language use came much later, about 200,000 years ago. Agriculture as a patterned experience emerged around 19,000 years ago, and writing probably 5,000 years ago. I hope you notice the shorter intervals between these crucial developments. As we come closer to our time, trade, alphabetic writing, a pre-industrial age, and, of course, the Industrial Revolution become part of the human pragmatic system. What this chronology does not immediately convey is that in the process, individuals relate more and more to each other, effectively overcoming their singularity. Scale is the expression of many relations, qualitative as well as quantitative, through which individuals overcome singularity and integrate themselves in the life and destiny of the entire human population. The notion of scale is critical in explaining the major transitions in the human pragmatic experience mentioned above because scale turns out to be the parameter that controls dynamics. The notion of scale allows us to understand how quantity and quality merge as the interplay of the infinite number of variables involved in the process of reaching self-awareness gains in significance. Moreover, this interplay becomes part of self-awareness. Abilities other than natural (e.g., yelling, hurling, running, plucking, etc.) that result as humans constitute themselves as a singular species unfold as scale changes. Planting, cooking, herding, chanting, using tools become possible when changes in scale cause efficiency levels beyond mere survival not only possible, but necessary. Within a crude scale of life and death, neither tradition nor universality are possible. To the extent that biological elements dominate, reactions are the only expressions of existence. As underlying adaptive strategies are progressively embodied in self-constitutive practical experiences, both tradition and universality become possible. Biological mechanisms are acknowledged through them; so are a multitude of factors making up the polygenetic interplay of forces affecting the nature and condition of human beings. Neither tradition nor universality can emerge in a reactive world. But as the new nature, that is, culture, consolidates, a new experience – interpretation – becomes possible. Both tradition and universality originate from this. Where there is no interpretation, there can be no tradition and no universality. Tradition is the expression of particular patterns corresponding to the partial "humankinds" self-constituted through practical experiences well adapted to their circumstances of existence (geography, climate, shared survival strategies and shared values, etc.). The universal, at least at first glance, is mere generalization of tradition. It celebrates the apparent unity of nature and culture, or the unity of humankind to the extent that its constituents are aware of it. However, as the experience of work and the cognitive experience of storing information regarding successful actions differentiate, due to various factors going into self-constitution, tradition and the universal diverge. For example, the various religious traditions vary around the world, and are formed in response to the pragmatics of existence. Still, religion, or better yet what was called religious belief, remains universal. Two peoples live along a seacoast; one, with good natural harbors, develops a large commercial shipping industry while the other, with a sandy, sloping shore, remains agricultural. In industrial society, tradition and the universal often conflict, not the least because the machine – a universal model – and the appropriate self-constitution in industrial work negate all traditions preceding it. Tradition is increasingly associated with the past, while the universal seems more an unattainable abstract ideal than a concrete embodiment of a longing for transcending immediacy and directness (Unmittelbarkeit, as German philosophy describes it). Vive la différence! With each experience of individual self-constitution, the phylogenesis of the human being, and thus of the species, is repeated. In a nutshell, this process results in the renewed constitution of human nature, more precisely in the sequence leading from survival instincts to needs to growing expectations. Scale thus entails the intricate relation among population, resources, productivity, variety of human practical experiences and their interrelationship; means for survival, human needs (above and beyond survival) expectations, indeed, the right to partake in the well-being of society. If numbers were related only to survival needs, history would follow a relatively linear path, or at most the geometric pattern of growth that Malthus, among others, described. Beyond geometric growth, non-linearity, along with the dynamic succession of relatively stable periods followed by instability and ending in major bifurcations, originates in the fact that each member of the universal set called humankind is actually subject to extreme forces that mold what we call individuality. To be part of the species is to be the same ("...all men are created equal" proclaims the American Declaration of Independence), but also to be different: "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Sameness is the mansion of tradition. Rights make up the palace of universalism, provided that at its entrance we read or hear or experience what the French expression "Vive la différence!" celebrates. Literacy served both; and as always happens in the relation between those served and the servants, they become dependent on one another. This is why any reference to tradition recalls language in the first place, while references to the universal assume that thinking can take place only in and through language. The obsession with literacy is definitely justified within the pragmatic framework that made literacy necessary, i.e., the pragmatics of industrial production. Every characteristic of the self-constitution of individuals as literate is embodied in this society. Within the scale of humanity that made industrial society necessary, the underlying structure of the latter supports literacy, and literacy reinforces it. Sequentiality, linearity, determinism, and centralism, defined above, are identifiers of practical experiences involved in factory work, creating art, politics, education, religion, ethics, and philosophy. There is nothing that corresponds to practical experiences of human self-constitution in a system with a literate underlying structure that escapes these characteristics The only component not subject to literacy is the scale of humankind. Up to a certain moment, accommodations to literacy within the growing scale were possible. They took place mainly through methods of optimization (such as specialization and automation), and