Transdisciplinarity - Science topic

todos los aportes de la investigación transdisciplinar, terminan vinculados a las neurociencias, porque al final todo es regulado y controlado por el sistema nervioso. al desarrollar una línea de investigación determinada alejada aparentemente de las neurociencias obligatoriamente converge hacia ella por la razon ya expuesta que es que el sistema nervioso eejerce influencia sobre todo el organismo de los seres vivos

La evaluación de la investigación transdisciplinar (ITD) es un proceso complejo que debe considerar diversos aspectos, dado que este tipo de investigación involucra la colaboración entre diferentes disciplinas y actores sociales.

La evaluación de la investigación transdisciplinar es un proceso complejo que requiere una cuidadosa consideración de múltiples criterios. Al utilizar un marco de evaluación riguroso, los investigadores pueden asegurarse de que sus proyectos están teniendo un impacto positivo en el mundo.

Al desarrollar investigaciones transdisciplinares automáticamente estamos desarrollando de forma profunda las causas o consecuencias de problemáticas actuales en cuanto al área de la salud, esos resultados permitirán realizar propuestas que permitan cambios en diferentes dimensiones, los cuales demostraran esos cambios en las políticas de salud que deben ser adecuados a nuestra realidad.

Emergence has become the front and center of my research in the couple of last years. To be capable to understand its working in depth, I had developed several open-source Python programs (ranging from the simplest one to the most advanced one) that enables everyone first to understand the cellular automata programming, and later apply them to studies of emergence that is occurring in so-called 'Game of Life'.

Quite a few videos depicting animated emergent structures are accessible in my profile at sections about data and software: e.g., logic-gates AND, OR, NOT, and quite a few emergent structures emerging in generalized neighborhoods of the original GoL. The latest paper is describing another interesting area, the design of error-resilient emergents, which can withstand the of 1% of errors into their evaluation process.

With respect to the questions provided in this answer. I highly recommend watching said videos and even run the open-source GoL-N24 Python software and try to play with emergence on your own. The personal experience with those simulations is always the best way to start to understand that we do not understand the theory of emergence!

Everyone is welcomed to play with emergence. One thing is sure, there are hiding huge treasures both experimental and theoretical in such 'playing' with the concept of emergence. Hopefully, this year will be published a paper that is going to address, at least, some root questions about emergence and its very principles (stay tuned).

References:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355043921_The_simplest_Python_program_simulating_a_cellular_automaton_model_of_a_complex_system_the_'Game_of_Life'

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356759719_Computer_Components_Simulated_Using_the_'Game_of_Life'_cellular_automaton_logic_gate_AND

There are all three logic-gates avaiable

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357285926_Python_program_simulating_cellular_automaton_r-GoL_that_represents_robust_generalization_of_'Game_of_Life'_sample_runs

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361818826_Robust_massive_parallel_information_processing_environments_in_biology_and_medicine_case_study

Crisis financiera global: un estudio crítico del papel de la auditoria en programas del estado

Digital technology has been a revolutionary foray in various sectors and domains like education, industry, research, and recently, healthcare. The concept of digital health is an evolving entity and has gained tremendous importance in the time of the Pandemic with social distancing and lockdowns forcing the entire globe to adopt digital health and health technologies on a large scale. The digital health concept was first introduced in 2000 by Seth Fran, which largely encompasses internet-based applications and media to enhance medical subject matter, commerce, and connectivity. With the advancement in technology, digital health has expanded to encompass a much wider set of scientific concepts and technologies, including the internet of things, big data technology, artificial intelligence techniques, genomics, analytics, wearables, mobile applications, and telemedicine. The various domains of digital health have been explained by WHO in 2018.

With the advancement in digital health and literacy rate in the country, The Government of India laid importance on digitalization in India’s healthcare sector in the National Health Policy, 2017 using The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) which can act as the foundation on which national digital health ecosystem can be built. On the occasion of the 74th Independence Day, the Government of India embarked on its journey to achieve Universal Health Coverage by launching the National Digital Health Mission.

NDHM aims to build a holistic, integrated, and comprehensive digital health ecosystem that will lay the foundation of a strong public digital infrastructure, digitally empower individuals, patients, health care staff, health institutions, and aid streamline the healthcare delivery system of the country. This will help inequitable, affordable, and accessible health care to all. It may be useful for health planners and policymakers as well in monitoring and surveillance of health-related events better and in an efficient way.

Dear Stéphanie M. Carrière . See the following useful RG link:

Amazon trees conservation

I suggest Klaus Fichter 's innovation community construct - based on Witte's promotor theory - which helps to analyse cross-functionional and cross-organisational (multi-level) innovation processes. We further developed the theory in the context of circular economy (and broader sustainability) innovation here by adding specific collaboration mechanisms: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344281476.

Agree with Emre Sezgin and Nabil Zary , engaging the users in the constant development of eHealth tools is crucial for their sustainability and success, by listening to the users, providers can ensure that their tools will stay useful and relevant.

Dear Julio San Martín Órdenes, would you please read on Niche Theory on Species interaction? I think it would be valuable to your demand.

Brotherly!

Thank you, Dr. Jochen Glaser

Your explanation is very helpful and patient.

I agree wtih you and Dr. Peter Weingart. The five characteristics which define the difference between Mode 2 and Mode 1 are not innovative. In addition, there are not many empirical analysis to point out that Mode 2 would replace Mode 1. But in Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons(2003), their purpose was as much to address the need to invent a new language of research. That's why both 《The New Production of Knowledge》 and 《Re-Thinking Science》 were written as reflective essays rather than as empirical studies. So I have tried to view every single research in action with frame of Mode 2 and Mode 1. (Actually I still adopt Latour's spirit to do my research, His ANT method is attractive to a naive graduated student like me.)

