>As for Soren's concern about the meaning: we're in-system, our models
>are intrinsically imperfect, but some models are more useful than no
>models at all, as the statistician Box used to say. You cannot liberate
>yourself from models, just as you cannot liberate your existence: give
>up reason and instinct, and you'll be ruled by your reflexes and
>sensations, give up reflexes and sensations, and if you've survived
>this far, you'll be consumed by those who haven't given up the reflexes
>and sensations, and your philosophy will perish along with you.
>
Dear Aleks and colleagues,
This is a social-darwinistic model of society and therefore not attractive
to Soren and me. In addition to being "in the system," we are also
reflexive. The social system has developed, for example, a juridical system
which tries to prevent people from perishing when they are weak. The
dynamics of philosophies ("your philosophy will perish") are in important
ways different from the dynamics at the level of species. These differences
in the dynamics provide us with room for generating a knowledge-based
economy. Scientific knowledge is often based on counter-factuals and
counter-intuitive by nature. Thus, the natural ("biological") order of
things is a dangerous argument at the level of society because one risks to
throw away the child with the bathing water (i.e., culture).
The differences between "biological" evolution and cultural evolution are to
be celebrated if we wish to understand how a knowledge-based subdynamics can
counteract upon the "natural" order of things. I write "biological"
deliberately between quotation marks because the biological sciences are
part and parcel of this culture.
With kind regards,
Loet
________________________________
Loet Leydesdorff
Universit� de Lausanne, School of Economics (HEC);
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
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Received on Tue May 10 07:24:06 2005
