Nature's way of optimizing

Nature's way of optimizing

We propose a general-purpose method for finding high-quality solutions to hard optimization problems, inspired by self-organizing processes often found in nature. The method, called Extremal Optimization, successively eliminates extremely undesirable components of sub-optimal solutions. Drawing upon models used to simulate far-from-equilibrium dynamics, it complements approximation methods insp...

The Natures of Nonconfigurationality

Population, development, and human natures

At the dawn of this new millennium, the human enterprise is quickly becoming a globally unified one. Yet numerous obstacles and pitfalls remain in the path of a full and fair unification. A substantial fraction of the world’s population is well-off and increasingly connected through trade and communications systems. But an even larger fraction is struggling to make ends meet and is only sketchi...

Natures and Perspectives

“Nature” and “Perspective” have similar meaning for Eclipse developers and for personnel in a software product line organization. The nature of product line work differs from one part of the organization to another. A developer using Eclipse switches among perspectives to have ready access to the specific tools needed for the nature of the current work such as testing, modeling, or plug-in deve...

Biomimicry : New Natures , New Enclosures

Advocates of biomimicry encourage a new industrial paradigm that ostensibly leaves behind the crude violence of Francis Bacon, the domination of nature-as-machine, and a history of toxic production processes that have given rise to a present and coming climate crisis. As part of a broader trend towards the conceptualization and development of a ‘bioeconomy’, we argue here that biomimicry produc...