Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Loet wrote: Yes: because the economy is equilibrating. Innovations upset the tendency towards equilibrium (Schumpeter) and thus induce cycles into the economy. This is the very subject of evolutionary economics. Marx's problem was that the cycles cannot be stopped and have a tendency to become self-reinforcing. However, the modern state adds the institutional mechanism as another subdynamics. Besides innovations, even stronger cause of instability of the capitalist economy is its tendency to create diversity as a consequence of competitive interactions. Diversity, like in ecosystems, means redundancy and informational entropy (just think about the variety of any consumer product available on the market). Because of general technical constraints in production (production indivisibility, economy of scale, etc.) and forward-looking investment decisions which are based on incomplete information, redundancy of firms transfers aperiodically in absolute redundancy of output (overcapacity) that clears itself during the downward phase of the economic cycle. Marx was right in that the cycles cannot be stopped but wrong on the prediction that they will become worse. After the Great Depression an nstitutional toolbox of countercyclical policies was gradually put in effect, which constrained the absolute values of peaks and bottoms, but did not eliminate the business cycle. Redundancy/diversity, on the other hand, is essential for competition and innovation to persist in a economy. It creates informational entropy and gives a momentum to material/energy entropy production, as the constant influx of diversity maintains the economic system in it juvenile, highly dissipative state. Best Igor - Original Message - From: Loet Leydesdorff [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Stanley N. Salthe' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 8:22 AM Subject: RE: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity It is indeed tempting to suppose that, in the philosophical perspective, the object of human economies is to produce entropy! STAN Yes: because the economy is equilibrating. Innovations upset the tendency towards equilibrium (Schumpeter) and thus induce cycles into the economy. This is the very subject of evolutionary economics. Marx's problem was that the cycles cannot be stopped and have a tendency to become self-reinforcing. However, the modern state adds the institutional mechanism as another subdynamics. I am sometimes using the metaphor of a triple helix among these three difference subsystems of communication and control: economic equilibration, institutional regulation, and innovation. A triple helix unlike a double one cannot be expected to stabilize (in a coevolution), but remains meta-stable with possible globalization. I suppose that this has happened. With best wishes, Loet ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Let me add to Igor's points about instability: Redundancy/diversity, on the other hand, is essential ... It creates informational entropy and gives a momentum to material/energy entropy production ... that redundancy/diversity DOES NOT GET CREATED it isd always there, but we choose to neglect it, because Darwin has preferred those who recognise the constant, alike, similar before the background of diversity and similarity. The background DOES NOT GET CREATED by the figures in the foreground, it is there. In our case, it is the background of discontinuity before which we recognise the uniformity, continuity and existence of our logical units. Karl ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
reply to Karl: In fact I meant it creates informational entropy for an external observer. For the sake of precision, we may say that diversity neither get created nor it is always there - it evolves - initially there was no diversity at all, than it increased discontinuously in evolutionary time. Best Igor - Original Message - From: karl javorszky To: fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 1:00 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity Let me add to Igor's points about instability: Redundancy/diversity, on the other hand, is essential ... It creates informational entropy and gives a momentum to material/energy entropy production ... that redundancy/diversity DOES NOT GET CREATED it isd always there, but we choose to neglect it, because Darwin has preferred those who recognise the constant, alike, similar before the background of diversity and similarity. The background DOES NOT GET CREATED by the figures in the foreground, it is there. In our case, it is the background of discontinuity before which we recognise the uniformity, continuity and existence of our logical units. Karl -- ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Igor's is indeed an important point: initially there was no diversity at all, than it increased discontinuously in evolutionary time if we think the Big Bang to be one,undifferentiated clump of matter which got differentiated and ever more complex, we make us a wishful picture. The negation was always there, together with the assertion. The realised variants were quite simple and uniform, the non-realised alternatives were manifold and complex. Let me bring this into perspective with natural numbers: irrespective of which order we regard the additions, the cuts are there at the same time as the whole. Before we do anything, we have to visualise an extent. With the extent we should visualise that it is a heap of alternatives, too. The cuts are there at the same time with the continuity, they do not get evolved. We make a time-based sequence: first we wish the cuts away and then we reimagine them along with the stuff. But they were always there, neither our wishing them away not us wishing them back alters their existence. Maybe they were not actualised, but the whole of the set contains both its assertions and the negations thereof, too. This is not a religious belief, so I may drop this point, but in my feeling it is more symmetrical to think that the negation comes with the assertion and does not evolve therefrom. Alltogether they are part and parcel, like packaging and content. Which parts of the packaging are not useful and get discarded is another point. Maybe you refer to that. Karl 2007/3/8, Igor Matutinovic [EMAIL PROTECTED]: reply to Karl: In fact I meant it creates informational entropy for an *external observer*. For the sake of precision, we may say that diversity neither get created nor it is always there - it evolves - . Best Igor - Original Message - *From:* karl javorszky [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* fis@listas.unizar.es *Sent:* Thursday, March 08, 2007 1:00 PM *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity Let me add to Igor's points about instability: Redundancy/diversity, on the other hand, is essential ... It creates informational entropy and gives a momentum to material/energy entropy production ... that redundancy/diversity DOES NOT GET CREATED it isd always there, but we choose to neglect it, because Darwin has preferred those who recognise the constant, alike, similar before the background of diversity and similarity. The background DOES NOT GET CREATED by the figures in the foreground, it is there. In our case, it is the background of discontinuity before which we recognise the uniformity, continuity and existence of our logical units. Karl -- ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
