Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Reply to Steven and Ted By genetic constraints I assume you simply mean that we have certain capacities and are not omnipotent. Is not conflict and war an indicator of our individual failure to manage social complexity? Or would you argue that war is social complexity management? I was referring to the hypothesis that we have the propensity to function in relatively small groups bind by strong cultural bonds. Since our species did evolve in small bands, this social trait may have some genetic underpinnings. Our disposition to use violence, to exercise power over others, and to use emotions in dealing with social problems is likely to have genetic basis because we find similar traits also in primates. In this context, conflict and war are to be seen as an indicator of our individual and social failure to deal with challenges of social complexity. To put it tentatively simple: globalization with its economic interdependence, migrations with its cultural mixing but not melting, and the fact that the planet is becoming a crowded place because of population growth in the South, creates a particular aspect of social complexity, for which effective handling we may have certain, species-specific, biological limits. If these biological limits are hard to prove, then we call in a bad record in our history concerning our cultural ability to handle the other, the different, to make major institutional changes without recurring to violence, etc.. On the other hand, we may have cognitive limits to deal with the implications of social and technological complexity that we have created so recently in our evolution. Ted wrote: I do believe that there are limits to complexity of any system. I believe the limits exhibit not only in the behavior of the system as seen by that actions of its members, but also in the abstractions those members use in the information that is exchanged. Ted, can you give us an example from the social realm for your statement My understanding is that when those information abstractions (which evolve with the system) become overloaded, a new level of the system is created, with new, cleaner abstractions. Best Igor ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
On Fri, 2 Feb 2007, Pedro Marijuan wrote: Dear Igor and colleagues, Your question is fascinating, perhaps at the time being rather puzzling or even un-answerable... Pedro, Yes, unanswerable in the absolute sense, but there are some quantitative approximations that yield helpful insights. For example, in looking at ecological trophic networks, we have discovered that all known, quantified networks fall into a particular window of vitality that ranges from an effective link density of 1 up to ca. 3.01 and an effective numer of trophic roles (levels) that ranges from 2.0 to ca. 4.5. There are hueristic explanations for three sides of this window, although the 4.5 boundary remains enigmatic. Anyone interested may look at http://www.cbl.umces.edu/~ulan/zorach.pdf Please note Figure 11 on p75. The best, Bob - Robert E. Ulanowicz| Tel: (410) 326-7266 Chesapeake Biological Laboratory | FAX: (410) 326-7378 P.O. Box 38| Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 Williams Street | Web http://www.cbl.umces.edu/~ulan Solomons, MD 20688-0038| -- ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Dear All I agree with Pedro's perspective, it looks very reasonable from the standpoint of social sciences. I would like to put a question to Joe and other colleagues regarding the constraints of managing social complexity (whatever, objective or perceived). Humanity has reached a high historical degree of interconnectance, where we exchange material (products), energy, and information over a variety of different pathways and across the globe. At the same time we have been introducing new chemical compounds, new materials (e.g. nanotechnology) and even new species in the natural and human environment. This at a pace which is likely to favor unintended consequences. New institutions (rules, habits, organizations) emerge to deal with the complexity of these overlapping networks of communication and material exchange. These come at a cost for a society, a cost which is not only monetary or material but also taxes our ability to deal with the overwhelming information that is produced in the process. In a way we tend to produce complexity and respond to its challenges by introducing more complexity. Joe emphasized in his work the importance of diminishing returns to complexity in problem solving. Considering that we necessarily operate under certain genetic constraints, are there (absolute) upper limits to our ability to manage social complexity? I guess that there are also cultural constraints involved here, and that these can be stretched to some limit, but eventually, a threshold is reached where the culture may not be stretched beyond our biological underpinnings. The best Igor - Original Message - From: Pedro Marijuan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: fis@listas.unizar.es Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 2:04 PM Subject: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity Dear Joe and colleagues, Thanks for the new angle. The problem on how to ascribe complexity looks quite complex in itself... It connects with the aspect of decomposability in parts / components of entities which surfaced last month (when arguing on the human factor). For obscure reasons, maybe connected with the philosophical and methodological dominance of reductionism, we have not assimilated yet that informationally open systems (or entities) cannot be treated in isolation neither of their boundary conditions, nor of their intrinsic activity. The brain itself is an excellent case in point. Depending on both external boundaries and inner propensities it is not complex nor simple: it depends. (Thus I agree with the comments below). However, it should not be read as an argument in defense of relativism or radical perspectivism. Rather it means that informationally open entities cannot be treated cavalierly in the same way than mechanical, closed entities ... they are structured in a different, strange way. Perhaps this type of proper, general treatment should be, in other words, the info sci. methodology, the so much looked after sci. of open systems. regards, Pedro At 22:31 26/01/2007, you wrote: So the brain is simple for this purpose. Therein lies the broader question. Is the complexity of the brain relative to the perspective of the analyst? Or is the complexity of the brain innate? Surely a simple brain of three parts could not generate social and cultural complexity as we know them? But to a doctor treating a patient with epilepsy, this is irrelevant. The brain is simple, and so is the treatment. Inevitably we are led to more general issues. Is social/cultural complexity an attribute of a society/culture, or