...Nature/Evolution 101!

[jonathan]

"The process of evolution is fundamental to the universe....
Biology is the most obvious manifestation of it," said Carl Woese
a legendary microbiologist and one of the first proponents
of this newly revised evolutionary framework."

"What's needed is an understanding of the dynamics of
complexity." "There's nothing wrong with neo-Darwinian
evolution in its own right," Woese said, "but it's not
large enough to encompass what we know now."
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/beyond_darwin?currentPage=all
......................



Evolution or self organization requires a system
where the 'rules of operation' (static behavior)
and 'freedom of interaction' (chaotic behavior)
are at...simultaneous maximums.

For a biological system this would take the form
of the dynamic interaction between
genetics (static) and mutation (chaotic)

For a democratic system, a strong constitution
and free elections.

An economic system, the rule of law
and free competition.

For a cloud, condensation (static) and
condensation (chaotic)

For a universe, gravity and cosmic expansion.

For an idea, facts (static) and imagination (chaotic)

Or more generally, the critical interaction between
opposites in possibility. The above examples are from
life, the universe and just about everything else.

Darwin, in essence, becomes the abstract template
for the organizing principles for all visible order
in the universe. Whether the universe as a whole,
or our emotions.

And almost everything in between.

The proverbial Theory of Everything has been
right in front of us ...all along. It only takes an
/abstract/ or discipline-independent version to
allow universal application.



Jonathan



Self-Organizing Faq
http://calresco.org/sos/sosfaq.htm

Calresco Themes (*in essay form)
http://calresco.org/themes.htm

Dynamics of Complex Systems

"The study of complex systems in a unified framework
has become recognized in recent years as a new
scientific discipline, the ultimate of interdisciplinary fields.
Breaking down the barriers between physics, chemistry
and biology and the so-called soft sciences of psychology,
sociology, economics, and anthropology, this text explores
the universal physical and mathematical principles that
govern the emergence of complex systems from
simple components."

(full online textbook)
http://www.necsi.org/publications/dcs/




s

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 03/20/2014 08:23 PM, jonathan wrote:
> "The process of evolution is fundamental to the universe....
> Biology is the most obvious manifestation of it," said Carl Woese
> a legendary microbiologist and one of the first proponents
> of this newly revised evolutionary framework."
>
> "What's needed is an understanding of the dynamics of
> complexity." "There's nothing wrong with neo-Darwinian
> evolution in its own right," Woese said, "but it's not
> large enough to encompass what we know now."
> http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/beyond_darwin?currentPage=all
> ......................
>
>
>
> Evolution or self organization requires a system
> where the 'rules of operation' (static behavior)
> and 'freedom of interaction' (chaotic behavior)
> are at...simultaneous maximums.
>
> For a biological system this would take the form
> of the dynamic interaction between
> genetics (static) and mutation (chaotic)
>
> For a democratic system, a strong constitution
> and free elections.
>
> An economic system, the rule of law
> and free competition.

[a retry...last attempt may have been intercepted by gremlins]

We have seen over the past couple centuries a new beast
socially/economically evolve before our eyes, the corporation. Somehow
what used to take place (=transact) amongst responsible moral human
agents has given way via legalistic emergence to a new entity that has
full freedom and zero conscience, a Randroidian contrivance writ large.

I am reminded of the *Volvox*, which serves as a model organism for the
evolution of individuality. How did we get from a state where algae are
individuals in themselves to them forming colonies capable of
rudimentary division of labor? They don't have the complexification of a
human organism nor the degree of stratification of a corporation between
board, shareholders and sweatshop minions, but it is a baby step. And
like organisms, part of a corporation's output (="poop") is waste, some
can be quite toxic. That is "externality" in academically dry and
non-emotive ("rational actor") economics speak. In the real world which
we live, "poop" actually stinks.

Over the past century and a half corporations have inverted the social
order where instead of being controlled by government via charters and
legal restrictions, they now pretty much dictate policy and legislation
to government. According to Ted Nace, in _Gangs of America_ this stuff
really got rolling post-Civil War, with advent of trusts and holding
corporations (proto-conglomerates) that got around state-wise
legislative hurdles. One huge leap in corporate hegemony was Santa Clara
County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, which helped add protection
to corporate "persons" that was initially intended for the freed slaves
(14th amendment) that were just starting to become disenfranchised again
by Jim Crow (see the documentary _The Corporation_). The 1877 Compromise
was a step in that direction (going from Nace's book). Some guy named
Tom Scott was important in both the subtle rise of corporate power (via
railroads) and the 1877 Compromise that got the North off the South's
back vis a vis civil rights enforcement.

