Well I've started working on my Ph.D. exam, targeted for some time over the summer. My topic is something I'm calling "differencing" which is a distinction-making process.

Basically, any act of making a distinction, such as drawing a circle, creates an inside and an outside at the same moment. Inside, outside, and the distinction itself, are all mutually constituted.

As near as I can figure, differencing must involve three separate processes:

• emergence
• autopoiesis
• integration

Well, it looks like I will finally be getting moving on my panarchy dissertation. It may just turn into a paper, depending on the graduation options I have available. I'll let you know. :-)

-p

Richard Adler and I will be giving some talks on "social publishing" as an example of panarchy:

Oct 15, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; Colloquium on New Commons
"Social Publishing"
This talk will focus on how social publishing is an example of a new kind of publishing commons where writers and readers (and potentially editors) act as depletable resources for each other.
http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/colloquia_lectures.html