No, my post was not a joke. I apologize that my post was so brief, and
that this interim response will have to follow suit, but I am very pleased
at the thoughtful and deep discussion that has ensued. There have been two
tracks to my attempt to work out the issues of epistemology: One has
followed the trajectory from systems theory, to computer modeling, to
artificial life, society and culture (self-organization and multiagent
evolutionary modeling). The other has followed the trajectory in the
humanities from modernism to postmodernism culminating in posthumanism
which seems to me to tie the humanities back into the current state of the
sciences. Readers might be interested in "How We Became Posthuman" by
Katherine Hayles.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226321460/o/qid=971108016/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_3/103-5053846-1421450>
The first chapter, in particular, defines the strategy from a humanities
perspective. We are working torwards building a transdisciplinary center
here at UCLA on computational social science, so I'm looking for other
people who have been thinking/working towards the same goals. I'll try to
provide some more concise information shortly.
Best wishes,
Nick
Nicholas Gessler
[log in to unmask]
Box 706, 22148 Monte Vista Drive
Topanga, CA 90290-0706
310.455.1630 (home office)
310.825.4728 (UCLA office)
310.825.7428 (UCLA fax)
Director, UCLA Center for Computational Social Science
Instructor, Computational Cartography
Coordinator, Computing the Future of Culture Cluster Course
Informatics Specialist, UCLA Humanities Computing
Web Portal:
http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~gessler
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