Encefalus

Can all things be random?

2010-03-07T10:53:32Z

The last summer I was reading this book: The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics The book was dealing mainly with the complexity of economic systems. It actually tried to introduce a new field of economic analysis Complexity Economics, that is inspired by the recent trend of complexity science and [...]

Everything is fuzzy ;-)

2010-03-06T19:49:36Z

Lately I have started dabbling with fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory. You’ll probably start wondering what these are. I won’t try to give you a definition, but rather I’ll give you a few examples to help you understand yourself. I don’t like the mathematical way that concepts like fuzzy logic are first presented. A mathematician [...]

Why are psychologists afraid of math?

2009-11-05T17:09:41Z

Hello there guys (and girls)! It’s been a month and two days since I wrote my last post. I am really short on time, but as you can see I always write when I have the time and an interesting subject on my hands My hands What I want to talk about today is the future [...]

An informational theory of complexity

2009-09-01T12:59:29Z

Hi there folks! This time I am writing, because I just had an idea that I need to discuss. I was just reading the book Social Emergence: Societies as Complex Systems. I just read the first 4 pages, when I came across a paragraph that dicusses the nature of emergence and the philosopical debates around it. [...]

Woah! Back from complexity people :P

2009-12-22T11:18:33Z

Hello there guys! It’s been about 3 months that I haven’t posted anything! You’ve probably thought I am dead Let me tell you guys (and gals). Encefalus ain’t dead! It’s just been that I’ve been so busy, that I literally didn’t have any time to write one of my traditional long posts. [...]

Monkey Island: This is where you live

2009-11-02T15:01:22Z

Hey, I return after nearly missing for a month. This time, I won’t write about my current interests which revolve around computation in social sciences. This time I am writing to revisit politics. Actually, I don’t know why, after a month not having published an article I feel the urge to throw some random rant. [...]

Two simple computational models I created using NetLogo

2009-03-22T18:41:23Z

As I had said in my previous post, I am very busy this time. Now, you are going to see why Lately, I decided to learn more about computation models. This will probably be reseach focus in the upcoming years. I created two models, which I want to present to you. The models were [...]

Is there any truth to pure computational models of social life?

2009-03-10T17:39:25Z

First of all, I’m sorry for not having written for so long, but I am really busy. Anyway, this time was not wasted, since I have passed a large part of my free time dealing with new ideas. These ideas revolve around computation and a possible formal framework of methodology in social sciences. In this [...]

The “E” factor

2009-02-20T17:47:08Z

Hi there guys It’s been a long time that I haven’t written an article. The reason is that I have SO many things to do, that I really don’t have the time to update all my projects as often. Between my new projects, like Raskolnikov’s Dream and Musikality Net, I had to deal [...]

Consciously agnostic

2009-01-24T13:24:36Z

Sorry for not having written for so long time, but I literally have SO many things to do, especially with my new projects, that I really don’t have time for anything! Anyway, I am writing this post to comment on an article I found on Scientific American: Exploring Consciousness through the Study of Bees This article is [...]

Please support my other projects and pay them a little visit :-)

2009-02-20T17:48:13Z

As you may know, I also run two more projects, besides Encefalus. I am a musician, not only a psychologist, and my first project, can be found here: Raskolnikov’s Dream. It is a melodic electronica project. In the official site you will find more information and you will be able to listen to samples of my music. The [...]

Inside the amazing brain of an autistic savant

2009-02-21T15:15:19Z

I found this interview in scientific american the other day: Inside the Savant Mind: Tips for Thinking from an Extraordinary Thinker This interview is with Daniel Tammet, a world-known savant. Daniel Tammet For those of you who don’t know what a savant is, they are autistic people with extraordinary abilities. If you’ve seen the film Rainman, then you’ll [...]

What’s going on with evolutionary psychology?

2009-01-06T23:20:15Z

I haven’t written for sometime due to time constraints, but I decided to come back today to comment on an article I just read, before I lose my track of thoughts. The article was published in Scientific American and is this: Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology This article is written by Philosopher of science [...]

Encefalus wishes you a happy new year!

2009-01-01T19:07:19Z

Encefalus wishes you a happy new year!! This blog started near the end of july 2008 with a 100 visitors and now has over 140.000 unique visitors! I want to thank you all for your support, e-mails and comments. Let’s hope this year will be better than the last one. Let there be new synapses into [...]

Can computation be the answer? The violation of the second law of thermodynamics

2008-12-30T21:05:44Z

Stephen Wolfram Lately I’ve been reading Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. As you can guess from the title, Wolfram makes a few great remarks about the future and the methods of science. Traditional science uses mathematics. What mathematics do, is to quantify problems, find regularities and then use equations to describe these regularities. What this [...]

The nature of authority

2008-12-23T11:21:00Z

In the latest post we talked about the death of Alexis Grigoropoulos: The death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos (drugs, guns, cops and tasers part II). Since then, Greece continues to be shocked by riots, protests and various forms of resistance against authority. Some people even managed to occupy the national tv network, at the same time, that [...]

The death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos (drugs, guns, cops and tasers part II)

2008-12-14T13:58:20Z

One of the first articles I had written was this one: Drugs, Guns, Cops and Tasers. I promised to write part 2 some day. There is not better occasion to write this article, than this one. In the previous Saturday, on 6/12/08, Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered in the greek district of Exarchia in Athens. Alexandros Grigoropoulos Since then, [...]

Encefalus update postponed

2008-12-08T11:27:42Z

Due to various circumstances, the regular update, which the last few months happens every week, will be postponed. I will probably post the new article this Sunday. Read some of the older articles to keep yourself occupied

Dangerous ideas revisited: Controversial books, swearing and other stuff

2008-11-30T22:55:56Z

Those of you who read Encefalus, probably remember this article: Dangerous Ideas: Information and cultural revolution in the age of the internet or metacognition in the modern society The reason I am mentioning this, is this article I found on the web: Ten Of The Most Controversial Books! The latter article refers (pretty obviously) to books that [...]

Agent based models in social sciences

2008-11-23T18:37:19Z

Lately I’ve been digging into the subject of agent based models of social sciences. Agent based models are defined by wikipedia as following An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous individuals in a network, with a view to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. [...]