expressed through reforms (concerning working conditions, weekly work hours, tariffs, fair trade practices). Instability sets in as reform no longer adequately squares the variables of the process. What is happening in Europe today – stagnation in education and politics, high unemployment – as governments insist on applying "traditional" methods, holdovers from the literate industrial society, to problems that escape the bonds of the literate characteristics of a bygone pragmatic framework is a good example of such an unstable state. In the USA, education is in the same condition of suffering from more of what served a purpose 100 years ago, but no longer. The happy news is that the bifurcations heralded by this instability open up new avenues for opportunity and progress. We are now before such a bifurcation, for which the syntagm "Post-Industrial" has been used, and which I have tried to describe through the provocative, but limiting, expression "Civilization of Illiteracy." What I actually have in mind is a civilization of many "literacies," each with its own characteristics. Even the word "literacies" is misleading because each such language has characteristics different from those of the literacy based on natural language. The fundamental difference is that literate characteristics no longer constitute the underlying structure of effective practical experiences. As opposed to the domination of one literacy, which after millennia reached its zenith around the turn of the century, no one language dominates. This domination, which the educational system still insists upon, takes place through the imposition of its characteristics. We experience them as rules. These rules impede practical experiences in domains where literacy has exhausted its potential: jurisprudence (with its antiquated language and procedures), the sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics, education, business, even politics and philosophy. And they hinder the exploration of new domains. This is less obvious in the USA where the avenues for self-constitution are more open than in Europe. As a matter of fact, the USA is in the position it is today despite literacy, but certainly not because of it. There are highly literate societies – one might even say highly traditional societies – that have outlawed genetic research, only to find that the literate act of outlawing something that does not fall within the literate domain means much less in the age of globality than it did in the pragmatic context of the Industrial Age. And we all know of societies so deeply committed to the underlying structure molded by tradition (including literacy) that they simply cannot catch up to the new dynamic of development. The so-called Asia crisis is for me a confirmation of the main thesis spelled out in The Civilization of Illiteracy. It is the crisis of a society captive to tradition – one reflected even in its system of language and writing, as well as in its industrial structure – despite the outward appearance of dynamism. It flirted with a pragmatic that does not abide competition from tradition. Probably only discontinuity – a rash break with the underlying structure of tradition – can save the societies and economies of the former Asian tigers. Feigenbaum's number deserves mention again here. We are confronted with the increased speed of human endeavor and with shorter cycles of production, development, and research. Fragmentation and interconnectedness of the world, the new technology of synchronization, the dynamics of life forms and of artificial constructs (ALife is but a new domain of science and philosophy) elude the dominating force of literacy as they constitute a new pragmatic framework. Reflecting the fact that a part of humankind has reached yet another critical mass, at which adjustments to scale require a new pragmatics of higher efficiency, humankind effectively abandons the fragmented territory of a multiplicity of reciprocally contradictory traditions and enters the new continent of an integrating universality. This is a mouthful of words that mean probably as little as any demagogic discourse supporting literacy and traditional institutions. But behind these words is the reality of a concerted effort to discover and utilize alternative resources, compensating for what was perceived as limited natural means for supporting humankind. The search for alternatives is characteristic of progressive self-constitution. Those individuals and societies who do not, stagnate. (And we refer to them as "traditional.") On a much smaller scale of human activity and thousands of years ago, the Phoenicians were obliged to search for alternative natural resources. Their commerce and the record-keeping it entailed set humankind on the slow path towards literacy. Today, at a much greater scale of existence, humans search for alternatives that are mainly cognitive in nature, transcending the limitations of an intrinsically linear, centralized, hierarchic, and proportional model of contingencies. The picture could look less attractive than we would like it to be. It seems as though in accepting the Feigenbaum number describing the temporal succession of various underlying structures, we also accept a high level of fatalistic forces that pre-empt any form of social activism or meliorist activity. Tradition opposes integration; local wars, which when added together total up to above the level of a world war, are only the expression of what obsession with tradition can lead to, and in doing so opposes the transcendence of all those barriers and borders that emerged in the pragmatic context of literacy. Democracy and self-organization The fragile, but very significant, relation between sameness and difference is probably the most exciting aspect of the subject I discuss in these pages. Sameness – to be like others, to have access to what others have, to maintain one's condition – can be a moving target insofar that the criteria of sameness keep changing. Democracy is the offspring of human experiences based on the postulate of sameness – which is the main assumption of any tradition. Alternatives derive from the dynamics of difference – the only universal characteristic of humankind. Difference, from an individual's DNA to the never-ending self-constitution of individuality in practical experiences is the source of the dynamics of change. This dynamics takes the form known in the science of dynamic systems as self-organization. Up to this moment in human evolution, social forms of variable organization, based on interactive optimization (reforms) and learning, geared towards preservation, triggered and maintained the obsession with tradition. As the critical mass corresponding to the global scale has been reached, all those disconnected (or