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

[Phil]

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”


 
 
 

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