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

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

From: Stanley N. Salthe <[email protected]>
Date: Sun 04 Mar 2007 - 22:34:19 CET

Pedro notes :

>Thanks, Stan and others.
>
>Very briefly, I was thinking on the economy (together with most of social
>structure) as the "arrows" or bonds that connect the "nodes" of
>individuals. Take away the arrows, the bonds, and you are left with a mere
>swarm of structureless, gregarious individuals. Change the type of
>connectivity, you get markets, planned economies, mixed ones, etc. Thus,
>very roughly, in the evolution of social bonds I see a trend toward more
>complex and info-entropic social structures: far less strong bonds, far
>more weak bonds. Curiously, these complex societies also devour far more
>energy and produce far more physical entropy (both types of entropies seem
>to go hand with hand)... Well, and what are finally those social "bonds"
>but information?
>
>best regards
>Pedro
>PS. I would not quite agree with Pattee's view of constraints...

 I especially note:
>Curiously, these complex societies also devour far more
>energy and produce far more physical entropy (both types of entropies seem
>to go hand with hand).
     Yes, but this is a complicated fact. As long as our economy is a
growing one, these facts will continue to hold. Growing -- immature --
systems are energy hot & profligate compared with later stages. And, of
course, the harder any work is done, the greater the proportion of
dissipated energy that goes into entropy. We are entrained by the ideology
of youthfulness in all our endeavors, but many folks now see the day
arriving when this can no longer seem to be forward looking. Our culture
will have to mature sometime (in preparation for its being swept away!).
     I also note Loet's
>the former (social systems)may remain differentiated in terms of
>distributions (which
>produce and self-reproduce entropy).
     It is indeed tempting to suppose that, in the philosophical
perspective, the object of human economies is to produce entropy!

STAN

>At 23:28 01/03/2007, you wrote:
>>Guy -- Yes, you are right. But I was reacting to Pedro's "The realm of
>>economy is almost pure information." Some aspects of an economy must be
>>seen to be dynamics, not just all of it pure constraints (here I reference
>>Pattee's 'dynamics / constraints' dichotomy). It is during the dynamics
>>that physical entropy is produced. Of course, informational entropy will
>>certainly be magnified in the constraint realm of an economy. As well, in
>>order to set up constraints, dynamical activities would have to be
>>undertaken.
>>
>>Then Pedro asked:
>>
>> >On the second track, about hierarchies and boundary conditions, shouldn't
>> >we distinguish more clearly between the latter (bound. cond.) and
>> >"constraints"?
>> S: Basing my views on Pattee's general distinction between dynamics
>>and constraints, the relation between constraint and boundary conditions is
>>{constraint {boundary condition}}. That is, boundary conditions are one
>>kind of constraint. Constraints are informational inputs to any dynamical
>>system, and can be of many kinds.
>>
>>STAN
>>-------------------------------------
>>
>> >Stan,
>> >
>> >Aren't all constraints a form of information? I see constraints as
>> >informing the bounds of the adjacent possible and adjacent probable. If
>> >this is correct, then it would seem to render the economy as "almost pure
>> >information". In fact, I think it would render all emergent systems as
>> >pure information. Wouldn't it?
>> >
>> >Regards,
>> >
>> >Guy
>
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Received on Sun Mar 4 20:26:33 2007


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