barely related) partial "humanities" that made up a generic humankind are integrated in the broader reality of a species ascertaining not only dominance over its environment, but also an active role outside the direct universe of its biological existence. The unified pragmatic context of digitally based work that is emerging in the world has as its underlying structure a universal language: binary language (characteristica universalis, as Leibnitz prophetically called it) which, combined with what is known as the algebra of thought (cf. Boole), supports the effective integration of the only unlimited sources we can think of – cognitive resources – in human activity. Adaptability results from diversity. Nuclei of human self-organization corresponding to the diversity of practical experiences in this world will allow for, and indeed require, the multiplicity of languages (means of interaction and communication) of the universal civilization following the civilization of literacy. Self-organization is therefore a process that takes place at a variety of levels, stimulated and supported by the energy corresponding to differences among all individuals and their variable congregation in groups of pursuit (characterized by transience, commonalty, as well as similarity, dissimilarity, occasional coordinates). One does not need to be Chinese in order to use traditional Chinese medicine, as one does not need to live physically in what used to be equated with a certain community in order to partake in its traditions. Communities emerging and disappearing under these circumstances of change are endowed, by the nature of their emergence, with the equivalent of immune systems: they recognize and counteract agents of destruction, agents of social illness, of community self-destruction. Collapse and catastrophe as opposed to hope and unprecedented possibilities – these are the qualifiers emerging from the discussion on the universal as a continent beyond tradition. Perceiving chances for social renewal in interactions that lead to transcending tradition does not mean that tradition should be discarded. But there is no alternative to achieving the value and the dynamic of the universal without freedom from tradition. The electronic forum of the European Commission, involved in the Project Information Society, lists Ten Bones of Contention, from which I chose the following: "The system we are stuck with and frantically trying to fix comes from another time and an entirely different set of circumstances. It is changing massively in front of our noses and needs to be completely rethought and radically overhauled." Does this mean disconnection from the past? Santayana was wrong in his assertion that those who forget the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them. Those who live in tradition can only go as far as the pragmatics from which these traditions resulted. We are who and what we are in our inquisitive interaction with others. Our minds exist only through this interaction (3). This statement says in effect that to philosophize became part of the process of human self-constitution and identification. The only referent of philosophy is the human being constituted in practical experiences. Together with other surviving literacies, philosophic literacy will be one of many. The philosophy of the civilization of illiteracy will reflect the circumstances of work and life characteristic of the pragmatic framework. It will also be subjected to the severe test of market exigencies as these reflect efficiency expectations characteristic of the new scale of humankind. Short of living off the past, as literacy, religion, and art do, philosophy needs to refocus on reason as the compass of human activity. Focusing on alternative practical experiences, philosophy can practically help people to free themselves from the obsession with progress – seen as a sequence of ever-escalating records (of production, distribution, expectation) – and moreover, from the fear of all its consequences. It can also focus people's attention on alternatives to everything that affects the integrity of the species and its sense of quality, including the relation to their environment. When past, present, and future collapse into the illiterate frenzy of the instant, philosophy owes to those who question its articulations an honest approach to the question, "Is there a future?" But as this future takes shape in the presence of humans partaking in the open world of networked interactions, banalities will not do. In advancing this pragmatic perspective of the universal, I chose to undertake an elaboration well beyond the short-breathed argumentation peculiar to this moment in time. The argument of this presentation is that answers cannot result from tradition, as they cannot come from infatuation with technology, cultural self-replication, models based on biological mechanisms, unfocused bionomic , or unfounded models of the universal, usually reduced to an anthropocentric model of rationality. Affirmations above and beyond the rhetoric of intellectual controversy and political discourse must originate from those affirmative actions through which our identity as individuals, communities, and society are established at a level of universality never before reached. The metaphor of the interactive future beyond tradition, which I submit here, is the expression of a simple thesis: At the global scale, human interaction, as the concrete form of engaging infinitely diverse cognitive resources, is the last available resource on which the future of the species can depend. Globality is an opportunity and a challenge. References Mihai Nadin. The Civilization of Illiteracy. Dresden: Dresden University Press, 1997. Semiotics in action: The pragmatic level, in Pragmatik, vol. IV, Philosophy of language, linquistic pragmatics, and formative pragmatics, (Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Herbert Stachowiak, Ed.). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, l993. pp. 219-250. Pragmatics in the semiotic framework, in Pragmatik, vol. II The rise of pragmatic thought in the l9th and 20th centuries ( Prof. Dr. phil. Herbert Stachowiak, Ed.). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1986. John R. and Susan G. Josephson (Editors). Abduction and Inference: Computation, Philosophy, Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Charles S. Peirce. Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis, in Popular Science Monthly, 13 August 1878, pp. 470-482. Mihai Nadin. The logic of vagueness and the category of synechism, in The Monist, 63:3, 1980 Mihai Nadin. MIND – Anticipation and Chaos (English-German parallel text).From the series "Milestones in Thought and Discovery." Stuttgart/Zü rich: Belser Presse, 1991. 176 pp.