In my research context, I try to give an answer to avoid the flaw in 5 methods of Alvin Goldman's " Expert: Which Ones Should You Trust?"(Goldman. 2001). Also, I wish that my research can do pre-work for Harry Collins's "The Third Wave of Science Studies".

If the Department of Science and technology( in Taiwan context) could analysis every single research with 5 characteristics(Context of application, heterogenous, transdiciplinary, accountability, quality control) and make the analysis public. When scientific or technological controversy shows up, policymaker or laypeople would easier to put their credence on experts and empower people to question experts.

Respectfully, thank you again.

Goldman. Alvin. (2001). Experts: Which Ones Should You: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: 85-110.

Harry Collins, Robert Evans. (2007). Rethinking Expertise: The University of Chicago Press.

Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons. (2003). Introduction: `Mode 2' Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge. Minerva: 179–194.

You might want to take a look at the special section on interdisciplinary team work that I've edited in Issues of Interdisciplinary Studies 2017 with a brief discussion of transdisciplinarity. Obviously there is another strand of transdisciplinarity (see Swiss-based transdisciplinary-net) but if you're interested in Nicolescu's perspective you might find this Issue's article on Transdisciplinary hermeneutics by Hans Dieleman interesting, starting with an expose on Nicolescu's take and discussing some examples of projects:

thank you for your suggestion. I will be happy to read your work

F., you said "not cheating."  But there is some suspicion that Ptolemy, so as to keep following Aristotle, forged the data so that they fit his theory.  I don't know if there are clear evidences, but in any case the legend of the honest scientist is dubious, as much as the one the of bigot religious.  I wonder why Galileo had so much trouble with them, and no other scholar, even not Copernic, at a time when there were even no real proof of the heliocentric system.  Today, his way would be frowned upon even by the more stringent rationalists.

Local knowledge can be seen from different perspectives and embedded in different discourses. The word 'local' puts it in the immediate space for which plans are drafted. As such a local Urban Planner, who lives since long time in the respective city has such local knowledge, at least more of it than an urban planner who has been hired from far away. However, and some of the contributions argue in this direction, local can also mean people's knowledge in comparison to scientific knowledge.

Other expressions that at times appear in the discourses are 'traditional knowledge' and 'indigenous knowledge'. Of course there are slight, but very meaningful differences between all of these expressions, but what they might have in common is the assumption that beyond the scientific way of conceptualizing things there are also other qualities, which can add perspectives to the scientific view that are essential.

I just came back two week ago from doing research about 'traditional cyclone shelters in Vanuatu'. These shelters, which have survived the strongest cyclones ever are the result of 'local' knowledge. Aren't they? E.G. an important way o9f putting wooden logs together is by tying them together with wild vines instead of using nails. This flexibility provides stability as logs fixed by nails would disconnect soon when the power of heavy winds would slowly but surely loosen the connection.

Indeed I came across a similar principle many years ago in South India, where fishermen built boats by stitching the wooden planks together with coir. Also here the flexibility enhanced the stability when the boat went through the surf of the ocean.

‘Local knowledge’ here might be the knowledge which is built from experience, from being practically attached to something instead of reflecting and researching things.

Stein, D. S. (2002). Creating local knowledge through learning in community: A case study. New directions for adult and continuing education, 2002(95), 27-40.

Bishop, B. W. (2011). Location‐based questions and local knowledge. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 62(8), 1594-1603.

Aveling, E. L. (2011). Mediating between international knowledge and local knowledge: the critical role of local field officers in an HIV prevention intervention. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 21(2), 95-110.

Mammo, T. (1999). The paradox of Africa's poverty: the role of indigenous knowledge, traditional practices and local institutions--the case of Ethiopia. The Red Sea Press.

Sekhar, N. U. (2004). Local versus expert knowledge in forest management in a semi‐arid part of India. Land Degradation & Development, 15(2), 133-142.

Thomas, D. S. G., & Twyman, C. (2004). Good or bad rangeland? Hybrid knowledge, science, and local understandings of vegetation dynamics in the Kalahari. Land Degradation & Development, 15(3), 215-231.

Gerhardinger, L. C., Godoy, E. A., & Jones, P. J. (2009). Local ecological knowledge and the management of marine protected areas in Brazil. Ocean & Coastal Management, 52(3), 154-165.

Šūmane, S., Kunda, I., Knickel, K., Strauss, A., Tisenkopfs, T., des Ios Rios, I., ... & Ashkenazy, A. (2017). Local and farmers' knowledge matters! How integrating informal and formal knowledge enhances sustainable and resilient agriculture. Journal of Rural Studies.

Benham, C. F. (2017). Aligning public participation with local environmental knowledge in complex marine social-ecological systems. Marine Policy, 82, 16-24.

Shearmur, R., & Doloreux, D. (2008). Urban hierarchy or local buzz? High-order producer service and (or) knowledge-intensive business service location in Canada, 1991–2001. The Professional Geographer, 60(3), 333-355.

Yigitcanlar, T., O’connor, K., & Westerman, C. (2008). The making of knowledge cities: Melbourne’s knowledge-based urban development experience. Cities, 25(2), 63-72.

Yigitcanlar, T., & Velibeyoglu, K. (2008). Knowledge-based urban development: The local economic development path of Brisbane, Australia. Local Economy, 23(3), 195-207.

Skytt-Larsen, C. B., & Winther, L. (2015). Knowledge production, urban locations and the importance of local networks. European Planning Studies, 23(9), 1895-1917.

Pineda-Zumaran, J. (2016). Learning and knowledge generation in local decision making in the South: The case of urban infrastructure provision in Arequipa, Peru. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 36(1), 60-75.

