Probably you mean something different than I do by "shaping", but that statement just sounds implausible.
To be more precise, by shaping I meant using something that requires continuous maintenance in order to pull the system from its usual equilibrium. Ideally, we'd have (or want to have) a situation where the equilibrium takes care of itself.
This gets a bit more muddy in the case of a society because it is "shaping" (in your sense) itself all the time, which I suppose is your point. Yet from a cybernetic point of view, you still have controllers - it's just the case that these are less separate from the system than you'd usually consider the case for say, a state, because the controllers are the members of society acting upon each other (individually or collectively).
So, one step removed from ideal, you have the "establish the environment and leave" sort of regulation, where you'd have a minimal code (either social or legal) which then results in what was wanted. For instance, the diverse dynamics of capitalism arise from seemingly simple rules[1], and one might imagine that say, adding a rule (whether social or legal) that organizations should (or have to) disclose input-output data, would move the economy closer to a planned form -- without having to build planning agencies before the fact, or impose production orders upon the producers themselves.
I question this. Societies generally improve and develop without steering -- the progress of science is a great example. Societies also push themselves out of equilibrium without any kind of steering, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Hm, I'm not sure. It seems to me that as you increase complexity, there are more and more ways things could go "wrong" and fewer ways they could be right. The paths multiply, and it generally seems the buffering technology (that which would work like insulation of the wall) lags. On the other hand, evolution manages to increase complexity on its own, and that is a simple process. I suppose if you leave a system to itself, it will attain some form of equilibrium (and if it degrades from that point, well, that wasn't the equilibrium after all). Whether it's better than what you could have by adjusting it beforehand, taking the possibility of corruption of the adjusting mechanism into account... is another question.
I'll have to think about it further, it just again seems intuitive that one could make shortcuts by coordination, and by knowing how controllers work, one could put the right amplifiers in the right places and get much less corruption/etc; and then, if society becomes reliant on those shortcuts, that means it needs the mechanism just to stay at its current level, unless it later develops a passive ("buffering") solution.
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[1] and possibly a state to enforce them, that is. Absent a state, the producers would turn on the rules pretty quickly, which one might consider a part of the greater dynamic - but if one does, then that greater dynamic is unstable.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 03:22 pm (UTC)To be more precise, by shaping I meant using something that requires continuous maintenance in order to pull the system from its usual equilibrium. Ideally, we'd have (or want to have) a situation where the equilibrium takes care of itself.
This gets a bit more muddy in the case of a society because it is "shaping" (in your sense) itself all the time, which I suppose is your point. Yet from a cybernetic point of view, you still have controllers - it's just the case that these are less separate from the system than you'd usually consider the case for say, a state, because the controllers are the members of society acting upon each other (individually or collectively).
So, one step removed from ideal, you have the "establish the environment and leave" sort of regulation, where you'd have a minimal code (either social or legal) which then results in what was wanted. For instance, the diverse dynamics of capitalism arise from seemingly simple rules[1], and one might imagine that say, adding a rule (whether social or legal) that organizations should (or have to) disclose input-output data, would move the economy closer to a planned form -- without having to build planning agencies before the fact, or impose production orders upon the producers themselves.
I question this. Societies generally improve and develop without steering -- the progress of science is a great example. Societies also push themselves out of equilibrium without any kind of steering, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Hm, I'm not sure. It seems to me that as you increase complexity, there are more and more ways things could go "wrong" and fewer ways they could be right. The paths multiply, and it generally seems the buffering technology (that which would work like insulation of the wall) lags. On the other hand, evolution manages to increase complexity on its own, and that is a simple process. I suppose if you leave a system to itself, it will attain some form of equilibrium (and if it degrades from that point, well, that wasn't the equilibrium after all). Whether it's better than what you could have by adjusting it beforehand, taking the possibility of corruption of the adjusting mechanism into account... is another question.
I'll have to think about it further, it just again seems intuitive that one could make shortcuts by coordination, and by knowing how controllers work, one could put the right amplifiers in the right places and get much less corruption/etc; and then, if society becomes reliant on those shortcuts, that means it needs the mechanism just to stay at its current level, unless it later develops a passive ("buffering") solution.
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[1] and possibly a state to enforce them, that is. Absent a state, the producers would turn on the rules pretty quickly, which one might consider a part of the greater dynamic - but if one does, then that greater dynamic is unstable.