On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 5:06 PM, John Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> People don't trust an emergent system, it is too abstract > to accept that millions of people individually interacting can actually > result > in a more efficient solution to a problem than having a strong > leader and authority figure in control. I think that will come with time, but not quickly. Medieval people didn't trust feedback-based systems; now we worship them (democracy, Darwinism, free markets, etc.). There's a huge leap from one to the next. Self-regulation seems impossible when you believe the universe functions as a hierarchy. Self-organization seems impossible when you believe the universe is nothing more than feedback loops. The trouble with trusting a self-organizing system is that we don't have very good mathematics to analyze and predict what they'll do. We certainly know that complex systems of the kind you describe tend to be chaotic, with unpredictable attractor states. I certainly wouldn't want trust our health care system to avoid extrema and attractors that would be unfair to the vulnerable among us. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
