The center "Leo Apostel" invites you to its seminar
Wednesday, December 18 at 5 p.m. in room G022 (building G) Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Campus Oefenplein.
by Dr. Joel de Rosnay, Director for Development and International Relations, Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, la Villette, Paris.
Email : derosnay@cite-sciences.fr
Home page : http://www.cite-sciences.fr/derosnay
Symbiosis is one of the most fundamental functions of life and the ecosystem. It is a tight association between living species resulting in mutual benefit for the partners. How can we better understand symbiosis and adapt it to the evolution of man, society and developing planetary super-organisms? One of the key challenge is the extension of this concept to symbiosis between living and "non living" systems, like mechanical or electronic complex systems built by man. After a review of the major theories of the origins of life, the birth of symbiosis and the description of successful symbiotic associations, the author discusses the possibility of new forms of associations between man, machines, networks and complex sytems. One of them leads to the metaphor of the cybiont, a superorganism resulting from the convergence of brains, computers and communication networks. The cybiont metaphor is discussed in the context of the Gaia model for planetary self-regulated ecosystems. The major points of the presentation will be the relationship between the individual and the whole, the cooperation and competition between Gaia and the cybiont, the "metabolism" and "nervous" systems of the planet. Finally in discusssing future trends, the author will focus on the challenges of sharing and processing information from the global brain and the principles of subsumption and governance for proper management of complex systems and their evolution.
Joël de Rosnay, Docteur ès Sciences and scientific writer, is presently Director of Development and International Relations of the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie at La Villette. From 1975 to 1985 he was Director of Research Applications at l'Institut Pasteur in Paris. Former research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the field of biology and computer graphics, he was successively Scientific Attaché to the French Embassy in the United States, and Scientific Director of European Enterprises Development Company (a venture capital group) from 1971 to 1975. He is particularly interested in advanced technologies and the applications of system theory. On these subjects, he wrote : "Le Macroscope" (1975), "Les Chemins de la Vie" (1983) and "Le Cerveau Planétaire" (1986). He is the author of several scientific books aimed at a large public, such as "Les Origines de la Vie" (1966); "La Révolution Biologique" (1982) ; "Branchez-Vous" (1984), a book on personal computers; "L'Aventure du Vivant" (1988) ; "L'avenir en direct" (1989); "Les rendez-vous du Futur" (1991); "L'Homme Symbiotique, regards sur le 3eme millénaire" (1995).