Some Thought Experiments Concerning the Evolution of Complex Societal Structures

Introduction

Accounting for increased complexity is the scientific essence of evolution theory. The new insights to be presented in this paper could be connected to names like Warren Weaver, Herbert Simon, Eric Jantch, Ervin Laszlo, Ilya Prigogine and Vilmos Csanyi. World Futures-the Journal of General Evolution and the emergence of the Group for General Evolution Research exemplifies quite well the recent interest in multidisciplinary general evolution research: Biologists, physicists, historians economists, and sociologists attempt to create a common conceptual framework where concepts like “self-organization, far-away equilibrium, autopoiesis, autogenesis, bifurcation and punctuated equilibrium” are consistently applied to multiple empirical phenomena.

• ISSN: 0357-9603
• ISBN: 951-9281-89-4