Books in the Lecture Notes in Morphogenesis series

In the present book, the starting line is defined by a morphogenetic perspective on human communication and culture. The focus is on visual communication, music, religion (myth), and language, i.e., on the ¿symbolic forms¿ at the heart of human cultures (Ernst Cassirer). The term ¿morphogenesis¿ has more precisely the meaning given by René Thom (1923-2002) in his book ¿Morphogenesis and Structural Stability¿ (1972) and the notions of ¿self-organization¿ and cooperation of subsystems in the ¿Synergetics¿ of Hermann Haken (1927- ). The naturalization of communication and cultural phenomena is the favored strategy, but the major results of the involved disciplines (art history, music theory, religious science, and linguistics) are respected.Visual art from the Paleolithic to modernity stands for visual communication. The present book focuses on studies of classical painting and sculpture (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, and Henry Moore) and modern art (e.g., Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys). Musical morphogenesis embraces classical music (from J. S. Bach to Arnold Schönberg) and political songwriting (Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen). The myths of pre-literary societies show the effects of self-organization in the re-assembly (bricolage) of traditions. Classical polytheistic and monotheistic religions demonstrate the unfolding of basic germs (religious attractors) and their reduction in periods of crisis, the self-organization of complex religious networks, and rationalized macro-structures (in theologies). Significant tendencies are analyzed in the case of Buddhism and Christianism. Eventually, a holistic view of symbolic communication and human culture emerges based on state-of-the-art in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, linguistics, and semiotics (philosophy of symbolic forms).

This book is based on a two-day symposium at the Paris Institute of Advanced Study titled "space-time geometries and movement in the brain and the arts".

This book provides a thorough discussion about fundamental questions regarding urban theories and modeling. There are several chapters conveying the answers given by single authors to problems of conceptualization and modeling and others in which scholars reply to their conception and question them.

Creating a glossary and a culture of these intersections is the task of morphology, which thus enters into the boundaries between aesthetics, art, design, advertising, and sciences (from mathematics to computer science, to physics, and to biology), in order to provide the founding elements of a grammar and a syntax of the image.

This book is based on a two-day symposium at the Paris Institute of Advanced Study titled "space-time geometries and movement in the brain and the arts".

This book offers a critical account of Karl Marx¿s dazzling theory of labour power which is also one of the most influential concepts in the history of contemporary philosophy. Labour power is the dark side of the digital revolution. Working men and women are invisible and treated like human service, flesh and blood automatons or organic extensions of a machine that produces data on its own. Automation is viewed as something magic made possible by algorithms whose life is independent of human beings.Labour power, however, has not disappeared. Without drivers, Uber cannot connect customers on its platform; without searches on its browser, Google grinds to a halt; without us, Facebook or Instagram is desert. Labour power is the dwarf hidden inside the puppet of technology that allows algorithms to be intelligent and make the biggest profits in the history of capitalism.The invisible centrality of labour power is the political enigma of our times. Today a new account of the theory of labour power is needed more than ever in order to understand the political economy of digital capitalism on new grounds. Unlike a long tradition in the history of work, labour power is not only the work or the data it produces, but a potency that does not coincide with its current commodification. The actuality of labour power does not exhaust the virtuality that can be actualised by its faculty. Even when reduced to a commodity, labour power does not exhaust the potency of its being otherwise.Immersed in the constant propaganda that boosts the latest technological inventions, we neglect the fact that this wealth is produced by us and that it could be ours precisely because it is a part of our potential to be other than what we are at present. This book is a vibrant invitation to consider the fact that we are always connected with the potency that is constantly at work in our life. If this were not the case, we would not be alive. If we do not strive to become consciously and collectively active, we will never know.

This monograph presents urban simulation methods that help in better understanding urban dynamics. The high frequency and intensity of interactions between cities explain that urban systems all over the world exhibit large similarities in their hierarchical and functional structure and rather regular dynamics.

This monograph examines in detail models of neural systems described by delay-differential equations. The book discusses models of synaptic interaction between neurons, which lead to complex oscillatory modes in the system.

This book provides a thorough discussion about fundamental questions regarding urban theories and modeling. There are several chapters conveying the answers given by single authors to problems of conceptualization and modeling and others in which scholars reply to their conception and question them.

This book collects research contributions concerning quantitative approaches to characterize originality and universality in language. The target audience comprises researchers and experts in the field but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.Creativity might be considered as a morphogenetic process combining universal features with originality. While quantitative methods applied to text and music reveal universal features of language and music, originality is a highly appreciated feature of authors, composers, and performers.In this framework, the different methods of traditional problems of authorship attribution and document classification provide important insights on how to quantify the unique features of authors, composers, and styles. Such unique features contrast, and are restricted by, universal signatures, such as scaling laws in word-frequency distribution, entropy measures, long-range correlations, among others. This interplay between innovation and universality is also an essential ingredient of methods for automatic text generation.Innovation in language becomes relevant when it is imitated and spread to other speakers and musicians. Modern digital databases provide new opportunities to characterize and model the creation and evolution of linguistic innovations on historical time scales, a particularly important example of the more general problem of spreading of innovations in complex social systems.This multidisciplinary book combines scientists from various different backgrounds interested in quantitative analysis of variations (synchronic and diachronic) in language and music. The aim is to obtain a deeper understanding of how originality emerges, can be quantified, and propagates.

This contributed volume explores the achievements gained and the remaining puzzling questions by applying dynamical systems theory to the linguistic inquiry. In particular, the book is divided into three parts, each one addressing one of the following topics:1) Facing complexity in the right way: mathematics and complexity 2) Complexity and theory of language 3) From empirical observation to formal models: investigation of specific linguistic phenomena, like enunciation, deixis, or the meaning of the metaphorical phrasesThe application of complexity theory to describe cognitive phenomena is a recent and very promising trend in cognitive science. At the time when dynamical approaches triggered a paradigm shift in cognitive science some decade ago, the major topic of research were the challenges imposed by classical computational approaches dealing with the explanation of cognitive phenomena like consciousness, decision making and language. The target audience primarily comprises researchers and experts in the field but the book may also be beneficial for graduate and post-graduate students who want to enter the field.