RE: [Fis] "Ecological Economics and Information"

Dear Jerry,

In answering to my reaction you raise a number of questions. Let me try
to answer them one-by-one.

> Loet:
>
> I do not understand what you mean by "asymmetry" in this context.
> Perhaps you mean an ecological system?

This relates to some of the later questions as well. A major difference
between an ecological system and an economic system, in my opinion, is
that the latter can be considered as a social system while the former is
a biological one. Of course, when can study an economy using a
biological metaphor or vice versa a biological system using a social
scientific metaphor, but this changes the epistemological status of the
heuristics. The substantive interpretation always needs a reflexive turn
in relation to the system of reference.

For example, one can assume that within an ecology Darwinian evolution
in terms of variation, selection, and survival of the fittest is a valid
basis for the inferencing. In an economy, the assumption of social
darwinism is questionable on other grounds. In general, the social
sciences study cultural evolutions which may in important respects be
different from biological evolution.

> I would not even guess
> at what you are seeking to communicate with the term "triple Helix
> Dynamics" unless this is a metaphor for a particular belief system.
> Perhaps you are suggesting an intertwining of relations?

The point refers to a suggestion that I picked up from conversations
with Bob Ulanowicz about the possibility of producing a negative entropy
in the mutual information between three (sub)dynamics. While two
subdynamics can coevolve along a trajectory, this development generates
always a positive entropy. In three dimensions the relations are also
positioned and therefore a negative entropy can be generated. The
production of a negative entropy can have different interpretations, but
is particularly relevant when one wishes to study how meaning and the
codification of meaning (knowledge-based innovations) reduce the
uncertainty that prevails within systems (e.g., in a knowledge-based
economy).

> Is society a living being? I think you are spitting hairs on what
> constitute beingness. A population of living beings assembles into a
> society, does it not? Is it beingness or living that creates the
> exclusion in your mind? The degrees of classification apriori
> assumes that beingness can be categorized based on organization, does
> it not?

In addition to the aggregation one expects interaction terms. Among
human beings the interaction terms generate meaning that can again be
communicated. (Biological systems can also provide "meaning" to incoming
signals, but the meaning cannot again be communicated because of the
lack of a sufficiently complex language for this exchange.) Among human
beings (at the level of the social system) the communication of meaning
provides a dynamics that, in my opinion, cannot be considered as
"living". For example, it does not die or go periodically extinct.

> It seems to me that you are pleading that social sciences should be
> granted a special privileged usage of language. Could you offer
> some reasons why you think that social sciences can be excluded from
> a global paradigm? Or, is this merely a profession of your personal
> values?

I am not sure what you mean with "a global paradigm". In the social
sciences, one would consider this as a "grand narrative". The paradigms
can be very different among different sciences to the extent that they
can be incommensurable. The social sciences have specific problems with
reflexivity issues that the other sciences have to a lesser extent
(because the environment under study can be more easily identified).

With kind regards,

Loet

  _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 <mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net> loet@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/

 
 <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff-sci.htm> The Challenge of
Scientometrics ; <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm> The
Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society
Received on Mon Nov 3 08:35:29 2003