The laws of history
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Stuart Kauffman writes in his book "At Home in the Universe" on page 299: "We lack a theory of how the elements of our public lives link into webs of elements that act on one another and transform one another. We call these transformations 'history'. Hence with all the accidents of history, one must engage in a renewed debate: Is there a place for law in the historical sciences? Can we find lawlike patterns, cultural, economic, and otherwise?" This question is quite similar to the question of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy in his epic novel "War and Peace": "Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.", War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy, Book 11, Chapter 1 http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/war_and_peace/ http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2600 Both Kauffman and Tolstoy are great story tellers, and history is teld in stories, too. Is history just a collection of stories or more? What do you think, can we establish universal "laws of history", as they say? It is clear that the most basic law which governs history is evolution and coevolution. Besides evolution, what else can we say if we concentrate on agent based models? Are phenomena like the "Butterfly Effect", "Path Dependence" or "Frozen Accidents" equivalent to laws? Is the micro or the macro level more important for the "laws of history"? -J. |
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This is the plot device for Isaac Asimov's foundation series. More
seriously, Chris Zeeman argued for Catastrophe Theory applied to history - eg I think he analysed the fall of the Roman empire. Unfortunately, I think it gave catastrophe theory a bad name. Cheers On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 11:14:06AM +0200, Jochen Fromm wrote: > > Stuart Kauffman writes in his book "At Home in the Universe" on page 299: > "We lack a theory of how the elements of our public lives > link into webs of elements that act on one another and > transform one another. We call these transformations > 'history'. Hence with all the accidents of history, > one must engage in a renewed debate: Is there a place for > law in the historical sciences? Can we find lawlike patterns, > cultural, economic, and otherwise?" > > This question is quite similar to the question of Leo Nikolayevich > Tolstoy in his epic novel "War and Peace": > "Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation > (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies > of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, > finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive > at the laws of history.", War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy, Book 11, Chapter 1 > http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/war_and_peace/ > http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2600 > > Both Kauffman and Tolstoy are great story tellers, and > history is teld in stories, too. Is history just a collection > of stories or more? What do you think, can we establish universal > "laws of history", as they say? It is clear that the most > basic law which governs history is evolution and coevolution. > Besides evolution, what else can we say if we concentrate > on agent based models? Are phenomena like the "Butterfly Effect", > "Path Dependence" or "Frozen Accidents" equivalent to laws? Is the > micro or the macro level more important for the "laws of history"? > > -J. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.: > http://www.friam.org -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 (") UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-3
Actually John Lewis Gaddis (a Yale history professor) writes at length on
this in "The Landscape of History". He devotes a couple of chapters to drawing parallels betweeen various historical processes and self-organisation, sensitivity to initial conditions and the other usual suspects. He spoke at SFI on these parallels about a year ago. Robert On 10/7/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote: > > > Stuart Kauffman writes in his book "At Home in the Universe" on page 299: > "We lack a theory of how the elements of our public lives > link into webs of elements that act on one another and > transform one another. We call these transformations > 'history'. Hence with all the accidents of history, > one must engage in a renewed debate: Is there a place for > law in the historical sciences? Can we find lawlike patterns, > cultural, economic, and otherwise?" > > This question is quite similar to the question of Leo Nikolayevich > Tolstoy in his epic novel "War and Peace": > "Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation > (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies > of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, > finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive > at the laws of history.", War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy, Book 11, Chapter 1 > http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/war_and_peace/ > http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2600 > > Both Kauffman and Tolstoy are great story tellers, and > history is teld in stories, too. Is history just a collection > of stories or more? What do you think, can we establish universal > "laws of history", as they say? It is clear that the most > basic law which governs history is evolution and coevolution. > Besides evolution, what else can we say if we concentrate > on agent based models? Are phenomena like the "Butterfly Effect", > "Path Dependence" or "Frozen Accidents" equivalent to laws? Is the > micro or the macro level more important for the "laws of history"? > > -J. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.: > http://www.friam.org > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20051007/0ab30e6c/attachment.htm |
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In reply to this post by Russell Standish
I have not read this thing, but it looks interesting, particularly since
it's using the "edge effects" lingo and bows a lot towards the Foundation books. Preface is online. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131499963/002-4457719-3561624?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance Also, science fiction fans might want to look at Benford's Foundation prequel book. "Foundation's Fear", for how Asimov's characters might have employed chaos and complexity concepts. Carl Russell Standish wrote: >This is the plot device for Isaac Asimov's foundation series. More >seriously, Chris Zeeman argued for Catastrophe Theory applied to >history - eg I think he analysed the fall of the Roman >empire. Unfortunately, I think it gave catastrophe theory a bad name. > >Cheers > >On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 11:14:06AM +0200, Jochen Fromm wrote: > > >>Stuart Kauffman writes in his book "At Home in the Universe" on page 299: >>"We lack a theory of how the elements of our public lives >>link into webs of elements that act on one another and >>transform one another. We call these transformations >>'history'. Hence with all the accidents of history, >>one must engage in a renewed debate: Is there a place for >>law in the historical sciences? Can we find lawlike patterns, >>cultural, economic, and otherwise?" >> >>This question is quite similar to the question of Leo Nikolayevich >>Tolstoy in his epic novel "War and Peace": >>"Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation >>(the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies >>of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, >>finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive >>at the laws of history.", War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy, Book 11, Chapter 1 >>http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/war_and_peace/ >>http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2600 >> >>Both Kauffman and Tolstoy are great story tellers, and >>history is teld in stories, too. Is history just a collection >>of stories or more? What do you think, can we establish universal >>"laws of history", as they say? It is clear that the most >>basic law which governs history is evolution and coevolution. >>Besides evolution, what else can we say if we concentrate >>on agent based models? Are phenomena like the "Butterfly Effect", >>"Path Dependence" or "Frozen Accidents" equivalent to laws? Is the >>micro or the macro level more important for the "laws of history"? >> >>-J. >> >> >>============================================================ >>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations >>Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.: >>http://www.friam.org >> >> > > > |
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