"The goal of Guided Self-Organization (GSO) is to leverage the strengths of self-organization while still being able to direct the outcome of the self-organizing process. GSO typically has the following features: (i) an increase in organization (structure and/or functionality) over some time; (ii) the local interactions are not explicitly guided by any external agent; (iii) task-independent objectives are combined with task-dependent constraints.
"What is common to many examples of GSO is the characterization of a system-environment loop (e.g., sensorimotor or perception-action loop) in information-theoretic terms. For instance, given an agent's behavior, the empowerment measures the amount of Shannon information that the agent can "inject into" its sensors through the environment, affecting future actions and future perceptions. On the other hand, maximization of the predictive information or excess entropy enables an adaptive/evolutionary change in controllers' logic in such a way that the system becomes coordinated. Methods relying on the use of predictive information in a sensorimotor process may produce explicit learning rules for the agent optimizing its behavior. However, the lack of a broadly applicable mathematical framework across multiple scales and contexts leaves GSO methodology incomplete. Devising such a framework and identifying common principles of guidance are the main themes of GSO workshops.
"The GSO-2012 workshop will bring together invited experts and researchers in self-organizing systems, with particular emphasis on the information- and graph-theoretic foundations of GSO and the information dynamics of adaptive systems."

Sounds delightful (and Banff is beautiful).

We all look far more intellectual in B&W than I remember feeling.  And we keep talking with our hands!

I'll have to miss this, since I'll be teaching and otherwise working, but it looks very interesting.

I should probably submit something, shouldn't I?

Deadline 1 November

Again with Whistler! (I should see if there'll be something new ready by the deadline...)

I'll be doing a poster version of "Homophily, Contagion & Confounding"

"The aim of this workshop is to gather 20-25 world specialists on stochastic approximation and its applications, who might not have the opportunity to meet otherwise, in order to present and discuss recent methodological and theoretical developments in the area, as well as applications." Looks interesting, can't go.

I foresee many moments where I act embarrassingly fanboyish. (On the other hand: John Brockman.)

I'll be speaking on "causal states".

Good: Sardinia! Bad: Deadline Nov. 6th. Can I cut the Bayes paper down by then? --- They wouldn't have taken it anyway, as already published in EJS.

"Fifth International Workshop Statistical Analysis of Neuronal Data (SAND5): May 20-22, 2010 Pittsburgh, PA"

I'm there.

CMU, October 19. Free but registration req'd.

Sounds cool.

I am so there.

For the Columbia "correlatons in fMRI" mini-conference, 2009-07-15.

Vancouver in June.

I'd so be there, if it weren't for a previous obligation