Wow, this is awesome. I’d never heard of Bejan, but this mode of thinking is so needed for us to make sense of actual reality. I would argue that most people today are not thinking with reality, that world events have outpaced our thinking over the last 150 years.
For example, we tend to think “about” the body, the planet, money, instead of thinking WITH the body, planet or money.
If we can learn to “diagnose” disease in both human beings and society from this constructal framework (something I call living science), we will find true root causes - which instantly reveal the solutions.
What statism has done is create social disease by blocking the free flow of information and energy, which makes true freedom of movement very difficult. Suppression of the free human spirit by state regulated education, vocation and cultural customs is at the root of modern social disease (in my opinion). To heal, we have to unblock the flow of information and energy in as many areas of life as possible.
>>"it's our job to figure out the bullshitters from the brainstormers"
Amen.
>>"be specific and direct in your criticisms"
Ah, I see my fault: I did not make abundantly clear that you are NOT akin to my 7 listed emergent felons. Don't worry: Impossible that you would be hauled before the Rhadamanthus for fuzzy thinking. I'm indebted to your glosses of emergent thinkers that I have not yet read -- Bejan among them.
The explanatory power of emergent thought in Nick Lane's _Transformer_ or in Ilya Prigogine's _The End of Certainty_ is evident because they bring the goods to the complex questions laid out in their books. It's interesting that when Steven Johnson (yes, good purely as a writer) interviews Deborah Gordon about carpenter ants (discussing stigmergy), she strongly resists any extrapolations of her work into human societies; Stuart Kauffman offers this same resistance in his work _The Origins of Order_. These are the people I'm most inclined to read because they have some modesty. My real annoyance is with facile people like Neil Howe (The Fourth Turning), dialectical materialists, cyclic historians, Lumpengedanken Keynesians, and in general anything that raises a buzz at a loud cocktail party.
Whew, okay! I value your opinion dearly and, while I know honest disagreement is what makes us better as thinkers, I want to make sure I get what's aimed at me, so I can consider it seriously.
Now, I want to persuade you that there are important overlaps between stigmergic systems and spontaneous orders. The two domains differ in important ways, of course, but there are interesting theoretical overlaps. Austrian-style price signals have some of the functionality of pheromone trails among the ants, for example. Furthermore, Kauffman's twin theories of evolution (selection) and emergence (autocatalysis) are both active within human societies as well. Anyway, I think there is a fruitful and imporant bridge between the theoretical biologists and the Austrians, even as there are aspects of the former that can be more algorithmic, even tropistic, in their natures. But even smart apes have their pheromone trail$.
You know, as a good Nietzschean, I would assume you resist anything Hegelian. But I have been lured into Hegelian dialectics lately -- though of an open-ended sort. I find it helpful from a methodological POV, though not teleological, deterministic, or god help us eschatalogical. It's a different way of thinking, when you strip it of its Platonism.
Anyway, you got me back into Nietzsche and I have read it through totally different lenses at my age. It's just breathtaking. Another friend who loves der Friedrich has a fascinating way of reconciling Nietzsche and Hegel. My next exploration on this path is probably Gilles Deleuze who is a poststructuralist, god help me, but I want to keep an open mind. It might go straight over my head.
In any case, I'm having a ball lately as I push myself into new territories. Thank you for keeping me honest and I promise to do the same for you.
Here is the problem I have with all this “emergent” stuff: A theory that explains everything explains nothing.
Is there a “burqa boutique” anywhere on earth? No – Amina, Leila, Nadia, Zulaykha, looks great, it’s just to die for here in Kabul! And you girls of history, economics, or sociology, here’s a pretty thing so SNATCHED, so FIRE, for all the year round: Hegelian dialectic! Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis – No bags or wrinkles anywhere! It’s just so YOU! Everything fits perfectly!