Centripetal Federalism

Philosophy

Centripetalism is often perceived as a type of a political system for a multi-segmental, especially multi-ethnic, country in order to create among the members of the political elite of moderate, accomodative, and integrative political behavior cross-cutting segmental divisions which, reaching beyond group interests, depoliticize the segmental separateness and, in this manner, reduce their significance. One of the central institutions of centripetalism is decentralization leading to a division of large segments into smaller parts that inhabit different, ideally multi-segmental regions, thus inclining regional political elites of different segments to collaborate. Although both Nigeria and Indonesia have similar centripetal territorial structures, only Nigeria is a federation. This paper focuses on Nigerian centripetal federalism and its link to the so-called federal character principle that is mostly consociational in substance. Krzysztof Trzcinski, Centripetal Federalism, in: 50 Shades of Federalism, ed. by Soeren Keil & Paul Anderson, Canterbury: Canterbury Christ Church University & MontrÃ©al: CRÃQC, 2020.

Centripetal Federalism | 1 Centripetal Federalism Abstract Centripetalism is often perceived as a type of a political system for a multi-segmental, especially multi-ethnic, country in order to create among the members of the political elite of integrative and moderate political behavior cross-cutting segmental divisions which, reaching beyond group interests, depoliticize the segmental separateness and, in this manner, reduce their significance. One of the central institutions of centripetalism is decentralization leading to a division of large segments into smaller parts that inhabit different, ideally multi-segmental regions, thus inclining regional political elites of different segments to collaborate. Although both Nigeria and Indonesia have similar centripetal territorial structures, only Nigeria is a federation. This paper focuses on Nigerian centripetal federalism and its link to the so-called federal character principle that is mostly consociational in substance. Centripetal Federalism | 2 Introduction Centripetalism, like consociationalism, is a model of a political system of power-sharing type[1], attributed to certain multisegmental, especially multi-ethnic countries, including Nigeria and Indonesia (Reilly 2011). Centripetalism is intended to assure members of various (ethnic/national/religious/confessional/linguistic) segments of a share in power, but not as part of particular institutions protecting and reinforcing the interests of individual segments (like it is in the case of consociationalism), but in the dimension of supra-segmental, or inter-segmental institutions, i.e., institutions that are open to individuals from all segments. Such an approach is intended, above all, to create among the members of the political elite integrative and moderate political behavior cross-cutting segmental divisions which, reaching beyond group interests, depoliticize the segmental separateness and, in this manner, reduce their significance (Reilly, 2007: 83-91, 2011). Thus centripetalism, in contrast to consociationalism, does not promote institutional recognition of segmental differences and interests. Quite the contrary, the essence of centripetalism is to foster cooperation not so much between segments as between members of different segments and even sui generis forcing them to cooperate by creating an integrative institutional framework. The principal formal centripetal institutions include (Reilly 2011, Trzciński 2018b): 1) supra-regional and inter-segmental parties and, should the need arise, coalitions between them; 2) the election of a supra-segmental (supported by members of various segments) president through the use of the so-called territorial vote distribution requirement, i.e. the need to win an appropriately large number of votes in presidential elections in the majority of states or provinces (meeting this requirement is indispensable to occupy the presidential office, and merely winning a numerical majority of votes is insufficient) (Trzciński 2017a); 3) the use mainly in parliamentary elections of electoral systems that promote cross-segmental voting, especially preferential voting[2] in the form of an alternative vote in single-mandate districts or a single transferable vote in multimandate districts, or some other kind of cross-segmental vote-pooling (Reilly 2020); 4) decentralization (e.g., in the form of federalization) leading to a division of large segments into smaller parts that inhabit different, ideally multi-segmental states, thus inclining regional political elites of different segments to collaborate. Although the central centripetal institutions have been identified in the literature, in practice, centripetalism as a model of power-sharing consisting of all these institutions is rather a theoretical concept. Although one may say that pure centripetalism (however, deprived of preferential voting) did exist in Nigeria and Indonesia before those countries reintroduced certain consociational institutions. In both Nigeria and Indonesia, the history of territorial unification, and that of the ethnic and religious groups forming their populations