art-iberall-from physics to world history to the study of civilizations

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4 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

In v i t at i o n t o a n E n t e r p r i s e F r o m P h y s i c s

t o W o r l d H i s t o r y t o t h e S tu d y o f

C i v i l i z a t i o n s

A R T H U R I B E R A L L , F R A N K H A S S L E R ,

H A R R Y S O O D A K , D A V I D W I L K I N S O N

P a rt A .

Introduction

Landmarks, principles, evolution. Th e m ode rn sc ient if ic

enterprise that began with Newton about three centuries ago with

his 'World View' (space, t ime, matter, force, and the laws of

motion) and his 'Sys tem of the World ' (or world machine model)

has in the last century developed the capacity to treat physically

complex sys tems. For some three decades , our in terdisc ipl inarygroup has been developing a s tra tegy or model for s tudying such

sys tems . We ca l l th is mode l ' homeokine t ics ' (HK). The purpose

of this paper, interdisciplinary in character and authorship but

centrally physical, is to outline both a history of the natural sub-

jec t s tudy of c ivi l iza t ions , which are the highes t form of human

social organization, and to complete the introduction of such a

sc ience in t ime for the new mil lennium.

Suitable material to begin to s tudy the enterprise is append-

ed, s tar t ing from Randall 1940 1 and fo l lowed by a remarkable

in te rd isc ip l ina ry confe rence , Temperature, its M easurement and

Control in Science and Industry 1 9 4 12 , sponsored by the

Amer ican Phys ica l Soc ie ty , the U .S . Na t iona l Bureau o f

Standards , dozens of American engineering socie t ies and compa-

nies , and the community of physiologis ts concerned with tem-

pera ture , thermoregula t ion and energet ic or metabolic regula t ion.

Whi le Percy Br idgman ' s book on 'd imens iona l ana lys is ' , ma the-

matica l sca l ing of complex sys tem's processes , and his 'opera-

t ional ' phi losophy of sc ience was wri t ten in 1927 3 (see , fo r exa m -

ple , Encyc. Brit. 19754 on Bridgman), the bas is for genera l sca l-

ing of issues involving sys tems ' s tabi l i ty (Buckingham's p i num-bers) finds i ts introduction in that firs t Temperature sympos ium.



IBERALL 5

While physiological s tudy or the biophysics of metabol ic and

temperature regulat ion may seem to have reached the biologicalorganism, they st i l l have not reached the social regulating

processes . That seems to have emerged in the 19 th Century in the

sheaf of discipl ines known as sociology (Saint- Simon, Comte,

Durkheim, Marx , Spencer , Ward , Weber , e tc . ) , an thropology

(Morgan, Tylor ) , economics (Adam Smith , Marx-Engels ) , h i s to-

ry, including world his tory (dis t r ibuted, ra ther than confined,from Herodotus on, reaching up to world prehis tory by the 1950s

and 1960s with carbon dating of fossil material and systems, e.g. ,

see such mater ia l as G. Clark ' s wri t ing on world prehis tory

(1969) , now reaching to McNeil l and his world his tory, the s tyle

o f eco log ica l ly founded wor ld h i s to ry pur sued by the

Braudel ians , and the work of several ISCSC members , e .g . ,

Hord , Hewes , and one o f us [Wi lk inson] ) , and po l i t i c s

(Ar i s to t e l i an and Rena i s sance beg inn ings l ead ing to the

Enl ightenment , then on to Hume, Bentham, de Toquevi l le , and

Amer ican cons t i tu t iona l i sm) .

What is only poorly known is that the discipl ine, now cal led

sociology, was at f i rs t referred to as social physics (more pre-

cisely physique morale) in the l ine of scholars f rom Saint-Simonand t ransmuted into sociology by Comte (see Chapter 6 in

Iberal l , Wilkinson, White 1993 5) , fol lowed then by Spencer and

W ard. N or did the idea of a phy sical ly bas ed social science expire

in the 20 , h Century. In fact in 1950, J . Stewart 6 put for th a mani-

festo in a physics journal , s igned by many scient is ts , cal l ing for

such social physics study.The processes that f inal ly connect a social physics for

humans with modern civi l izat ions are f i rs t that the social matr ix

or media is an 'ocean ' or col lect ive of cul ture and cul tures , and,

second, that 'ocean ' acts as a ' solvent ' or carr ier for the pol i t ical

- com m and -con t ro l - and econ om ic processes for soc ia l ac tion

including the interact ions or exchanges within or among cul tures

to permit the collective to survive.Likely, a keynote for such discipl inary s tudy was Karl




