[p2p-research] Towards a P2P Thermoeconomic Theory

[marc fawzi]

Per Michel's request for implications of thermoeconomics in the context of
P2P social theory:

(This is a very rough slice of a much larger future blog post)

---

Premise:

We can come up with a morally optimal model of society with the only
constraints being our own conscience and ideas, but if we do not look at the
observed laws of nature (and particularly the laws of thermodynamics) that
constrain any model that involves physical resources then the model will run
aground sooner or later.

This does not make the social model any less relevant than the physical
model. They are both equally important to understand, and they can be made
to work together in harmony.

Dialog:

I'll start with a useful definition of thermodynamics:

Thermodynamics is a branch of physics which deals with the energy and work
of a system. Thermodynamics deals only with the **large scale response** of
a system which we can observe and measure in experiments.

1st Law (also related: conservation of energy, conservation of mass,
conservation of momentum):

"Within a given domain, the amount of energy remains constant and energy is
neither created nor destroyed. Energy can be converted from one form to
another (potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy) but the total
energy within the domain remains fixed."

2nd Law (as a follow up to the 1st law):

"We can imagine thermodynamic processes which conserve energy but which
never occur in nature. For example, if we bring a hot object into contact
with a cold object, we observe that the hot object cools down and the cold
object heats up until an equilibrium is reached. The transfer of heat goes
from the hot object to the cold object.

We can imagine a system, however, in which the heat is instead transferred
from the cold object to the hot object, and such a system *does not violate*
the *first law* of thermodynamics. The cold object gets colder and the hot
object gets hotter, but energy is conserved. Obviously we don't encounter
such a system in nature and to explain this and similar observations,
thermodynamicists proposed a *second law of thermodynamics*. Clasius,
Kelvin, and Carnot proposed various forms of the second law to describe the
particular physics problem that each was studying.

The description of the second law stated here was taken from Halliday and
Resnick's textbook, "Physics". It begins with the definition of a new state
variable called
entropy.<http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/entropy.html>Entropy
has a variety of physical interpretations, including the statistical
disorder of the system (very relevant to thermoeconomic information
processing), dispersal of energy, etc, but for our purposes, however entropy
may be defined (in different interpretations), let us consider entropy to be
just another property of the system, like (not as) temparature, with
whatever interpretation you want to use.

What the second law states, is that for a given physical process, the
combined entropy of the system and the environment remains a constant if the
process can be reversed.

An example of a *reversible process* is *ideally* forcing a flow through a
constricted pipe. "Ideal" means no boundary layer losses. As the flow moves
through the constriction, the pressure, temperature and velocity change, but
these variables return to their original values downstream of the
constriction. The state of the gas returns to its original conditions and
the change of entropy of the system is zero. Engineers call such a process
an isentropic. Isentropic means constant entropy.

The second law states that if the physical process is *irreversible*, the
combined entropy of the system and the environment must *increase*. The
final entropy must be greater than the initial entropy for an irreversible
process.

An example of an irreversible process is the problem discussed in the second
paragraph. A hot object is put in contact with a cold object. Eventually,
they both achieve the same equilibrium temperature. If we then separate the
objects they remain at the equilibrium temperature and do not naturally
return to their original temperatures. The process of bringing them to the
same temperature is irreversible.
When it comes to bits and bytes some of the the physical constraints that
follow from the first and second laws of thermodynamics are:

Hardware/Physical Domain:
1. The continuous cost of energy (whatever it is, e.g. near zero) used for
powering the hardware (including the cost of maintaining and evolving the
capability of the energy generation capacity)

2. The continuous cost of energy used for the maintenance of the hardware at
every point, from desktop to network core, mesh infrastructure or the
hardware landscape, including the communication channels. This includes
energy used in manufacturing of new hardware or replacement parts.

Information Processing/Virtual Domain:
3. The continuous cost of energy for evolving the capacity, scale and
quality of the communication/transportation/connectivity

4. The continuous cost of energy to power our "human bandwidth for
information process," i.e. the energy we need to power our brains/bodies ...


There is also the 0th, 3rd and 4th laws of thermodyanmics which complete the
picture, but it's xmas guys and I have 20 minutes to shower and get to the
mall before someone here shoot me.

