Re: some comments

Dear FIS colleagues,

Gyuri has introduced quite an interesting critical aspect (below). I think
he is right, but if both types of info, the 'consumed' and the 'produced'
are situated at different complexity levels, then selforganization becomes
a powerful tool (let us think on the multiple info relations subsumed in
markets and the neat prices that emerge!).

>I am not so much sure (although I cannot totally reject it), that this
>generalisation of the concept must be formulated along self-organisation.
>Information is "applied to" self-organisataion. Self-organisation is a
>"consumer" of information. Therefore, can it (s-o) feed-back to a concept
>(i) -- in that's definition -- what belongs to its preconditions?
>
>Gyuri

Wolfgang also wrapps up very cogently most of the discussed items. I would
like to add very briefly some comments on the very ambitious attempt by
E.O. Wilson's Consilience about 'bridging the gap'. One can bet that
insisting on physical reductionism and sociobiology as key motives of the
bridge between the natural and the social, including economics, leads to a
cul-de-sac. The panoply of themes we are trying to advance at FIS is in a
very primitive state, obviously, but elusive concepts of the economic realm
could only make sense through new info conceptualizations. Physical
reduction is nonsense if we are trying to understand the workings of the
'invisible hand'.

Interestingly, several of last years Nobel prizes in economics have gone to
people working in bounded rationality, social information, limited
information, etc. Some of the staunchest problems in ecological economy
(and sustainable development) also deal with the problem of evaluating (are
they measurable?) the shifting 'free' processes that natural ecosystems
integrate and which support our individual and social life (eg, oxygen
production, atmospheric cycles, biodiversity). We need an enlarged economy
science, info-oriented.

I much support what Wolfgang says about the "what for?" regarding the
social means of communication. The brute force accummulation of exoinfo
surrogates, just exacerbates the endo problems. The enormous entertainment
industry of our times feeds upon a vicious circle at the very heart of the
'information society'.

best

Pedro
Received on Tue Dec 3 14:14:44 2002