Po lany i ' s 1957 fou nd at ion for an anthrop ological ly - b ased s tudy

of poli t ical economics (as value in exchange systems) in a chap-ter in Polanyi , Arensberg, Pearson (eds .) 7. We have provided anHK primer for the study of civi l izat ions (and a great deal else) inFoundations . . 5 , a work which also contains pieces , touching onbiological , social , and geophysical systems, publ ished f rom 1984to 1993.

Some source books for both our contr ibut ions of an HK

nature in the l i terature of various other disciplines, that are alsorelevant to the study of civi l izat ions, are Moore 8 in anthropology;

Yates (ed.) 9 in interdisciplinary science for physical , biological ,

social , geophysical systems; Karnes (ed.) 1 0 in international poli t-

ical study; Modelski (ed.)" in international relat ions. In the end-

notes to this art icle, we separate out our individual pieces in the

publ icat ion CCR, or mater ia l presented at or for ISCSC meet ings

or purposes 12 1 2 a - 1 2 1 .

Civilizations and Social Physics

Members of the ISCSC, past and present , may cont inue to

wonder what a social physics has to do with the study of civi-

l izat ions. Why in fact have we writ ten so many such pieces in this

society's publicat ions? They may be surprised to learn that the

first author of this paper walked into the organizing meeting ofthe ISCSC in 1971 with the idea and expectat ion of developing

such a new science; when he recognized that a c lassmate f rom

CCNY in the 1930s, the New School of Social Research

Weberian, Ben Nelson, was coming on board as i t s f i rs t presi -

dent , there soon was ample reason for under taking such s tudy.

Thus i t may be worth some note to inspect how and when our l ist

of papers accumulated in ISCSC archives . That provides one

third of the reasons for writ ing this paper.

A second third was expressed in a recent society let ter from

Matt Melko, dated July 7, 1999. He confesses now beginning to

work on his last book, to try to answer questions he had raised in

a book thir ty years earl ier on The Nature of Civilizations.

Regarding this piece to be a proclamat ion, perhaps s imilar toStewart ' s manifes to, on social physics , Melko inquires as to what



IBERALL 7

basic questions do we answer on the nature of civilizations?

The third set of reasons for this paper relates to another meet-ing that was held in March 1999, as the centennial meeting of the

American Physical Socie ty . The avowed purpose of tha t meeting,

which brought more than 10,000 members of the socie ty togeth-

er, as a very considerab le frac t ion of the to ta l A m erican m em ber-

ship, w as to put forth an introdu ction to ph ysic s for the new -

soon-to-be - m il lennium . Thre e physic is ts ( the f i rs t three au thors

of this article) believed that the t ime had come to really introduceour subject, a social physics suitable for all human group sizes up

through civilizations, to that community properly. Thus it a lso

seem s appropria te to t ry to off er both com m unit ies , A PS and

ISCSC, a commonly founded declara t ional keynote . As we have

spelled out, it is not the first such declaration, but we believe that

i ts t ime has come. As we (now including a fourth col league,

Wilkinson) will try to show, we believe that our claim has merit .

So to complete this paper, we propose to do two tasks. One, we

will put down in a few paragraphs, an overview of the ideas that

w e hav e prese nted to physicists . W e belie ve our joi nt crede ntials

assures the validity of our physics constructs . Two, we offer an

interpretation of that physical description which is suitable for

the ISCSC community , and in doing so answer Melko 's ques t ion:

How is the description that we offer for social physics to be used

at all of the various space and time scales among which social

processes for humans, inc luding the c ivi l iza t ional process , oper-

a te to be used as governing, so-cal led command-control , sys-

tems? The next section can represent our argument to the physi-

cists.

Part B

A General Social Physics: For Tomorrow, Next Year,

The Next Century, The Millennium

This is a 20'" Century subject whose time to emerge, as a

physics subdisc ipl ine , has come [Stewart , Am J Phys, May

1950 6] . Our interdisciplinary group has been occupied with the

study, as physics for complex systems, for more than two and a




half decades (http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/psvc/hom eokinetics/).