Anyway, while having an engineer's understanding of thermodynamics I would
like to invite a rational dialog that would help to bridge the gap between
social and physical theory, which is a process of reconciling two different
axiomatic deductive systems :-)

Seems like everything is fractal, with problems expressing themselves in
other problems with lower and lower resolution (more wiggle room) as we go
down the chain and more resolution (less wiggle room) as we go up the chain,
but "reality" operates at all levels in the chain. We just have to recognize
the common patterns across all our different deductive systems because its
those common patterns that will allow us to build a common picture.

Merry xmas/Happy Holidays :)

Marc






On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 10:28 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Marc for your reply.
>
> Hmm, I have been experimenting with such "usership" and "sharist"
> approaches for the last years. Some platforms, such as hospitality
> platforms, have huge potential
> ( couchsurfing - cs, hospitalityclub - hc, bewelcome - bw)
>
> I have been involved with cs and hc and their development models turned out
> to become closed,
> which prompted the development of bw by hc and cs volunteers :
> http://bewelcome.org
>
> It is realist to believe that there is enough of a critical mass to build
> up a viable economy with "sharist" types of intentional currencies.
>
> You do not need to have everyone on board. Currencies can be vectors for
> the emergence of real social networks, and can be combined with other real
> social networks sharing common intentions, such as a number of individuals
> relating their lifestyles to hospitality networks.
>
> We do not need to coerce everyone into the systems we develop.
> But offer the solutions, and the best designs, for the hundreds of
> thousands, or perhaps the millions of individuals that are ready to start
> experimenting with them.
>
> My view.
>
> Writing from a cafe - limited internet access for the moment,
>
> Merry Christmas if you celebrate it,
>
> Greetings
>
> Dante
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 6:51 PM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dante,
>>
>> I really like what you're saying.
>>
>> If I was to support any alternate view on the economy besides the model
>> I'm working with it would be yours because I know it's "all we ever want to
>> do but cannot because of realism"
>>
>> In other words, I think it's great that you think this way and I think you
>> can get people to follow the message if you keep it succinct as powerful and
>> not get too philosophical with it (going over people's heads)
>>
>> But for me, I'm looking at a technically radical and philosophically
>> "centrist" solution, not too far to the left or too far to the right. The
>> radical aspect of it is combining energy and economy (which will happen
>> sooner or later)  and the philosophical part of it is that it trains people
>> to think different, from "winner takes all" to "winner shares all" ... I
>> like moving in steps not one giant leap. The next step would be to motivate
>> the sharing of land.. i.e. the material basis for the economy, but I haven't
>> thought about it yet.
>>
>> Good enough?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 7:52 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
>> dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> From my current perspective,
>>>
>>> - ownership, especially accumulation of ownership,
>>> most often reduces potential for "development" :
>>> the potential to deal with greater complexity to the benefit of the
>>> greater self,
>>> with a integral awareness.
>>> For me, a monetary information system based on ownership addiction
>>> enslaves transactions into the aim of ownership monopoly.
>>>
>>> - usership, and the architecture/modalities of usership processing,
>>> can optimize access to transactions by liberating them from constraint of
>>> the promotion of competitive coercive increase of ownership concentration.
>>> in other words, liberate it from the aim of a coercive paradigm.
>>> usership architectures, according to their modalities, have the potential
>>> to open up access to transactions embodying , instead of coercion, the
>>> intention of sustainable processes of cocreative learning paradigms.
>>>
>>> ---------
>>>
>>> As to be able to facilitate meaningful transactions: meaningful
>>> transactions being understood and visualized as a creative process from a
>>> integral/holistic perspective.
>>>
>>> A process dimensions engine can allow the visualization of such
>>> development economics: the creation and the opening up of the use of new
>>> process objects through 1"increased trust",2 action/love, 3 non-coercive
>>> contemplation, and 0 inspiration connecting  such dimensions - and at a
>>> *"shared" meta level ( relation between two meta levels / awareness and
>>> brane position at higher level of abstraction then meta level ) *:
>>>
>>> 1 - transcendence ( increase of the overcoming of limitations to greater
>>> trust : meta-"increased trust" : "increased trust of increased trust" :
>>> increased potential to open up channels that increase the potential to open
>>> up channels) ,
>>>
>>> 2 - care ( meta love )
>>>
>>> 3 - faith ( meta non-coercive contemplation )
>>>
>>> 0 : inspiration ( point enabling movement of experience along positions
>>> of meta process dimensions )
>>>
>>> ///////////////////
>>>
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20081223/711efcab/attachment-0001.html>