BIOGRAPHY
Kent D. Palmer, Ph.D. is a Software Engineering Technologist for a major
aerospace firm. He received this B.Sc. in Sociology and East Asian Studies
from the University of Kansas, USA and a Ph.D. in Sociology from London
School of Economics, University of London, UK. His dissertation title was
THE STRUCTURE OF THEORETICAL SYSTEMS IN RELATION TO EMERGENCE which
concerned how new things come into existence within the Western scientific
tradition. He has been engaged in Work Process Engineering for the last
few years studying Software Engineering and Systems Engineering work in an
industrial setting. He is the administrator for many Internet Email lists
on Philosophy and Systems Theory including the Autopoiesis list. You may
receive information about these Email lists by sending the message HELP to
listserv@think.net. He may be reached at palmer@think.net.
He is actively involved in research in ontology, autopoietic social
systems theory, and work process engineering. Papers related to his fields
of study are available for review directly from the author including the
following series: Software Engineering Foundations, On the Social
Construction of Emergent Worlds, and Steps to the Threshold of the Social.
His major project over the last few years is a book on the foundations of
the Western worldview called THE FRAGMENTATION OF BEING AND THE PATH
BEYOND THE VOID: Speculations in an emergent onto-mythology.
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Having gotten the formalities over I have some requests.
I am putting together a tutorial on my research into the fundamentals of
process theory for the next National Software Engineering Process Group
conference. I am looking for reviewers for this tutorial who are
interested in the future of work process (as a social process)
engineering. If you would be interested in reviewing this tutorial and
offering comments then drop me a line telling me why you might be
interested and something about your self and your own research in a
related field. The title of the tutorial is Advanced Process
Architectures.
I have the papers on social autopoietic theory mentioned above that I am
looking for reviewers for as well. If you might be interested in work
attempting to develop the next theory after systems theory based on the
extension of the autopoietic theory then let me know. Here again I would
like to know something about your own work and get a promise that you will
offer comments on the papers in some form. Also for these papers I request
a non-disclosure agreement.
I have been reading the backlog and am still stuck in december of last
year. What I have seen so far of the backlog this is a very vital and
interesting list and the backlog is full of insightful comments that I
appreciate.
Intend to try out my ontology on you folks as a means of attempting to
delve into what learning really means. If you would like a preview of that
please have a look at the backlog of the now defunct discussion group list
that spun off of the autopoiesis list last year. You can see those
backlogs at ftp.std.com in /obi/Zines/Thinknet. It is also available from
gopher.std.com. That was a group spun off to discuss wheather the networks
themselves are autopoietic and whether we can form autopoietic discussions
on the networks. I think that list was a learning organization for some
time for many of the participants.
If any of you are interested in autopoiesis, systems-engineering, or
software-engineering I administrate lists on those subjects as well as
myriad philosophy lists. You are of course welcome to join and participate
in those lists.
I feel from reading the backlog that there may be a lot of kindred spirits
on this list with interests similar to my own. If the list had not been
mentioned on my systems-engineering list I would not have found you all
probably for a long time still even though all my lists used to be housed
at the world site.
By adminstrating over 200 list at the world I certainly learned a lot
about email lists. They are in fact excellent examples of learning
organizations that are self-organizing. I have now moved many of these
lists to my own computer site called think.net and am attempting to found
a new universe of discourse for thoughtful conversation in cyberspace. I
am interested in interdiscipinarity. So I have created separate lists for
the discussion of the philosophy of many different academic disciplines.
Also we have email lists for most of the major postmodern philosophers.
Much of what I have read in the backlog is informed by quite a bit of
systems theory popularizations but not much by philosophy. I would submit
that a quiet revolution is going on in philosophy that is displacing
systems theory and that it would be good for many of you to explore what
is happening in post-modern philosophy as a background for your research
and learning in systems theory and organizational theory. I plan to talk
about some of that in future posts.
Nice to meet everyone. I have found reading the introductions in the
backlog very stimulating.
Kent Palmer
ontomythologist and researcher in computational and autopoietic sociology
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Kent D. Palmer, Ph.D. :Administrator of ThinkNet {aka DialogNet}
Software Engineering Technologist :philosophy and systems theory email lists
autopoietic social systems theorist:hosted at the Thinknet BBS (714-638-0876)
-----------------------------------:Send message "HELP" to listserv@think.net
palmer@think.net palmer@netcom.com: ***** A new universe of discourse. *****
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Host's Note: Welcome Kent! You may be our first ontomythologist! Please
do post about the quiet revolution in philosophy that's displacing
systems theory.
I've very much enjoyed the autopoiesis list, part of Kent's universe.
-- Rick Karash, rkarash@world.std.com, host for learning-org
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