Q2 and Q3

Continuing on with Peter's questions, some more thoughts.

2. Juan Roederer mentions:

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This brings up a new element in information-processing, namely that of
decision-making
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Questions 2: How natural and artificial decision making systems process
and create information?

My response here depends on my response to Q1, the self-organization issue.
We can either shuffle information or create new information. Shuffling can
make information more useful to one or another agent (e.g., the information
about spots in the butterfly genes is there, but not much use to the
butterfly -- it has to get this information to the wings for it to be
useful). This issue should not be underestimated, and I think that a lot
more attention needs to be given to the usefulness of information. We could
define information such that it must in some sense be useful, but this will
not solve the problem. In fact it may well obscure the issues involved in
usefulness.

The Burch-Collier model for self-organized entrainment and level production
in social systems requires, as I mentioned in my previous post,
encouragement of variety and moderate top down constraint. Genuinely new
information (and solutions) cannot be determined in advance, and their
creation cannot be fully controlled. What we can do, though, is to
facilitate their appearance by setting up encouraging conditions. This is
more or less what we do when we set up the conditions for B�nard cell
formation. The cells form themselves. In this case only one outcome is at
all likely, but in more complex situations many outcomes can occur, and
forcing one or another is not advantage (unless we are in a hurry, and can
tolerate big mistakes). Self-organization allows the very conditions that
create the problem to determine the conditions for a solution. The wise
facilitator (manager, if you must), keeps the focus within the bounds of
the problem, but does not select solutions, allowing them to merge through
interactions and the elimination of irrelevancies. This way the solution is
shaped by the conditions surrounding the problem. Note that this implies
that all elements involved in the problem should participate, or else the
problem is not really solved (unless we are especially lucky). Both the
participants and the system are altered in self-organizing problem solution.

3. Ted Goranson's
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work is in modeling the behavior of complex business enterprises,
primarily those that make stuff.
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Q3. Can we accumulate arguments that to manage and control complex
business enterprises, a new Information Science is necessary??

Self-organization implies multilevel distributed control. What we need is a
new paradigm of organization. That is all I will say right now.

I will note, though, that if this model is anything close to correct,
unilateral action to prevent terrorism will not be a solution, or will
require large expenditures of force, or both. Can a terrorist destroy a
civilized country merely by making it spend so much it exhausts itself in
trying to protect itself? Maybe. There must be a credible threat that can
be mounted at low cost, and the reaction has to be to prevent the threat
rather than to find a mutual solution, and the required expenditure must
approximate the value of what is to be protected. It is also worth noting
that the cost to the terrorist is proportional to what they have to lose.
Mutual solutions work both ways, as do mutual problems. On the
self-organizing model all problems and solutions are really mutual, and it
is more effective to work with your opponents' interests than against them,
if this is at all possible.

John

----------
Dr John Collier john.collier@kla.univie.ac.at
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
Adolf Lorenz Gasse 2 +432-242-32390-19
A-3422 Altenberg Austria Fax: 242-32390-4
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Thu Jun 20 17:03:22 2002