Dear Nikhil and FIS Colleagues,
Thanks for the thought-provoking opening. Actually even a superficial
reading of all the stuff you have recommended us becomes quite a bit of
hard work--but it pays. For my taste, the paper on "Part Three" contains
the most essential new thinking. Perhaps the excessive reliance on
systems-systems parlance is not convenient, both from a rhetorical and a
conceptual point of view. It gives the impression of a reductionist
Procrustean Bed where all the (endless!) stuff not amenable to the
ongoing treatment becomes eliminated or treated as nonexistent. But it
is a matter, maybe, just of style, that can be conveniently reformulated
. Notwithstanding these trifle comments about form, the contents are
significant and timely (at least for my personal taste!).
About contents, again I will start with a few mild criticisms to the
particular scheme proposed where mycorrhiza and gut bacteria appear as
central modulators. I can be wrong, of course, as I think you have taken
new arenas of research (still unsettled) and somehow put them on an
argumentative extreme, not much reliable actually. But the discussion in
Section 3.5 about new avenues for aligning ecosystems and economic
systems is full of valuable insights. I get along with it (with
secondary nuances) and so it allows me to respond explicitly to your
question 3 below, quite positively. Conversely, question 1 and 2 imply
excessive caveats for a positive response even though I admit they have
served as the scaffold for the present scheme.
I will point to two ecological-economics scenarios where the ideas you
develop may produce further insights: carbon emission markets and the
evaluation of Nature's capital & services. We have not achieved a proper
informational formulation of economic systems yet, so traditional ideas
cannot cope with the human "value" of Nature although they struggle to
put it into the same footing as the "artificial". New thinking avenues
are needed, and I think something quite interesting looms in your Part
III paper. Reminding the excellent contributions in the FIS 2002 session
on "Ecological Economics and Information" (seee
http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/ ), maybe some of those
voices are willing to speak up again.
All the best--Pedro
Nikhil Joshi wrote:
*(This email post has also been archived in the drop box. In case you
are unable to read this entire post, please download from this link
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/iej3xeu4as8rz8g/Abstract%20FIS%20v3.pdf?dl=0>)*
* *
*Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society
Build-A-Thon*
Dear FIS Colleagues,
Over the last fifty years or so, we have made significant progress in
enhancing our theoretical understanding of self-organizing complex
systems. When it comes to self-organization in complex /living
systems/, along with advances in theoretical research, advances in
disciplines like prebiotic evolution, molecular biology, complexity,
linguistics, information systems, ecology, bacteriology, soil
microbiology, sociology, and economics have all contributed to provide
deeper insights into the processes and organization in living systems
at multiple different levels.
Having reached here we can ask the questions- can this new science
help us develop a unified view of our socio-economic and natural
systems? Can such a view reveal new systemic ways to align economics
and ecosystems?
This series of articles [1-3] are a part of the “Lifel Deep Society
Build-A-Thon” initiative. A research Build-A-Thon that aims to bring
together domain level researchers, philosophers and theoretical
researchers, and other problem solvers to build a multilevel model
that can prove to be useful in enhancing our understanding of the
combined ecosystem-economics system. This initiative provides exciting
new opportunities for researchers to both further their own research,
while also contributing towards addressing the larger problem of
ecosystem-economics alignment.
This discussion on the FIS network invites your ideas, questions,
comments, criticisms, suggestions on the multilevel view presented
here, and three high-level questions arising from this view:
1. Is our social organization in some of its essential elements an
extension of the larger pattern in the organization of living systems
as proposed here [1]?
2. Are there important organizational or role similarities between
modulator systems- Mycorrhiza networks, gut bacterial networks and
financial investment networks?
3. Are there ways in which these insights could be leveraged to align
dynamics between ecosystems and economic systems?
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
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