following independence (in 1960 and 1949, respectively) has been turbulent. Both countries experienced conflicts in relations between ethnic and religious segments making up their population, as well as between such segments and the central government. In order to normalize these relations, they introduced institutions of power-sharing. In both cases, especially at the beginning of the period of independence, institutions that were either consociational or corresponding to consociationalism were the preferred ones. With time, Nigeria and Indonesia turned toward centripetal institutions since, in its restricted version, consociationalism did not guarantee political stability. But centripetal institutions also turned out to be insufficient. In consequence, with time, consociational institutions began to be added to the dominant centripetalism. Currently, as a consequence, in both cases, we can rather speak of a hybrid power-sharing model (Trzciński 2016, 2017b, 2018a), which combines the institutions of both centripetalism and consociationalism. Centripetal Federalism Although both Nigeria and Indonesia have similar centripetal territorial structures, only Nigeria is a federation. It is the most important state on the African continent, given the size of its economy, and also the most populous. Its population reached 205 million in 2020 according to estimates, and this makes it the world's seventh most populous state (Worldometers 2020). Centripetal Federalism | 3 Nigeria is also a vast country with an area of nearly 924,000 km2. It is inhabited by members of about 250 ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Hausa-Fulani (about 36% of Nigeria's population), the Yoruba (about 15%) and the Igbo (about 15%) (Index Mundi 2019). It is estimated that more than 53% of Nigeria's inhabitants are Muslims, who live mainly in the north of the country, while Christians make up about 46% of the population and live mostly in the south of the country (Index Mundi 2019). After independence, Nigeria made use of two distinct models of federalism, one after the other: ethnic and centripetal. From 1960 to 1966, Nigeria was divided simply into several regions, initially into three (North, West, and East), and from 1963 (following the separation of the Mid-Western Region from the Western one), into four. In each of the first three regions, one of the country's largest ethnic groups (Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, or the Igbo) was predominant. Nigeria's territorial division thus had the characteristics – admissible under consociationalism – of ethnic federalism. Until 1967 the northern region, amounting to over 2/3 of Nigeria's area, was the most important of all, because it was inhabited by over half the country's population and had the greatest number of electoral votes. As a result, the Hausa-Fulani consistently sought to play a dominant political role in the federation (Horowitz, 1985: 612). After the army took power in 1966, centripetal federalism began to take shape in Nigeria. In 1967, after the four regions were replaced by 12 states, the three largest ethnic groups found themselves living in as many as seven of the new territorial units. As Horowitz (1985: 604) points out, this, along with the de-legalization by the army of ethnic parties, freed the smaller ethnic groups from the control of regionally dominant groups and paved the road to new alliances. The situation changed again in 1976 when, as a result of the country's successive reorganizations of the territorial structure and the creation of 7 new states, Nigeria now had a total of 19. Horowitz has calculated that the Hausa-Fulani then lived in about half of them, the Yoruba in five, and the Igbo in two. Inter-state competition for a share in development projects financed by the central government led to an increase of intra-ethnic disputes (Horowitz, 1985: 604-5). What was also significant was the fact that in the new situation over half of the states were ethnically heterogenic. Within the new multi-ethnic states, interethnic political coalitions emerged to defend state interests. Disputes at the intra-ethnic level and inter-state rivalry reduced the risk of conflicts at the inter-ethnic and, at the same time, the federal level. These trends became more pronounced at a later time with the introduction by the army of further changes in the territorial division. In 1987, two more states were established in Nigeria, followed by nine in 1991, and another six in 1996. Suberu (2006: 73-4) points out that Nigeria's present territorial division into 36 states has led to a situation where the Hausa-Fulani Centripetal Federalism | 4 are a majority in 9 states, the Yoruba in 7, and the Igbo in 5. Federal Character Principle The various centripetal institutions established in Nigeria, mainly in the 1970s, did not ensure a balance of power between the three largest ethnic groups (Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo) and the two central religious communities (Muslims, Christians) in government and appointments to public positions. Nor did they guarantee a measure of participation in power for smaller ethnic groups. In consequence, the requirement for public bodies in Nigeria to comply with the federal character principle