I have a menagerie of emergent – what? Theorists? Practitioners? Barkers? – who should be brought before a magistrate for sloppy thinking. (1) Heather Marsh on stigmergy: Does anyone know what this woman is talking about? [https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/] (2) Jane Jacobs, whose “sidewalk life” explanation of urban growth Lewis Mumford rightly said was like a “homemade poultice for the cure of cancer.” [https://lewisnvillegas.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/lewis-mumfords-review-of-jane-jacobs-the-death-and-life-of-the-great-american-cities/] (3) Nora Bateson, who writes: “Warm data is information about the interrelationships that integrate elements of a complex system. It has found the qualitative dynamics and offers another dimension of understanding to what is learned through quantitative data (cold data).” Match that, Kamala Harris! [https://batesoninstitute.org/warm-data/] (4) Scott E. Page, who seems to think that in having Per Bak’s sand pile model of self-organized criticality we have an explanation of the causes of World War I. [https://youtu.be/ktamC1F1SL0?t=965] (5) Paul Krugman, the prolific gasbag whose supposedly “emergent” blatherskite “The Self-Organizing Economy” explains absolutely NOTHING. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1557866988] (6) Steven Johnson, who in his book _Emergence_ belched forth: “Alexa may be the most high-profile piece of emergent software to date” – right, that same piece of software that closed down May 1, 2022. Or his bloviation: “Slashdot.org – the closest thing to a genuinely self-organizing community that the Web has yet produced” – right, that same slasher that was sold in 2012 to become the job-hunting site dice.com. Or as he again eructed: “Replay […] will also fall under the sway of self-organization” – right, Replay it again, Sam, into bankruptcy in 2003 for splicing out TV commercials. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684868768] (7) Edgar Morin, the world champion _moulin à vent_, who after SIX VOLUMES on emergence entitled _La méthode_, threw up his hands with “I can’t pretend to pull a paradigm of complexity out of my pocket!” – All while his stylish scarf floats on a brisk headwind of praise. Nevertheless, I fear that the French “emergentistes” will vanish the same way as the existentialists: Banned by the cafés for holding tables all afternoon, while sending up clouds of Caporal smoke.
Now, I have great respect for Ilya Prigogine, Scott Camazine, Stuart A. Kauffman, Nick Lane, and (probably – I haven’t studied him) Michel Talagrand [https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/mathematician-who-made-order-from-randomness-awarded-nobel-of-mathematics/]. They address – and I think solve – some real scientific problems, and some of them (notably Prigogine) do encourage the application of emergent theory into other disciplines. But what a progeny of doltish epigones does a genius spawn!
Am I to infer from this that I am a doltish epigone? Or Bejan? Or is it that this post reminded you of other appeals to "emergence" that you find unsatisfying? You don't directly say. So I'm left to wonder. Indeed, I rarely know whether I'm being criticized or invited to have a related conversation.
First, I can surmise that "A theory that explains everything explains nothing" is a criticism. When I wrote: "Some egghead from Duke had reportedly explained everything in the world with a single principle: swimming fish, running mammals, and branching trees." This was me being playfully hyperbolic -- almost dismissive, because I had not yet dived into the theory. But Bejan's theory is not of EVERYTHING, it's just a lot. And anyone who knows anything about good theories is that they are suppose to explain A LOT, as in they include diverse phenemona. Despite the inadequacies of Newton's Laws, they allow us to predict ballistic curves, planetary motions, non-floating pencils, and moon mission landing sites. I could go on. The point is, good theories explain a lot. Bejan is a mechanical engineering Professor at Duke, so there is a whole field of design based on this law. If it didn't work, the engineers would know quickly. But don't take my word for it: Bejan explains why people of African descent run faster while people of European descent swim faster. It's all about morphological efficiency. His theory can be described as a theory of reduced frictions. It's not woo. Read the papers. They're all over the internet.
