Writing about sociocultural evolution is always a complicated enterprise, because the subject is not only difficult in a scientific way but also in a political one. In particular since the events of September 11, 2001 the debates about the differences between cultures and their evolutionary developments have left the fields of pure scientific research once and for all. However, there have probably never been scientific discourses that did not touch the realms of political discussions - Darwin, Marx, the atomic physicists and the recent debates about genetic engineering are just a few examples. The aim of this book is not to take part in these debates but it is written as a contribution to the foundations of evolutionary theories in the social sciences. The readers will have to judge if I have succeeded with it. Perhaps essays like this one will help to clarify the problems we all have to face just now in regard to intercultural discourses. Theoretically and mathematically grounded insights into cultural development as the source of many political problems will not solve to how to deal with them them immediately but may serve as signposts in the long run.

When I started with this book several years ago I originally intended to write an introduction to mathematical systems theory for social scientists. Yet the more I thought about systems theory on the one side and theoretical sociology on the other the more I became convinced that the classical mathematical tools are not very well suited for the problems of sociology. Then I became acquainted with the researches on complex systems by the Santa Fe Institute and in particular with cellular automata, Boolean networks and genetic algorithms. These mathematically very simple but extremely efficient tools are, in my opinion, very well appropriate for modeling social dynamics. Therefore I tried to reformulate several classical problems of theoretical sociology in terms of these formal systems and outline new possibilities for a mathematical sociology which is able to join immediately on the great traditions of theoretical sociology. The result is this book; whether I succeeded with it is of course up to the readers. As the readers will perceive, the book could not have been written by me alone but only by the joint labors of the computer group at the Interdisciplinary Center of Research in Higher Education at the University of Essen. The members of the group, Christina Stoica, Jom Schmidt and Ralph Kier, are named in several subchapters as co-authors. Yet even more important than their contributions to this book were the permanent discussions with them and their patience with my new and very speculative ideas. Many thanks.

The operation of understanding is the fundamental methodical procedure of hermeneutics and is usually seen as contradiction to scientific explanation by the usage of mathematical models. Yet understanding is the basic way in which humans organize their everyday practice, namely by understanding other people and social situations. In this book the authors demonstrate how an integration of hermeneutical understanding and scientific explanation can be done via the construction of suited geometrical models with neural networks of processes of understanding. In this sense the authors develop some kind of mathematical hermeneutics. Connecting links for the integration of the two methodical poles are the developments of particular models of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which are able to perform certain tasks of understanding.

This book offers a radical new approach for the understanding of communication. By using the theoretical framework of complex systems theory communication is defined as the interplay of social and cognitive dynamics: communicators are modelled as complex cognitive systems who interact according to social rules and generate communicative systems. Messages generate meaning, which is understood as an attractor in the cognitive system of the receiver. Information is measured via the difference between a factual message and the message expected by the receiver.

This book offers a radical new theoretical approach for the understanding of communication. The theory is operationalized by the application of certain computer programs, namely Soft Computing programs like cellular automata and artificial neural nets. In many examples the authors demonstrate how it is possible to model and analyze communicative processes, such as social combined with cognitive ones.

The operation of understanding is the fundamental methodical procedure of hermeneutics and is usually seen as contradiction to scientific explanation by the usage of mathematical models. Yet understanding is the basic way in which humans organize their everyday practice, namely by understanding other people and social situations. In this book the authors demonstrate how an integration of hermeneutical understanding and scientific explanation can be done via the construction of suited geometrical models with neural networks of processes of understanding. In this sense the authors develop some kind of mathematical hermeneutics. Connecting links for the integration of the two methodical poles are the developments of particular models of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which are able to perform certain tasks of understanding.

When I started with this book several years ago I originally intended to write an introduction to mathematical systems theory for social scientists. Yet the more I thought about systems theory on the one side and theoretical sociology on the other the more I became convinced that the classical mathematical tools are not very well suited for the problems of sociology. Then I became acquainted with the researches on complex systems by the Santa Fe Institute and in particular with cellular automata, Boolean networks and genetic algorithms. These mathematically very simple but extremely efficient tools are, in my opinion, very well appropriate for modeling social dynamics. Therefore I tried to reformulate several classical problems of theoretical sociology in terms of these formal systems and outline new possibilities for a mathematical sociology which is able to join immediately on the great traditions of theoretical sociology. The result is this book; whether I succeeded with it is of course up to the readers. As the readers will perceive, the book could not have been written by me alone but only by the joint labors of the computer group at the Interdisciplinary Center of Research in Higher Education at the University of Essen. The members of the group, Christina Stoica, Jom Schmidt and Ralph Kier, are named in several subchapters as co-authors. Yet even more important than their contributions to this book were the permanent discussions with them and their patience with my new and very speculative ideas. Many thanks.

