Elements and Relations: Aspects of a Scientific Metaphysics

This textbook is built around the central proposition that systems theory is an attempt to construct an “exact and scientific metaphysics” (an ESM).

Read the full article at: link.springer.com

Asymmetric ideological segregation in exposure to political news on Facebook

Sandra González-Bailón, et al.

SCIENCE 27 Jul 2023 Vol 381, Issue 6656

Does Facebook enable ideological segregation in political news consumption? We analyzed exposure to news during the US 2020 election using aggregated data for 208 million US Facebook users. We compared the inventory of all political news that users could have seen in their feeds with the information that they saw (after algorithmic curation) and the information with which they engaged. We show that (i) ideological segregation is high and increases as we shift from potential exposure to actual exposure to engagement; (ii) there is an asymmetry between conservative and liberal audiences, with a substantial corner of the news ecosystem consumed exclusively by conservatives; and (iii) most misinformation, as identified by Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, exists within this homogeneously conservative corner, which has no equivalent on the liberal side. Sources favored by conservative audiences were more prevalent on Facebook’s news ecosystem than those favored by liberals.

Read the full article at: www.science.org

Future medicine: from molecular pathways to the collective intelligence of the body

Eric Lagasse Michael Levin

Trends in Molecular Medicine

The remarkable anatomical homeostasis exhibited by complex living organisms suggests
that they are inherently reprogrammable information-processing systems that offer
numerous interfaces to their physiological and anatomical problem-solving capacities.
We briefly review data suggesting that the multiscale competency of living forms affords
a new path for biomedicine that exploits the innate collective intelligence of tissues
and organs. The concept of tissue-level allostatic goal-directedness is already bearing
fruit in clinical practice. We sketch a roadmap towards ‘somatic psychiatry’ by using
advances in bioelectricity and behavioral neuroscience to design methods that induce
self-repair of structure and function. Relaxing the assumption that cellular control
mechanisms are static, exploiting powerful concepts from cybernetics, behavioral science,
and developmental biology may spark definitive solutions to current biomedical challenges.

Read the full article at: www.cell.com

Binghamton University Job Posting: Assistant Professors-Systems Science/Complex Systems/Network Science & Computational Social Science

The Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering (SSIE) in the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University (The State University of New York at Binghamton) invites applications for two faculty members, at the tenure-track Assistant Professor level, starting in Fall 2023. The positions involve teaching at all levels from undergraduate courses to advanced graduate courses, and establishing theoretical and applied research in emerging areas in systems science.

All positions immediately above are sought to start in Fall 2023 and require advanced expertise in their fields per the description below. Qualified applicants in other emerging areas of the systems science discipline may be considered.

The Assistant Professor – Systems Science/Complex Systems/Network Science position will pursue newer topics such as Complex Systems, Network Science, Network Design, or other emerging topics in the broader discipline of Systems Science. Candidates with experience in the broad area of computational intelligence are preferred.

The Assistant Professor – Computational Social Science/Biomedical Complexity/Epidemiology position is also highly computational. In particular, complex systems science has been particularly successful in building actionable models in social, organizational, and biomedical complexity, which leverage ML/AI/Statistical Inference but add explainability to the management of complex problems. It is expected that candidates applying for this role will pursue much broader applications including, but not limited to, Social Science/Networks, Organizational Science/Networks and Design, Biology, Medicine, and Mental/Public Health Modeling.

More at: binghamton.interviewexchange.com