Second, I don't know the exact details of Nora Bateson's Warm Data course, but I think the concept of warm data is critical and that one risks doing her and the concept an injustice by being prematurely dismissive. Cold data, like statistics, can reduce people to plot-points. It's a 2D slice of a 3D world, which means information loss. When economists in Washington use statistics to model aggregate behaviors it has the effect of lobotomizing people with crude abstractions. This is how Keynesians get away with murder. Mises and Hayek, however, would have liked the idea of warm data because it captures the scientism that so many social scientists embrace -- usually in the service of power.
Finally, I think it's our job to figure out the bullshitters from the brainstormers. Stuart Kaufmann is a hero to me. I think Jane Jacobs had tremendous insights, but instead of picking out what specific claims she got wrong, we're treated to a guy being cute-but-unspecific. Steven Johnson is a kick-ass writer, but he is not a complexity scientist. He is going to get things wrong. And Heather Marsh's stigmergy, which you've shared before, stikes me as prolix and weird, which did not invite me into trying to understand her work. Never been much of a fan of Bergson and the early emergentists.
I guess what I'm saying here is that just because there are some charlatans out there peddling "emergence," doesn't mean that everything is charlatanry. There is some really interesting work in the space, which complement the broad Misesean style of thinking that the world needs more of.
Anyway, I might not be smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff in all this emergence "stuff". But if I'm failing, I hope you'll be specific and direct in your criticisms, especially when I'm being earnest rather than sarcastic (such as when I was describing my state of mind before going deeper into Bejan's work).
The current that flows through me is the need to move through the world in pursuit of the things I need to survive and thrive. And in order to do that, I must be free!
No, no. You need to get on your knees, kiss the ring, fellate the jackboot, then and only then will we distribute the things you need to survive. As long as you learn to enjoy the taste of the ring and the jackboot you will go far and your family will be fine.
Wow, this is awesome. I’d never heard of Bejan, but this mode of thinking is so needed for us to make sense of actual reality. I would argue that most people today are not thinking with reality, that world events have outpaced our thinking over the last 150 years.
For example, we tend to think “about” the body, the planet, money, instead of thinking WITH the body, planet or money.
If we can learn to “diagnose” disease in both human beings and society from this constructal framework (something I call living science), we will find true root causes - which instantly reveal the solutions.
What statism has done is create social disease by blocking the free flow of information and energy, which makes true freedom of movement very difficult. Suppression of the free human spirit by state regulated education, vocation and cultural customs is at the root of modern social disease (in my opinion). To heal, we have to unblock the flow of information and energy in as many areas of life as possible.
Beautifully said. And it's also why I argue that "freedom is feminine."
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/freedom-is-feminine
The constructal law in social systems:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356475384_THE_SCIENCE_OF_RIGHTS
Oh wow thank you for sharing this!
Thank you for those kind words. I will soon have a book out with the title "Global Civility," subtitled "Physical Constructal Law."
Max,
>>"it's our job to figure out the bullshitters from the brainstormers"
Amen.
>>"be specific and direct in your criticisms"
Ah, I see my fault: I did not make abundantly clear that you are NOT akin to my 7 listed emergent felons. Don't worry: Impossible that you would be hauled before the Rhadamanthus for fuzzy thinking. I'm indebted to your glosses of emergent thinkers that I have not yet read -- Bejan among them.
The explanatory power of emergent thought in Nick Lane's _Transformer_ or in Ilya Prigogine's _The End of Certainty_ is evident because they bring the goods to the complex questions laid out in their books. It's interesting that when Steven Johnson (yes, good purely as a writer) interviews Deborah Gordon about carpenter ants (discussing stigmergy), she strongly resists any extrapolations of her work into human societies; Stuart Kauffman offers this same resistance in his work _The Origins of Order_. These are the people I'm most inclined to read because they have some modesty. My real annoyance is with facile people like Neil Howe (The Fourth Turning), dialectical materialists, cyclic historians, Lumpengedanken Keynesians, and in general anything that raises a buzz at a loud cocktail party.
Whew, okay! I value your opinion dearly and, while I know honest disagreement is what makes us better as thinkers, I want to make sure I get what's aimed at me, so I can consider it seriously.
Now, I want to persuade you that there are important overlaps between stigmergic systems and spontaneous orders. The two domains differ in important ways, of course, but there are interesting theoretical overlaps. Austrian-style price signals have some of the functionality of pheromone trails among the ants, for example. Furthermore, Kauffman's twin theories of evolution (selection) and emergence (autocatalysis) are both active within human societies as well. Anyway, I think there is a fruitful and imporant bridge between the theoretical biologists and the Austrians, even as there are aspects of the former that can be more algorithmic, even tropistic, in their natures. But even smart apes have their pheromone trail$.
You know, as a good Nietzschean, I would assume you resist anything Hegelian. But I have been lured into Hegelian dialectics lately -- though of an open-ended sort. I find it helpful from a methodological POV, though not teleological, deterministic, or god help us eschatalogical. It's a different way of thinking, when you strip it of its Platonism.
Anyway, you got me back into Nietzsche and I have read it through totally different lenses at my age. It's just breathtaking. Another friend who loves der Friedrich has a fascinating way of reconciling Nietzsche and Hegel. My next exploration on this path is probably Gilles Deleuze who is a poststructuralist, god help me, but I want to keep an open mind. It might go straight over my head.
In any case, I'm having a ball lately as I push myself into new territories. Thank you for keeping me honest and I promise to do the same for you.
Here is the problem I have with all this “emergent” stuff: A theory that explains everything explains nothing.
Is there a “burqa boutique” anywhere on earth? No – Amina, Leila, Nadia, Zulaykha, looks great, it’s just to die for here in Kabul! And you girls of history, economics, or sociology, here’s a pretty thing so SNATCHED, so FIRE, for all the year round: Hegelian dialectic! Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis – No bags or wrinkles anywhere! It’s just so YOU! Everything fits perfectly!
I have a menagerie of emergent – what? Theorists? Practitioners? Barkers? – who should be brought before a magistrate for sloppy thinking. (1) Heather Marsh on stigmergy: Does anyone know what this woman is talking about? [https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/] (2) Jane Jacobs, whose “sidewalk life” explanation of urban growth Lewis Mumford rightly said was like a “homemade poultice for the cure of cancer.” [https://lewisnvillegas.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/lewis-mumfords-review-of-jane-jacobs-the-death-and-life-of-the-great-american-cities/] (3) Nora Bateson, who writes: “Warm data is information about the interrelationships that integrate elements of a complex system. It has found the qualitative dynamics and offers another dimension of understanding to what is learned through quantitative data (cold data).” Match that, Kamala Harris! [https://batesoninstitute.org/warm-data/] (4) Scott E. Page, who seems to think that in having Per Bak’s sand pile model of self-organized criticality we have an explanation of the causes of World War I. [https://youtu.be/ktamC1F1SL0?t=965] (5) Paul Krugman, the prolific gasbag whose supposedly “emergent” blatherskite “The Self-Organizing Economy” explains absolutely NOTHING. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1557866988] (6) Steven Johnson, who in his book _Emergence_ belched forth: “Alexa may be the most high-profile piece of emergent software to date” – right, that same piece of software that closed down May 1, 2022. Or his bloviation: “Slashdot.org – the closest thing to a genuinely self-organizing community that the Web has yet produced” – right, that same slasher that was sold in 2012 to become the job-hunting site dice.com. Or as he again eructed: “Replay […] will also fall under the sway of self-organization” – right, Replay it again, Sam, into bankruptcy in 2003 for splicing out TV commercials. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684868768] (7) Edgar Morin, the world champion _moulin à vent_, who after SIX VOLUMES on emergence entitled _La méthode_, threw up his hands with “I can’t pretend to pull a paradigm of complexity out of my pocket!” – All while his stylish scarf floats on a brisk headwind of praise. Nevertheless, I fear that the French “emergentistes” will vanish the same way as the existentialists: Banned by the cafés for holding tables all afternoon, while sending up clouds of Caporal smoke.