Complexity of Humans.

People are not ping pong bal ls . They are physical -chemical

atomist ic uni ts - persons - who engage in a very broad temporal

range of intrapersonal as well as interpersonal interactions. While

the range for the t ime scale of the former may cover a l i fet ime of

memories , i t s very common operat ional scale is perhaps a char-acterist ic day of act ion for the individual . The characterist ic scale

of the lat ter interpersonal process is a few seconds of cognit ion (a

sensory percept ion or two, a spoken word or sentence, a hug) . An

essent ia l e lement in our group's def ini t ion of complexi ty is the

size of that time scaling ratio (intra to inter) needed to describe

the behavior of a system. If that ratio is large, i t makes the col-

lect ive system , thei r social system , com plex . Th e integrated p rod-

uct of energy- t ime measures action. The social col lect ive may

either be a small group who l ive or work together successfully, an

organized poli ty, a civi l izat ion, or a species. That defini t ion of

complexity, at this level of unit and organization, is not measured

in h units of act ion (h is Planck's universal constant which dom-

inates fundamental part icle interactions of 'act ion' ; in lay talk: i tsact ivi t ies) , but as a ' factory day' of act ion H 0 for people . H Q is

about 2 ,000 kcal per Ear th factory day. For other mammalian

species, our biophysics has scaled H with the 4/5ths power of unit

adul t body mass . Thus, human factory act ion scal ing, i t s meta-

bolic energy, is 2,000 kcal-days per Earth factory days. These are

the physical defini t ions.

The Fluxes, the Equations of State and of Change

The processes whose pers is tence def ines and maintains the

system , are f ive in nu m be r of type s, X j to X g. X j is the energy,

which at the organism level is the nominal metabolic f lux of 2000

kcal per day per person, and at the social level includes all other

energy requirements . X2 is the individual f lows of molecularmatter - e.g., carbohydrates, fats , proteins, and al l other required

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/psvc/homeokinetics/

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/psvc/homeokinetics/



IBERALL

materia ls . X3 is the performance of character is t ic ac t ions - e .g . ,

res t , work, procreat ion, recreat ion. X4 is the demographicprocess involving maintenance (and growth) of the popula t ion

num ber. X 5 - for m odern hu m an socie t ies - refers to the eco-

nomic processes and variables, and is given, by us, the short-hand

descript ion of a "va lue- in-e xch ang e" m easur e (To grasp our

group 's usage of the economic variable , invented by humans out

of mind, the reader is again referred to the anthropological eco-

nom ics o f K. Po lan yi7

, ra ther than the mathematica l economicsof K. Arrow; see S. Hook, Hum an Values and Economic Policy .

If these systems are hierarchically complex, e .g. , are both

consumer as we l l a s p roducer soc ie t ies wi th complex command-

control governing processes , the balance extends to those levels

a lso . Th e variables , X j to X 5, wil l be fo un d to be bo und in com -

mon by re la t ions ca l led the 'Equations of Sta te ' tha t describe

their codependence. In addit ion to the Equations of Sta te , therewil l be found 'Equations of Change ' which give the ra tes of

change of the variables in terms of the internal and external

' forces ' or 'potent ia ls ' tha t govern and drive the sys tem.

Driving potentials

Human co l l ec t ive sys tems ( inc lud ing c iv i l i z a t ions ) a re

em bed ded in an Ea r th ' s env i ronm ent tha t a f fo rds the fo l lowin gsheaf of driving potentials : a) Solar flux: b) Earth 's atmospheric

temperature potent ia l (more properly , the specif ic energy per

degree of freedom); c) Physical-chemical resources of support

pla tform Earth; d) On-board chemical genet ic potent ia l : e )

Technolog ica l ra te po ten t ia l emergent f rom phys ica l -chemica l

brain that suggests tool changes that augment and increase the

ac t ion f low s t reams (beg inn ing am ong ho m inids 2 -3 My a) ; and f )

A va lue sys tem which - whi le founda t iona l ly phys ica l -chemica l

- current ly has to be identif ied by behaviora l ca tegories - world

images of self , interpersonal relationships, of nature, of society.

of ri tual and institution, of other l iving organisms, of technology

and culture, of spiritual causality (fathers , leaders, gods), of art

forms (abstract attention attraction in sensory modes), in a weak

sense of capabili ty for abstract rational thought.