Lau, U., & Seedat, M. (2015). The community story, relationality and process: Bridging tools for researching local knowledge in a peri‐urban township. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 25(5), 369-383.

The conference paper below is very useful:

Bonsignore, E., Moulder, V., Neustaedter, C., Hansen, D., Kraus, K., & Druin, A. (2014, April). Design tactics for authentic interactive fiction: insights from alternate reality game designers. In Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 947-950). ACM.

Dave B. says:

"This puts spiraling of an organization into an ontological spacetime(mattering). The spiraling fractal antenarrative assemblage and its storytelling properties is something you can find in these references."

What you propose here, dear Dave, is the ontological room with a view on both micro-processes of spiralling, which I understand as intertwining of personal interacts and intercommunications and the macro-processes of multiple streams of events. These macro-flows of reality are built of sociocultural events rolling out through spatiotemporal histories as if they were staged landscapes. Two comments. First, this ontology resembles Whitehead's eventism, with a pinch of Bateson to account for the ecology of mind full of itsefl or mindfullness. Second, the storytelling is always a traveller's storytelling from inside of a flow of events. Attempts of participants in these flows sustain sociocultural reality (realities).. They (we) attempt to make sense of what is happening to them (us) and what they(we) try to make happen. Remember, ontology never sleeps.

Further:

"Assemblage of people & processes spiral up & down, in & out in spacetime, how to they have and sustain attunements to field forces, and to emotions."

True, emotional mobilization and sentimental control of populations are maturing to the point of new religion (an ideal of a transsexual vegetarian kissing dolphins and brewing cafe latte on wind energy replaces the garden of eden with sin and responsibilities). But attuning never freezes, so I would start undermining its proselytizing overreach. Why should a left-handed lesbian be superior to the right-handed nun or an ambidextrous housewife/feminist? And this is where the spatiotemporal event openings for citizens come ashore - and no matter what ideological likes and dislikes people exercise, the Trumps see them earlier than Clintons, and Musks earlier than Soroses - otherwise a spiral of flows would collapse drained of emotions and social forces and reduced to the empty spectacle of filtered bubbles. 

That's my first response. Second would involve a funny coincidence: an Italian intellectual and cultural entrepreneur, Armando Verdiglione, now serving a prison term for tax evasion, had been publishing a periodical called "Spiral" in the 1980ies, with a very avant-garde-like mix of critical messages, floating between ideological and political sharks.. 

Slawek Magala

accessed Jul 24, 2017].

As an Administrative Specialist I believe it is necessity indeed in finding proper solutions. Ofcourse it is found that the management is as a transdisciplinary study which tries to solve organizational problems.

By looking at the matrix issued by BCG, it is obvious that a transdisciplinary is conducted to offer the solutions.

It is very interesting that the Financial Balance is also existed in culture, policy, economy and society which was pointed in the book "Organizational Behavior" written by Robbins.

Knowledge is the accumulation of facts and data that you have learned about or experienced. It’s being aware of something, and having information. Knowledge is really about facts and ideas that we acquire through study, research, investigation, observation, or experience. Wisdom is the ability to discern and judge which aspects of that knowledge are true, right, lasting, and applicable to your life. It’s the ability to apply that knowledge to the greater scheme of life. It’s also deeper; knowing the meaning or reason; about knowing why something is, and what it means to your life.

Hey Thomas:

Thanks for clarifying your question and make it more specific. Both Michal and Paul's response are great. I am just adding a little on their insight.

Michal pinpoints the C/N ratio relates to Stoichiometry and nutrient balance, which is exactly the right direction to understand this question. Decomposer (or microbes, either fungi or bacterial) tends to have very high nitrogen and phosphate contents which means they need high concentration of those elements. This is why low C/N ratio (high N proportionally) being picked up first by microbes. Simply, they need it and they like it. 

If you want to gain an more comprehensive understanding, here is a good paper.  “Patterns in decomposition rates among photosynthetic organisms: the importance of detritus C: N :P content. “written by Susana Enríquez and other researcher in 1993. DOI: 10.1007/BF00566960

Paul put a great efforts on explaining the factors affecting soil organic matter process. In addition to soil water content, temperature is also important for mineralization. Both mineralization and immobilization affect the fate of N in soil. 

Again, this is a complex process, and I would suggest you look at from a system view and try to understand the process. For example, what are the sources of soil organic matter, how these are being processed in soil? How long might it take for different substrates? etc. 

Regards

Qiang

The many "approach[es] of Indigenous conservation practices" go mostly unrecognized because they are not expressed in the terms of "scientific" conservation. The conservation movement in North America conveniently sought to save "wild lands" within one generation of their government removing "wild Indians" from those "wild lands". I restrict my remarks to N. America, but I think they may apply elsewhere.

So there is a gap in ethical behavior and honesty about the conservation of those lands before the conservation movement was born. That lack of honesty in the historiograpy of conservation is a major block for scientists who wish to concentrate on data and the scientific method. If they have learned bio-cultural concepts, they may begin to look at the gap in knowledge represented by this lack of acknowledgment- on their part. 

This is not an an act of mea culpa for scientists but rather a very tangible need to understand the prior presence of indigenous practices in customary indigenous homelands. To communicate with indigenous peoples it is necessary to acknowledge this history, or it begins with a denial of who indigenous people are and what relationship they have to customary homelands; they are the progenitors of  "scientific" knowledge carried by the elders among them.

There are currently approaches being taken to address the joint need for conservation of public and adjacent tribal lands. Kyle White (Pottawatomie) at Michigan State University is a key proponent of workshops and conferences where conservationists and indigenous meet to work on communications and exchanges of knowledge. He has written on this topic (his papers are available in Research Gate)

For many indigenous peoples, the trust begins with the establishment of a relationship with them as people. If the scientists' desire to work together is sincere, i.e., it outlasts their publishing schedule, then scientists may establish viable relationships and gain some knowledge of traditional environmental knowledge passed down by indigenous scientists for thousands of years. If their interest is only intellectual, they will unlikely come to a working relationship. That is because the legacy of mistrust, which up to now, outweighs the will to trust. This remains a cost of colonization for indigenous peoples.