is it an attribute of the observer's perspective? Is complexity innate or asscribed? Clearly this question applies to any kind of complex system, not just social or cultural ones. ___ 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] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Dear Igor and colleagues, Your question is fascinating, perhaps at the time being rather puzzling or even un-answerable... What are the complexity limits of societies? Our individual limits are obvious ---the size of natural bands depended both on ecosystems and on the number of people with which an individual was able to communicate meaningfully, keeping a mutual strong bond. Of course, at the same time the band was always dynamically subdividing in dozens and dozens of possible multidimensional partitions and small groups (eg. the type of evanescent grouping we may observe in any cocktail party). Pretty complex in itself, apparently. Comparatively, the real growth of complexity in societies is due (in a rough simplification) to weak bonds. In this way one can accumulate far more identities and superficial relationships that imply the allegiance to sectorial codes, with inner combinatory, and easy ways to rearrange rapidly under general guidelines. Thus, the cumulative complexity is almost unaccountable in relation with the natural band --Joe provided some curious figures in his opening. And in the future, those figures may perfectly grow further, see for instance the number of scientific specialties and subspecialties (more than 5-6.000 today, less than 2-3.000 a generation ago). Research on social networks has highlighted the paradoxical vulnerability of societies to the loss of ... weak bonds. The loss of strong bonds is comparatively assumed with more tolerance regarding the maintenance of the complex structure (human feelings apart). Let us also note that considering the acception of information as distinction on the adjacent I argued weeks ago, networks appear as instances of new adjacencies... by individual nodes provided with artificial means of communication (channels). In sum, an economic view on social complexity may be interesting but secondary. What we centrally need, what we lack, is a serious info perspective on complexity (more discussions like the current one!). By the way, considering the ecological perspectives on complexity would be quite interesting too. best regards Pedro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
On Feb 2, 2007, at 5:07 AM, Igor Matutinovic (by way of Pedro Marijuan [EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: ... Considering that we necessarily operate under certain genetic constraints, are there (absolute) upper limits to our ability to manage social complexity? ... By genetic constraints I assume you simply mean that we have certain capacities and are not omnipotent. Is not conflict and war an indicator of our individual failure to manage social complexity? Or would you argue that war is social complexity management? With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Point of reference. At the first ICCS conference on Complexity at Nashua NH, USA in 1997, I presented the concept that Complexity is driven and established by communication probabilities between agent systems, with entropy-related re-distribution of information or energy or mass, being the direct causal mechanism for binding next-tier organization into negentropic ordered complex-relations. It was titled Robust Non-Fractal Complexity. It can be found: http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/necsi1video.htm http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/necsi1paper.htm In point of fact, the notion of information distribution was applied to fractal equation structures themselves, and it was shown that iterative recurrsion of the mathematical values through a fractal equation structure, is in fact, just this process of expanded-distribution - iteratively enacted. James Ceptual Institute Feb 2, 2007 ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote on 2/2/07: Or would you argue that war is social complexity management? Interpreting the term as you have, I would probably present that war is merely part of the dynamics of social systems but indicative of the inability of single humans (or small groups) to manage complexity. And of course using the notion of management opens another discussion that may be illustrative of our inability to manage the concepts we are about here. Change the subject +++ I think we have drifted a bit from the hard problem raised. I do believe that there are limits to complexity of any system. I believe the limits exhibit not only in the behavior of the system as seen by that actions of its members, but also in the abstractions those members use in the information that is exchanged. This group here is all about the nature of that information, yes? My understanding is that when those information abstractions (which evolve with the system) become overloaded, a new level of the system is created, with new, cleaner abstractions. I suppose it may be fruitless to consider the phenomenon from the level of societies, unless you want to argue about the existence of deities. But it might be - and I am sure of this - fruitful to look at layers below us. I think there is a real lesson to be learned in looking at how the behavior of physics produces emergent behavior that (among other things) breaks abstractions at some level of complexity to create the system of chemistry. I recently heard Jerry Chandler speak on the difference between the abstractions inherent in physics and chemistry and was (again) struck at what an opportunity this affords for us to understand just what complexity is all about and what happens when the threshold of management is exceeded. -Best, Ted -- __ Ted Goranson Sirius-Beta ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
