Emergent Behavior in Socio-Techno networks – in Depth and for Real

From Santa Fe Institute Event Wiki

Food for thought to allay my fears of never being picked for a team :>)

Large enterprises, whether they are firms, coalitions, competitors, or government entities tend to have formal (hierarchical) organizations augmented by informal social networks. People now work in a connected fashion and our systems are connected (e.g., the Web paradigm).

Thus some theoretical questions that need practical answers:

• Is hierarchy a basic pattern in human activity? [Needs examination by Behavioral Scientist? Psychologist?]

• If hierarchical networks are efficient for solving problems that can be reduced to constituent parts, [March and Simon?], what kind of structures and processes do we need to superimpose on hierarchies to solve nonlinear problems in complex systems? [Needs investigation by Social Scientist (knowledge diffusion as a contagion)? Network Theorist (agent-based simulation)?]

• How do we even formulate the kind of problem that needs a complex social network to solve? [Can a Mathematician describe it? Can an Information Theorist quantify it as some sort of entropy change as we organize the solution? Can a Physicist describe the emergent system as a phase change in the network? Is that equivalent to what a Learning Expert would call group or social learning?]

• If developing such complex systems is no longer a “plan and execute” control process, but rather a “nurture and guide” evolutionary process, what are the basic socio-techno-economic-etc processes needed to provide variety, fitness and selection in the enterprise? [Evolutionary Theory Expert coupled with Business Process Expert?]

• How do we make it all real? Can we look at the web of web services on the Internet as genetic material to be combined? What will emerge from web services being combined on a massive scale to produce new variations of complex systems? Could we use the World Wide Web to test our theory empirically? [Computer Scientist? Futurist? Reckless Abandoner?]

• If it takes a 3-dimensional phase space to induce chaos, can a 2-armed Tee shirt ever adequately represent SFI CSSS?

If any of these questions strike your fancy, please feel free to leave a message here or contact me directly, Joe DeRosa

Back to Project/Wkg Grps Page

Perhaps one way of approaching this is to begin by asking: how do we define what is a hierarchical as opposed to non-hierarchical (heterarchical?) network structure? Amir