Such exchanges are needed, and they are increasingly challenging as climate change impacts disproportionately hit indigenous communities globally. Recognition of indigenous peoples is necessary to begin this work.

Thank you for the question.

I am more than 20 years ritired and can not help you, excuse but that´s the reality! H. Bochow

Hi Carlos,

Certainly you know better that there are lots of solutions for the the complexity problems in which you can choose one of them based on your knowledge and facilities. So in this case may be it is better this way if you'd use both qualitative and quantitative methods together as it philosophically means to consider both Rational and Natural Paradigms. Please note to make simplicity so that it can be used the following process:

1- Exploration

2- Description

3- Explanation

5- Verification

I have used this process in my researches as I have been successful, I recommend you to start with explanation through "GAHP+ELECTRE+Shannon'sEntropy" in which it gives you a real model in your study and then you can go on with verification through "SEM+Statistical'Methods" in which it gives you the final conceptual model of the study.

I suggest you to read my attached article for getting any pattern from it.

Rgds

"unable to understand the meaning that the principle of relativity plays the role of an axiom." It is an axiom so that it forms that necessary point of departure for logical reasoning where-from one can use this as a selection criterion as to what can and cannot be physical. That's my take ...

Dear

It is easy. Go to the project. Select the followers, go to the followers’ page, find yourself, and put the unfollowing button. 

Dear Amir,

In one place you stated the interest is for “countries,” in another, you stated “counties.” I will say something on both.

In non-developed countries, we find that their economic base plays a role in the paradigm shift from agriculture to ICT. They tend to specialize mainly in agriculture, mining, and sometimes tourism. The literature on economic development shows over a long span of history that productivity is low for lack of capital, unstable government, imperfect market, unequal exchange, and so on. ICT should be welcomed in the face of some resistance because it can provide some information through low cost media such as broadband network and cloud computing infrastructure, which harness services such as YouTube, Google Map, Wikipedia, Facebook, and so on. Through these media information about practical business models, better market opportunities and available advertising media will help the countries to better their conditions.

 I want to add that in many counties and regions of developed countries, we find new opportunities for ICT to enhance productivity. In the United States, the Federal Government compiles a list of left- behind area that somehow cannot grow in the era of information age. For example, in California, that region stretches from Stockton to Bakersfield. The economic base there is mainly agriculture. It seem that ICT can help these areas, which are already poised to use ICT infrastructure more than in non-developed countries.

 In both situations, human capital development may be necessary, and government grants and subsidies may have a big role to play in the development process.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, I worked in four architecture departments in north central Mexico, teaching architectural history and life drawing. I noticed then that many professors tended to exaggerate the importance of the concept of 'space' to the detriment of other aspects of architectural design and experience, such as materials, building techniques, the design of physical elements, symbolic aspects, etc. People said things like "Architecture is space." I prefered to think of a dichotomy, where material elements define space, and the design of space determines the nature and disposition of the elements, like pottery but more complex.

Lately I have been in contact with professors of architecture who have gone to the other extreme, denying the existence of space, citing evidence from physics that "space does not exist," only distances. This seems absurd to me, since the perception of space is fundamental to the human experience, in a phenomenological sense. This is the equivalent of telling students in the visual arts that color doesn't exist, when the qualitative experience of color is also fundamental to the experience of the world by most members of our species.

Both of these extreme views must be confusing to students who are trying to absorb the fundamental concepts upon which to build a personal view and praxis in this discipline.

Have other people had similar experiences? I am particularly interested to know more about the trend of denying the existence of space. Has anybody encountered this in their experience with architectural education?

I am thankful to you all for your responses

Dear colleagues,

maybe my words will sound strong but systemic approach is the only way from the dead-end. Currently, there is under preparation with my colleague an introduction paper into complex systems in medicine. Once you will start to see the complexity from the within then you will understand easily. Complex systems are usually composed of many very simple components that under certain conditions produce complex responses and possibly higher level entities called emergents.

Please see the poster bellow, which serves as a very weak introduction into my review paper:

We all have a great responsibility in developing new highly effective approaches of cancer treatment. It can be done. Why do I think it? The answer is simple: the very same approach is successful in detection and even prediction of arrhythmias (VT and VF).

Remark:

The introduction into complex systems from the computer science and mathematical point of view can be found bellow:

I am trying to promote complex systems in the project:

No one can do everything; therefore, there is a stream of my work that is dealing with promotion complex systems in medicine.

Prezado colega, Dear colleague, 

Let me start this thread by thanking you for your question. In terms of historical scholarship, it is a fascinating one but not, I'm afraid, one of great import today.

Your question intrigues me as a psychiatrist and as a philosopher and I will restrict my comments to the interaction of those two spheres of thought and practice. I have read Sartre rather closely in both the French originals and widely disseminated English translations; my own interests led me to track through his ideas about emotions, psychology and psychoanalysis, starting with his "Esquisse d'une théorie des émotions"/"Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions" published in French in 1939 and elaborated in the English edition of his "L'Être et le néant" (1943 in French), translated as "Being and Nothingness" (1956). In this later work, he elaborated on a theory of consciousness and offered a reading and critique of Freud's notion of the unconscious. Sartre wanted to found an existential psychoanalysis.

