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Fascinating paper. Seems to support the idea that social networks are just another species of complex system, and as such tend to develop self-reinforcing struc
by SI_Rob 10y ago
Fascinating paper. Seems to support the idea that social networks are just another species of complex system, and as such tend to develop self-reinforcing structures of influence according to an underlying set of universal state-transfer properties, iterating over time and amplifying the quantum effects governing atomic interactions between members of the ground set of elements (people, at this scale), broadly similar to the way that complex physical systems are all echoes of thermodynamics.
I wonder... will there be a periodic table of ecosystemic elements some day, a Zuckerberg's standard model of quantum sociodynamics? /s
- medymed 10y agoAlso could suggest that by mandating periodic group-connection-reinforcing rituals, like daily/weeky religious or other activity, that a society can reach a connectivity state that's quite inflexible.
- SI_Rob 10y agoIndeed, this is a function of monumentalism, which is to reify and consolidate ritual into a pattern that is as permanent and immutable as humanly possible, and thus make the physical landscape shared by a given community reflect the mental landscape they likewise share.
- nurettin 10y agoAll that rhetoric is wasted on bored churchgoers.
- tehchromic 10y agokeeping in mind that certain forms of inflexibility are vital to the structure of an organism. Bones for example. Or in the case of the human super organism, ecological stewardship, which was the original subject of the religious sciences.
- espeed 10y agoAre you familiar with Jonathan Haidt's work on the psychology of morality and the formation of superorganisms? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt Here is one of Haidt's TED talks that touches on the ideas of cooperation, group selection, and the free-rider problem: http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendence http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_... His Edge article on "Contingent Superorganism" https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10386 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10386 NB: Also see this recent post on "information theory and the foundations of life" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13496133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13496133