Dear FIS community,
the most important quint-essence of the summary of the conclusions is, for me, the term
"sustainability".
We obviously possess a built-in (or conditioned) expectation instinct, how long a DURATION is to be
expected reasonably for the PROPERTIES COMPLEX that is presently the case. To sustain means - if I
understand Igor well - that a specific state of the world remains a number of ticks t in existence,
starting with now t0 and ending sometime tx, and the specific sustainability means that this tx is
somewhat farther away from t0 as would be the case if there was no added sustainability.
Then, we discuss LINEARISATION OF STRUCTURED SETS. The state of the world that is to be sustained
(for a shorter or longer period of time) is presently - in time t0 - in a specific state. This
specific state can be described by a finite number of logical sentences (sentences assigning symbols
to subsets). (The restriction "finite" comes, among others, from the first law of
thermodynamics, namely, that energy does not get lost, that is, that we discuss a finite amount of
matter+energy.)
A finite set on which a collection of logical sentences generates substes is a multidimensional
partition, and the partitions structure the set. Therefore we have in the concept of that, which is
to be sustained, a STRUCTURED SET.
As to the duration of a specific state, it is now to show that the concept of duration, and therefore
time, is rooted in a linear concept of neighbourhoods. If the measurement mathes the elements to be
measured to N, we have a linear measurement. With time, this is obviously the case.
Then, what Igor has summarised under the FIS central concept of "sustainability", is called
in technical terms LINEARISATION OF STRUCTURED SETS.
Hope to have rooted the sociological, economical, etc. terms into logic and transpersonal system of
meanings.
Karl
>
> Von: "Igor Matutinovic" <igor.matutinovic@gfk.hr>
> Datum: 2005/07/18 Mo PM 06:02:24 CEST
> An: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Betreff: [Fis] Wrap-up
>
> Dear friends
>
> I apologize in Bob's and my name for our delay in wraping-up this
exciting
> session. Here it is:
>
> We started with the assumption that economies have two basic dimensions
> of internal order: one is organic/organizational and relates to
> functional and structural properties, which are closely related to
> autocatalytic processes. The other is cognitive/informational, meaning
> that the broad perspective that human agents hold on the world
> streamlines collective human behavior and economic activities. Both
> dimensions of order are maintained at the cost of dissipating the
> fabric of the natural environment.
>
> Those social beliefs and shared values of the North lie behind welfare
> liberalism. Not only do they drive economic globalization, but they
> also promote economic efficiency as the supreme, universal social goal.
> While it is true that autocatalysis promotes efficiency, without which
> an economic community is liable to being displaced, the lesson from the
> biological realm is that efficiency is not what sustains communities in
> the long run. Diversity of processes and sectors implies the
> co-existence of various degrees of efficiency and therefore various
> modes of socioeconomic organization. Through the process of
> globalization, welfare liberalism has been endangering biological and
> cultural diversity, as well as the integrity of world ecosystems. We
> identify this as a "sustainability" problem at the global
level.
>
> In the past decade mainstream economics has proposed the idea of a
> transition from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy,
> arguing that this process has already started in the most advanced
> market economies. This transition has been related, among other things,
> to a trend in increasing economic efficiency (measured as GDP per unit
> of energy or materials used) among the advanced market economies.
> Overall consumption of energy and natural resources continues, however,
> to increase in all "developed" economies, as well as in some
> "developing" nations, like China and India, with increasingly
> deleterious effects on regional ecosystems and possibly the global
> climate.
>
> Stanley Salthe claimed that information transactions are superimposed
> upon resource utilization, and that this raises a question as to the
> appropriateness of the distinction between resource-based and
> knowledge-based systems. It appears that the solution to the
> sustainability problem is not in the transition from a resource to a
> knowledge based economy, because both types are subject to
> thermodynamic constraints (a point on which most of us agreed.) Rather,
> the problem of sustainability, or of remaining within the economic
> "window of vitality", may lie in achieving a balance between
efficiency
> and diversity, which implies the necessity for allowing a certain
> degree of "overhead" and performance sub-optimality to persist.
As Loet
> Leydesdorf remarked, neither the Western, nor any other economic
> system, is sustainable in the long run, because it is always five
> minutes before twelve ("the edge of crisis") in any system that
is in
> full-swing operation.
>
> Gearing economic dynamics permanently below the "full-swing
operation",
> while at the same time preserving the cohesinevess of the social
> fabric, may point national economies and the global economic system in
> the direction of susainability. This recapitulates our initial proposal
> that it is necessary to reduce the intensity of autocatalytic processes
> within the world economy to release the current pressure on ecosystem
> sinks and sources as well as to diminish the pressure on cultural
> diversity. In order for this process to begin, however, requires
> drastic changes in the values, beliefs and institutions that dominate
> Western societies. We do not know if, how or when the transition might
> happen, but we all agree that information networks are likely to play
> an important role in the process. The fact is that the internet is
> enabling unprecedented exchange of information and knowledge across the
> connected part of the globe, and it is bringing together like-minded
> people from different cultural and economic environments.
>
> We agree that the details of the answer to what
"sustainability" is and
> how best it might be pursued lie in the realm of political options for
> individual societies. These political opitions are, however,
> illuminated by scientific knowledge and the hope for achieving greater
> sustainability is nourished by the ability of scientific community to
> work together on complex transdisiplinary issues. We would like to
> think that our FIS discussion was a step in that direction, and we
> thank you for your thoughts and time.
>
> Bob & Igor
>
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Received on Tue Jul 19 11:26:25 2005