[.PNAS-USA, Sep t . 1985 1 3 ; Foundations for Social and Biological Evolution,

1 9 9 3s

; Phys. Today, Le t te rs . Feb . 1 9 9 4u

; Science, Au g. 18, 19 781 5

: Perspectivesin Biomechanics, Vol. 1, Part A , 19 80 1 6 . ]

Pa r t C .

Interpretation

Socia l physics depends on and involves f ive f low variables .

That physics is essent ia l ly obl igatory . There is a f low of energy,

2,000 kcal /day per adult in the region. How do you know that? I tis wri t ten on effec t ively every ar t ic le of food in America .

Expressed on the left hand side of the equation, the right hand

identifies all the moderate sources or causes that change that

amount of dai ly energy. For example , you may work harder , you

may absolute ly loaf , socia l ly you may be prevented from acquir-

ing that energy, there may be other s tresses put on your body

organism, or in a col lec t ive group you may f ind other ways tochange that daily expenditure (e .g. , you may steal or plunder i t

also). To study a civilization under the guidance of social physics,

one must map and scale i ts energy f lows.

Second, there is a flow of materials. You kn ow that. It is

drummed into your head. You eat carbohydrates , prote ins , fa ts or

oi ls , dr ink water , inges t some vi tamins and minera ls . There are

compendia of o ther RDA's (required dai ly a l lowances) spel led

out for you in many sources , inc luding a number of government

agencies , socie ta l groups , and the news media (e .g . , ca lc ium,

iron, and the l ike, by medical and consumer groups). Of course,

you may have cul tura l ideas on how your components are sup-

pl ied , but regardless of the form - f i le t mignon, horse meat , f ish ,

ch icken , beef , vege tab les , fruits etc. , r ich or poo r foods - they all

serve. You and yo ur lea ders ha ve to ju gg le the right s ide of the

equation to determine, once again, how the supply is arrived at or

changed. To s tudy a c ivi l iza t ion according to the program of HK

social physics, one must map and scale i ts material flows.

If you were involved as or with a s imple flow field your third

f low var iab le would be the momentum f low, desc r ibed by

Newton 's law of motion, in the form that the ra te of change of



IBERALL 11

momentum is g iven by the net force . (The usual text form of the

law, involving force, mass and acceleration, is F = ma.) But in acomplex sys tem, we have argued that the bi ts of changing

momentum are in tegra ted in to the dai ly modes of action, or activ-

ity; in lay terms, the things that the complex organismic system

does . In technical physical language, an important measure of an

action mode is , as previously alluded to, the product of the ener-

gy and time scale of the action. In total, the action is 2,000 kcal-

days per Earth factory day for an adult human. That is the ideawhich is buried in what is called the circadian rhythm.

But what constitutes or uses up that energy are, firs t , the

maintenance or survival modes. Of the 2,000 kcal, about 1300 of

them are used up in maintenance. How do we know that?

Exper iments done on pr isoners , wi th " in formed" consen t , show

that humans become moribund a t about 1700 kcal (per fac tory

day). The vic ious Nazi experiments tes ted levels of near s tarva-

tion down to 500 kcal and also absolute use-up starvation. The

latter demonstrates how many total kcal are s tored in the body.

Less vicious experiments or accidental s tarvations show the level

to be per hap s 30 days or so in t im e. Th us 30 day s x 1300 kcal (per

factory day) represents about 40,000-50.000 kcal as the approxi-

mate storage capabili ty of the total body. Another way to test

those num bers is by the rule that carbo hyd rate and prote in supply

about 5 kcal per gr. of ' food' while fat supplies about 9 kcal per

gr . Skipping water content and bone, one can imagine perhaps 25

pounds to be cannibal izeable (by 'us ' them, or them us) from a

150 pound human being. This amounts to about 500 gr . /pound x

25 pounds or 12,000 grams total food, at about 6 kcal per gr. , or

about 70,000 kcal . These two numbers , 50,000 to 70,000 kcal ,check out as s imilar magnitudes of what your organism carr ies .

