RE: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

2007-03-02 Thread Pedro Marijuan

Thanks, Stan and others.

Very briefly, I was thinking on the economy (together with most of social 
structure) as the arrows or bonds that connect the nodes of 
individuals. Take away the arrows, the bonds, and you are left with a mere 
swarm of structureless, gregarious individuals. Change the type of 
connectivity, you get markets, planned economies, mixed ones, etc. Thus, 
very roughly, in the evolution of social bonds I see a trend toward more 
complex and info-entropic social structures: far less strong bonds, far 
more weak bonds. Curiously, these complex societies also devour far more 
energy and produce far more physical entropy (both types of entropies seem 
to go hand with hand)... Well, and what are finally those social bonds 
but information?


best regards

Pedro

PS. I would not quite agree with Pattee's view of constraints...

At 23:28 01/03/2007, you wrote:

Guy -- Yes, you are right.  But I was reacting to Pedro's The realm of
economy is almost pure information.  Some aspects of an economy must be
seen to be dynamics, not just all of it pure constraints (here I reference
Pattee's 'dynamics / constraints' dichotomy).  It is during the dynamics
that physical entropy is produced.  Of course, informational entropy will
certainly be magnified in the constraint realm of an economy.  As well, in
order to set up constraints, dynamical activities would have to be
undertaken.

Then Pedro asked:

On the second track, about hierarchies and boundary conditions, shouldn't
we distinguish more clearly between the latter (bound. cond.) and
constraints?
  S: Basing my views on Pattee's general distinction between dynamics
and constraints, the relation between constraint and boundary conditions is
{constraint {boundary condition}}.  That is, boundary conditions are one
kind of constraint.  Constraints are informational inputs to any dynamical
system, and can be of many kinds.

STAN
-

Stan,

Aren't all constraints a form of information?  I see constraints as
informing the bounds of the adjacent possible and adjacent probable.  If
this is correct, then it would seem to render the economy as almost pure
information.  In fact, I think it would render all emergent systems as
pure information.  Wouldn't it?

Regards,

Guy


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RE: [Fis] Continuing Discussion of Social and Cultural Complexity

2007-03-02 Thread Loet Leydesdorff
 Curiously, these complex societies also 
 devour far more 
 energy and produce far more physical entropy (both types of 
 entropies seem 
 to go hand with hand)... Well, and what are finally those 
 social bonds 
 but information?

Dear Pedro: 

*Social* bonds are by their very nature generated by the social system, that
is, the self-organization (or non-linear dynamics) of interhuman
interactions. The specification of these dynamics in terms of how meaning is
processed in interhuman relations generates a research program for sociology
(socio-cybernetics). One can expect this system to operate differently from
psychological systems because the latter are integrated into identities,
while the former may remain differentiated in terms of distributions (which
produce and self-reproduce entropy).

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/ 

 
Now available: The Knowledge-Based Economy: Modeled, Measured, Simulated.
385 pp.; US$ 18.95 

 
 
 

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