The results are very mixed. On one hand, he was enormously influential and for many people in the second half of the 20th century, he was a major public "engaged intellectual" and universally identified with the hugely influential school of existentialism based on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and his own reading and idiosyncratic understanding of Martin Heidegger. Sartre influenced many psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, notably R.D. Laing and Frantz Fanon. Laing is associated with "anti-psychiatry" in Britain (although he disavowed the term coined by his friend David Cooper) and founded an approach he called "social phenomenology," inspired in great part by his reading of Sartre, as documented in the work with David Cooper, "Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy" (1964). Sartre wrote a brief Foreword to that work in which he acknowledges that Laing and Cooper had made a close and faithful reading of his work and that he looked forward to the day when we would have a truly human psychiatry. Fanon was a brilliant Martinican psychiatrist who wrote about the experience of colonials as both psychiatric patients and doctors. His call for a revolutionary psychiatry was compelling but incomplete as he turned his energy to militant activities in Algeria and died rather young. Both Laing and Fanon remain inspirational figures (although criticized in some quarters for different reasons) for young militants and in Laing's case for many people looking for a more existential and some may feel, more human, approach to human experiences and our vicissitudes. 

In my view, Sartre had a great influence on philosophy, literature (he was a novelist and a playwright, as well as a biographer and screenwriter), and  the humanities in general. Through the likes of Laing and Fanon, he has had an influence on psychiatry. However, we cannot say he founded a school or gave us a coherent or workable theory that inspired a new paradigm for psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis. Many Sartreans still write and contribute to intellectual life in many spheres but they have been supplanted in the humanities by the much more influential and prolific Michel Foucault who was both a psychologist and philosopher who became famous for his work, "Madness and Civilization" (1964, in its first English version, later retranslated in its entirety as the "History of Madness" in 2006). Foucault's followers are more critics and observers of psychiatry than actual clinicians or theoreticians of my fields of interest. 

A recent popular and compelling volume on existentialism, centred around Sartre is Sarah Bakewell's "At the Existentialist Café" (2016). It is erudite and well-referenced but not primarily a work of scholarship. It is very well-written, offers accurate and telling summaries of the people, their work and their relationships among the thinkers who are associated with existentialism and is as fine a summary as anyone has produced. I've been reading these authors for 50 years and I don't think she gets any of the details wrong and many of the ideas and conclusions spot on!

That said, I think the moment has passed for Sartre to be the change-agent for a paradigm shift in the social or human sciences. He was as successful in his time or more than any philosopher of modernity since Kant yet he is not considered one of the most influential thinkers in philosophy of the 20th century. The top two would be (against my own judgement, but by frequent mention): Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger. Wittgenstein, to my knowledge never mentioned Sartre, and Heidegger and Sartre misunderstood and dismissed each other, with Heidegger referring to "Being and Nothingness" as unreadable "dreck," although from his comments, we know that he read it through and mentioned ideas that appear at the end of Sartre's work. There was a notable exchange between the two on existentialism and humanism. The sad side of his legacy is that he produced little of outstanding critical thought after his magnus opus and although he was very productive and eventually earned a Nobel Prize in Literature which disdainfully refused, he printed many intemporate and unconsidered opinions and attacks. His apologetics for Stalin led him to betray a better man and a better writer, Albert Camus, in print that ended their relationship. History has shown that Camus was correct, more courageous, and far more decent a human being. I broke with Sartre as a young man for his preface to Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth" (1961/1963) with its justification for violence, invoking the sword of Achilles that both wounds and heals. As a philosopher that is ill-founded; as a physician and trauma specialist that is morally offensive and tragically wrong-headed. Violence begets violence and nothing else.

To conclude, I believe that while Sartre provided some strong images and scenes in his writing, especially in his novels and plays, they are the best part of his existential philosophy of "situations" which does not hold up as either profound or coherent and is not a starting for thinking about philosophical matters or psychiatric ones. Even worse, the larger school of thought in which Sartre inserted himself - phenomenology - has become so vague and all-encompassing that it can mean anything, as Tom Sparrow recently opined in his work, "The End of Phenomenology" (2014), and ends up meaning nothing. Alain Badiou, France's and one of Europe's greatest living philosophers who knew Sartre has called for an end to what he describes as the subjective phenomenology of Husserl and his followers, including Heidegger and Sartre. Badiou ("L'Être et l'événément," 1988 in French; "Being and Event," 2005 in English) calls for another philosophy and paradigm for the humanities based on a new Platonist ontology founded on mathematics and set theory where his core concept is the Event. He calls for an "objective phenomenology" with no reference to consciousness and names the Event as the key notion that introduces novelty to the world and the birth of the human subject. 

In sum, I'm afraid that that is precisely what I perceive in the humanities - the end of subjective phenomenology (including the Sartrean version) and a call for a new ontology, an objective phenomenology, and a new theory of change (the Event) and the subject. 

Amitiés, Amizade, Cordially,  

Vincenzo Di Nicola

Psychiatrist and Philosopher                                                                                 Professor of Psychiatry                                                                                           University of Montreal

Can there be facts without collective believe?

What is a fact more than a connective believe?

Every fact needs to be determined.

How can you do that?

By language, by measuring, by common sense, by reputation, by logic, may be by authority?

There are no obvious facts in the world

- It's the opposite: there is a world because we are able to think the obvious.

(psychiatric patients can loose  these abilities and therefore loose contact with the obvious facts others agree in common)

The first alliance with the factual world is out body.

For the body facts are indisputable. 

The body is her own fact.

- And therefore the experience of our physical being is the doorway to all facts.

best wishes,

Willy

Thank you! 

