Starlogo

Starlogo is a computer language aimed at understanding decentralized systems. Such systems,like the whole life, ecosystems, societies,markets, and other social science phenomena, not forgetting our own brain, are characterized by the absense on any centralized process, any order coming from "above": their working is conditionned only by the behavior of ultplie agents interacting continuously: they are, in the truest meaning of the word, "p2p" systems. But our logic, our understanding is faicng an obstacle: it is hard for us to understand how these systems work. the result of a collective behavior is frequantly unpredictable, vcounter-intuitive.Having constated that this understanding of decentralized systems is so diffciult to grasp,and simultaeously so important, Mitchel Resnick, of MIt tried to create an intellectual tool helping any of us to increase our intellectual astery on them. Starlogo is not, therefore, a computer language like the others: it is not aimed at creating applications which may be of use by professionals. Neither it is aimed at experts in economy or ecology, or mathematicians working in computer simaultions: it is a tool for anybody, and especially, the children (Starlogo is in fact an evolution of the old Seymour Papert computer language for kids, Logo). it's only goals is to make us understand the hard notions of collective behavior, emergence, collective intelligence (the last versions of starlogo seem to go farther than this pure intellectual endeavour and now include some elements of game programming: something the children will certainly not complain about!) On many points, starlogo is an epistemological breakthrough. Outside its sated goal, it promotes some other revolutionnary concepts: 1) It implies the idea of constructionism: the idea that people may lrn better not be reading or listening something about a given topic, but by building stuff. Resnick is a big proponent of constructionism. After Starlogo, he created "programmable logo bricks" which were the root of the famous "lego mindstorms" 2) the idea that in order to think or express ideas, human language or writing doesn't suffice anyore: weahev to use some new tools born from the computer revolution: as such, this is an applicvation of the Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski, especially as modified by Douglas engelbart ("neo-whorfian hypothesis"): the idea that language may ingfluence our thought, and that, in order to think differently, we ay have to use new language, new interfaces.