Valentin Turchin

Turchin was born in 1931 in Podolsk, Soviet Union. In 1952, he graduated from Moscow University with a degree in Theoretical Physics and got his Ph.D. in 1957. After working on neutron and solid-state physics at the Institute for Physics of Energy in Obninsk, in 1964 he accepted a position at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics in Moscow. There he worked on statistical regularization methods and authored REFAL, one of the first AI languages and the AI language of choice in the Soviet Union.

In the 1960s, Turchin became politically active. In the Fall of 1968, he wrote the pamphlet The Inertia of Fear, which was quite widely circulated in samizdat, the writing began to be circulated under the title The Inertia of Fear: Socialism and Totalitarianism in Moscow in 1976.{{cite journal|title=Sandzdat News|journal=A Chronicle of Current Events|date=1979|issue=40–42|page=270|url=https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/204000/eur460221979eng.pdf}} Following its publication in the underground press, he lost his research laboratory.{{cite book|title=The Phenomenon of Science|author=Valentin F. Turchin|pages=11|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|date=1977|isbn=978-0-231-03983-3|url=http://pcp.vub.ac.be/POSBOOK.html}} In 1970 he authored "The Phenomenon of Science",{{cite book|title=The Phenomenon of Science|author=Valentin F. Turchin|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|date=1977|isbn=978-0-231-03983-3|url=http://pcp.vub.ac.be/POSBOOK.html}} a grand cybernetic meta-theory of universal evolution, which broadened and deepened the earlier book. By 1973, Turchin had founded the Moscow chapter of Amnesty International with Andrey Tverdokhlebov and was working closely with the well-known physicist and Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. In 1974 he lost his position at the Institute and was persecuted by the KGB. Facing almost certain imprisonment, he and his family were forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union in 1977.

He went to New York, where he joined the faculty of the City College of New York in 1979. In 1990, together with Cliff Joslyn and Francis Heylighen, he founded the Principia Cybernetica Project, a worldwide organization devoted to the collaborative development of an evolutionary-cybernetic philosophy. In 1998, he co-founded the software start-up SuperCompilers, LLC. He retired from his post as Professor of Computer Science at City College in 1999. A resident of Oakland, New Jersey,Rosenthal, Andrew. [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/05/world/for-the-soviet-emigres-gorbachev-stirs-both-optimism-and-skepticism.html?pagewanted=all "For the Soviet Emigres, Gorbachev Stirs Both Optimism and Skepticism"], The New York Times, December 5, 1987. Accessed May 25, 2016. "Valentin Turchin, who teaches computer sciences at the City College of New York and lives in Oakland, New Jersey, said: 'Both sides of Gorbachev's new era must be stressed. What he says is significant and unprecedented, but at the same time, it should be seen only as a beginning. In addition, we generally have the impression that during the last months, things have started curving down.'" he died there on 7 April 2010.

He has two sons named Peter Turchin (a specialist in population dynamics and the mathematical modeling of historical dynamics) and Dimitri Turchin.

The philosophical core of Turchin's scientific work is the concept of the metasystem transition, which denotes the evolutionary process through which higher levels of control emerge in system structure and function.

Turchin uses this concept to provide a global theory of evolution and a coherent social systems theory, to develop a complete cybernetics philosophical and ethical system, and to build a constructivist foundation for mathematics.

Using the REFAL language he has implemented Supercompiler, a unified method for program transformation and optimization based on a metasystem transition.{{Cite book|chapter=Supercompilation: Techniques and results|title=Perspectives of System Informatics|pages=227–248|author=Valentin F. Turchin|series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science|publisher=Springer|location=Heidelberg|chapter-url=http://www.supercompilers.com/html/supercompilation.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20011225054544/http://www.supercompilers.com/html/supercompilation.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2001-12-25|date=1996|issn=0302-9743|isbn=978-3-540-62064-8}}

