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

> 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 "almosst pure information". In
> fact, I think it would render all emergent systems as pure
> information. Wouldn't it?

In my opinion, one should distinguish between the distributional properties
which are information and the substantive ones. The systems differ in terms
of *what* is communicated.

For example, one can consider an economy as an information system
communicating prices and commodities. The constraints, for example, are then
resources and regulations. The regulations, however, communicate information
very different from prices and commodities.

With best wishes,

Loet
________________________________

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
loet@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/

Now available: The Knowledge-Based Economy: Modeled, Measured, Simulated.
385 pp.; US$ 18.95

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Received on Sun Feb 25 08:23:12 2007