The Chaotic, Fractal and Complex City

The above video is that of the Third Movement of the Second Piano Concerto by Beethoven preformed by well-known pianist Claudio Abbado with the conductor Mikhail Pletnev. The date and location is unknown How does the embedded mind go from the implanted RAM to produce music such as this that transcends one to another level of consciousness? Yet, the embedded mind in humans can cause war, destruction, poverty, murder, and despair. It can emerge in an individual such as the Dalia Lama to bring messages of hope, joy and laughter for mankind and likewise manifest itself in scores of horrific individuals such as Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and others whose primary purpose to plunge whole societies into collective destruction. Attempting to uncover the reasons is an exercise in futility. To prevent such individuals from taking over the collective consciousness of whole societies is a worthy idealistic goal that should never be relinquished. In the present we must revel in the sublime creati...

While viewing some of the on-line editorials of the local newspaper here, Corpus Christi Caller Times , I came across this editorial comments by a local citizen, a Mr. Johnson, titled “ Failed Resolutions”. Failed resolutions Here it is, just a few days into the new year, and already my resolutions are circling the toilet. No matter what I did to distract myself, I could not manage to fulfill these goals: 1. Be tolerant of an ineffective, unfocused and downright embarrassing Corpus Christi City Council. 2. Remain calm as Corpus Christi continues its slide ever farther down the slippery slope to nowhere. 3. Stop thinking that a little outburst of oligarchy might not be a bad thing if it helps the citizenry realize just how much power it actually has in the decision-making process. 4. Believe there is some traction in the GROW Corpus Christi movement — that is, believe it really does represent a movement. 5. Prepare for the next round of elections without thinking politics is no more th...

In an earlier blog entry, I mentioned that I was interested in delving into “the embedded mind” and its relationship to complexity theory and urban planning (go to http://mcadamsfatih1.blogspot.com/2010/01/issues-on-emeddedembodied.html to see the original thread for the development of this concept). As all ideas, this one has a degree of simplicity and complexity. I would like to put forth my concept of the embedded mind, although it may vary from author to author. The embedded mind can be explained with computational metaphors. It can be described as the collecitive Read Only Memory (ROM) inserted into all humans. While humans alter this depending on their circumstances and surrondings, there seems to be rudimentary commonalities that are at the root of all human actions and manifestations (such as the built environment). Human desires, based on the needs of the human body, are evident wherever humans settle. One such universal desire is the consumption of food. There is no ci...

On the PBS News Hour today (12 January 2010), there was a report of the financial situation of states around the nation. There are many states that are having significant budget problems that will have an effect on public services in cities around the nation. “Under the radar” is the budget problem for cities. In September 2009, the National League of Cities stated” In the face of declining revenue and increasing expenses, city finance officers are pessimistic about cities’ abilities to meet their financial needs. Nine in ten (88%) say this year will be difficult in meeting fiscal needs, while 89% expect the same in 2010. This is the worst outlook the report has detailed in 24 years ( http://www.nlc.org/PRESSROOM/PRESSRELEASEITEMS/CFCSept2009PR9.1.09.aspx ) ". This will inevitability result in decreased services, hiring freezes, laying off of public employees, privatization, and increased taxes. A League of Cities report, City Fiscal Conditions in 2009, documents fully the im...

Here is link I discoved while "googling" for urbanism: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-cowles/can-new-urbanism-save-ame_b_372363.html from the Huffington Post. I will amend this post later with my comments on New Urbanism.

This is a informed discussion by Mr. Lee Munnich, "who chairs the Transportation Research Board's Subcommittee on Pricing Outreach. He played a primary role in developing Minnesota's I-394 MnPASS Express Lanes, a high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane project, in 2005 (Google comment on video, 2008). " There are some interesting comments by participants in this discussion.

This is a very good explanation of traffic congestion and possible solutions. This ties very well into agent-based modeing of traffic flow. The solutions are easy. The ultimate solution is to elimnate automobile trips entirely. This is by designing communities where people can walk or bicycle to their destinations. For those trips that are too length, public transport can accomodate the great majority. The issue of controlling traffic demand by appying tolls, as discused in this video, is a well researched and documented method to control the time of occurance of trip making. The best known case is cordon tolling by time of day in Central London. The unfortunate thing is that our elected officials are reluctant to pursue such alternatives, as mentioned by Secretary McDonald. I think that most citizens do not understand that they elected their represetatives and must take responsibilty if the politicians are not bringing innovative ideas for consideration to their legislative body. Cit...

Very interesting perspective of urban life. A co-founder of City Repair explains how the organization takes a holistic prespective to urban revitlalization.

Introduction to Complexity Science author: Seth Bullock, University of Southampton, U.K This is an introductory university lecture on complexity science.

Thia is a video which presents its message without titles or other explanation other than animation and music. The beginning is somewhat obscure, but the network and comparison between natural and urban fractals is interesting.

In this blog section, I would like to start to develop a metaphorical link between the embedded or embodied mind and complexity theory. Some of my questions are: 1.What is the embedded or embodied mind? 2.Does the metaphorical context of complexity integrate with the embedded/embodied mind? 3.Can the embodied mind concept combined with the application of complexity theory aid in our understanding of urban areas and urban planning? At the present time, I am in the process of exploring the provocative works of Andy Clark on this subject. An interesting review of Clark's book, Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again , is one by Gerard O’Brien entitled “The Mind: Embodied, Embedded, but not Extended” (Metascience 7:78-83 (1998)) and found on line at: http://cogprints.org/1451/0/Commentary_on_Clark_Being_There.pdf If you of aware of other interesting research on the embedded mind, please contact me. I am also in debt to my friend and colleague Dr. Vassil Anastas...