[FRIAM] "self-organization"

[Nick Thompson]

I agree, Glen.

It relates to another problem that interests me.  Natural selection cannot work unless there is additive genetic variance, i.e., a gene has to have an effect on a selectable trait, free and clear of the effects of other traits.   But given all the vast entanglements of the genetic and developmental system, how is it that any gene, let along most genes, have much additive genetic variance at all.  That selection can operate at all would seem to suggest that something is policing the genetic system to guarantee a modicum of additive genetic variance.  What could possibly be that policing agency and how, and at what level, is it selected for? 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "self-organization"

This post successfully describes my thoughts ... and in a criticism of my favorite "economist" von Hayek to boot!

http://evonomics.com/cognitive-economics-intelligence-mulgan/

> It’s an appealing view. But self-organization is not an altogether-coherent concept and has often turned out to be misleading as a guide to collective intelligence. It obscures the work involved in organization and in particular the hard work involved in high-dimensional choices. If you look in detail at any real example—from the family camping trip to the operation of the Internet, open-source software to everyday markets, these are only self-organizing if you look from far away. Look more closely and different patterns emerge. You quickly find some key shapers—like the designers of underlying protocols, or the people setting the rules for trading. There are certainly some patterns of emergence. Many ideas may be tried and tested before only a few successful ones survive and spread. To put it in the terms of network science, the most useful links survive and are reinforced; the less useful ones wither. The community decides collectively which ones are useful. Yet on closer inspection, there turn out to be concentrations of power and influence even in the most decentralized communities, and when there’s a crisis, networks tend to create temporary hierarchies—or at least the successful ones do—to speed up decision making. As I will show, almost all lasting examples of social coordination combine some elements of hierarchy, solidarity, and individual.


On January 13, 2018 8:46:24 AM PST, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I am hoping that the responses of
>others will display exactly the diversity you describe. 

--
glen

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