Explorations in Complexity Thinking

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This pre-proceedings contains the all the papers submitted for the two-day Complexity and Philosophy workshop held 22nd-23rd February 2007, in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The event was co-hosted by Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), ISCE Events, and the Cathedra for the Study of Complexity (Instituto de Filosofia de La Habana).

As with previous meetings, the aim of this workshop was to explore the philosophical implications of the science and thinking of complex systems. Attendees were encouraged to submit papers on the following topics: - Status, limits and legitimacy of knowledge regarding complex systems; - Relationship between linear and nonlinear philosophies; - Complexity-based ethics; - Frameworks for the analysis of complex systems; - Complex limits to theories of everything; - Complexity and the social sciences; - Complexity and globalization; - Complexity and human subjectivity.

CONTENTS Editorial - Kurt A. Richardson & Paul Cilliers WORKSHOP PAPERS 1. Foucault, complexity, and myth: Toward a complexity-based approach to social evolution (a.k.a. history) Ken Baskin 2. Complexity-based ethics: Martin Buber and dynamic self-organization Deborah P. Bloch & Terrence Nordstrom 3.

Gaia, complexity, and American Indian Tribes: Common ground for compatible theories Nicholas C. Peroff 4. What is there in a word?: Heterarchy, homoarchy, and the difference in understanding complexity in the social sciences and complexity studies Dmitri M. Bondarenko 5. Wittgenstein s Ladder in Prigogine s Universe Tapio Muhonen 6.

To catch a falling star: Opening the middle path s hands of humility to science Graham Schliebs 7. Rhythmic entrainment, symmetry and power John Collier 8. The complexity of design as a wavefunction Johann van der Merwe 9. A-causality: A quantum ontology for complex systems Walter Baets 10. Modeling rationality and emergence in dynamic networks Remo Pareschi 11.

Homeostasis, complexity, and the problem of biological desig