Noether's theorem.

Isn't math our tool for mapping this stuff? — Garrett Travers

Sarcasm still doesn't work on the interwebs, does it?

Sure. And Aleksandr Bogdanov published his Tektology just before, Cybernetics came along just after. — apokrisis

Very well, my friend. I didn't know that. I'll do some research. Thank you. 1928, to be exact. Very cool.

Sarcasm still doesn't work on the interwebs, does it? — apokrisis

I must have missed it, lol.

The charges are conserved. They act as generators for the interaction fields and as coupling strengths to the virtual glue.

↪apokrisis
:up: — 180 Proof

I agree also. We're all just a troop of creationists here, aren't we?

Arran Gare is a good source on the philosophical history of systems science. Here is his paper on Bogdanov - https://philarchive.org/archive/GARABA-3

Yep. We have well and truly left the world of material objects and are now talking about stacks of QFT fields.

At what point do we then give up talking like atomists when we are discussing hierarchical organisation?

Arran Gare is a good source on the philosophical history of systems science. Here is his paper on Bogdanov - https://philarchive.org/archive/GARABA-3 — apokrisis

Thanks a bunch. Systems science is kind of what my metaphysics is, generally speaking. For me, everything stems from those base concepts.

Where would I have said that? — apokrisis

Well, for example by saying that "the "best" society manages to balance its global cooperation with its local competition by maximizing its social cohesion and its individual independence."

If that isn't what I'm referring to, nothing is. From an economic history point of view, that's just hogwash before you somehow link global cooperation and local competition to social cohesion and individual independence.

At what point do we then give up talking like atomists when we are discussing hierarchical organisation — apokrisis

That depends where you draw the borderlines. On the deepest level individual preons, then quarks and leptons, then neutrons and protons, atoms, molecules, aggregates and condensates, cells, organs, organisms, and stop...

It's my specialist subject too. So happy to help.

It's my specialist subject too. So happy to help. — apokrisis

I think you and I will get along just fine, pardner.

But what caused the collapse and led to the unsustainability? Clearly I would look to the balancing act that any sociologist or anthropologist understands - the necessary tension between the individual and the group.

And that tension is hierarchy theory in a nutshell. The need to balance local degrees of freedom and global habits of constraint. — apokrisis

Well, especially in history you do find the tension of the individual and the group certainly. But not perhaps in the way you would want it. It is the problem that all sociologists and those who promote the Longe durée. It's the problem that they will immediately say is a non-issue. It's the Cleopatra's nose. And that's why the focus for example of the Annales school, but others is somewhere that we don't see the ordinary history of rapid transformations where certain small individuals and their actions have huge consequences. Perhaps there are too many Butterfly effects in history that in the end the historian choses to model it by using the old narrative of story telling.

From an economic history point of view, that's just hogwash — ssu

I'm sure you can back that up with a specific example. If not, I can give you a starter.

Why did neoliberalism deem monetarism an essential part of its "naked market" architecture? Why are central banks using the global constraint of money supply to bound the local competitive behaviour of market actors? How does this fail to fit the hierarchy theory metaphysics I've outlined?

And why is the early success of neoliberalism in destroying older forms of social cohesion - like the cosy post-war accomodation between US unions and US corporations - now turning into a big problem to do with a generalised erosion of social cohesion and planetary ecology?

On the deepest level individual preons... — EugeneW

I'm trying to get you to think what you mean by calling individual preons the deepest level of existence. But I'm not succeeding.

We have well and truly left the world of material objects and are now talking about stacks of QFT fields — apokrisis

QFT describes particle fields. Shortly interacting. It doesn't describe bound states very well (unless very specific conditions are specified). So to find out about quarks and leptons you can do the same as for bound quark states. Bound systems like atoms and molecules are not modeled by QFT. Aggregates of particles that form life can best be described by non-equilibrium thermodynamics, but to say that even the appearing of a bacteria can be described is too much already. A population of bacteria, taking the bacteria as the units, can be described. Etcetera. All high level units with their own laws, fairly independent of the lower levels, but based on them.

Well, especially in history you do find the tension of the individual and the group certainly. But not perhaps in the way you would want it. — ssu

The way I want it is analysis based on the maths of hierarchy theory, not Great Men of history fables.