was introduced to the Constitution of 1979 (art. 14 [3]). This rule allows members and representatives of different ethnic groups and religious communities to participate in these bodies. In keeping with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (art. 318 [1]), the federal character principle is to promote national unity, support national loyalty, and to give each Nigerian citizen a sense of belonging to the nation, irrespective of ethnic or religious affiliation. Its wider aim is to strengthen the integration of a multisegmental society, to achieve political stability and to facilitate civilizational development. The effect of a multi-segmental composition of the council of ministers and other public bodies in keeping with the federal character principle can be sought in concordance with either the consociational or centripetal logic. The federal character principle takes on a consociational essence when it introduces parity in the form of quotas in some bodies, as is the case in the Nigerian government. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria mandates that the cabinet be made up of at least one minister from each of the 36 states. This minister needs to be indigenous to that state (art. 147 [3]). Nigeria's division into 36 states, in force since 1996, has led to a situation in which the three main ethnic groups are a majority in 21 states, while 15 states are governed by smaller ethnic groups (Suberu, 2006: 73-4). By combining the constitutional requirement with the realities of the territorial structure, a formal parity of regional representation in government has been established and, at the same time – and indirectly arising from it – a parity of participation in the government of the main ethnic groups[3] and religious communities,[4] de facto in the form of seats reserved for their members. Simultaneously members of smaller ethnic groups were allowed to take part in the exercise of power. In the case of states in which none of Nigeria's three main ethnic groups is dominant, there is a greater probability of rotation of positions in government between the representatives of the smaller indigenous ethnic groups, for example in successive cabinets, than in the case when in a given state the majority of the population are members of one of Nigeria's main ethnic groups.[5] The federal character principle, in turn, seems to take on a more centripetal nature when it generally promotes in some public bodies their multi-segmental character, as is the case in the army, for example, without having a parity character. However, the problem lies in how, the federal character principle in the version reminiscent of centripetalism is carried out in practice, without formally guaranteed quotas, as in the case of the army of Burundi, for example (Vandeginste, 2017: 169). The Federal Character Commission (FCC) is the guarantor of a just division of positions in Nigerian public bodies. Specifically, the FCC's task is to promote, monitor, and enforce compliance with the principles of proportional sharing of all posts in Nigeria's public bodies (Constitution of 1999, Third Schedule, Part 1 C, art. 8 [1] [b]). Recommendations issued by the FCC, however, show a preference for representatives of the larger ethnic groups in appointments to positions and very frequently are of a quota character (Mustapha, 2007: 11). Ultimately, the practice of dividing positions is more consociational. Representatives of the smaller ethnic groups are the most disadvantaged by this system. The federal character principle gives rise to criticism also on account of the fact that non-professionals are employed in various positions because they have the "appropriate" ethnic and/or religious affiliation. The allocation of positions in public institutions on the basis of knowledge and experience is called for, for example, by Kayode (2015). Centripetal Federalism | 5 Conclusion The multiple modifications of Nigeria's territorial division after 1966 consisted of creating from the federation's larger parts new, smaller states which, in the first years of Nigerian independence, were part of the above-mentioned three regions dominated by Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups. In addition to "breaking up" these groups so that their members would inhabit different states and, at the same time, to creating states dominated by other groups than the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba or the Igbo, the changes in Nigeria's territorial structure have also led to the division of areas in the oil and natural gas rich Niger River delta (initially mostly a part of the Eastern Region) into as many as 6 states controlled by smaller ethnic groups (Suberu, 2006: 74). In consequence, the principal area of extraction of energy resources has been effectively stripped of domination by the Igbo who, from 1960 to 1967, had administered the Eastern Region and governed, from 1967 to 1970, the secessionist Republic of Biafra which emerged in its stead, in its entirety or parts thereof, as the Biafra War unfolded. The federal character principle, more consociational than centripetal in nature, satisfies the interests of the main ethnic groups to a greater extent and those of minority groups to a lesser extent. It nonetheless