Nature Article Addresses Parecon
By Armin Schleiffarth at Dec 17, 2007 |
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Control without hierarchy
Understanding how particular natural systems operate without central control will reveal whether such systems share general properties.
Deborah M. Gordon
Nature 446, 143 (8 March 2007) doi:10.1038/446143a
Because most of the dynamic systems that we design, from machines to governments, are based on hierarchical control, it is difficult to imagine a system in which the parts use only local information and the whole thing directs itself. To explain how biological systems operate without central control — embryos, brains and social-insect colonies are familiar examples — we often fall back on metaphors from our own products, such as blueprints and programmes
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Re: Nature Article Addresses Parecon
By Goodman, Dan at Dec 19, 2007 16:11 PM
It\'s a very interesting topic to speculate about, but hardly anything is really known about it yet. It would be fantastic to discover some underlying principles. Unfortunately, those underlying principles could probably also be used as a form of control as well as for a freer society.
Myself, I\'m interested in the brain (having just started a new career as a theoretical neuroscientist), and you can ask the same sorts of questions there. Do the actions of the brain come about from an \'executive\' module that makes decisions based on what subordinate modules come up with, or is it a sort of democratic bottom up process where the best plan of action emerges from the bottom up? Both are possible. In nature, there\'s no political pressures to do things one way or the other, so it\'s likely that you\'d see both types of system: top down and bottom up.
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Nature Link
By Schleiffarth, Armin at Dec 17, 2007 16:59 PM
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Re: Nature Article Addresses Parecon
By Oyler, Nathan at Dec 17, 2007 12:40 PM
Appreciate it. It\'s a block of text at the moment, so I\'ll do so reformating and read it. Thank you.
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Re: Nature Article Addresses Parecon
By Barfield, Michael at Dec 17, 2007 10:27 AM
Nathan,
I just e-mailed you the text of the article. (It was free for me, since I am on a computer at a university that subscribes to Nature.) I\'m not sure if this is among the kinds of things we could be uploading (since it is copyrighted).
Mike
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By Oyler, Nathan at Dec 17, 2007 09:09 AM
I was interested in reading the article, but it was not free. If there\'s a requirement for logging in please specify.
Thank you.
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