• {{Cite book|title=The Phenomenon of Science|author=Valentin F. Turchin|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|date=1977|isbn=978-0-231-03983-3|url=http://pcp.vub.ac.be/POSBOOK.html}}
• {{cite journal|author1=Sakharov, Andrei |author2=Turchin, Valentin |author3=Medvedev, Roy |title=The need for democratization|journal=The Saturday Review|date=6 June 1970|pages=26–27}}
• {{cite journal|author1=Sakharov, Andrei |author2=Turchin, Valentin |author3=Medvedev, Roy |title=An open letter|journal=Survey|date=Summer 1970|pages=160–170}}
• {{cite journal|author=Valentin F. Turchin|title=Why you should boycott the Russians|journal=Nature|date=May 1978|volume=273|issue=5660|pages=256–257|doi=10.1038/273256a0|bibcode=1978Natur.273..256T|s2cid=4222713|doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal|author=Valentin F. Turchin|title=Boycotting the Soviet Union|journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists|date=September 1978|volume=34|issue=7|pages=7–11|doi=10.1080/00963402.1978.11458530|bibcode=1978BuAtS..34g...7T}}
• {{cite book|author=Турчин, Валентин|title=Инерция страха: социализм и тоталитаризм|trans-title=The inertia of fear: socialism and totalitarianism|date=1978|publisher=Khronika|location=New York|edition=2|url=http://www.ihst.ru/projects/sohist/papers/turchin/content.htm|language=Russian}}
• {{cite journal|author1=Turchin, Valentin |author2=Handle, Philip |title=Boycott Helsinki meeting|journal=Physics Today|date=January 1980|volume=33|issue=1|page=11|doi=10.1063/1.2913894|bibcode=1980PhT....33a..11T}}
• {{cite journal|author=Turchin, Valentin|title=From Helsinki to Hamburg|journal=Science|date=4 January 1980|volume=207|issue=4426|pages=8|doi=10.1126/science.6444253|jstor=1683174|bibcode=1980Sci...207....8T}}
• {{Cite book|title=The Inertia of Fear and the Scientific Worldview|author=Valentin F. Turchin|publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York|date=1981|isbn=978-0-231-04622-0}}
• {{cite journal|author=Turchin, Valentin|title=Orlov in exile|journal=Physics Today|date=July 1985|volume=38|issue=7|page=9|doi=10.1063/1.2814623|bibcode=1985PhT....38g...9T}}
• {{Cite journal|title=The concept of a supercompiler|author=Valentin F. Turchin|journal=ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems|volume=8|issue=3|date=July 1986|pages=292–325|doi=10.1145/5956.5957|s2cid=8403840|doi-access=free}}
• {{Cite journal|title=A constructive interpretation of the full set theory|author=Valentin F. Turchin|journal=Journal of Symbolic Logic|date=March 1987|pages=172–201|volume=52|issue=1|doi=10.2307/2273872|jstor=2273872|s2cid=2205937 }}
• {{cite journal|author=Valentin F. Turchin|title=On cybernetic epistemology|journal=Systems Research|date=1993|volume=10|issue=1|pages=1–28|doi=10.1002/sres.3850100102|s2cid=60953576 }}
• {{Cite journal

| doi = 10.1108/eb005960

| volume = 22

| issue = 2

| pages = 10–30

| last = Turchin

| first = Valentin F.

| title = The Cybernetic Ontology of Action

| journal = Kybernetes

| date = 1993

| url=http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Turchin/Cybernetic_Ontology.pdf

| citeseerx = 10.1.1.359.6176}}

• {{Cite journal

| doi = 10.1080/02604027.1995.9972553

| volume = 45

| issue = 1

| pages = 5–57

| last = Turchin

| first = Valentin F.

| title = A dialogue on metasystem transition

| journal = World Futures

| date = 1995

|url=http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Turchin/dialog.pdf

| citeseerx = 10.1.1.214.9001}}

• Refal-5: Programming Guide and Reference Manual, New England Publishing Co. Holyoke MA, 1989
• [http://pcp.vub.ac.be/ Principia Cybernetica Web] (as editor, together with F. Heylighen and C. Joslyn) (1993–2005)

[https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DR8CAY4AAAAJ&hl=en&pagesize=100 Most cited publications] according to Google Scholar

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110715112828/http://asf.prime-task.com/cgi/ASFdbs.pl?&action=Linkview&pass=&link_name=doc&link_type_doc=file&main_page=http%3A%2F%2Fasf.prime-task.com%2F&main_page_title=ASF+Home+Page&layout=frame&database=asfdocs_n_first_sprivat&link_res_doc=turchin-kline.1271258936.html Valentin Turchin, eulogy] by Edward Kline, President of The Andrei Sakharov Foundation
• [http://pcp.vub.ac.be/TURCHIN.html Turchin's home page] on Principia Cybernetica web
• [http://www.goertzel.org/benzine/turchin.htm Profile of Valentin Turchin] by Ben Goertzel
• [http://www.ets.ru/turchin/index.htm Russian edition. The Phenomenon of Science] The Phenomenon of Science. A cybernetic approach to human evolution. ETS Publishing House. Moscow - 2000, 398 pp, {{ISBN|5-93386-019-0}}
• [http://www.refal.ru/ refal.ru - REFAL and Supercompilation community]

{{Cybernetics}}

{{Soviet dissidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turchin, Valentin}}

Category:1931 births

Category:2010 deaths

Category:Cyberneticists

Category:Soviet human rights activists

Category:Superorganisms

Category:American systems scientists

Category:Complex systems scientists

Category:People from Oakland, New Jersey

Category:People from Podolsk

Category:Soviet dissidents

Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States

Category:City College of New York faculty

Category:Amnesty International people

Category:Moscow State University alumni

Category:Soviet mathematicians

Category:Soviet physicists

Category:Programming language designers

Category:Russian scientists