Re: Merging WST and complexity science

The Baker model may be pertinent to Frank's purpose. Let me quote a
passage
from a recent manuscript of mine ("Thank you Newton, welcome
Prigogine: 'Unthinking'
old paradigms and embracing new directions"):


Baker (1993)* combined the elements of nonlinear dynamics with those of
the world-system paradigm to construct a provocative sociological theory.
World-system theorists presumed competitive capital accumulation to be
the motor force of the world system that engendered centers and
peripheries. Baker presumed the "continuous exchange of energy and
information between the elements of different spheres of reality"(p.
136) to be the motor force that produced centers and peripheries. By
conceptualizing individuals and human collectivities, including cultures
and nations, as autopoietic (self-maintaining) dissipative
(environmentally dependent) structures whose essential features involved
transformation of energy and release of entropy, Baker
elevated elements of the world-system paradigm to encompass nonlinear
dynamics. Baker used the term centering to describe the various
centripetal strategies that humans, individually and collectively, used
"to bring the world into their orbit of control"(p. 139).
Centering was an "attractor" that created order by funneling
energy "material goods, services, personnel" and information
toward itself and disorder by peripheralizing its environment. However,
the accumulated entropic effect would, "at some point or other, lead
to sudden change" (p. 141). Researchers can use Baker's innovative
framework to investigate communication systems.

*
Baker, P.L. (1993). Chaos, order, and sociological theory.
Sociological Inquiry, 63 (2), 123-149.




At 11:55 PM 6/11/2003 -0400, Andre Gunder Frank wrote:
> I am working on my ReORIENT THE
> NINETEENTH CENTURY, a sequel to my book
> that ended in 1800. This one goes from 1750 to 1914 -- mabey later.
> It combines several old and new analytical things.
> of course WST and WST as reformulated in ReOrient. But also analysis of
> the MULTILATEAL system in which place in the system is more
> important
> than what one can do on ones own, eg by technology, production etc.
> And ENTROPY as the disorder, both physical and social, that is generated
> by the growth process but it dissipated from te North to the South,
> especially taking advantage also of the multilateal position and
> links
> mentioned above. In a crude sense/vesion of the analysis,
> MULTILATERALUTY
> determines the benefits that can be drawn from LOCATION,LOCATION,
> LOCATION
> in the system, and ENTROPY is the cost of the process, but some [much?]
> of
> which can be and is DISSIPATED from those who generate it to those -
> unfavorably located - who are obliged to absorb that cost, and
> thereby
> ''appear'to be disorganized by war,cconflict, crime, poverty etc.
> This is a materialist analysis of a materialist world. Where the
> Buddhist
> concenpts mentioned in the questiin come in, I do not know, but would
> be
> glad to be enlightened. Buddhism is materialist also, however.
>
> gunder frank 
>
> Threin it also draws on PirogeneOn Sat, 7 Jun 2003,
> Shelton Gunaratne wrote:
>
> > Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2003 12:00:09 -0500
> > From: Shelton Gunaratne <gunarat@mnstate.edu>
> > To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> > Subject: Merging WST and complexity science 
> > 
> > 
> > Has anyone made a serious attempt to merge the world-system theory
> with 
> > Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures?
> > 
> > Wallerstein has written favorably about Prigogine's affirmation of
> > irreversibility, unpredictability, probability, nonlinearity, etc.,
> which 
> > are easily applicable to the far-from-equilibrium world-system and
> its 
> > component nation states.
> > 
> > Geographer Debra Stroessfogel has been an avid advocate of the
> merger of 
> > WST and Prigogine's theory although I have not been able to locate
> any 
> > study reflecting this long-overdue merger.
> > 
> > The arrogance of the Age of Rationality led us to believe in the
> > "superiority" of Occidental positivism. Prigogine
> implicitly points out the 
> > relevance of Eastern metaphysics to explain the power of nature over
> > humanity. The Buddhist concepts of impermanence, self-organization,
> > interdependence, etc., are integral elements of Prigogine's
> theory.  Is it 
> > not time to merge Eastern thought with Western
> "science"?