Now with corporate personhood established, one can look at corporations
as people who do a/immoral, unempathetic, or downright psychopathic
things. Bakan (in his book _The Corporation_) borrows from a checklist
developed by Dr. Robert Hare to cast corporations in a psychopathic
light. But Hare has taken issue with such simplistic characterization:

[quote]Hare appeared for several minutes in the 2003/4 award-winning
documentary film The Corporation, discussing whether his criteria for
psychopathy could be said to apply to modern business as a legal
personality, appearing to conclude that many of them would apply by
definition.[18] However in a 2007 edition of Snakes in Suits, Hare
contends that the filmmakers took his remarks out of context and that he
does not believe most corporations would meet all the necessary criteria
in practice.[19][/quote from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Hare#Popular_science ]

Bakan's book has some interesting points to make, but I have found some
problematic stuff, like the following:

[quote] In 1973, the economy was shaken by a surge in oil prices due to
the formation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC), which operated in cartel-like fashion to control the world's oil
supply. [/quote]

The formation of OPEC was far more distal than implied in the passage
and the more proximate cause was the Yom Kippur war and US policy toward
Israel which made some Arab states mad. see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC#1973_oil_embargo

So with incomplete and somewhat misleading treatments like that, I take
the rest of Bakan with a grain of salt and fact-check. Nace's book seems
more detailed and comprehensive, but no less biting.

I was trying in vain to affix a term for the rise of the corporate
behemoth and pondered "corporatism", but that has been used to mean
something else, I think. It was related to fascism though could be
extracted from that negative background in a revamped light put forward
by Howard Wiarda in _Corporatism and Comparative Politics_ where
neo-corporatism involves:

[quote]...the formal incorporation of interest groups *into* the actual
decision-making apparatus of the modern state, rather than their
remaining freewheeling, independent interest groups, as under
liberalism-pluralism.[/quote].

Wiarda earlier talks of a "social pact" between "business, labor, and
the state". This is problematic for applying corporatism in that sense
to a system where all-powerful corporations are exercising control in a
more top-down manner upon society. They are not embedded and not acting
in a cooperative and harmonizing manner. They are dictating to the
lawgivers on Mount Sinai. Yet corporatism need not imply fascism, which
need not imply Nazism. I think I could use the first term without
invoking Godwin, if not for the problematic fact of what actual
corporatism involves. But people do like to use the term fascism even
for the present circumstances. Uggh!

One little tidbit, going back to Nace's book, where he briefly mentions
piracy as a means of gaining profit/plunder in the days when trading
companies were transitioning to "joint-stock" (he mentioned Drake) got
me thinking about the opening short movie "The Crimson Permanent
Assurance" before Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" where there was
some sort of rebellion within a corporation and the building transformed
into a pirate ship. Not sure if any historical allusions to a connection
between piracy and proto-corporations were intended or if it was more
inspired by the contemporary ethics of the Thatcher-Reagan 80s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Permanent_Assurance

Well I at least got to fit in a Python reference anyway.

> For a cloud, condensation (static) and
> condensation (chaotic)
>
> For a universe, gravity and cosmic expansion.
>
> For an idea, facts (static) and imagination (chaotic)

You certainly have a chaotic imagination unfettered by static grounding
in facts ;-)

> Or more generally, the critical interaction between
> opposites in possibility. The above examples are from
> life, the universe and just about everything else.
>
> Darwin, in essence, becomes the abstract template
> for the organizing principles for all visible order
> in the universe. Whether the universe as a whole,
> or our emotions.

Our emotions are grounded in an environment of evolutionary adaptedness
if the ev psychers can be followed. The universe is not. Where is the
universe's Pleistocene savannah?

[snip rest]

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 03/20/2014 08:23 PM, jonathan wrote:

> "The process of evolution is fundamental to the universe....
> Biology is the most obvious manifestation of it," said Carl Woese
> a legendary microbiologist and one of the first proponents
> of this newly revised evolutionary framework."
>
> "What's needed is an understanding of the dynamics of
> complexity." "There's nothing wrong with neo-Darwinian
> evolution in its own right," Woese said, "but it's not
> large enough to encompass what we know now."
> http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/beyond_darwin?currentPage=all
> ......................
>
>
>
> Evolution or self organization requires a system
> where the 'rules of operation' (static behavior)
> and 'freedom of interaction' (chaotic behavior)
> are at...simultaneous maximums.
>
> For a biological system this would take the form
> of the dynamic interaction between
> genetics (static) and mutation (chaotic)
>
> For a democratic system, a strong constitution
> and free elections.
>
> An economic system, the rule of law
> and free competition.

by Howard Warda in _Corporatism and Comparative Politics_ where

> For a cloud, condensation (static) and
> condensation (chaotic)
>
> For a universe, gravity and cosmic expansion.
>
> For an idea, facts (static) and imagination (chaotic)

You certainly have a chaotic imagination unfettered by static grounding
in facts ;-)

> Or more generally, the critical interaction between
> opposites in possibility. The above examples are from
> life, the universe and just about everything else.
>
> Darwin, in essence, becomes the abstract template
> for the organizing principles for all visible order
> in the universe. Whether the universe as a whole,
> or our emotions.