creates a balance between large segments and, in this manner, constitutes some form of revision of centripetal institutions. The federal character principle is certainly not perfect in practice and has, therefore, many critics, but it is difficult to imagine what relations between Nigeria's largest ethnic groups and religious communities would look like if this principle was absent. Last but not least, the formal federal character principle is supplemented by some informal institutions of consociational type. In Nigeria, the rotation of the presidency between the North and the South (in fact between Muslims and Christians), similarly to that of the presidency and vice-presidency for different religious communities and ethnic groups, increases the balance of power between Muslims and Christians and, at the same time, between the main ethnic groups. In consequence, it helps prevent any of the large segments from acquiring a dominant position, and this also indirectly benefits the smaller segments. [1] Some scholars (e.g. Wolff, 2007) consider power-sharing just a strategy (and a set of political and legal arrangements serving it) aimed at conflict management or resolution. [2] Preferential voting, thanks to a ranking of candidates conducted by the voters, makes it possible for them to indicate preferences among candidates from different parties/organizations. In the case of centripetalism, the aim of such voting would be to reduce the chances of the election to parliament of politicians showing little restraint in their political views and actions, particularly with regard to inter-segmental relations. [3] My discussions with Nigerian political scientists in Nigeria in 2018 indicate that the situation in which a member of an ethnic group having a dominant status in a given state becomes minister – or the "representative" of that state in government – is typical. [4] Usually, the majority of members of specific ethnic groups is Christian or Muslim. And so, almost all Hausa-Fulani are Muslims, while the majority of the Yoruba and almost all Igbo are Christians. [5] These conclusions derive from my discussions with Nigerian political scientists in Nigeria in 2018. References Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1 October 1979. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 29 May 1999. Horowitz, D. L. (1985), Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. Index Mundi (2019), Nigeria Demographics Profile (at http://www.indexmundi.com/nigeria/demographics_profile.html). Kayode, A. (2015), 'Federalism and Federal Character Principle in Nigeria: A Dilution', Review of Public Administration and Management, 3 (7), 32-44. Mustapha, A.R. (2007), 'Institutionalising Ethnic Representation: How Effective is the Federal Character Commission in Nigeria?', CRISE Working Paper, 43, 1-25. Reilly, B. (2011), 'Centripetalism: Cooperation, Accommodation and Integration' in S. Wolff and C. Yakinthou (eds.) Conflict Centripetal Federalism | 6 Management in Divided Societies: Theories and Practice. New York: Routledge, 57-65. Reilly, B. (2020), 'Cross-Ethnic Voting: An Index of Centripetal Electoral Systems', Government and Opposition, 1-20. Reilly, B. (2007), Democracy and Diversity: Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suberu, R. T. (2006), 'Federalism and the Management of Ethnic Conflict: The Nigerian Experience' in D. Turton (ed.) Ethnic Federalism: The Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: James Currey, 65-92. Trzciński, K. (2016), 'How Theoretically Opposite Models of Interethnic Power-Sharing Can Complement Each Other and Contribute to Political Stabilization: The Case of Nigeria', Politeja, 42 (3), 53-73. Trzciński, K. (2017a), 'Centripetal Spatial Vote Distribution Requirement in Presidential Elections: Cases of Nigeria and Indonesia', Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia, 30 (1): K. Trzciński (ed.) Special Issue on Power-Sharing in Asia and Oceania, 89-107. Trzciński, K. (2017b), 'Hybrid Power-Sharing in Indonesia', Polish Political Science Yearbook, 46 (1), 168-85. Trzciński, K. (2018a), 'Hybrid Power Sharing: On How to Stabilize the Political Situation in Multi-segmental Societies', Politeja, 56 (5), 86-107. Trzciński, K. (2018b), 'What is Power Sharing? Consociationalism, Centripetalism, and Hybrid Power Sharing', Studia Polityczne, 46 (3), 9-30. Vandeginste, S. (2017), 'Power-Sharing in Burundi: An Enduring Miracle?' in A. McCulloch and J. McGarry (eds.) PowerSharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges. London: Routledge, 166-188. Wolff, S. (2007), 'Conflict Resolution between Power Sharing and Power Dividing, or Beyond?', Political Studies Review, 5, 363-379. Worldometers (2020), Nigeria Population (at http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/nigeria-population/). Further Reading Horowitz, D.L. (2008), 'Conciliatory Institutions and Constitutional Processes in Post-Conflict States', William and Mary Law Review, 49 (4), 1213-48. Horowitz, D.L. (2007), 'The Many Uses of Federalism', Drake Law Review, 55, 953-66. Trzciński, K. (2016), 'How Theoretically Opposite Models of Interethnic Power-Sharing Can Complement Each Other and Contribute to Political Stabilization: The Case of Nigeria', Politeja, 42 (3), 53-73.


