Walter Watts
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virus: Robert Wright could have saved some time
« on: 2004-03-17 11:24:57 » |
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Don't people know that Stuart Kauffman's work (and others at the Sante
Fe Institute) on complexity theory and self-organization apply to ALL
systems?
Robert Wright could have saved some time by reading "Origins of Order"
before he wrote "Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny".
See review snippet below.....For full review go to:
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/Reviews/nonzero.html
Walter
---------------------------------------------------------------
Review of Robert Wright, Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny*
J. Bradford DeLong
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/
May 2000
Robert Wright (2000), Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York:
Pantheon: 067944252).
<snip>
*The above review covers only the first two-thirds of the book. At that
point Wright asks the question: "Aren't organic evolution and human
history sufficiently different to demand separate treatment?"
I think the answer to this question is "yes," and that the book should
stop at that point. Wright thinks that the answer is "no," and so the
book continues. He goes on to draw analogies between human cultural
evolution toward greater complexity and biological evolution toward
greater complexity.
Wright's argument that biological evolution has an arrow as well--tends
to produce animals with big brains that think--runs roughly as follows:
Life starts out simple. It then evolves, with variation and with the
conservation and spread of successful variations. Thus evolution
generates increasing diversity, and increasing diversity generates
increasing complexity: it is hard for a one-celled organism to become
less complicated (although viruses have managed), and easy for it to
become more complicated.
But wait! Most of your environment is made up of other living creatures.
Hence the environment becomes more complicated over time too. And
because the environment becomes over time, there is increasing adaptive
value in information acquisition and information processing organs:
better eyes (and ears) and bigger brains. Random evolution creates
increasing diversity and complexity of life. Increasing diversity and
complexity of life makes for a more complicated environment. And a more
complicated environment generates strong evolutionary pressure for eyes,
hands, and brains.
Maybe his biological argument is right--I'm inclined to think probably
it is--but maybe not. Big eyes and big brains are expensive in terms of
energy. Why not go for bigger teeth or stronger legs? And complicated
animals seem to be (so far) at a disadvantage in species survival when
the asteroids hit.
<snip>
--
Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"Pursue the small utopias... nature, music, friendship, love"
--Kupferberg--
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