(I’m sure there are tonnes of literature and science on this topic that I don’t know of, so the purpose of this blog post is to reveal my ignorance by thinking out loud đ.) The ability to focus is such a universally esteemed virtue that there must be some catch. I came to believe it […]
Category: Philosophy
How the names of quantities influence their interpretations
In my and adjacent research fields, measures and methods and their names have complex and sometimes detrimental relationships. This is especially true when the names have a clear and relevant meaning in the vernacular. There are several related mechanisms for which I have only scanty evidence (hopefully to be supported further in the future): The […]
What complexity science is, and why
I also posted this post on arXiv, in a more reader-friendly layout and somewhat shaped-up writing. This is a post/essay about understanding complexity science, via some peculiarities of the field, as a meeting place for a special kind of scientist. It is the result of my nostalgia-driven hobby of reading popular-science complex systems books, and […]
When storytelling enters, science leaves. Or?
A lighthearted post about whether or not it is right to market your scientific outputâa topic I am neutral about because there are great arguments on both sides, canceling each other. So, my inner dialogue could go like: Hey! Did you see CĂ©sar Hidalgo tweeting that storytelling is an American thing? Isn’t it anthropology 101 […]
The least paradoxical paradox
In my high school days, my daily commute consisted of: a 2 km bike ride, a 10 min train ride, 10 min walk, and finally 10 min by bus. For the final bus ride, there were a handful of coaches that all passed by my school. They would always come in a bunch and in […]
Community detection: A consumerâs voice
In one of my first network projects, as a student, I studied how networks break down when you remove edges in order of their betweenness. Simultaneously, Girvan and Newman used precisely the same approach to make the first modern community detection algorithm. This was before authors used to make their code publicly available, so when […]
Hierarchies and networks
We, scientists, love the word âhierarchy.â In every professor, it evokes a picture of us chalking up a pyramid on the blackboard and confidently explaining, âat the top, we have the âŠâ Hierarchies are systematic and meaningful orderings. They are the successful ends of research projects, and bringers of peace to our curious minds. They […]
A good model
Foreword six years after this blog post originally appeared (November 2021). I agree to what I wrote below, mostly. I came to like this attempt (by Claude LĂ©vi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, p. 181.) at a short answer (although any short answer is bound to be incomplete, and it might not apply to all fields): The simplest […]
Petter Holme 