Re: <nettime> Nobel laureate in economics aged 102 endorses the human economy...

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

Hi Mark

> > Although I am haven't the time to promote and explore the
> > application a wholistic approach like 'living systems theory'
> > or 'general system theory' to such issues . . .
>
> Thanks for bringing this up!  However, in this case, the key  individual is
> probably Kenneth Boulding.  Central to his work is the entire  literature
> on the "Image" -- which he called "Eiconics" and which (sorta) later  became
> "mimetics."

Thanks for the references, I don't know how you can keep track of all that 
information!!!!  There is a nice book out by Debora Hammond

Hammond, D., 2003. The science of synthesis: Exploring the social implications 
of general systems theory, Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.

that explores the history, including, of course,  Boulding, Rapoport, Gerard, 
Bertalanffy and the others I mentioned. It occurs to me that I should ask around 
here at UofColorado about Boulding, while I am teaching here...

The submersion (perversion!) of much general systems thinking into the 
cybernetic/military-industrial was an unfortunate result of crossovers between 
all these people (and others) at the time. But certainly some of the ideas are 
extremely powerful (as illustrated by the fact that our social system as it is 
rests largely on a technocracy constructed from that worldview!). I prefer the 
more wholistic open-system sensibility of Bertalanffy and the Millers. This is 
no coincidence as my father was a senior systems analyst & engineer deep in the 
MIT-MITRE-DOD-RAND circuit between '41-'69 -- it seemed incumbent to move in 
another direction :-|

(An aside -- the psychological state that such thinking imposed, 
workday-after-workday, beginning in 1940, and eventually subsuming huge numbers 
of (mostly) men engineers had/has a direct formative effect on the entire social 
fabric that we are part of now... on personal, family, community, and national 
levels)

Cheers,
JH


--


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
Watching the Tao rather than watching the Dow!
http://neoscenes.net/
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


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