Anticipation comes of age (Foreword)

Philosophy

Risk and Decision Analysis 1 (2009) 73–74 73 DOI 10.3233/RDA-2009-0011 IOS Press Foreword Anticipation comes of age Mihai Nadin antÉ – Institute for Research in Anticipatory Systems, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA In the context of contemporary science, we know that a particular domain of inquiry is coming of age once it is subject to brain imaging. Irony aside, in an article published in Neuroimage, Fukui and Murai [1] report on risk anticipation, making this observation: insensitivity to future consequences, after damage to the human prefrontal cortex, affects the anticipation of risk. Writing these introductory lines to the issue that our Journal dedicates to Anticipation and Risk Assessment, I cannot avoid making the connection to the current economic crisis in the USA (sub-prime mortgages, troubled financial institutions, excess energy consumption, inflation, etc.). The people's pre-fontal cortex – to use a bit of analogy – (or at least that of the people in power) seems to be damaged. If anything can be said with certainty, the risks involved in less than responsible mortgage lending or speculative futures trading, or hedging do not take anticipation into consideration. Interestingly enough, the year I was born, Willford Isbell King [2] published "The Causes of Economic Fluctuations: Possibilities of Anticipation and Control". In all fairness, King's book is only of documentary interest for a world that faces risk in ways that no one ever imagined – including risk management as a profitmaking machine. However, during King's time, there was no scientific focus on anticipation and anticipatory processes. It is only after Robert Rosen dedicated a number of years (starting in 1972), in affiliation with the (in the meanwhile defunct) Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (Santa Barbara, CA) that the word Anticipation was elevated to what in science is called a concept. Institute members debated whether anticipation could be of any relevance to society. Parallel to Rosen's work, my own focus on the human being's cognitive condition eventually led to a book that suggested a theory, as well as applied aspects of anticipation (cf. [3,4]). But this is no time to reminisce. Professor Alain Bensoussan and Professor Elisabeth Pate Cornell organized an international conference – Decision and Risk Analysis: Convergence Between Finance and Industry (University of Texas at Dallas, 2007). They entrusted me with organizing a session – Anticipation and Risk Assessment – and the results of this session are submitted to the broader scientific community in this issue. My intention in organizing the session was to take a rather difficult subject of inquiry and bring it as close as possible to applications. Let me mention for the record that one of the participants in this session was Jeffrey V. Nickerson (Center for Decision Technologies, Howe School of Technology Management, Stevens Institute of Technology). It was he who, as one of my graduate students many years ago, brought Rosen's Anticipatory Systems to my attention. In his article ("Anticipation and Sensor Networks"), Nickerson presents an information-science based application intended to mitigate risks associated with enemy intrusions. Lev Goldfarb, together with Ian Scrimger and Reuben Peter-Paul ("ETS as a General Tool for Decision Modeling and Analysis: Planning, Anticipation, and Monitoring") advances his mathematics, meant to represent processes instead of the usual number-based descriptions of the state of affairs in the world. His understanding of anticipation is rather subtle. The reader will easily find ways to generalize from the example the authors chose (an insider's view of a terrorist operation) to many possible applications, using an internal view of a generic planning process. I'm partial to the way in which Jochen Corts and Daniel Hackmann translate the concept of anticipation into economic opportunity ("Information, Antic1569-7371/09/$17.00 © 2009 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved 74 Foreword ipation, and Risk Management: Chances and Risk – The (constant) Fight for Innovation"). My first discussion with Jochen Corts (February 2004, in Wuppertal, Germany) brought up not only my theories of anticipatory systems [5], but also the possibility of applying them as an underlying component of the knowledgedriven economy. Subsequent meetings allowed me to learn from practitioners in engineering and information science, just as it allowed them to better understand how anticipation-driven solutions improve an enterprise's competitive edge. They recognized the risk, which many traditional industries face, of remaining captive to a production model that competitors can easily emulate (China does this with spectacular results), and applied anticipation in order to switch from the industrial model to a knowledge economy alternative. Disappointed that Mike McCready's conference presentation cannot be offered to the reader, I want to at least mention it. The subject of "Music X-Ray – Anticipation and Risk Mitigation in Producing Music" is anticipating success – in particular, how to identify the songs that will be successful in the extremely competitive music market. The PowerPoint presentation he made in Dallas, in order to share with us data from his company and to present the software used for the above-mentioned purpose, never evolved into a text that I could submit to the reader in good faith. But we keep the door open. The risks involved in identifying successful new music (in particular, songs) and in producing a new CD (a major investment that can make or break a label) can be diminished by a good anticipatory evaluation. My own contribution ("Anticipation and Risk – From the inverse problem to reverse computation") might provide an entry point for those without a background in the new field of anticipatory systems. It would be disingenuous to claim that it will be easy reading. As our Journal matures, more contributions to the tenuous relation between risk assessment and anticipation will probably become available. The current economic mess in which we all find ourselves is probably as good as any argument for encouraging the community of risk-focused scholars to integrate anticipatory considerations in their work. References [1] H. Fukui and T. Murai, Functional activity related to risk anticipation during performance of the Iowa Gambling Task, Neuroimage 24(1) (2005), 253–259. [2] W.I. King, The Causes of Economic Fluctuations: Possibilities of Anticipation and Control, Ronald Press Co., New York, 1938. [3] M. Nadin, Mind – Anticipation and Chaos, Milestones in Thought and Discovery, Belser Presse, Stuttgart and Zurich, 1991. [4] R. Rosen, Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical and Methodological Foundations, Pergamon Press, New York, 1985. [5] M. Nadin, Anticipation – The End is Where We Start from, Lars Müller Publishers, Basel, 2003.