Component-Scale Detectability of an Ensemble-Scale Phenomenon: Conclusions to be drawn from a case study
23 October 2019, 14:00-15:00 @Cibali Hall, Kadir Has University
Abstract: The notion of self-organisation refers to the spontaneous emergence of organisation in a system composed of many interacting components without the coordinating interference of a central controller. Such phenomena are encountered in a wide range of dynamic systems both in the inanimate and animate domains, and can be easily detected by an external observer, who has the opportunity to perceive a spatial or spatio-temporal regularity at the scale of the whole ensemble. In this talk we will seek an answer to the question whether such an ensemble-scale organisation can also be detected from within, i.e. at the level of a participating component that can acquire only local data from a limited neighbourhood. For this purpose we will examine a textbook example of self-organisation -the Bénard experiment- as a benchmark, and then consider how far the results can be generalised to other instances of self-organisation. This inquiry will give us an opportunity to emphasise the need for meticulous scrutiny of well-established assumptions if they are to be used within the interdisciplinary realm of Complexity Science.
Speaker Biography: Yagmur Denizhan is a professor at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department and Head of the Graduate Program in Systems and Control Engineering of Bogazici University. Her technical research areas are related to various aspects of nonlinear and complex systems including their modelling, analysis and control. She is also involved in philosophical investigations in a variety of interdisciplinary fields, such as cognitive science, biosemiotics, and systems theory.
