Seeking Input

[Bennett Stark]

Hello all,

 

From your emails which I have read, you all seem to know each other.

I am glad to participate within the group.

 

Robert Link suggested that the CoCo group might be helpful.I wrote a paper discussing global civilization and the biosphere in which it
is embedded as a complex adaptive system--indeed one that is not especially
adaptive at this time. It is a qualitative discussion and I would like to
add a quantitative dimension to the extent possible. So, I am seeking helpful input.

 

I do think it is not all that easy to apply or adapt a quantitative measure --

statistical or computational--if one does not have a familiarity with the subject.  

Nothing ventured; nothing gained and neither you nor I have anything to lose.

 

The paper was published as the 5th RISC Paper by the University of Ljubljana & WISDOM.
The Web site for the paper is
http://www.wisdom/Publikation/pdf/RiskBerichte/RRR_BStark_SustainableGlobal_09.pdf--.
However, a summary of the paper is on the cooperation.commons Web site. The title of

my paper is "A Case Study of a Complex Adaptive Systems Theory, Sustainable Global.

Global Governance: The Singular Challenge of the Twenty-first Century." 

The paper can more easily be accessed by Googling my name. 

The basis of a quantitative framework would seem to begin with properties of a complex

adaptive system (CAS).Such properties include: 1) a threshold of dense
causal interconnectivity leading to non-linear behavior--a complexity threshold--as I call it ;

2) emergence, e.g.,  behavior which may produce an international governance system 

(sometimes referred to as an international system of governance networks) that extends beyond

the narrow self-interest of our anarchic strong nation system;  3) hypothetical chaotic scenarios;

4) scenarios leading to a hypothetical phase transition, i.e., proximate, sustainable global governance;

5) a point of no return or of very tragic consequences (Stuart Kauffman's term "complexity catastrophe"),

e.g., James Hansen's somber prediction in 2006  that we have fewer than ten years to correct our energy

policies and that if we don't, our "current "business as usual" practices  will produce a 35% 
increase of carbon emissions by 2015,

The first property - a threshold of dense causal interconnectivity- is quite intuitive. Such thresholds exist

between and within nations and societies, i.e., technological advances in communication and transportation that have

contributed to the globalization of the economy, but, as well, thresholds between civilization and the biosphere

that have contributed to global warming, loss of biodiversity, etc., and thresholds between ecosystems.

 

 

Indices of such thresholds should be quite manageable to put together.  One can not do everything, however. A

computational simulation of the global political system and the biosphere in which it is a part--

C.S. Holling's "panarchy"-- is probably beyond anything I should attempt. Something on a smaller scale

would seem to be reasonable.

Comments will be appreciated.

Bennett Stark