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CLEA is unique in the world in that it transcends the divisions between all academic disciplines, focusing on fundamental issues without being restricted by traditional scientific or administrative boundaries. In several of these problem domains, CLEA's research is recognized to be at the top international level. Collectively, we have published hundreds of scientific papers and over a dozen books, and we have given presentations about our work in dozens of countries around the world.
Such investigations must examine and question the most fundamental assumptions of all the different sciences. As one of the rare research centers devoted to this issue, we are responsible for editing the journal "Foundations of Science" (published by Kluwer Academic). Yet, we believe that, unlike pure philosophy, scientific research should not remain stuck in abstractions. Therefore, we try as much as possible to combine abstract ideas and formalisms with concrete applications to society and technology. For example, our investigations into the nature of quantum non-locality lead naturally into applications such as quantum computing, whereas our insights into the evolution of complex systems help us to understand socio-economic development.
The thread that ties all our research together is the metaphor of the "layered structure of reality". We see the world as consisting of a hierarchy of layers or levels of complexity that emerge subsequently during evolution, from the quantum layer of elementary particles, via the physical, chemical, biological and cognitive layers to the layer of culture and society. We are in particular focused on phenomena that connect different layers, such as self-organization, entanglement, emergence or the origin of culture and consciousness. The following sections summarize some of the subjects in which CLEA researchers have developed special expertise.
Selected Publications:
As implied by the "layered structure of reality" metaphor, we are particularly interested in how higher levels of complexity emerge during evolution. We have argued that the Darwinian mechanisms of variation and selection necessarily lead to the increase of structural and functional complexity in systems at all levels. The emergence of a new level can be conceptualized as a "quantum" of evolution, which we call a "metasystem transition". Examples of metasystem transitions include the origin of life, of multicellular organisms, of symbolic thought, and of society. This model integrates and builds on a variety of approaches towards complexity, such as complex adaptive systems, evolutionary systems, self-organization, multi-agent systems, general systems theory and cybernetics. CLEA researchers play a central role in the Principia Cybernetica Project, a world-wide organization that develops the theory of metasystem transitions into a complete evolutionary world-view. The project's website, hosted by CLEA, is generally recognized as the most authoritative source of information on complex systems, evolution, self-organization and related topics available on the web.
Selected Publications:
[under construction]
Selected Publications:
Aerts, D., Broekaert, J., & Gabora, L. The violation of Bell inequalities in the macroworld. Accepted for publication in Foundations of Physics.
[under construction]
Memetics applies the Darwinian mechanisms of variation, replication and selection to analyse the spread of cultural phenomena, such as ideas, beliefs or traditions. Possible application include understanding the evolution of knowledge and culture, the spread of rumors, fashions and chain-letters, and the development of ethical and religious systems. CLEA research is directed specifically towards the mechanisms that generate new ideas, and the selection criteria that determine which ideas are likely to survive and become popular. CLEA researchers were among the first to scientifically study the issue of memetics, and are among the founding editors of the Journal of Memetics, the first peer-refereed publication devoted to the domain.
Selected Publications:
We are finding that many of the problems that arise in the study of consciousness and cognition can be elegantly bypassed using a quantum mechanical approach. We view an instant of conscious experience as a collapse, or clamping down on some subset of activation values for the memories and concepts that comprise one’s conceptual network, and which exist in various degrees of nonlocality and entanglement depending on their degree of abstraction or generality. In quantum mechanics, it has been useful to distinguish two types of contextuality: classical and nonclassical or intrinsic. Intrinsic contextuality is useful whenever there exists an inherent influence of the inquirer (or the cause of the perturbation) on the inquired (the experiencer of the perturbation). Such an influence modifies the outcome of the interaction in a complex, nonlinear manner. Whenever contextuality is intrinsic to a cognitive or social process, Kolmogorovian axioms are not satisfied, and the process is therefore nonclassical, or quantum-like. Thus formalisms for dealing with contextuality in quantum physics can be fruitfully applied to gain insight into the dynamic of conscious experience.
Selected Publications:
The Global Brain is a metaphor for the future Internet: an intelligent, self-organizing computer network that learns from the way it is used and "thinks" together with its users. CLEA researchers have developed and tested algorithms that turn the World-Wide Web into a kind of "neural network", using Hebbian learning to adjust the linking pattern between web pages, and spreading activation to retrieve information in an intuitive way, without the need to enter keywords. Such a "brain-like" network would harness the collective intelligence of all its users, making information retrieval, problem-solving and electronic commerce much more powerful, intuitive and efficient. We were the first in Belgium to start a website (in 1993), and, although the "global brain" idea is starting to catch on in the Internet community, our learning web methods (first developed in 1995) are as yet still years ahead of other approaches. CLEA collaborates on this topic with researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and other centers, and houses the office of the "Global Brain Group", an international association of researchers founded in 1996.
Selected Publications:
A consensus has been growing that medical, social and political interventions should not be guided solely by reductionist values, such as the maximization of wealth, or the minimization of mortality. Instead, we should strive to improve overall quality of life (QOL) for all the people involved. The problem is to measure quality of life in an accurate and reliable way, without reducing it to a set of separate indicators. CLEA researchers have developed the unique ACSA (Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment) method to assess QOL in a holistic way. In a recent large-scale study in Berlin, ACSA was shown to be much more sensitive than other QOL measures. Moreover, using data about the correlation between QOL and other indicators, CLEA researchers have provided empirical evidence that the values underlying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights directly contribute to people's happiness. Finally, they have found that for the world as a whole, these values have been increasing over the last half century, thus providing empirical evidence for on-going progress.
Selected Publications:
We are investigating the cognitive structures and processes that underly creativity, that is, the discovery of new concepts or ideas. A better understanding of these processes allows us to build computer models that exhibit some form of creativity. In principle, such computer programs can assist scientists in the discovery of new theories.
Selected Publications:
An essential issue in attempts to bridge the gap between the "two cultures" is to research the links between science and art, together with their history and philosophy. In this context we have been investigating the following topics:
1. Disemborderment of Art and Science: in how far can the arts and sciences be depicted as similar intellectual and creative activities? 2. Art and the representation of reality: the relation between image and reality, or a study of the 'modes' which art (and science) use to represent reality. 3. History and philosophy of economics and logic: our research interests include the history of 19th-century economic thought, the economics and logic of William Stanley Jevons and the methodology of economics and its relation to philosophy of science. 4. Historical worldviews: the construction of conceptual frameworks of the historical relationship between sciences and arts. 5. Film theory and criticism. 6. Alternative media: cultural studies of graffiti and other alternative media. 7. Economics and art: the connection between economics and aesthetics, and between the economy and the art world.
Selected Publications: