I want to look at what Beth said more closely. See below. -- Russ
On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 10:50 PM, <beth.ful...@csiro.au> wrote: > G'day, > > For me its also where we perceive the "average" constraint is. In economic > systems we think of them being demand driven, but I know of plenty of cases > where production was actually greater than demand so they advertised to try > and increase in demand, but even if it didn't pick up they just ended > selling for less not reduce production. That still makes them demand dependent. The must sell what they produce or they go out of business. > Sofrom an ecological perspective that still seems a lot like the mix of > driver directions you'd see in a foodweb. Ecological systems can be bottom > up (supply) driven or top-down (demand) driven. When I called economies demand-driven (and I know it's not as simply as black and white) I mean that it's demand the determines whether the demand supplier will survive. In an ecology, it's not the higher levels of the food web that determine whether the lower levels survive. (At least not directly. They may be other effects.) > In fact its typical for different parts to be driven by different mixes > (e.g. plankton is typically bottom up driven, forage fish are top down > driven etc) or even for the drivers to change through time. The broader > perception is that they are largely supply driven and so constrained by > supply of food, but the dynamics of mid trophic levels are dictated by > what's happening from the "users" (predators end) so is actually effectively > demand driven. I know this is not exactly the same intent strictly speaking > as you were aiming for in your demand driven focus (i.e. the numbers don't > necessarily inc with heavier predation, though ironically due to the > interaction of competing prey species and differential diets that can play > out in some cases), but the resultant patterns and many of the system flow > processes actually map. Right. It's not what I was getting at. I started to think about this because I was wondering how to explain the lack of demand in our economies these days and why that is so devastating. Do you know of examples like that in natural ecologies? Other differences, which we haven't started to talk about are that economies have money, liquidity issues, speculators, markets, etc. That all comes about because there is trading, which depends on demand. Does any of that happen in biological ecologies? The closest thing to trading that I can think of is symbiosis. It's not a bad example, but it's quite basic compared to the sorts of markets we have. > So I'd still stand by saying both systems have similar sets of driving > mechanisms, its just that our perception is that on average they tend to sit > toward one or other of those drivers, whether that equilibrium perception > really reflects the "constantly transitory" state of the actual systems > remains more debatable ;) > > But that's just my skewed view on the world ;) > > Beth > > ________________________________________ > From: causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com [ > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [ > russ.abb...@gmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, 20 October 2010 3:38 PM > To: causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > Cc: alexandre.lomovt...@gmail.com; epor...@exchange.calstatela.edu; > matthew.berry...@unisa.edu.au; anemar...@gmail.com; shu...@gmail.com; > wwwebe...@gmail.com; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [Causality in Complex Systems] Re: [FRIAM] Economy vs. > ecology, er > > You're right. A command economy is very different. I was talking about a > market economy. And perhaps by definition a market economy is demand-driven > since there are no markets without demand. > > -- Russ > > > > On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 9:13 PM, <fabio.bosche...@csiro.au> wrote: > I suggested that a basic difference is that ecologies are supply driven > whereas economies are demand driven. > [Fabio] Hi Russ > > I wonder whether this statement refers to economies in general or > specifically to capitalism; not all economic systems humans have devised are > demand-driven. Many claim that capitalism would not exist without > advertisement, which questions how ‘natural’ demand is as a driver. > > In my view, the difference between ecology and economics lies in the > constraints; in the ecology these are biophysical, in the economy they seem > to be much closer to human imagination and creativity (for example, many > people buy and sell literally nothing). Many would claim that it is exactly > this mismatch in constraints which will lead us to doom. > > Fabio > > > For the most part, ecologies are food chains. Organisms live or not > depending on whether they have enough to eat. > > Economies in contrast are demand driven. We are currently in an economic > slump (perhaps you aren't) because there isn't enough demand. Most people > (but not all) depend on demand to enable them to get the resources they need > to survive. For the most part that seems not to be true in ecologies. (I > know there are examples of where an organism depends on demand. The bacteria > example in the post you read is an example.) Most organisms in ecologies > depend primarily on the existence of resources, not demand for their > services. > > Also, I'm not talking about long term effects like corrals. Just more or > less steady state systems. This was all prompted by my puzzling about the > nature of our economic system. There was once a joke about California that > there really isn't any productive industry here. We all just take in each > other's laundry to make a living. In some sense there is probably more truth > to that than it seems. Most of us do depend on someone else wanting our > services. > > So that's the background to the post you read. I'm always interested in > your comments. > > -- Russ > > > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:11 PM, <beth.ful...@csiro.au> wrote: > G'day, > > If I'm understanding your premise here I'm not sure I agree. > > First flippantly Fabio Boschetti is currently sitting here with me and as > he pointed out, if you just look at advertising you'd be hard pressed to get > beyond pairing and consuming as the selling tools ;) > > More seriously people do things to "get by" and increase their "security" > whether that's economic security, food security, recreational security or > ecosystem service security. All still comes down to "living" or the "future" > (i.e. feeding or pairing in effect). There are plenty of unintended > consequences of the day-to-day activities that go on to have indirect > products others use, but the same is true of ecological communities too - > corals don't build skeletons because that will make a complex 3D habitat > that acts as infrastructure for reef fish, but that's the way it works out. > > After 20 years of ecosystem and now socio-econ-ecological system > modelling/study I really can't say I see a dichotomy in the fundamental > structural pattens across the different components. I do see that economic > systems don't feel their constraints until they are closer to a hysteresis > point, while ecological systems typically feel constraints more quickly, but > functionally there are many many parallels between the two, which is why so > many of the tools are being simultaneously applied to both fields now > (input/output, loop analysis, ABMs etc). > > Cheers > > Beth > > ________________________________________ > From: causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com<mailto: > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com> [ > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com<mailto: > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [ > russ.abb...