Regrettably, I cannot think that Edgar Morin's seven complex lessons in education in the future ever became "current", meaning, popular, prevalent, or in vogue. [Particularly enlightened pedagogical systems would be needed to educate for a sustainable future by integrating in curricula tools, methods, and approaches to (i) detect error and illusion, (ii) grasp principles of pertinent knowledge, (iii) teach the human condition, (iv) work for an Earth identity, (v) confront uncertainties, (vi) understand each other, and (vii) take responsibility for ethics for the human genre.] The only decided step that I can think of, in the recent past, relates to the scrapping of subjects in Finnish schools and their replacement with "topics"; it is not by coincidence that Finland has been, for years, a by-word for successful education, with a national system perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy. In my opinion, this is congruent with Morin's idea that education must encourage "general intelligence", apt to refer to the complex in context in a multidimensional way, within a global conception. But I can find little supportive evidence of an uptake of Morin's philosophy elsewhere. Of course, this is not to say that his ideas are not pertinent: if anything, the approval of the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations in September 2015 underscores the need to act on the seven complex lessons promptly.

To my mind at least, and somewhat paradoxically I reckon given the holism he has aspired to, Morin's important accent on complexity may be limited by the binary complementarities he rightly identifies here and there, e.g., productive/destructive, sapiens/demens, etc. Multidimensional, integrative approaches to the challenges of the 21st century are welcome, nay, obligatory; but, they need actionable starting points. In computer science, to use an analogy, booting is the process of starting a computer, specifically in relation to starting its software; the process involves several stages, at each of which a (smaller) program loads then executes a (larger) program; it is in this sense that the computer "pulls itself up by its bootstraps". I wonder what it might take to boot Morin's seven complex lessons in our daily lives (and naturally in education). Understanding Complexity, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266476979_Understanding_Complexity, may be of interest: that article illustrates what kinds of decisions need to be taken in response to danger signals in simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic circumstances.

Dear Jeanne:

Your question is related to how Piaget sees the process of development. It seems to me that you believe that Piaget saw development only as  a  linear and  discontinuous process and base your thinking on  (Rowan, 2016). To be frank,I do not know Rowan's paper.

Let me say that Piaget saw the process of development as implying indeed a vertical, discontinuous and linear dimension, but also a horizontal, continuous, and non-linear dimension. Suffice it to say that according to Piaget, (I) Each of his stages implies a phase of preparation and a phase of consolidation. If there is a preparation phase in each stage, then we can speak of  horizontal growth. (ii) Each of his stages lasts  for several years, which is consistent with the idea of horizontal growth.  (iii) If Piaget saw the process of development only as linear, then he has posited the existence of uncountable  stages, which is not the case. In other words, in Piaget's theory we have continuities (within a stage) and discontinuities (between stages). More to the point, according to Piaget, the next stage (e,g., formal stage) is based on the previous stage (concrete operational stage), which implies continuity, but it overcomes the previous stage, which implies discontinuity. (iv) On several occasions (see, for example, his book on the origins of intelligence in children where it is said that nothing in development begins all of sudden or ex-abrupto, and his book on biology and knowledge in which it is said that psychological developmental continues biological development. 

You still say that Piaget saw development in stages rather than a process and his research base was so small. These statements, I lament to say, are not correct. First, Piaget was more concerned with development as a constructivist process than with stages. Second, Piaget's research base was  not small. He  and  his collaborators interviewed thousands of children and in several countries.

As you can seethrough these examples, only a widespread and erroneous interpretation of Piaget's theory allows us to see his stages, for example, only in linear and vertical terms. As mentioned, his stages as well his theory is, as he used to say, a tercium, that is,a reconciliation between apparently opposite  perspectives or dimensions (e,g., biological vs. psychological; individual vs. social, continuous vs. discontinuous, and the like).

You say that you noticed that he seemed to avoid social development. Did you know, for example, his books:  The moral judgment of the child (1932)  and  Sociological  studies (1995)?. These two books are deeply related to moral and social issues

Here, I have not space  enough  to show you how  Piaget was and still is grossly misunderstood. You can  see this if you read , for example, my publications:  "In defense of Piaget's theory: A reply to 10  common criticisms" and " Developmental stages, Piagetian stages in particular: A critical review" (they are in my publications, Research Gate).

Of  course  Piaget's theory is full of gaps as he  confessed to the  French journalist Jean Claude Bringuier. In my manuscript, The child's understanding of logical necessity: Effects of counter-suggestions, I try  to  address, I think, one  of these gaps.

I hope that I have got your  question and  that this helps,

Best regards,

Orlando

Hello Eliasu—and hello to everyone following this question.

There are two significantly different forms of transdisciplinarity.

Both are intended to enable effective communication between people with diverse backgrounds of education, discipline, occupation, and culture.

One form deals with the social factors that influence communication in groups of people trying to work on some shared problem or goal. Okaka’s excellent contribution to this discussion is an example.

Nair refers indirectly to the other form when she says, “This is tough.  You almost have to communicate with each in their own language,..” The second form of transdisciplinarity involves the development of a common language between the members of the group—a lingua franca. English plays this role globally in large part among the science disciplines, but it does not provide a communication solution to the problem of the jargons that are specific to the various disciplines. There is a need for a transdisciplinary language that can provide effective communication between the disciplines—a language that is not constrained by the differences in the subjects studied by the disciplines or the associated jargons.

In the middle of the last century, general systems theory provided a clue as to how that transdisciplinary language could be achieved. That clue is isomorphies, patterns-of-organization of structure and processes that occur in diverse situations, and play roles in the intrinsic natures of those situations. These isomorphies are abundant throughout the subject matters studied by the various disciplines. For transdisciplinary understanding, what is known about one of these isomorphies, and the roles it plays, in one situation can be used to understand its occurrence and the roles it plays in another situation. Two example isomorphies are modularity and thresholds.

