Imposing order requires energy, and so we have the three components of fundamental economic analysis: information, the natural resources of the environment, and energy. I have argued that these three are more useful to us than the standard capital and labor because they elevate information onto center stage, which is where it belongs. Besides if you think defining information is difficult try parsing out exactly what we mean by either capital or labor. Shannon’s dictum about the variety of definitions applies equally well, if not more, to them.
For those of you skeptical of this consider a typical product you use. Imagine it being broken. Imagine, as an example, a motor car after a major accident. The car is unusable. It has lost considerable value. Perhaps it can be repaired, but in its damaged state it is worth a lot less. Why? The metal and other natural resources of the car still exist. They have not been lost. So it is not the resource base of the car that is the core of value. We will need to consume more energy to fix the car, so there’s a source of loss. But what is that energy doing? It is allowing us to re-order the material of the car to re-capture its design. It is the design of the far where the largest value resides. And design is information....
A very simple way to think about this is in terms of three factors of change — mass, energy and information. Energy produces change in the structure of mass, and information orders it (design). Conscious ordering through information is intelligent design. of which humans are capable of individually and on a mass scale, shaping their environment, on one hand, and social reproduction, on the other.
Energy is conserved, but information can increase or decrease in quantity and quality depending on creativity and the direction of social reproduction in terms of discovery and invention, along with their spatial and temporal transmission through institutions and culture.
This is also the basis of economics as the study of economies as a life-support system for an economic group, e.g., household, firm, or else for a society. Regardless of scope and scale, economic groupings are social systems, either simple or complex. Individuals are not economic agents in isolation, e.g, to the degree that economics concerns exchange.
This leads to the question as to whether information is so complex as to imply that the most efficient and effective way of deploying resources is through market forces in free markets, as Hayek argued in his Nobel lecture, "The Pretense of Knowledge." Or, is it more efficient and effective to use some approach to consciously intelligent systems design that does not rely chiefly or exclusively on market forces.
Or, is it more efficient and effective to use some approach to consciously intelligent systems design that does not rely chiefly or exclusively on market forces. Tom Hickey
ReplyDeleteOr, is it MOST efficient, effective and sustainable to have a just economic system?
But what is justice?
That's harder to say than what is clearly unjust, e.g:
1) Government privileges for private credit creation.
2) No limits to land ownership.
" and information orders it (design)."
ReplyDeleteI think you are conflating information and design...
"information" is "knowledge communicated" and "design" is a verb... there is a 'design process'...
so 'information' is probably a noun and 'design' is a verb...
The 'Intelligent Design" people seem to make the same conflation wrt origin of life, etc..
Both 'information' and 'design' are secondary to or subject to purpose...
"Or, is it more efficient and effective to use some approach to consciously intelligent systems design that does not rely chiefly or exclusively on market forces."
ReplyDeleteYo the global warming nutters forcing windmills into Texas doesnt seem to be working out very well this week as they freeze in the dark down there....
Words have many meanings with the particular meaning being determined by the use of the term in a context.
ReplyDelete"Design" is used both as a noun and a verb. On of its meanings is "pattern." In this sense, no purpose it assumed. A design is simply an arrangement or structure. For example, in physical science, various pre-existing patterns are discovered in nature and articulated through modeling.
This is the sense in which I was thinking. If a structure, arrangement or pattern can be quantified it can potentially be modeled mathematically. For example, a pattern can be a curve expressed by a function or its graph.
The mistake of intelligent design arguments lies in assuming that order (design as patterning) implies purpose, that is, conscious intelligence or "mind." It does not. Could be, but there is no necessity for it.
Finding patterns in data which converts the raw data into useful information after the fact doesn't imply that the patterns were designed by an intelligent agency.
That the universe is patterned is shown by the mathematical models of science, for example. That just says that the universe is an ordered system, eg., conservation laws and principle of least action in physics.
But once we have discovered the nature of the patterning then we can use this knowledge consciously and intelligently to design systems that produce desired outcomes through invention.
I think this is the direction in which Peter Radford is going with this.
Yo the global warming nutters forcing windmills into Texas doesnt seem to be working out very well this week as they freeze in the dark down there...
ReplyDeleteNo, wind and solar power are not the main causes of Texas' power outages despite Gov. Abbott's claim on Fox News | VERIFY
"In different ways, the very cold weather has impacted every type of generator," said Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT.
ERCOT is missing about 46,000 megawatts of production ability due to loss of generators, Woodfin said. About 61% of that loss comes from thermal (coal, nuclear, gas) plants shutting down. Only about 39% of the loss comes from wind/solar plants shutting down, Woodfin said.
The technocracy movement of the 1930s proposed a similar approach. Politically, it would've been 'rule by engineers and technicians'.
ReplyDelete