Coevolutionary Learning and Emergence in Technological Evolution: Conceptual Issues in Modeling

Abstract

The main problem that a scientist encounters in analyzing the interaction between socio-economic and technological evolution is emergence. Emergence denotes the occurrence of unforeseen events, patterns of behavior. Shortly it is the surprise information that derails accepted knowledge. Emergence has been defined as the occurrence of new behaviors and properties on a system level through the interaction of elements that are individually not able to bring about the behavior or properties. Emergence is one of the main properties of evolutionary processes. If emergence is neglected, 'evolutionary' system analysis is reduced to questions of comparatively simple dynamical development. Difficult to treat, but crucial element is interaction. After formalizing the interaction in systems leading to emergence mathematically, Bertalanffy states: 'Physically, these statements are trivial; they could become problematic and lead to confused conceptions in biology, psychology and sociology only because of a misinterpretation of the mechanistic conception, the tendency being towards resolution of phenomena into independent elements and causal chains, while interrelations were bypassed'. This is the problem I want to deal with in the following pages: how can we model emergent phenomena without falling in the trap of reductionism, while at the same time keeping the model simple. To solve the problem just stated, I take the position that the modeling of coevolutionary interaction between economic and technological evolution is strongly hampered by perception issues. This becomes apparent when we are confronted with novelty, which we cannot account for by our traditional models. I base my argumentation on the further conjecture that economic behavior and technological capabilities can be summarized in the knowledge a social system possesses. This means knowledge and learning processes are seen as the crucial elements in building a model of socio-technological evolution. At first, I will discuss these issues in terms of a general knowledge gaining process, which builds on philosophy of science. I summarize the results in a conceptual flow diagram, which is intended to serve as a preliminary model of technological evolution. Subsequently, I will discuss problems in the modeling of emergent processes. Finally, I discuss some issues relevant to perception.