Re: Social Science, Science, and Empirical Study

At 16:45 13/07/02 -0700, Luke Rondinaro wrote:
>anyone on the List have a good well-conceived idea of how
>“Fundamental Indeterminacy” (+ chaos and complexity) would 
>work in regards to human behavior and the study of the social 
>sciences?

Well conceived? Well, who knows, but following the 
relational biologist Rosen ...

Suppose that societies are self-reproducing things. 
In formal terms, what form does that take?  Look 
at the category theory:

f:A->B

This is not enough yet, since self-reproducing is 
one thing acting on an acting thing.

f:A->B
g:B->C

This is not enough yet, since self-reproducing is 
SELF reproducing, not other producing.

f:A->(f:A->(f:A->...)))

Is SELF reproducing but appears to be an infinite
regress.

The only way to avoid an infinite regress is 
to have a catagorical shift.  We haven't 
defined any of our A, B, or C's: what if they 
are categories, which is a domain, a range, and 
a mapping of relations between the two.

f:A->(g:B->C)

IF f is a subset of C ... then to put it in biological 
terms, f takes the material input A, and creates a 
process that takes a material input B, and creates 
results C, including the process f.  g:B->C is 
metabolism, and f:A->(g:B->C) is reproduction, and 
it is SELF reproduction if, in some sense, "f" is 
inside the "C".

Now, suppose that these are real world processes, and 
therefore subject to physical indeterminacy.  The 
metabolism "g" is not due to an idealisation of "f", 
but rather due to a REALISATION of "f", and the 
succeeding realisations of "f" will be due to the 
realisation of the metabolism "g".  ANY DEPARTURE 
from perfect reproduction whatsoever implies an 
evolutionary process, and the question is HOW the 
evolutionary process proceeds, not WHETHER it does. 

We can ask what society is if it is NOT a self-reproducing 
system.  We can ask how society evolves if it IS a 
self-reproducing system.  But we cannot model a 
non-evolving self-reproducing social system ... such 
a system requires at its foundation perfect reproduction, 
which requires fully determinate biological systems, and 
under the biological, physical systems.


Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au