Writing about sociocultural evolution is always a complicated enterprise, because the subject is not only difficult in a scientific way but also in a political one. In particular since the events of September 11, 2001 the debates about the differences between cultures and their evolutionary developments have left the fields of pure scientific research once and for all. However, there have probably never been scientific discourses that did not touch the realms of political discussions - Darwin, Marx, the atomic physicists and the recent debates about genetic engineering are just a few examples. The aim of this book is not to take part in these debates but it is written as a contribution to the foundations of evolutionary theories in the social sciences. The readers will have to judge if I have succeeded with it. Perhaps essays like this one will help to clarify the problems we all have to face just now in regard to intercultural discourses. Theoretically and mathematically grounded insights into cultural development as the source of many political problems will not solve to how to deal with them them immediately but may serve as signposts in the long run.

Dieses Buch gibt Orientierungen und Hilfestellungen, wie man bewusst an den eigenen kommunikativen Fahigkeiten arbeiten und diese verbessern kann. Wie bereitet man einen Vortrag vor, was ist bei Medien zu beachten, wie geht man mit Nervositat um, wie erfasst man Stimmungen bei den Zuhoerern? Wie erkennt man die eigene Rolle in einer sozialen Gruppe, wie verarbeitet man kommunikative Misserfolge und wie lernt man aus eigenen Fehlern? Und vor allem: Wie lernt man soziale, kommunikative Situationen und sich selbst einzuschatzen, um als eigenstandige Persoenlichkeit wahrgenommen zu werden und zu uberzeugen? Um diese Fahigkeiten zu lernen, ist es insbesondere wichtig, kommunikative Situationen und kommunikative Prozesse richtig einschatzen zu koennen. Auch dazu werden hier verschiedene Hinweise gegeben, die fur das Verstandnis situationsbedingter und themenspezifischer Kommunikationen und deren spezifische Schwierigkeiten eine hilfreiche Orientierung geben. Zusatzliche Fragen per App: Laden Sie die Springer Nature Flashcards-App kostenlos herunter und nutzen Sie exklusives Zusatzmaterial als Printbuchkaufer, um Ihr Wissen zu prufen.

In diesem Buch geht es um die Programmiertechniken, die zur Implementation sog. naturanaloger Verfahren erforderlich sind. Dabei handelt es sich um Zellularautomaten, Boolesche Netze, Evolutionare Algorithmen, Simulated Annealing, Fuzzy-Methoden und Neuronale Netze. Der Band ist wegen seiner Konzentration auf Programmiertechniken ein Erganzungsband zu dem Buch Modellierung von Komplexitat durch naturanaloge Verfahren . Es werden keine speziellen Programmierkenntnisse vorausgesetzt, sondern nur die Kenntnis einer der heute ublichen Sprachen wie JAVA oder C#. Die Anleitungen fur das Programmieren sind in einem Pseudocode geschrieben, der auch fur Anfanger verstandlich ist und keine bestimmte Sprache voraussetzt. Nach erfolgreicher Lekture sind die Leser in der Lage, selbst die genannten Modelle zu programmieren."

Der Tite! dieser Arbeit stellt die Arbeit bewu t in die Tradition, die durch den soziologi- schen Klassiker von Berger 1 Luckmann "die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklich- keit" in der Bundesrepublik zur Entfaltung ge!angt ist. Ich folge in dieser Studie den in- haltlichen Ergebnissen und Grundannahmen von Berger 1 Luckmann keineswegs; in we- sentlichen Punkten unterscheide ich mich sehr dezidiert von ihnen. Dennoch glaube ich, da ihr Grundgedanke, soziale Realitat als Ergebnis von menschlichen Konstruktions- prozessen aufzufassen, bei kaum einem anderen Autor so klar und vor allem so foigen- reich dargestellt worden ist. Von daher hie!t ich es fiir sinnvoll, die Bezugnahme auf zu- mindest einen soziologischen Klassiker auch im Tite! zu erwahnen. Die hier vorliegende Stu die ist bereits vor einiger Zeit in der ersten Fassung fertiggestellt worden, namlich unmitte!bar vor der Geburt unseres Sohnes Anfang 1986. Anschlie end wurde meine Aufmerksamkeit und der groBte Teil meiner Lebenszeit auf andere Pro- bleme ge!enkt, namlich insbesondere solche, die sich mit den lebensweltlichen Problemen eines kleinen Kindes beschaftigen. Ich bin deshalb erst re!ativ spat dazu gekommen, die Studie zu iiberarbeiten und die hier vorliegende Fassung endgiiltig fertigzumachen. Einige Dberlegungen mogen aus diesem Grunde nicht mehr ganz aktuell erscheinen; insbeson- dere hat sich die in der Einleitung angesprochene "Alltagswende" in den Sozialwissen- schaften an Aktualitat oder vielleicht besser an der Qualitat "in Mode zu sein" se!bst etwas reduziert.