Evolutionary Economics.

[swestrup]

Here is a fascinating paper that deals with modelling financial markets as evolutionarily adaptive systems inhabited by investment strategies that are subject to selection pressures. It gives a good overview of the basic economic theory that it is trying to supplant, and explains the failures of previous systems in detail. One of the parts that made me chuckle was where the author contrasts the fast and loose 'science' of economics with the far greater rigor of psychology...

The article has also given me pause to seriously consider that there IS room for a second volume in the Foundations of Xenobiology book that I want to write. Up until now I've only seriously considered a single volume (perhaps 800 pages) that presents a synthesis of Biology, Evolution, biomechanics, information theory, Artificial Life and complexity theory. This would give an outline of the possible ways to talk about alien life forms. No (or very little) mention would be made of alien intelligence, as the first volume would already be speculative enough. Now I'm beginning to think that there IS actually enough real science on evolution's effects on cognitive strategies that a sketch could be made of a theory of alien intelligence. Hmmm.

Comments

[sps.livejournal.com]

Damnit, some of these projects need actually doing. I've recently (as you will understand) come across a lot of notes for things....