RE: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Like the individual mind is somewhat constrained by the biology of the body, society is constrained by the room of individuals to experience and phantasize. This is no biological, but a psychological constrain. Thus, it is not the volume of our brains, but the complexity with which we are able to process meaning. The dynamics of meaning processing may be very different from the dynamics of information processing. For example, information is processed with the arrow of time, while meaning is provided from the perspective of hindsight. Different meanings can be based on different codifications (e.g., economic or scientific codifications), while meaning itself can be considered as a codifying the information. My main point is that the biological metaphor may be the wrong starting point for a discussion of social and cultural complexity. With best wishes, Loet Loet Leydesdorff Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR) Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pedro Marijuan Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 2:39 PM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity Dear Igor and colleagues, Your question is fascinating, perhaps at the time being rather puzzling or even un-answerable... What are the complexity limits of societies? Our individual limits are obvious ---the size of natural bands depended both on ecosystems and on the number of people with which an individual was able to communicate meaningfully, keeping a mutual strong bond. Of course, at the same time the band was always dynamically subdividing in dozens and dozens of possible multidimensional partitions and small groups (eg. the type of evanescent grouping we may observe in any cocktail party). Pretty complex in itself, apparently. Comparatively, the real growth of complexity in societies is due (in a rough simplification) to weak bonds. In this way one can accumulate far more identities and superficial relationships that imply the allegiance to sectorial codes, with inner combinatory, and easy ways to rearrange rapidly under general guidelines. Thus, the cumulative complexity is almost unaccountable in relation with the natural band --Joe provided some curious figures in his opening. And in the future, those figures may perfectly grow further, see for instance the number of scientific specialties and subspecialties (more than 5-6.000 today, less than 2-3.000 a generation ago). Research on social networks has highlighted the paradoxical vulnerability of societies to the loss of ... weak bonds. The loss of strong bonds is comparatively assumed with more tolerance regarding the maintenance of the complex structure (human feelings apart). Let us also note that considering the acception of information as distinction on the adjacent I argued weeks ago, networks appear as instances of new adjacencies... by individual nodes provided with artificial means of communication (channels). In sum, an economic view on social complexity may be interesting but secondary. What we centrally need, what we lack, is a serious info perspective on complexity (more discussions like the current one!). By the way, considering the ecological perspectives on complexity would be quite interesting too. best regards Pedro ___ 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] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity
Interesting comments. I basically agree with Loet - the biological metaphor is the wrong starting point. However, when Loet says ..is constrained by the room of individuals to experience and phantasize. This is no biological, but a psychological constrain. This does not appear to be a psychological constraint but an environmental constraint. I am also unclear about Loet's distinction between information and meaning. So let me interpret in my terms. As Loet describes meaning it appears to have a zero impact upon the world. Recall that my definition of knowledge is it that which determines subsequent action (I discovered recently that this is consistent with Varela) and information is that which identifies cause and adds to knowledge. Meaning is then either an unnecessary term or it is a function of knowledge (which is my preference). I don't really know what Loet means by meaning is provided from the perspective of insight. I think we agree however: for meaning to have an impact upon the world as a function of knowledge it must also be a source of information in my model. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info On Feb 2, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote: Like the individual mind is somewhat constrained by the biology of the body, society is constrained by the room of individuals to experience and phantasize. This is no biological, but a psychological constrain. Thus, it is not the volume of our brains, but the complexity with which we are able to process meaning. The dynamics of meaning processing may be very different from the dynamics of information processing. For example, information is processed with the arrow of time, while meaning is provided from the perspective of hindsight. Different meanings can be based on different codifications (e.g., economic or scientific codifications), while meaning itself can be considered as a codifying the information. My main point is that the biological metaphor may be the wrong starting point for a discussion of social and cultural complexity. With best wishes, Loet Loet Leydesdorff Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR) Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pedro Marijuan Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 2:39 PM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Re: Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity Dear Igor and colleagues, Your question is fascinating, perhaps at the time being rather puzzling or even un-answerable... What are the complexity limits of societies? Our individual limits are obvious ---the size of natural bands depended both on ecosystems and on the number of people with which an individual was able to communicate meaningfully, keeping a mutual strong bond. Of course, at the same time the band was always dynamically subdividing in dozens and dozens of possible multidimensional partitions and small groups (eg. the type of evanescent grouping we may observe in any cocktail party). Pretty complex in itself, apparently. Comparatively, the real growth of complexity in societies is due (in a rough simplification) to weak bonds. In this way one can accumulate far more identities and superficial relationships that imply the allegiance to sectorial codes, with inner combinatory, and easy ways to rearrange rapidly under general guidelines. Thus, the cumulative complexity is almost unaccountable in relation with the natural band --Joe provided some curious figures in his opening. And in the future, those figures may perfectly grow further, see for instance the number of scientific specialties and subspecialties (more than 5-6.000 today, less than 2-3.000 a generation ago). Research on social networks has highlighted the paradoxical vulnerability of societies to the loss of ... weak bonds. The loss of strong bonds is comparatively assumed with more tolerance regarding the maintenance of the complex structure (human feelings apart). Let us also note that considering the acception of information as distinction on the adjacent I argued weeks ago, networks appear as instances of new adjacencies... by individual nodes provided with artificial means of communication (channels). In sum, an economic view on social complexity may be interesting but secondary. What we centrally need, what we lack, is a serious info perspective on complexity (more discussions like the current one!). By the way, considering the ecological perspectives on complexity would be quite interesting too. best regards Pedro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
