TopDown vs BottomUp: Difference between revisions
New page: Kevin Kelly has written an interesting post about the balance of bottom-up processes and top-down control. He emphasizes a balanced combination of bottom-up contributions and top-down con... |
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Kevin Kelly has written an interesting post about | Kevin Kelly has written an interesting | ||
[http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/02/the_bottom_is_n.php post] about | |||
the balance of bottom-up processes and top-down control. | the balance of bottom-up processes and top-down control. | ||
He emphasizes a balanced combination of bottom-up | He emphasizes a balanced combination of bottom-up | ||
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what you need to engineer self-organizing systems. | what you need to engineer self-organizing systems. | ||
The engineering of self-organizing systems is a | The [[ESOS|engineering of self-organizing systems]] is a | ||
contradiction in itself: how can you organize something | contradiction in itself: how can you organize something | ||
which organizes itself? If we want to build a | which organizes itself? If we want to build a | ||
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how can we ensure the function ? Agents do by defintion | how can we ensure the function ? Agents do by defintion | ||
what they want. How can you construct a self-organizing | what they want. How can you construct a self-organizing | ||
system? | system? How can we [[Engineering_Emergence|engineer emergence]]? | ||
The answer is: in a balanced, iterative process which | The answer is: in a balanced, iterative process which | ||
Latest revision as of 16:41, 2 October 2008
Kevin Kelly has written an interesting post about the balance of bottom-up processes and top-down control. He emphasizes a balanced combination of bottom-up contributions and top-down control, and this is in fact what you need to engineer self-organizing systems.
The engineering of self-organizing systems is a contradiction in itself: how can you organize something which organizes itself? If we want to build a self-organizing system with autonomous agents, then how can we ensure the function ? Agents do by defintion what they want. How can you construct a self-organizing system? How can we engineer emergence?
The answer is: in a balanced, iterative process which combines top-down analysis with bottom-up simulation, where we step by step define the 'rules of the game'. The bottom-up process is needed ensure diversity (innovative, random, surprising elements). The top-down process ensure unity (e.g. function, quality and goal-orientation). Together they form a cyclic round-trip process, which can be named synthetic microanalysis. This is nothing else but the scientific method applied to engineering.
Links
- Kevin Kelly, The Bottom is Not Enough