The basic level is more appropriate.

Why did neoliberalism deem monetarism an essential part of its "naked market" architecture? — apokrisis

Does neoliberalism deem monetarism as an essential part? Liberalism surely didn't want something as micromanaging as monetarism to be around. But monetary policy is actually the perfect example of things heading for a collapse, not something "balanced".

Why are central banks using the global constraint of money supply to bound the local competitive behaviour of market actors? — apokrisis

Define what the global constraint of money supply is, because I don't know what you mean. I do understand what money supply is and the role of debt, but what is the global constraint of it is something new.

The way I want it is analysis based on the maths of hierarchy theory, not Great Men of history fables. — apokrisis

And I predicted you would, exactly.

Oh yes, fables. Lol.

So what does the math of hierarchy theory say about the impact of Donald Trump compared to Joe Biden? Or is it something inconsequential? Or rubbish? Unimportant?!

There are the larger, the more important issues that can be opened up and understood with hierarchy theory and mathematical models, I guess. :snicker:

Sombody review this source, and tell me what on earth this "neoliberalism" is. As far as I can tell, it's a completely fabricated concept:

https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/reg-stats

But those rules can't be the result of an evolutionary process - they must pre-exist it. — Wayfarer

Why couldn't they evolve as the system evolves, as, for example, Sheldrake conjectures?

QFT describes particle fields. Shortly interacting. It doesn't describe bound states very well (unless very specific conditions are specified). So to find out about quarks and leptons you can do the same as for bound quark states. Bound systems like atoms and molecules are not modeled by QFT. Aggregates of particles that form life can best be described by non-equilibrium thermodynamics, but to say that even the appearing of a bacteria can be described is too much already. — EugeneW

Sure. And do you see the general theme that emerges here?

At the bottom, what is basic is fluctuation, excitation, instability. And that (Peircean firstness) is then given is substantial form by downward-acting constraints. Stability is imposed from on high to create the materiality that can then compose ... the realm that embodies those downward-acting constraints.

If preon particle fields are a thing, then they are only a vacuum expectation until some kind of constraining horizon is imposed on their observables. A "concrete" excitation that might be claimed as a particle is only a virtual possibility until some kind of classical frame has been imposed on the situation.

Hierarchy theory says reality is a tower of constraint acting to stabilise instability. So down at the bottom, is whatever can be imagined as the most radical form of instability still framed by some most minimal form of metric constraint.

And that might be a hot quantum fluctuation. Down at the Planck scale, the Planck length defines the Planck frequency and hence the Planck temperature. The least possible space also houses the most possible energy density.

But which one do you want to point to as fundamental - the metric constraint or the energetic violence.

Or do you indeed need to find your fundamental "atom" in the systematic relation between these two opposing things?

Does neoliberalism deem monetarism as an essential part? — ssu

Are you claiming it doesn't? :yawn:

But monetary policy is actually the perfect example of things heading for a collapse, not something "balanced". — ssu

That how Hegelianism goes. I say balance, you say unbalanced, and we wind up agree that the systems view is all about pendulum swinging and its dynamical balancing act.

So failures of balance are what show balance could even be considered a goal. We found ourselves being tugged in two directions - as will always be the case in a hierarchical system. Social systems are composed of individuals working collectively to generally shared ends ... and also pursuing specific personal goals.

A "well balanced" system is not the one that exactly splits the difference but instead maximises the expression of both tendencies, as well as historical circumstances allow.

It's called a win-win. I thought you were Finnish for some reason. Aren't they good at that?

Define what the global constraint of money supply is, because I don't know what you mean. — ssu

Global = general. Global = macro.

So what does the math of hierarchy theory say about the impact of Donald Trump compared to Joe Biden? Or is it something inconsequential? Or rubbish? — ssu

In what sense have either of these dudes had an impact on the global economy - in the sense of launching a considered economic policy aimed at some distant useful target?

Fucking things up may be counted as an impact I guess. The asteroid had an impact on the dinosaur. But a hierarchy theory approach makes a clear distinction between information and entropy.

