Greetings All,
I have a different take on the limits of complexity, and perhaps the process
of complexification, based on the Prigogine paradigm of dissipative systems.
>From this point of view, I would argue that the extent of complexification
that can be physically supported by a system depends on the rate of energy
flow into the system. Our biosphere relies on solar and geothermal sources
of energy, which is used to do useful work as it passes through organisms
and ecosystems. Human technology is making it possible to draw energy
directly out of the solar and geothermal energy banks, which is contributing
to a greater potential for complexification of our societies than we
otherwise would have. Hydrogen and nuclear fission/fusion may represent
possible sources we could tap into, but they aren't really novel sources.
They are just reaching further down to lower level sources that underlie
solar and geothermal energies. Whatever the sources, new and old, it is the
net influx of energy into our societies that potentiate and limit the extent
of complexity that our societies can construct and sustain. All other
higher order constraints can potentially be changed in ways that release
further complexity.
I recognize that this sort of thermodynamic approach to this question may be
useless in many contexts as we participate as they agents constructing our
societies, but I think it is helpful to keep this in the back of our minds.
Regards,
Guy Hoelzer
on 2/2/07 5:38 AM, Pedro Marijuan at marijuan@unizar.es wrote:
> Dear Igor and colleagues,
>
> Your question is fascinating, perhaps at the time being rather puzzling
or
> even un-answerable...
>
> What are the complexity limits of societies? Our individual limits are
> obvious ---the size of "natural bands" depended both on
ecosystems and on
> the number of people with which an individual was able to communicate
> "meaningfully", keeping a mutual strong bond. Of course, at the
same
> time the band was always dynamically subdividing in dozens and dozens of
> possible multidimensional partitions and small groups (eg. the type of
> evanescent grouping we may observe in any cocktail party). Pretty complex
> in itself, apparently.
>
> Comparatively, the real growth of complexity in societies is due (in a
> rough simplification) to "weak bonds". In this way one can
accumulate far
> more identities and superficial relationships that imply the allegiance
to
> sectorial codes, with inner combinatory, and easy ways to rearrange
rapidly
> under general guidelines. Thus, the cumulative complexity is almost
> unaccountable in relation with the natural band --Joe provided some
curious
> figures in his opening. And in the future, those figures may perfectly
grow
> further, see for instance the number of scientific specialties and
> subspecialties (more than 5-6.000 today, less than 2-3.000 a generation
ago).
>
> Research on social networks has highlighted the paradoxical vulnerability
> of societies to the loss of ... weak bonds. The loss of strong bonds is
> comparatively assumed with more tolerance regarding the maintenance of
the
> complex structure (human feelings apart). Let us also note that
> considering the acception of information as "distinction on the
adjacent" I
> argued weeks ago, networks appear as instances of new adjacencies... by
> individual nodes provided with artificial means of communication
("channels").
>
> In sum, an economic view on social complexity may be interesting but
> secondary. What we centrally need, what we lack, is a serious info
> perspective on complexity (more discussions like the current one!). By
the
> way, considering the ecological perspectives on complexity would be quite
> interesting too.
>
> best regards
>
> Pedro
>
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Received on Sat Feb 3 01:45:25 2007
