Re: meta-system 'properties'
DON MIKULECKY (MIKULECKY@VCUVAX.BITNET)
Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:35:57 -0400
> From Alex Brown:browna@tp.ac.sg
> Date: 1st October 1996
>
> Paulo Garrido writes:
>
> "When a meta-system transition occurs, which properties of the elements
> pj(Ai) are preserved in the properties of the meta-system pk(A'), which
> properties are not preserved, and which new properties emerge?"
>
> I would suggest the following:
>
> 1.The most probable or recurrent characteristics of constituent systems are
> assimilated into the meta-system state.
>
> 2. The meta-system is NOT an entity which is separate from its constituent
> systems. It is the name for a more integrated state of those systems. Ie. it
> is NOT A THING, but a relation between things.
>
> 3. The meta-system is an historical event or transformation in the relation
> between a group of constituent systems.
>
> 4. The meta-systemic state is the cumulative result of communication and
> (therefore) exchange of characteristics (forms of behavior) between a group
> of systems in stable environment.
>
> 5. The meta-system can be viewed as a single behavioural set abstracted from
> the diversity of behavioural sets of its constituent systems. Through
> communication and exchange between systems, their 'various different ways of
> doing the same thing' are subject to selection and combination. In this
> COLLECTIVE, communicational and impartial process the sets are classified
> into similarities and differences. The most representative and TYPICAL
> routines which underlie the circumstantial differences between sets become
> the single behavioural set which we can call the Meta-system.
>
> 6. There is a natural economy involved in this process - a reduction of
> number (of ways of doing things (routines)) but an increase in
> representative power. That is the limited number of routines in the
> meta-system set can handle the diversity of experiences that will be met at
> system level. (More fundamentally, you don't have to invent a new routine
> for every different experience). There is one meta-routine (assimilated over
> time out of many different experiences) which will (more or less) suffice
> for all probable events. Thus the meta-system is in the semiotic sense, a
> sign. That is, the ONE which stands for the MANY. (Eg. political
> organization /representation/constituencies/law/social codes/artistic styles
> and movements/scientific paradigms, etc. All of these involve the production
> of a single behavioural 'template' or CODE from which individuals may select
> and combine the limited number of elements into a large number of possible
> messages.
>
> 7. The meta-system does not exist 'somewhere'. IT IS INFORMATION. It is
> immanent to a group of systems in close and continuous communication with
> one another. If we want to 'see' the meta-system, we look at the
> SIMILARITIES between the constituent systems.
>
> 8. AS Francis Heylighen suggests in his response to Paulo, the emergence of
> a meta-system increases the degree of freedom available to the individual by
> limiting the number of choices/decisions that have to be made to meet
> particular circumstances. There are adequate, ready-made answers for most
> circumstances. The cumulative product of past human experience. (For
> instance: do we really want to invent our own language? A waste of time of
> course).
>
> 9. There are certainly systemically-produced circumstances where the
> meta-system (which is, itself evolving) enters a bureaucratic and
> restrictive phase where it ceases to be a positive social framework and
> become a self-reflexive (and thus insane) instrument of oppression. Another
> story.
>
> regards from Singapore
>
> Alex Brown
Don Mikulecky replies (http://views.vcu.edu/complex)
I'd suggest that the argument being made here is a perfect example of
the utility of category theory in such situations. The things being
compared can be formulated as categories and the comparison sought by
mapping between them with functors.
Don Mikulecky