@gmail.com<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>] > Sent: Tuesday, 19 October 2010 10:19 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Alexandre > Lomovtsev; Porter, Edith; Matthew Berryman; Grisogono, Anne-Marie (Anemarija > Degris); Shuger, Debora; Weber, Bob; causality_in_complex_systems > Subject: [Causality in Complex Systems] Re: [FRIAM] Economy vs. ecology, er > > I think that Jochen is right to look at what is being produced. It's a > fairly commonplace observation by now that living organisms reduce entropy > locally. Someone who is fairly well know wrote as part of a fairly large > book (and I can't remember either the author or the book; it's perhaps 5 > years old) that a good way to decide when something is productive is to see > whether it results in a local decrease in entropy. Most "consumption" is not > productive in that sense; most "work" is. "Recreation" can be either. > > Living organisms, as Jochen said, "produce" themselves. They also produce > other things. Birds build nests. Beavers build dams. Spiders build webs. > Most organisms build some sort of home for themselves. All social organisms > build social networks of various sorts. So it's not just that organisms > build nothing but themselves. > > We, in our advanced economy have become dependent on building things other > than ourselves. That seems to be one of the primary differences. Even though > other organisms build other things, for the most part they spend most of > their energy building themselves -- and their offspring. Also, the things > they build are generally built for themselves -- or at least their social > group. Most of us spend most(?) of our energy building things other than > ourselves. And they are things that we don't use directly, and often not > indirectly. (Although since they are produced for the economy, and we are > part of the economy, perhaps that's not strictly true.) Not only that, we > depend on a demand for the things we build (and I'm using "build" very > broadly to refer to any kind of paid work) to supply us with the means to > get the resources necessary to build ourselves, i.e., to buy food. Other > organisms don't depend on demand to supply their resources. > > Symbiotic species combinations make this even more difficult to analyze. > What about the bacteria in our gut, for example? They depend on the demand > we make of them to help us digest food. And we pay them with nutrients. > Without the demand for their services, e.g., if we die, so do they. > > I think this is a direction worth pursuing. Sorry if this post has been > somewhat ragged. There are a lot of pieces that should be disentangled. > > -- Russ Abbott > ______________________________________ > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > > Google voice: 424-242-USA0 (last character is zero) > blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ > vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ > ______________________________________ > > > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Jochen Fromm <jfr...@t-online.de<mailto: > jfr...@t-online.de><mailto:jfr...@t-online.de<mailto:jfr...@t-online.de>>> > wrote: > Tory is right, ecologic systems and especially > their inhabitants, the living organisms, look > more complex than companies or corporations. > What I meant was that there seem to be a > fundamental difference in the input-output > relations. > > The output of agents in economic systems is > a product made from the inputs during the > business process. In ecologic systems this is > only comparable to the cognitive part of > organisms, where perceptions are processed to > produce an action. In the "food web" there is > nothing produced except the organisms themselves. > Whenever there is something interesting happening > in nature, it is either supper time or pairing > time. The former is used to sustain the body, > the latter to sustain the species. This is > different from economies, isn't it? > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Smith > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 12:02 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Economy vs. ecology, er > > The acts that organisms take, merely in the course of living from one day > to the next, tend to be under-emphasized in relation to the acts of > reproducing. But the input-output relations of ecology should correspond > fairly nicely to the input-output relations of the economy, if either were a > well-formed technical theory. In economics, input-output goes under the > names Leontief I/O theory, or closely related von Neumann-Gale growth > theory. I have often wished that either had more of the strictness of > chemical input/output relations -- at least where such are warranted -- but > that is not yet the case, as both fields have been more interested in the > flexibility afforded by innovation than in the constraints that limit the > landscape. > > In terms of what organisms do to each other, whether intentionally or > inadvertently, there are the two names "Niche Construction" and "ecosystem > engineering". The first has a book by Laland, Odling-Smee, and Feldman. > It's a big area, and the book only opens the topic, but it's a start. Many > of the ideas are general enough that they are equally comfortable in the > economy, which is, as you say, part of the global ecosystem. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com<mailto: > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > <mailto:causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%252bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com<mailto: > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > <mailto:causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%252bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com<mailto: > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > <mailto:causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%252bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com<mailto: > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > <mailto:causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%252bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en >
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