If preon particle fields are a thing, then they are only a vacuum expectation until some kind of constraining horizon is imposed on their observables. A "concrete" excitation that might be claimed as a particle is only a virtual possibility until some kind of classical frame has been imposed on the situation — apokrisis

Exactly. The pre-inflationary Planck volume contained virtual preons only, fluctuating in time. The surrounding space is the constraint. If this constrained crosses a critical value, the virtuality is inflated into reality and conditions are set to evolution into increasingly complex structures. This evolution backfires on the Planck volume and delivers the new constraint. And again the critical value will be crossed... So it's all fundamental.

I don't know if this qualifies as successful reductionism but in chemistry class, thousands of years ago, the fact that ice floats on water was explained to me in terms of Hydrogen bonding. I felt quite satisfied with the answer: the H bonds meant that water molecules, quite literally, kept each other at a distance and this results in an increase in overall volume for the same mass of liquid water, making ice less dense than liquid water; hence, said my teach, ice floats on water.

Can this be done for all phenomena?

Consciousness, thus far, has been resistant to such a treatment. Nobody has been able to convincingly explain how electrochemical events in the brain produce thinking/thoughts. We know the two are correlated (brain experiments prove that), but how exactly is still a mystery.

I don't know if this qualifies as successful reductionism but in chemistry class, thousands of years ago, the fact that ice floats on water was explained to me in terms of Hydrogen bonding. I felt quite satisfied with the answer: the H bonds meant that water molecules, quite literally, kept each other at a distance and this results in an increase in overall volume for the same mass of liquid water, making ice less dense than liquid water; hence, said my teach, ice floats on water.

Can this be done for all phenomena? — Agent Smith

As Anderson acknowledged, higher levels in a hierarchy develop based on the principles of the lower level, i.e. reductionism. That does not mean that you can predict the behavior of phenomena of the higher level based on the rules of the lower level, i.e. constructivism. So, once we know the behavior of ice, we can explain it in terms of chemical bonds. The question is, could we predict it from just the facts of chemistry. I don't know. Anderson doesn't claim that you can never predict higher level behavior based on lower level principles. His position describes the general condition. So, according to Anderson, no, it can't be done for all phenomena.

Consciousness, thus far, has been resistant to such a treatment. Nobody has been able to convincingly explain how electrochemical events in the brain produce thinking/thoughts. We know the two are correlated (brain experiments prove that), but how exactly is still a mystery. — Agent Smith

Anderson says that biology is not psychology, which makes sense to me. That doesn't mean that the behavior of mental processes can't be explained by biological principles.

If use is the scale by which we judge metaphysical factors, then it seems to me that the scales would be epistemological in nature, as in existing in our minds only and not the way the world is actually divided.
— Harry Hindu

I think that's true too. — T Clark

Why should you represent reality into the physics-chemistry-biology-cosmology division in the first place?
— EugeneW

As I indicated in my OP, I think that's a metaphysical division. It's useful, so we use it. — T Clark

Wait, I thought you agreed that the division of these scales was epistemological, not metaphysical. So physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology are merely epistemological explanations of scales that only exist in our minds, and not real in any sense in the world beyond our minds. So I fail to see how they are useful if they are not representative of what is the case outside of our minds.

You seem content to remain in the bubble of your mind - to live only in the map, and not in the territory while at the same time implying that you are talking about states of affairs outside of your mind. When talking about the world, I'm not interested, not do I find it useful, to talk about your epistemological states. You seem to be confusing epistemology and metaphysics.

How does this fit into your military metaphor? You talk about constraints from above. How do the feedback loops constrain the chemistry? Are the products of the enzymes the soldiers? So chemicals evolve into structures that control how they behave. — T Clark

Above what? If the scales are epistemological then there is no metaphysical above or below. We are simply talking about the same thing from different views. In other words we are confusing the map with the territory. The constraints from above or below are only figments of our imagination, ie explanations that are useful, but not representative of anything real in any sense outside of our minds. Constraints would only come from the sides - meaning things on the same "scale" (there would only be one scale, so the term becomes meaningless when describing the world outside of your mind) as the thing we are talking about. This is akin to natural selection where forces on the same scale constrain other forces on the same scale, like how predators constrain the evolution of prey and vice versa.