Abstract
The question posed is whether the optimization methods of calculus that are often used in social and scientific analyses offer an appropriate analytical approach to analyze problems that are immersed in systemic complexity and its consequences. This paper refers to the portfolio of such complex problems belonging to social and scientific forces. We refer to such a complex combination by the term ‘socio-scientific’. In the study of socio-scientific complexity, dynamic preferences, intricate decisions, and uncertain behavior, endogenous relations and systemic perturbations abound. The arguments presented in this paper establish that the methodological approach of optimization and steady-state equilibrium turns out to be nicety rather than objectivity in the presence of complexity. Complex situations of the socio-scientific universe cause perturbations in the variables; there explaining complexity formed by the social embedding of variables. Indeed, human individuals, institutions and governments, and society at large are complex interrelated entities. Therefore, complex interrelations caused by social embedding remain submerged in social perturbations. However, interactions arising from social embedding (the cause of interrelations between variables) also generate endogenous and complex relations. The contribution of this paper is in the area of endogenous learning in the wellbeing objective criterion function. The interrelationships between the emergent cognitive variables now cause interactive embedding, complexity, and social perturbations. Yet such perturbations are not altogether uncontrollable. They can be and need to be controlled for the purposes of social explanation—hence demanding predictability—even as the complex nature of evolutionary systemic learning proceeds. The controllability problem of extreme perturbations leads us to formalize a mathematical methodology to study controllable perturbations while avoiding extreme forms of perturbations in socio-scientific theory.
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Notes
Ledger C. & Pickard S. (eds.) 2004 Creation and Complexity: Interdisciplinary Issues in Science and Religion. ATF Press, Adelaide, Australia write in their Introduction (p.xi-xxiv; xv): “Gunton argues that God is a being-in-relation and that a dynamic or relatedness marks God’s creative activity in the world. The network of relations between God and humankind, among humankind and between humankind and the rest of the universe find their basis in the relational nature of God’s creative being. The world’s unity and diversity are born of God. The complexity of the world and its interrelations, according to a Trinitarian understanding of creation, is natural and is manifested in the relations between the smaller physical particles as well as in ecosystems and human social structures.”
Kant I (Critique of Judgment, trans. Pluhar 1987; quoted in Ledger & Pickard op cit, p. 8): “Parts bind themselves mutually into the unity of a whole in such a way that they are mutually cause and effect of one another”.
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Appendix: interactive, integrative, evolutionary learning model
Appendix: interactive, integrative, evolutionary learning model
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Choudhury, M.A., Ahmed, M.S. Perturbation theory in cognitive socio-scientific research: towards sociological economic analysis. Mind Soc 12, 203–217 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-013-0115-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-013-0115-7