An important aspect of this is that these isomorphies develop. They occur in relatively simple forms in relatively simple situations, where few other factors are playing roles in the nature of the situation, for example the atomic and abiotic molecular levels. In more complex situations, where more other factors are playing roles, such as molecular biology of the cell and the physiology of organisms, these isomorphies occur in more complex forms and play more complex roles. In the highly complex situations of social systems, economic systems, and ecosystems, the isomorphies can have highly complex forms with equivalent roles in the intrinsic natures of the systems in which they occur.

Modularity develops in this manner. Electrons, protons, and neutrons are modules that play roles in the structural organization of atoms. Atoms are modules that play roles in the structural organization of molecules. Individual persons are modules within family groups. Trees are modules within forest ecosystems. Planets are modules within solar systems. And galaxies are modules within galactic clusters. Modularity plays roles at all the levels of material organization.

Understanding modularity provides a form of understanding that spans the entire range from the smallest to the largest, providing a unifying aspect of understanding throughout that range.

The process of emergence is another form of isomorphy, and similar to modularity, the process of emergence develops. When elementary particles combine, atoms come into existence, they emerge. When atoms combine, molecules come into existence, they emerge. When people come together, they create a diversity of social systems from families to communities to nations. These social systems emerge from the interrelations among groups of people. Ecosystems emerge from the interrelated togetherness of organisms and their environments. Galaxies emerge from the interrelated togetherness of stars.

The process of emergence creates the hierarchic organization of material reality from protons to galactic clusters. As with modularity, the development of the process of emergence spans the entire range from the smallest to the largest, and also provides an aspect of understanding throughout that range.

These two universal isomorphies, along with several others, provide an organizational context in which to organize the existence and organizational interrelations of all else that is known to exist. Understanding universal isomorphies ties together, integrates, all knowledge and understanding of the abundant isomorphies that occur in the subject matters of all the disciplines.

Isomorphies in this manner provide a mode of universal understanding—transdisciplinary understanding.

The names of the isomorphies, both structural isomorphies and process isomorphies, are the words of a transdisciplinary language.

Understanding isomorphies leads naturally into transdisciplinary understanding and the emergence of an effective means of communication between the disciplines.

Here are some links that provide further details:

Vesterby, Vincent. 2012. From Bertalanffy to Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity. Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the ISSS, San Jose, CA, USA. Retrieved Jul. 9, 2016, from http://www.bcsss.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Vesterby-ISSS-2012-paper-Bertal-to-Transdis.pdf

Vesterby, Vincent. 2013. Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity: The Essentials. http://www.bcsss.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Discipli-Independ-Transdisc-Essen-bcsss-template-Version2.pdf 

Retrieved Jul. 9, 2016

Vesterby, Vincent. 2013. Six PowerPoint presentations about Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity. First Global Conference on Research Integration and Implementation. Canberra, Australia.

Search ‘Vesterby’ at http://i2sconference.digitalposter.com.au/posters-search/

Retrieved Jul. 9, 2016

Dear Dr. Jakubowski,

Thank for your critical analysis and appreciation.  

I thought I should proceed with an example of our human brain. But first, I would like to draw an analogy of a simple system- since, the notion of complexity is in the mind, not in the system. The system, however complex it might have been, it will appear to work wonderfully well if simply understood. A general notion to avoid; complexity and chaos are not the same principles. Chaos deals with deterministic entities or systems whose paths change exponentially and unpredictably over time. Complex systems may give rise to chaos, and the origin of chaos theory is itself much debated that is still a rich area of investigation. Complexity arises from system-environment interaction: chaos arises from (dis)ordered dynamics of the system. However, disorder and randomness may arise from complexity.

Human behavior and the future of human behavior is much like an unpredictable system. We cannot exactly foretell with accuracy about the future of humanity or human behavior, but we can genuinely foretell with near accuracy the behavior of an ant, bird or a cockroach. I am not saying human behavior and nature is a chaotic system, but it is unpredictable. Chaos is a component of this (in)deterministic system which is unpredictable. The cause of unpredictability in behavioral repertoire is due to the complex organization of the human brain, and genetic mutations. Had it been simple, we would have never progressed beyond the intelligence of an ant. Leaving ant aside, I come to focus on the real content of this discussion.

Our brain is the result of grand unification of all the simple organic and inorganic molecules found in nature. It is the integration of all the active processes that is essential for emergence and continuation of the state of consciousness. Simple parts have united to generate organic complexity whose functioning is so complex that even using the most advanced tools and technologies of current day, it has not yet been possible to comprehend completely the whole functioning of the brain. I would accept your theory in relation to the complexity of the human brain that Paradigm boundaries exist. Or, there is still gap in knowledge about the required information necessary to understand the complete functioning of the brain.

However, I would beg to differ on opinions regarding two, or at least on one point which seems inconsistent with the current fundamental thoughts of physics: the theory of chaos, which you have nullified by stating “There is no chaos in Nature, as well as there is nothing which cannot be understood with our models of Nature”. Well, it might have been so, if indeed there would have been no chaos in Nature. I did not invent the chaos theory, but have learnt about it from reading books and articles, from discussion boards, and from the general media. Had there been no chaos in nature, randomness would have ceased to exist, even though randomness is a pattern; a disordered pattern I would say.

Again, I am using the word “disordered”. Do you really agree that everything is in order in nature? If that is so, I assume someone would walk straight into a casino, learn few patterns, and come out winning a jackpot every time he visits one. To avoid becoming bankrupt, casinos have programmed their slot machines using algorithms that perhaps have got something to do with randomness. Note that in an ordered system, there would be no randomness, so that everything can be determined. But not all systems are ordered. This is the reason we should refrain from incorporating consciousness in grand unification theory, since the debate between the existence and non-existence of free will, or triumph of determinism- would likely to evade all minds of intelligence.

