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Interaction Patterns

Those who have been following my blogs, may have noticed that I develop certain patterns, which...

So What’s The Deal With The Singularity Again?

The Dutch translation of Ray Kurzweil's 2005 bestseller “The Singularity is Near: When Humans...

Performing Research On Complex Themes

The last posts in this series will discuss some of the practical issues of performing research...

Complexity And Professionalism

According to Karl Popper, there are two contexts at work when trying to understand science. One...

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Kees PietersRSS Feed of this column.

With a Ph.D.from the University for Humanistics on complexity, complex systems and technology and society, Kees holds degrees in electrotechnics and computer science with a specialisation in artificial... Read More »

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Now we've covered the relationships with postmodernity in the previous post, (I promise not to bring it up again, but I have recently been accused quite often to be 'almost postmodern', which -being an engineer myself- I find rather absurd) it is time to turn our attention to an Enlightenment favourite, namely rationality.

Methodological Stuff:

In my previous post, I defended a 'post-modern' stance in science, as I consider quest for singular concepts to explain all kinds of things to be somewhat outdated. Or, to be more precise, it is rather stupid to consider oneself a 'complexity thinker' and then believe that singular concepts can explain everything. This tie between post-modernism and complexity has been elucidated in a much better way than I can, by philosopher of complexity Paul Cilliers in his ground-breaking book, so I will not delve into this issue further.

Methodological Stuff:

The Pattern of Contextual Diminution

This pattern is a bit more involved,as it combines a number of other patterns. It also adds to theself-referential nature of PAC, as it describes the dynamics of anepistemological system, such as PAC.

MethodologicalStuff:

  1. Introduction

  2. Patterns

  3. Patterns, Objectivity and Truth

Complexity and Randomness

This pattern is from System's thinker Gerald Weinberg, and has been extremely helpful to illustrate the difference between complexity and randomness. It is also a nice example of the self-referential methodology of PAC, as the pattern is used to discuss scientific approaches: science discovers patterns, which are then used to elucidate scientific processes!

Methodological Stuff:

    Methodological Stuff:
  1. 1. Introduction
  2. 2: Patterns
  3. 3: Patterns, Objectivity and Truth
  4. 4: Patterns and Processes

The Pattern Library: