Dear Glen, Dear List, > I have an ongoing cognitive conflict w.r.t. the principles I infer from > complexity theory and my ethical indoctrination/rearing.
In this case, objectivity should prevail: as you say, the one is _inferred_ and the other is result of indoctrination. ;-) > The primary principle I've inferred from complexity theory (such as it > is) is: the extent versus the objectives of control structures should > show something like an inverse power law to maintain a balance between > diversity and efficacy. > The primary ethical rule I've been taught to hold is that all people are > equivalent but never equal and that the extent of the equivalence > depends on the chosen equivalence class. What do mean exactly by this? Does it correspond to: 1a) People should have the same duties and rights before the law if they belong to the same class. (I'm not sure I understand you correctly here?) 2) People are different by genetics and socialisation and therefor have different abilities/skills/opportunities/weaknesses. > I'm currently living through a transition in my political views. I used > to be a hardcore libertarian and believed, fundamentally, that non-local > government is incapable of governing many variables. I'm not saying > that there are particular variables they can or can't regulate. I'm > saying there's a limit to the total _number_ of variables, whatever they > are, that a massive, global structure like the feds can handle. For > example, the federal government here in the states can govern some > number of variables (say 10 million) but cannot govern as many as can be > governed by decentralized, local government. Hmm -especially with compututational assistance how should this apply (a limit on the number?) - I think it's rather a problem of knowledge: the non-local government does not _know_ about local problems, and this is a matter of principle because knowledge is not easily transferred (only information is, which is a different thing). So locality ensures that the people who know about the problems are doing things about the problem. On the other hand, the non-local/local distinction _is_ important, I think, for the _type_ of variables. There are problems which need concerted efforts -> central control. This is domain specific. > But, the implications of the limitation are that humans in one part of > our country may be horribly abused, oppressed, ignored because the > federal government has chosen to concentrate its energies on a set of > variables unrelated to that particular local abuse or oppression. And > my ethical upbringing makes me think that our nation-wide government > ought to govern all the variables according to some universally > applicable human standards, regardless of how many variables that comes > to. In the EU we have the principle of subsidiarity for the level at which control should be exerted (this is an ideal, not always found in the real control structures). The principal says that it should be analyzed at which level of oranization a problem is best addressed, and that level should then take care of it. There is no general rule: on has to look at the problems as they arrive (one can classify known problems beforehand of course). For example, I tend to believe that nobody in the US should starve. > In the past, I would have argued against the centralized control over > food distribution. I would have said that it's good for a small segment > of the population to enjoy steak and champagne while the large segments > have to stick to McDonald's and Schlitz Malt Liquor. But, as I get > older, my resolve has started to crumble. This is made especially acute > when I see blatantly unethical behavior on the part of the rich white > guys who run our government. I think we should not mix up the control/diversity question with that of social justice. > Of course, my libertarian mind makes the statement that all of us are > just exploiting the resources available to us. And that makes me want > to cheer on the Karl Rove's of the world! Congrats! You win! Guys > like that are a healthy example of the rich diversity of control > structures we facilitate in our society, evidence that the inverse power > law remains. I think the libertarian needn't be classic egoistic homo oeconomicus. The libertarian can resent central control but still acknowledge that it is important for certain problems so that his freedom is preserved in th e long run. Being rational does not mean being short-sighted :-) > The problem with that upbringing is that the more of these regulations > we make more universal (increase the extent of a control structure), the > less agile we'll be when the environment changes (e.g. climate change > forcing evacuation of coastal cities or the collapse of the dollar in > the wake of a financial attack by China... or whatever). Hence, the > more we _allow_ diverse individuals (including slimy perverts) their > diversity, the more agile we'll be as a collective when the sh*t hits > the fan. Striking the balance is all the difficulty, of course - but I think that is what it's about - not going into one extreme or the other, but teetering on that edge (of chaos SCNR ;-)). > Any thoughts on how to reconcile these two contradictory principles > (high diversity versus universal human properties) are welcome. > Luckily, as Lovecraft once said: "The most merciful thing in the world, > I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its > contents." Hehe, Lovecraft has his moments indeed :-) One of my favourites is (not related to here) - "Do not call up what ye cannot put down" (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, his best story IMHO) > So, even if they remain contradictory, I can retain (and be > hypocritical about) both of them. But, given the recent conversation > about networks and cliques, I figured I'd throw this out and see what > came back. [grin] As I said, I think they need not be contradictory -rather complementary - but before I say more I would like to know if I have understood you correctly so far. All the best, Günther -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