From your valued inputs, I would like to refine my ideas about the working of Mother Nature, but what it seems apparent is that, several propositions of yours is confounding. Foremost, I accept your explanation of paradigm boundaries- but it is also factual that this boundary is creating a “gap”. This boundary exists: it is non-continuity. Boundaries exist because it is not possible to have all the knowledge of nature and natural laws on one hand while we failing to explain simple working of complex systems such as the human brain on the other. Gap in knowledge about the understanding of complex systems exists. In fact, systems do exist which are too complex to realize using present day models, which I agree with you, but there are limits of optimizing models for refinement to make them fit the data. The data about several natural phenomena are incomplete: as you have mentioned about the weather. Would you agree that predicting climate and modelling weather is a simple procedure? Why would it require complex algorithms? And yet they fail. Why?

Weather for instance, is an uncertain phenomenon. Forecasters of weather often fail since information about uncertainty is incomplete and the process too complex. When information will be available, it might reduce the Paradigm boundaries but may not entirely obliterate it. Or, even it might obliterate the boundary, something more complex problem would likely emerge, which would again create a “knowledge gap”. The goal of learning, observation, and experimentation is to reduce this gap and fill it with necessary information in order to understand the system completely. This is unification of knowledge. Knowledge gap exists between systems of understanding, between systems within systems (intersystem knowledge gap) between nations, boundaries, regions, people and practice, etc., since not all places have identical resources.

As far as I have learnt, all things do not work in the same way. They vary because the underlying constructs of the systems vary. Systems become complex when their organization starts to increase in density and measure.

Furthermore, I am not competent enough in physics to lend my ideas on grand unification theory, but I would definitely provide a simple analogy: for instance, unification of knowledge in some domains of medicine is a possibility because some sub disciplines of medicine work in unison. Take for example, medicinal chemistry, which involves inputs from so many cross disciplines, e.g., chemistry, biochemistry, biology, medicine, physiology, pathology, microbiology, pharmacology, physics, botany, mathematics, statistics, and bioinformatics. Such an unification of knowledge from all cross disciplines is a possibility if all such sub disciplines have something in common between them: they should be correlated and interdependent, and where fundamental laws of physics or chemistry universally applies to all such distant sub disciplines. We still have doubt about the phenomenal nature of consciousness. So, incorporating it into grand unification theory could be an error unless we fully understand what it is.

This would perhaps not suffice to disprove your claim that chaos do not exist, since I am not an expert of physics to render or lend my ideas on chaos theory, anyway. Finally, refinement in models would only help to optimize the problem, but of course, new models may seek to understand systems in a more flexible manner. Then why don’t we have all those models right now? What’s stopping us?

More thoughts follow.

Best regards,

Sidharta

Would take these words by common sense:

"multidisciplinary" means concerning more than one (=multi) disciplines,

"interdisciplinary" means concerning between disciplines without fixed amounts,

"transdisciplinarity" means going out of borders into an other discipline,

"universality" means valid all over the world and

"consilience" is the desired goal of every new defined terms in science.

Don't  think complex - think simple to solve complexity!

...i would tend to agree with Indranil, then again the west is no longer the "only" economic/media center ...in terms of restoring human ecology. i.e.: water.

China and the world needs to relearn, not only the "One Child Policy" of Ma Yinchu, but the indigenous ancestral wisdom of natural procreative hygiene for -ZPG.

To have a realistic focus on the history of ideas, the real question is "Who's ideas?"  

If only four holding companies, that are financed by pharmaceutical interests, control the global media and by default the agendas of the academies of higher learning, how will this "education" be possible.

Interesting, and I have never heard of it!  Thanks for the information.  I could have utilized it in my dissertation.  But there is always more research to be done!

Great question. TD thinking starts with a critical evaluation of the current state of higher education - transdisciplinarity is in fact a global reform movement. There are a number of excellent authors - in the European context Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu especially has delimited TD thinking, and in the American setting Patricia Leavy has a great little handbook. What I've noticed in my review of literature over a decade is that in formerly colonized settings such as Australia (see Albrecht, Freeman and Higginbotham; Arabena; Douglas Christie), the US, and South America (Apgar, Argumedo and Allen), many authors have included Indigenous epistemologies and holistic frameworks to their analyses of how to apply transdisciplinarity in actual research contexts while European researchers and authors have not.

Finally, a trilogy of review papers from Choi and Pak (starting in 06). These Canadian health scientists have taken a huge swath of TD literature and find that many researchers are claiming TD but are actually doing variations on multi- and interdisciplinary.  

Before becoming academics, my frequent co-author S.A. Moore and I came from decades of professional and clinical practice in Canada with children, young people and their caregivers many of whom are often engaged with professionals in multiple disciplines - teaching, mental health, criminal justice, and child protection - and frequently all at once. This has allowed us to identify numerous inclusive 'transdisciplinary tools' (Giroux and Searls-Giroux, 2004, p. 102) that can be understood and applied across these contexts particularly to avoid abuses of power.

We've also found it difficult to argue for transdisciplinarity in an academic setting due to tenure and promotion being evaluated by folks who see higher education and research solely through uni-disciplinary lenses. We've discovered the competitive chasing after grant monies also undermines the true egalitarian nature of TD partnerships (partners outside the academy who are often marginalized) and understanding of the goals of such research are not to pad one's CV but to set about solving the myriad problems humanity faces. Best of luck with your endeavors.

Thanks for responding - will check this out. I became involved in a number of climate change projects from a human rights perspective. Also spent 3 years helping  establish a UNESCO Chair in Community Sustainability here on our campus. Many of my more traditionally-oriented scientific colleagues considered my interest in cultural issues simply as 'social work' - hence my inquiry.

Remembering that the inventor of transdisciplinarity (as a method of research) was also anthropologist: Georges Devereux.