Multi-agent systems/hyper-economy

Twink (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Mon, 24 Nov 1997 19:20:03 -0500 (EST)

At 15:55:20 Sun, 23 Nov 1997 +1000 (EST) Mitchell Porter
><mitch@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>>Sasha:
>>Just speaking very generally, it seems that in many of your
>>interests, you would be assisted by a general theory of
>>"complex functionally-defined systems". (So would I!)
>>Perhaps the first step in making such a theory would be
>>to identify all the possible elementary functions, and
>>"rules of combination" - ie ways in which elementary functional
>>systems can be combined to make more complex ones.

I think the use of hyper-economy also hints that some knowledge
might be gained in this direction from studying extant economic
theories. I would recommend reading Brooks' and Wiley's
_Evolution As Entropy_ 2/e for macroecological paradigms
which might have a lot of applicability here.

>>Identifying *all* the possibilities for elementary
>>functional systems I think requires some metaphysical
>>assumptions, about what sorts of relationships are
>>possible.

I would just call them _assumptions_!:) Of course, all sorts
of speculation precedes from assuming only certain things/
processes exist/are possible.

Daniel Ust