<font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', serif">I found an open text on general systems science that motivates its need and aims much better than I can, by Buckminster Fuller:</font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', serif"><br>
</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', serif">"We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief... In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war."...</font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', serif"><br></font></div><div><a href="http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/intro/well.html"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', serif">http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/intro/well.html</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'" size="3"><br>
</font><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Kai Chang <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kai.salmon.chang@gmail.com">kai.salmon.chang@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Mike,<div><br></div><div>Those examples are spot on. Actually I think Glenn's hit a great point which is my frustration with ML isn't that I'm not into the algorithms, it's that I rarely have data in any shape to analyze. Data hacking is a great term for what I'd like to do.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I'm also interested in sociology, where there are many system theories and interesting thinkers. These theories are not necessary to hack on health care data, but can help in interpreting the meaning of the data. In general, I don't find these theories to be empirically testable. They either appeal to and subsequently inform my intuitions, or they do not.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Some examples of such thinkers and their focus are:</div><div><br></div><div>Talcott Parsons (living systems, general theory)</div><div>Karl Marx (capitalism and social identification)</div><div>John Dewey (individual and environment, democracy)</div>
<div>Erving Goffman (interaction and everyday life)</div><div>Niklas Luhmann (communication, systems theory)</div><div>Deleuze (philosophical systems, psychadelic complexity theory)</div><div><br></div><div>They are all important to me as I struggle to turn my interest in data hacking from toy projects into meaningful political action with other people.</div>
<div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 8:06 PM, Mike Schachter <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mike@mindmech.com" target="_blank">mike@mindmech.com</a>></span> wrote:<br></div><div>
<div></div><div class="h5"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Glenn, Kai,<br>
<br>
My personal interests are in Neuroscience and my<br>
interest in ML started with generalized linear models,<br>
information theory, moved towards neural nets and deep<br>
nets, and is continuing to move towards generic graphical<br>
models.<br>
<br>
I also have some experience with dynamical systems<br>
models of actual brain cells. Kai, when you say "systems<br>
theory", what do you refer to? Like, cellular automata?<br>
Complexity? Dynamical systems? Stuff like markov decision<br>
processes?<br>
<br>
Because ML meetup content as been so sparse over the<br>
past year, I'd really encourage you to just take up ML time<br>
with anything you'd like to talk about. Anything related to<br>
complex systems, AI, machine learning, or statistics should<br>
be fair game, in my opinion, and I'd definitely like to hear<br>
more about what you're interested in. Same goes for everyone<br>
else.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
mike<br>
</font><div><div></div><div><br>
<br>
On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 7:51 PM, Kai Chang <<a href="mailto:kai.salmon.chang@gmail.com" target="_blank">kai.salmon.chang@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Also, I think this topic is well outside the scope of Machine Learning. We<br>
> should find a different time to meet, and consider starting our own group if<br>
> there's enough interest.<br>
><br>
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Kai Chang <<a href="mailto:kai.salmon.chang@gmail.com" target="_blank">kai.salmon.chang@gmail.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> I have a strong interest in systems theory and would be interested in<br>
>> discussing these topics.<br>
>><br>
>> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:56 PM, Brian Morris <<a href="mailto:cymraegish@gmail.com" target="_blank">cymraegish@gmail.com</a>><br>
>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>> I have some interest in Economics and population biology / evolution, and<br>
>>> human language / communication, wrt systems of interacting autonomous<br>
>>> agents.<br>
>>><br>
>>> There's a rather frustrating gap right now for me between the science and<br>
>>> computing in my own personal situation which I would greatly like to narrow.<br>
>>><br>
>>> I'm sorry if it didn't come across.<br>
>>><br>
>>> I'm not sure how you mean social networks if like in Facebook user<br>
>>> profiling which is a current app that companies are interested in a lot, or<br>
>>> if you mean more like classical social sciences about social processes (like<br>
>>> economic systems, or altruistic behaviour, or some topics like that).<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:47 PM, Glenn Wright<br>
>>> <<a href="mailto:infinite.perplexity@gmail.com" target="_blank">infinite.perplexity@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Can I just throw a question out there on interests? A lot of the<br>
>>>> discussions on this list have been about artificial intelligence, image<br>
>>>> recognition, and stuff like that. Is that typical of the interests of<br>
>>>> people on the ML group? My data andstatistical interests lie more in the<br>
>>>> area of social sciences, health care, social networks, and stuff like that.<br>
>>>> Anyone else share similar interests?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> --<br>
>>>> -Glenn<br>
>>>><br>
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>>><br>
>>><br>
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>><br>
><br>
><br>
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