I have this theory about the world and the role of politics in it. I have tried to explain it in bits and pieces and get mixed reactions. Being close to my 74th birthday, a pioneer in a number of scientific areas, an educator, and a political activist since I voted for Nixon in 1960, I think I have some ideas that might be worth sharing. My latest scholarly venture is to extend work done by me and others in complexity theory to a holistic world view that includes the earth system and the role of humans in it. It is about as holistic a theory as you can get. It raises some fundamental questions and those who will use their cleverness to attack can see if they have answers to them. Read on below if you think you do. I think I do.
Complexity theory comes in many forms. It arose out of the inability of what I will call "classical science" to explain a whole host of things. Books became popular and government money began to flow into many institutes and programs at places like The Santa Fe institute and the New England consortium (NECSI). The evolution of this pseudo field is an integral part of my theory so the core of complexity theory, self referential loops ala Goedel, Esher and Bach and other fun books comes to play in a big way. I have this list of questions that I will give short, sketchy answers to and invite you all to try t0o do better. Here they are (There are more but this will do for a start):
- What determines what survives as scientific discovery?
- Was Marx correct about the nature of Capitalism?
- Why do we sit by and watch as things like global warming get worse and worse?
- Is war effective for solving disputes between nations or in the most modern context between ideologies?
- Are elections and the approximations of "democracy" that spawn them able to really bring about significant change?
- Is human intelligence in areas like politics and global conflict able to keep up with the rapid technological developments that feed these areas?
- Does technology have a life of its own?
That will do for now. Clearly these are all related and are related to a bunch of questions I have not listed. The self reference in all this is myriad.
Here's my answer in a nutshell. The evolution of human thinking is far to slow to keep up with its own effects. The earth system has a great dependence on the biosphere of which we have become a significant part. Our role in the earth system has become amplified by technology. Technology is fed by science and only that science that feeds it really survives. In turn the Capitalist economy depends on continuous growth and the main source of that growth is technology. As a result, human efforts to control these system level effects is dwindling. Things are really out of hand. Political actions either by force or pseudo democratic means has become rather useless.
I guess this my way of understanding why a country like China is about to overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy. China just fits all the current needs of the growing global system. I don't think the leadership of China is all that clever, but they may come out looking that way.
There is enough there for the discussion to start if you are game. let's see what our "experts" have to say.