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The 1989 Kyoto Prize
1989
11 /11 Sat
Place：Kyoto International Conference Center
The 1989 Kyoto Prize Kyoto Prize Laureates
Lecture topics
Creativity and Innovation in a Large System Environment: a Personal Account
Abstract of the lecture
Creativity in fields involving large systems has changed considerably during my lifetime. The subject area in which I have been most productive and made many inventions is called "switching". When I first became interested in switching, individual inventors made great creative contributions but were little recognized. My ambition was to change this so that not only would the contributions of individuals be recognized, but that the entire subject area was raised from an obscure art to a quasi-professional one. Today, the principles of switching are now generally understood, recognized, and accepted. Many contributors to this field are recognized and they have consciously extended the field in their search for new principles. This lecture describes some personal experiences in the field of telecommunications switching. With systems costing in excess of one billion dollars to develop, the environment for creativity has changed. Thus I have distilled from my life experiences some behavioral patterns that might benefit those wishing to become more knowledgeable and creative in a field involving large and complex systems.
Lecture topics
Two Archetypes in the Psychology of Man
Abstract of the lecture
1. This lecture is based on my experience with my work in pure and applied mathematics, neurophysiology, cell biology and cybernetics. The first observation I have made it that classical mathematics, which is extremely useful in many domains of science, statistics, and technology turns out to be useless in many other domains such as biology, medicine, psychology, etc. While thinking over these matters, I found out that there are profound reasons for these things and, consequently, we must look at these matters from a much broader picture. The final step took more than three months of hard work and I am very grateful to the Inamori Foundation which gave me the opportunity and the pretext to do it. I am also happy that I have come to the conclusions which from my point of view fit the principles of the Inamori Foundation. 2. In this lecture I will explain that there are two archetypes which have been built into Man from the very beginning, and that there is a duality which is caused by the contradictions between these two archetypes. In the second archetype Man is a part of all living nature and cannot separate himself from it. Even if he could, it would only be temporarily and then only with the understanding of the limits of such a separation. Perhaps this is the point which constitutes the difference between cleverness and wisdom. We know so little about living systems that it is hopeless to understand the whole picture from our knowledge of small isolated parts even though they are very remarkable, as for example, in the case of the genetic code. At a first glance the dualism is not universal and mathematics, for example, is connected only with the first archetype. But I think that mathematics clearly belongs to the second as well. 3. It seems to me that one of the main features of the modern world is its extreme globalization and the worldwide dissemination of the problems caused by this globalization. All the modern means of communication (cars, airplanes, telecommunications) practically turn the world into a united system with strongly interactive parts. But we cannot say that this is true for the spiritual aspects of humanity. Therefore there is a strong imbalance between the logical and the technological side (first archetype) and the spiritual side of life (second archetype). In my lecture I will note some of the very serious problems for mankind caused by this imbalance. 4. There are two essential reasons for the necessity of creating adequate languages. One of them is that globalization causes the necessity of interacting (communicating) with many different parts of the world in which there are different traditions, cultures, and so on. And if there is no what I call Oadequate languageO, the misunderstandings which arise are dangerous. The other reason is that this, let us say, contradiction exists not only between different parts of the world, but also between the two archetypes themselves. If the language is not adequate, the second archetype will be suppressed, because the first archetype has many more capabilities. Of course, no adequate language can unify both of these archetypes which are two sides of Man, but at least it gives them the possibility of interacting. In my lecture I will try to explain a bit about the notion of adequate language. 5. For the mathematics of the 20th century the notion of structure is very important. I think that this notion may be useful for the creation of adequate languages. The elementary components of the structure I will call structural units. These structural units must satisfy three conditions: 1) the inner structure of the structural unit is much more complicated than the way in which it interacts with the outside world; 2) a part of a structural unit is not a structural unit; 3a) the principle of reduction: the parts of the structural units which do not function are eliminated, as for example in the process of evolution. 3b) the principle of abundance; the non-functioning parts of the structural units manage to find a job within the structural unit. There are many interesting examples of types 1, 2, 3a and 1, 2, 3b in biology, sociology and so on. 6. In the last part of the lecture there will be some discussion of the mathematicians' responsibility toward society and afterwards some remarks about some new directions in mathematics.
Lecture topics
An Extended Autobiography
Abstract of the lecture
I once asked Aragon, the historian, how history was written. He said, "You have to invent it." When I am asked now to tell of critical incidents, persons and events which have influenced my life and work, the true answer is all of the incidents were critical, all of the people influenced me, everything that happened and that is still happening influences me. My commemorative lecture is an autobiographical statement which presents some of these incidents, persons and events and indicates generally, and sometimes specifically, how they have affected my work. The following paragraph occurs toward the end. We are living in a period in which many people have changed their minds about what the use of music is or could be for them. Something that doesn't speak or talk like a human being, that doesn't know it's definition in the dictionary nor its theory in the schools, that expresses itself simply by the fact of its vibrations. People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in relation to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is. This represents my present point of view.
