Re: [FRIAM] ** this Wednesday** Lecture May 31 12:30p - Carlos Gershenson: A General Methodology for Designing Self-Organizing Systems

[Phil]

Title: Message

Bill, see also my reply to Carlos, 1) We have large parts of earth working with non-evolved systems. A recent description I saw of women in the Congo for example, carrying 200 lb. bags on their backs. Perhaps they are the future if our complex oil-based economy collapses. Darwinism isn't very predictive, it just says the winner was the best. But it seems unlikely that any calamity would result in complete global significance, whatever the scenario. [PH] One of the fascinating complex system application attempts is the UN program called MDG, (Millennium Development Goals) which envisions both that new technology ladders can be built which will have a better organic fit with the societies of primitive peoples in the BOP (bottom of the pyramid) the modern world has left behind, that that 75% of humanity can be the main economic growth resource for the world in the century (paraphrasing).  I give it high very marks for serious wishful thinking. 2) While we try to improve our governments, perhaps we should at times look at the possibility that this is about as good as it gets, that a middlin' compromise or a small swing between not very enlightened poles is our optimum equilibrium.  It's undoubtedly better than the worst we've seen out of human systems in the last 100 years (or even the last 10), yet I don't see any quantum leap over say Britain's government in 1870. Perhaps it's the people who might evolve more than the governments, but that remains to be proved as well. [PH]  It's hard to accept such disappointing truth, but people do occasionally find ways to show up and do useful things when they're in a jam.  One certainly wonders though.    I saw a HBO series on Rome, Cesar's game of invading the great republican civilization it was with it's own army, and was just fascinated by the seemingly well researched up-close and personal portrayal of life on the streets and in the houses of Rome.   Certainly there could be some failure of both the writers and myself in trying to imagine anything but modern ideas about human relations.  Still the strong impression is that in a great many ways nothing in human experience has changed.   I guess the upside of that may well be that we are indeed 'safe' from having life drastically altered by what changes around us. Carlos Gershenson wrote: I think that assumes that cause and effect for any one system is statistical across all systems. I don't believe that to be the case. Given a cellular system like an economy, where you can't really transcend the basic cells, the humans with all our gifts and failings, there seem likely to be response time failure thresholds where ever bigger repercussions get ever slower and less reliable corrections, and stabilizing the rapidly changing internal and environmental relationships fails. I think that it is common to think that human society is fragile. Well, the fact that we're still around shows that we aren't. Last week, I learned about two competing "doomsday theories" from LANL people: bird flu, and peak oil. They both assume that small catastrophes trigger chaos. But even if nuclear war breaks out, that wouldn't erase mankind from the face of the earth. It would suck, for sure, and all these scenarios make profitable blockbusters, but we humans are a persistant little vermin... In any of these cases society would change, for sure, but precisely that is part of the adaptation. It wouldn't collapse. It hasn't collapsed, and there have been plenty of wars, famines, plagues, and all other things mentioned in the Apocalypse... and we're still around. So I find it extremely unprobable that something would wipe us out. I am not suggesting that mankind will be forever on Earth, but that evolving into something else seems to me more probable than extinction by catastrophe. Asteroids might be a problem, and failures of imagination might be of seeming equally stubborn nature. I mean, if we've gone and built an entire civilization, business plan and government financing structure that relies on continual exponential increases in the complexity of the system,... and that turns out to be really dangerous, it's quite a major failure of imagination it seems to me. If the complexity growth would fade away, I don't see civilization collapsing, so I don't understand why do you say that we rely on increasing complexity, nor why this might be dangerous. I definitely think we should make government competent by design. There are lots of do's and don'ts regarding performance measures, but if departments developed concepts of productivity beyond just bean counter efficiency, having internal groups competing would be highly very productive. Indeed, there are many things to be improved. Some people might think that there is no pressure for improving services. That is the case when there is no political choice (like in dictatorships or pseudo- democracies). But if there are competing political forces, they will try to improve government to gain more votes. So, slowly (maybe too slowly), but surely, we're getting there... Best regards, Carlos Gershenson... Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ “There is no game in which you cannot cheat”       Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040                       tel: 212-795-4844                 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]          explorations: www.synapse9.com

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