Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

Dear Pedro

regarding social openness: "very tenuous rumor may destroy an entire company, or put a sector on its knees.. " This can only happen if there is a fundamental reason for the company or the sector to get into trouble (e.g. time before the collapse the WorldCom had been in financial troubles but was corrupting its accounting data to hide it). Therefore, a rumor is only a trigger, and if it is "rumor" only, nothing will happen to the system.

When I refer to {biological {sociocultural }} constraints in understanding and managing complexity I primarily have in mind the nature of constraints as such, in terms that certain things cannot or are not likely to happen under their influence. For example, our brains cannot handle more than 3 or 4 variables at one time and grasp their causative interrelations, so we have a natural heuristic process that cuts trough the "many" and reduces it to few. This results in oversimplification of the reality and overemphasizing of the variables that were not left out. A lot political and economic reasoning suffers from that bias. Mathematical procedures and modeling can help us with this biological constraint but math, unfortunately, did not prove itself yet to be helpful to deal complex social problems. Artificial societies may be a hopeful way, but this is yet to be seen.

Another biological constraint on our capacity to manage complex social reality is that we intermittently use rational procedures and emotions, so a situation which may be solved by an analytic process can erupt in conflict only because certain words have been uttered or misinterpreted, which steers the whole interaction and the problem solving process in a different direction. This biological trait is only partially controlled by the culture at the next integrative level, trough norms and rules of behavior (institutions).

The impact of sociocultural constraints on managing complexity is evident form my last example on managing the energy sector: there is no reason as why the energy sector could not be managed in a fully planned and rational way by a group of experts who would optimize the production and transmission processes. Did we need the market process to send the spacecraft to the Moon or it was a large-scale project carefully managed for years before it succeeded? Or, is the carbon trading the best response to climate change problem? However, the primacy of markets is part of our dominant worldview, so we have the propensity to exclude other options that may do the job better or with less uncertainty. So I have the feeling that as we continue to build more socio-economic complexity our biological and cultral capabilities to manage it are lagging seriously behind.

The best
Igor

Original Message -----
  From: Pedro Marijuan
  To: fis@listas.unizar.es
  Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 2:46 PM
  Subject: Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

  Dear Igor and colleagues,

    I have the impression that there is an agreement about the existence of biological and sociocultural constraints that impact on our ability to understand and manage socioeconomic complexity. These constraints are organized hierarchically, as Stan puts it, {biological {sociocultural }}.

  I would agree that this is the way to organize our explanations. But dynamically the real world is open at all levels: very simple amplification or feed forward processes would produce phenomena capable of escalating levels and percolate around (e.g., minuscule oxidation-combustion phenomena initiating fires that scorch ecosystems, regions). Socially there is even more "openness": a very tenuous rumor may destroy an entire company, or put a sector on its knees... Arguing logically about those hierarchical schemes may be interesting only for semi-closed, "capsule" like entities, but not really for say (individuals (cities (countries)))... My contention is that we should produce a new way of thinking going beyond that classical systemic, non-informational view.

     To some extent, it may be a sign of diminishing returns to complexity in problem solving that Joe addressed in his book "The collapse of complex societies"... If we cannot manage the energy sector to serve certain social and economic goals, how can we hope to be able to manage more complex situations like the climate change, poverty reduction and population growth in the South?
    Did we reach the limits (cognitive and cultural) to manage our complex world?

  After the industrial revolution, on average every passing generation (say each 30 years) has doubled both the material and the immaterial basis of societies: social wealth, income, accumulated knowledge, scientific fields, technological development, social complexity... provided the environment could withstand, maybe the process of generational doubling would continue around almost indefinitely, or maybe not! Euristic visions like those mentioned by Igor on energy policies by the UE or the US have been the usual and only tool during all previous epochs: the case is whether after some critical threshold human societies cannot keep their complexity any longer... Joe might agree on the "necessary" collapse of complex societies.

  best

  Pedro

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Received on Mon Feb 19 10:25:50 2007