[Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Nikhil and FIS Colleagues,

Thanks for the thought-provoking opening. Actually even a superficial 
reading of all the stuff you have recommended us becomes quite a bit of 
hard work--but it pays. For my taste, the paper on "Part Three" contains 
the most essential new thinking.  Perhaps the excessive reliance on 
systems-systems parlance is not convenient, both from a rhetorical and a 
conceptual point of view. It gives the impression of a reductionist 
Procrustean Bed where all the (endless!) stuff not amenable to the 
ongoing treatment becomes eliminated or treated as nonexistent. But it 
is a matter, maybe, just of style, that can be conveniently reformulated 
. Notwithstanding these trifle comments about form, the contents are 
significant and timely (at least for my personal taste!).

About contents, again I will start with a few mild criticisms to the 
particular scheme proposed where mycorrhiza and gut bacteria appear as 
central modulators. I can be wrong, of course, as I think you have taken 
new arenas of research (still unsettled) and somehow put them on an 
argumentative extreme, not much reliable actually. But the discussion in 
Section 3.5 about new avenues for aligning ecosystems and economic 
systems is full of valuable insights. I get along with it (with 
secondary nuances) and so it allows me to respond explicitly to your 
question 3 below, quite positively. Conversely, question 1 and 2 imply 
excessive caveats for a positive response even though I admit they have 
served as the scaffold for the present scheme.

I will point to two ecological-economics scenarios where the ideas you 
develop may produce further insights: carbon emission markets and the 
evaluation of Nature's capital & services. We have not achieved a proper 
informational formulation of economic systems yet, so traditional ideas 
cannot cope with the human "value" of Nature although they struggle to 
put it into the same footing as the "artificial". New thinking avenues 
are needed, and  I think something quite interesting looms in your Part 
III paper. Reminding the excellent contributions in the FIS 2002 session 
on "Ecological Economics and Information" (seee 
http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/ ), maybe some of those 
voices are willing to speak up again.

All the best--Pedro

Nikhil Joshi wrote:
>
> *(This email post has also been archived in the drop box. In case you 
> are unable to read this entire post, please download from this link 
> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/iej3xeu4as8rz8g/Abstract%20FIS%20v3.pdf?dl=0>)*
>
> * *
>
> *Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society 
> Build-A-Thon*
>
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> Over the last fifty years or so, we have made significant progress in 
> enhancing our theoretical understanding of self-organizing complex 
> systems. When it comes to self-organization in complex /living 
> systems/, along with advances in theoretical research, advances in 
> disciplines like prebiotic evolution, molecular biology, complexity, 
> linguistics, information systems, ecology, bacteriology, soil 
> microbiology, sociology, and economics have all contributed to provide 
> deeper insights into the processes and organization in living systems 
> at multiple different levels.
>
> Having reached here we can ask the questions- can this new science 
> help us develop a unified view of our socio-economic and natural 
> systems?  Can such a view reveal new systemic ways to align economics 
> and ecosystems?
>
> This series of articles [1-3] are a part of the “Lifel Deep Society 
> Build-A-Thon” initiative. A research Build-A-Thon that aims to bring 
> together domain level researchers, philosophers and theoretical 
> researchers, and other problem solvers to build a multilevel model 
> that can prove to be useful in enhancing our understanding of the 
> combined ecosystem-economics system. This initiative provides exciting 
> new opportunities for researchers to both further their own research, 
> while also contributing towards addressing the larger problem of 
> ecosystem-economics alignment.
>
> This discussion on the FIS network invites your ideas, questions, 
> comments, criticisms, suggestions on the multilevel view presented 
> here, and three high-level questions arising from this view:
>
> 1. Is our social organization in some of its essential elements an 
> extension of the larger pattern in the organization of living systems 
> as proposed here [1]?
>
> 2. Are there important organizational or role similarities between 
> modulator systems- Mycorrhiza networks, gut bacterial networks and 
> financial investment networks?
>
> 3. Are there ways in which these insights could be leveraged to align 
> dynamics between ecosystems and economic systems?


-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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