[Fis] Knowledge and social complexity

Dear FIS colleagues,

A litle bit late, but best wishes for the New Year!

One of these days Joe will recap the exchanges we have had on social
complexity. In the interim, I have a couple of abstruse points somehow
related to the intrinsic / extrinsic theme.

First, that the notion of information as "distinction on the adjacent"
seems to hold in the social realm too. Curiously the "distinction" part
would refer to the intrinsic domain of the observer, while the "adjacent"
part belongs to the extrinsic. However, what our innate means of
communication bring into our adjacency consists basically of the lives of
the other members of (natural) bands / groups. Most of the extrinsic of an
individual becomes a composite of many other "intrinsicities"... this would
make the "emergences" of social stuff quite different from the ones in
natural sciences.

And second, that beyond that natural bonding of individuals, the
introduction of successive layers of complexity in the coupling of life
cycles could be performed only... by the use of "varieties of knowledge".
Ways to perform vast combinatorics of actions and perceptions in consistent
and efficient modes. Under this cognizing umbrella we may lump together
very different realms of knowledge, eg, related to artificial ecosystems,
specialization and organization, counting, writing, justice, religion...

Then, more or less I connect with Loet's emphasis on social communication
(which I agreed) and also emphsize the knowledge relationship with
complexity. Does it make sense?

best regards

Pedro

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Received on Mon Jan 15 18:02:37 2007