Renowned Scholar Mihai Nadin Joins Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas
Link to article
Mihai Nadin will serve as director of a newly established Institute for Research in Anticipatory Systems that focuses on “anticipatory computing,” or embedding the characteristic of anticipation in software for computers and other devices. The new institute, known as ANTE, was represented recently in Germany at ORGATEC, the largest world fair dedicated to the office as both workplace and environment for creative interaction.
Associated Link: http://www.anteinstitute.org
All living systems have anticipatory features. As opposed to the world described in the language of physics, the living displays characteristics that cannot be reduced to the deterministic sequence of cause and effect.
The DVD, Anticipation. The End Is Where We Start From, explores the many and various aspects of anticipation. It has three levels. On your television set, you can watch a short video. Using the DVD remote control, you can access several examples. For instance, play basketball and found out how to anticipate a slam-dunk. Or see how a stem cell unfolds in anticipation of the variety of its individual expressions. On your computer, you can further experience anticipation and get involved in several interactive applications. These refer to soccer, tennis, shooting an arrow, mirror neurons, and mechanisms that people rely on to wake up at a certain time, among other examples.
From the ROM part of the DVD, which forms the second level, you can access the scientific literature pertinent to each definition of anticipation and to each example. This literature is on the third level of the DVD. Finally, from the DVD you can access the Website www.anticipation.info. Here you will find many articles as well as links to sites world wide where aspects of anticipation are researched and discussed.
The DVD, designed by and produced by Computational Design, the University of Wuppertal, is being distributed in the magazine PAGE, Europe's most important multimedia publication, and in Desktop Dialog. For a postage and handling fee, the DVD (which is an academic, not a commercial, publication) can also be ordered through the Website.
In the weeks to come, a book (with English-German-French parallel texts) will be
published. Thus an integrated publication of DVD - Book - Website will be available
to the knowledge community we want to establish.
Anticipation - The end is where we start from
Of course you are familiar with the word. But are you really familiar with all it means? Although you anticipate, like every other living creature. Think about it: You want to wake up tomorrow at 5:00 AM. This cause-waking up at a certain time-results in an effect before the cause-the body is all set for the wake-up! It seems as though the arrow of time turns in the other direction. There is not only a progression from present to future, but also from future to present. If you play chess, you know the difference between reacting to your opponent's move and playing proactively, that is, in anticipation of his or her future moves.
Yes, we anticipate without always being aware of it. We listen to someone talk ad anticipate the next word. We fall in love and anticipate the kisses, embraces, and the emotions and acts that love entails. We look at someone in pain and feel pain as well. Scientists working in brain research speak of "mirror neurons." You teach someone how to play tennis and move your arm as your student moves his. It is almost as though you can control someone else's movement (or thinking) through your own.
These and many other examples are presented on a DVD-entitled Anticipation. The End Is Where We Start From-conceived by and produced at Computational Design, University of Wuppertal. In parallel, a Website dedicated to the various issues of Anticipation is accessible at www.anticipation.info. In my next newsletter, I shall provide more details about these resources.
Do you believe that you know more about anticipation? If so, check out the Website and send an e-mail. Or start a discussion on the Forum.