From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu Tue Apr  7 23:23:30 EDT 1992
Article 4849 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Chaos vs psychohistory
Message-ID: <72061@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 31 Mar 92 19:17:29 GMT
References: <2442@ucl-cs.uucp> <531@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
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Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
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In-reply-to: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)

I'm crossposting and directing followups to r.a.sf.science.

In article <531@trwacs.fp.trw.com>, erwin@trwacs (Harry Erwin) writes:
>See my article, The Evolution of Peer Polities, in the Proceedings of the
>Cambridge Conference on Dynamic Modelling and Human Systems, S. E. van der
>Leeuw, ed., Edinburgh University Press, 1992. I demonstrate that there are
>significant chaotic processes in the evolution of social systems. One
>implication is that Asimov's "psychohistory" is not feasible.

I find such an implication rather dubious.  Why should anyone believe
your model scales up?  You also ignore that chaos, in general, has
islands of non-chaos, and it was within these islands that Asimovian
psychohistory operated.  And finally, both theory and experiment now
point to the possibility of *controlling* chaos of a known form, which
is the role of the Second Foundation.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