Now, I have great respect for Ilya Prigogine, Scott Camazine, Stuart A. Kauffman, Nick Lane, and (probably – I haven’t studied him) Michel Talagrand [https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/mathematician-who-made-order-from-randomness-awarded-nobel-of-mathematics/]. They address – and I think solve – some real scientific problems, and some of them (notably Prigogine) do encourage the application of emergent theory into other disciplines. But what a progeny of doltish epigones does a genius spawn!
Dear TH,
Am I to infer from this that I am a doltish epigone? Or Bejan? Or is it that this post reminded you of other appeals to "emergence" that you find unsatisfying? You don't directly say. So I'm left to wonder. Indeed, I rarely know whether I'm being criticized or invited to have a related conversation.
First, I can surmise that "A theory that explains everything explains nothing" is a criticism. When I wrote: "Some egghead from Duke had reportedly explained everything in the world with a single principle: swimming fish, running mammals, and branching trees." This was me being playfully hyperbolic -- almost dismissive, because I had not yet dived into the theory. But Bejan's theory is not of EVERYTHING, it's just a lot. And anyone who knows anything about good theories is that they are suppose to explain A LOT, as in they include diverse phenemona. Despite the inadequacies of Newton's Laws, they allow us to predict ballistic curves, planetary motions, non-floating pencils, and moon mission landing sites. I could go on. The point is, good theories explain a lot. Bejan is a mechanical engineering Professor at Duke, so there is a whole field of design based on this law. If it didn't work, the engineers would know quickly. But don't take my word for it: Bejan explains why people of African descent run faster while people of European descent swim faster. It's all about morphological efficiency. His theory can be described as a theory of reduced frictions. It's not woo. Read the papers. They're all over the internet.
Second, I don't know the exact details of Nora Bateson's Warm Data course, but I think the concept of warm data is critical and that one risks doing her and the concept an injustice by being prematurely dismissive. Cold data, like statistics, can reduce people to plot-points. It's a 2D slice of a 3D world, which means information loss. When economists in Washington use statistics to model aggregate behaviors it has the effect of lobotomizing people with crude abstractions. This is how Keynesians get away with murder. Mises and Hayek, however, would have liked the idea of warm data because it captures the scientism that so many social scientists embrace -- usually in the service of power.
Finally, I think it's our job to figure out the bullshitters from the brainstormers. Stuart Kaufmann is a hero to me. I think Jane Jacobs had tremendous insights, but instead of picking out what specific claims she got wrong, we're treated to a guy being cute-but-unspecific. Steven Johnson is a kick-ass writer, but he is not a complexity scientist. He is going to get things wrong. And Heather Marsh's stigmergy, which you've shared before, stikes me as prolix and weird, which did not invite me into trying to understand her work. Never been much of a fan of Bergson and the early emergentists.
I guess what I'm saying here is that just because there are some charlatans out there peddling "emergence," doesn't mean that everything is charlatanry. There is some really interesting work in the space, which complement the broad Misesean style of thinking that the world needs more of.
Anyway, I might not be smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff in all this emergence "stuff". But if I'm failing, I hope you'll be specific and direct in your criticisms, especially when I'm being earnest rather than sarcastic (such as when I was describing my state of mind before going deeper into Bejan's work).
The current that flows through me is the need to move through the world in pursuit of the things I need to survive and thrive. And in order to do that, I must be free!
No, no. You need to get on your knees, kiss the ring, fellate the jackboot, then and only then will we distribute the things you need to survive. As long as you learn to enjoy the taste of the ring and the jackboot you will go far and your family will be fine.
I will be Gollum. The severed finger will be on the ground. The Ring will be in the fire.
One day, my friend.