Re: Economic irreducible complexity

Chuck Warman (cwarman@wf.net)
Tue, 26 Nov 1996 07:32:50 -0600

At 02:57 PM 11/25/96 -0500, Brian Harper wrote:
>
>It is along these same lines that I would conclude that Chuck Warman's
>objection misses the point of the example. Chuck wrote:
>
> It's an entertaining post, Glenn, but there's a sticking point (for me,
> anyway): even though we can't say specifically who did the designing, we
> know *with certainty* that without intelligent input, the economy
would not
> have occurred. -- CW
>
>True, there are intelligent agents, but they are part of the system itself.
>There is no intelligent input from outside the system, as would be needed
>to make the analogy with PC. Also, the intelligent agents are not generally
>interested in the global dynamics of the system but rather localized effects
>(e.g. personal profit).
>
My point was that intelligent input is required for the economy to
"evolve". Whether this input comes from inside or outside the system,
whether or not the intelligent agents are coginzant of their exact part in
the whole -- these are irrelevant. Nonintelligent agency cannot generate a
complex system such as an economy. Blind Watchmaker evolutionary theory
argues for the evolution of complex systems with *no* intelligent input
from any source; thus the economy analogy fails.

Chuck
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chuck Warman <cwarman@wf.net>
"The abdication of Belief / makes the Behavior small."
----Emily Dickinson