Yogi Jaeger / is on Nostr

Life beyond dogma! Free-floating systems thinker & natural philosopher. Antifragilist extemporanian metamodernist. Open science, society & living.

Freelance Researcher, Philosopher & Educator

Scholar, Ronin Institute

Project Leader, JTF Project "Pushing the Boundaries", Dept of Philosophy, Uni Vienna

Associate Faculty, Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Last Notes

2024-06-18 15:35:19

"This civilization is finished."
The question is: what are *you* going to do about it?
https://aeon.co/essays/is-civil-disobedience-a-moral-obligation-in-a-time-of-climate-crisis

2024-05-24 16:28:08

Hype is increasing in scientific publishing: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-023-04864-6

2024-05-11 13:40:49

My book chapter about agency, biological organization, and their importance for the study of organismic development (ontogenesis) is now officially out!
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-53626-7_10
Free preprint version here:
https://osf.io/preprints/x3uny

2024-05-03 19:56:36

Pattee's "How does a molecule become a message?" is a true gem of a paper.
In it, he has a great argument for the futility of big-data biology, & he complains (writing in 1969!) that biology is already overburdened with data that will never converge to an understanding of life.

2024-02-06 13:36:57

This interview with Philip Ball is really good:
https://templeton.org/news/welcome-to-the-new-biology.
I was hoping for a bit more questions on the book, and meaning in biology, but it's interesting to hear about his unique intellectual trajectory. I know very very few people who are as broadly read as Phil.

2023-12-28 16:38:16

Naturalizing Relevance Realization: Why Agency and Cognition are Fundamentally not Computational, with Anna Riedl, Alex Djedovic, John Vervaeke & Denis Walsh.
https://osf.io/preprints/osf/pr42k
It's massive indeed! I'll do a TL:DR thread on its argument one of these coming days.

2023-12-22 14:30:24

Christmas is coming early this year: we just dropped a new preprint!
"Beyond networks: explaining dynamics in the natural and social sciences."
https://osf.io/htc78
It's a broad criticism of network modeling in both the natural & social sciences & a study of where its shortcomings originate historically. 🧵

2023-10-24 13:34:29

- reply

@npub153s…cvd9
Yeah. It was just about basic human rights, was it? Not about clearly taking sides regarding a hugely controversial topic that is polarizing scientists across the globe right now. Scientists who may want to submit work to a journal like eLife in the future.
I don't want anyone to get fired because of a silly tweet (that's why I signed the petition), but to make this about free speech or Palestine is ridiculous.

2023-10-24 07:33:26

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@npub153s…cvd9 @npub1uzm…2fzr
I signed the petition calling this out. Not because I agree with Eisen's insensitive & stupid tweet, or leftist persecution paranoia. For me, this is really not about free speech or the Palestinian cause in particular. It's about an editor of a scientific journal making their employer look bad in public.
Still, to fire someone for one silly tweet, that's a staggering level of intolerance and thin-skinnedness.

2023-10-11 13:10:08

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@npub1ahd…4p2e @npub1a7m…j0p9
As the paper is also not presenting a specific model of evolution (focusing on a general description of the theory & examples from their previous model on molecular complexity) it really makes no difference in this case.

2023-10-11 12:53:53

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@npub1ahd…4p2e @npub1a7m…j0p9
I *do* like the model.
Unfortunately, the authors bury its true nature and use under a heap of false advertising.
This is so common these days. It makes it such more difficult for people to get to the heart of the matter.

2023-10-10 14:14:41

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"Unfortunately, by now, PR spectacles (or disasters) like this one abound in our field and greatly outshine any serious theoretical discussions we could be having instead. We're in pretty bad shape overall. It'd be great if more people would see this and do something about it, instead of contributing their own little turd to the whole feces-hurling exercise."

2023-10-10 13:06:17

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TL;DR: I think assembly theory has lots of merit and potential, but this particular paper frames its argument in a way which is unfortunate and, frankly, more than just a bit misleading. My personal suspicion is that this has two reasons: (1) the authors hyped up their claims to get the paper published in a glam journal, plus (2) they also overestimate the reach and power of their model in ways which may be detrimental to its proper application and interpretation.

2023-10-10 13:05:58

New blog post just dropped!
"Assembly theory is cool... but doesn't quite do what its inventors say it does."
http://www.johannesjaeger.eu/blog/assembly-theory-is-cool
reviewing this recent Nature paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9
news & views here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03061-y
#evolution #complexityscience #innovation #possibilityspace

2023-09-22 12:00:42

I generally LOVE #TheGreatSimplification by Nate Hagens. Do yourself a favor and listen to it!
https://thegreatsimplification.com/episode/88-robert-sapolsky
But what does this recent episode contribute to humanity surviving the coming #metacrisis?
I'd say that the narrow-minded reductionist points which Robert Sapolsky argues are exactly what needs to be overcome. /1 🧵

2023-09-20 07:35:01

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@npub1skv…aky3
The same problem exists in systems biology and, in fact, any science that relies heavily on network approaches.
I think the problem is conceptual: modules *are* processes, if only you operationalize them properly.
Nobody does (yet), but I've written (with Nick Monk) about how it should be done:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsfs.2021.0011
https://doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1007/978-3-030-71737-7_11

2023-09-17 15:25:22

The weekend is almost over but if you still have a couple of hours to spare, treat yourself to this amazing interview of Alicia Juarrero, about the science & philosophy of constraints, a contextual science, and what AI lacks compared to organisms.
https://braininspired.co/podcast/174
Her new book is called "Context Changes Everything." Highly recommended!