To study a civilization sociophysically, one must map and scale

its action modes

Can a collective l ive with those three flow variables? Yes, but

i t cannot pers is t . Provis ion must be made for population repro-

duct ion from i ts ances tors through i ts successors . So the fourth

requirement is the reproduction rate. At s teady state , the number




of people born who live an expected l ife length (e.g. , 40 to 90

years , but more than 20-30 years) has to equal the number dyingper year (why not the factory day of an Earth day ? Bec aus e repro-

duct ion takes 9 months human gestat ion, and related t imes for

human s ized animals , so that a year is a more sui table ' factory

da y ' for pr ima te or o ther la rge m am m al repro duct ion , w hich b as i -

cally is a rare action, not done every day).

We do not operate at steady state. Nor are we permitted to

operate far above steady state for any great length of t ime. TheEarth or other avai lable environment would run out of s tores .

And we cannot operate too far below steady s ta te . The local

group or species would get lost . Thus we have had to show, per

data and theory, that the birth and death rates cycle around each

other to be near a zero equ i l ibr ium . The need fo r a margin of safe -

ty against ext inct ion in the chemical genet ic compet i t ion with

other species demands an average small posi t ive net ra te of

increase (Demetr ius 1984 1 7) . H um an s for the past 120,000-

40,000 years have performed in that fashion. A small sample of

nat ional and regional populat ion growth and the s lowness of i ts

ra te can be inspected for the past 2 ,000 years , with connect ions

to perhaps 10,000 ya, in McEvedy and Jones, 1978 1 8 . The subject

is also reviewed in a simple fashion in Foundations..5 in C hap ters

1 and 2. To s tudy a c ivi l izat ion homeokinet ical ly , one must map

and scale i ts demographic f lows. I f you manage a zoo or a farm

or a jai l or a fam ily, or a tr ibe, these are the fou r variab les that you

have to take care of within the genet ic and Earth potent ia ls . Now

for the diff icul t f i f th f low var iable in more modern human soci-

eties.

Value-in exchange; the M odern Econom ic Variable

According to our HK interpretat ion of human his tory, a

"phase" t r ans i t ion f rom hun te r -ga the re r l i f e to se t t l emen t s

occurred when the viable land areas of the Earth were about to be

ful ly occupied by hunter-gatherer groups. The need for a higher

densi ty social organizat ion led to the invent ion-adopt ion of the

technologies of farming, herding, mining. These, in turn, led to



IBERALL 13

the storage and accounting of goods, and to trade (and war) , thus

giving r ise to the new flow variable, the economic variable ofvalue- in-exchange. (Note that very much ear l ier in evolut ionary

history, similar "inventions" arose, as in gene transfer and vari-

ous forms of symbiosis .) This new value is formed out of a com-

plex integrat ion process involving al l the other values, and in turn

influences those other values. In part icular , we note that the eco-

nomic var iable inf luences technology, and technology inf luences

economics .

Consider the problem as i t exists today and also 10,000-

15,000 ya (e.g., from the earl iest Mesoli thic, precivil izat ional

startup of the Kebaran; see data abstracted from Mellaart in de

La et , et al U N E S C O and rev iew ed in no te 121, and also

FoundationsChapter 5). In a m od ern large polity, e.g., U SA ,

EU, there are perhaps 50-100 M households . They range, pol i t i -cal ly and economically (as a political-economic var iable) f ro m

the potential support level , measured not in current or disinflated

index ed year dol lars , f ran cs , m arks , rubles , but in pove r ty ' l iving -

level ' uni ts (costs for pover ty level l iving for households (HH's)

as food, clothing, shelter , and other essential services required for

l i fe support and populat ion maintenance) . This i s our form of

acceptance of the Polanyi anthropological exchange value systemnotion into social physics. At one end of the social spectrum are

those HH's that l ive at a considerable fract ion of a poverty level

unit (PLU) such as 0.7. In the middle are those who l ive at the 2-

5 PLU level , and at the extreme are a few hundreds of the 'el i te ' ;

C. Wright Mil ls among others i s known for having popular ized

that group and i ts power. Or, sealed currently, Forbes lists yearly

the top 'bi l l ionaires ' (perhaps soon to reach the ' t r i l l ionaire 'level, since they already exist at the one tenth trill ionaire level),

who operate thei r HH's wi th 100,000-10,000,000 PLU's (a t some

point representat ive of conspicuous consumption?) .

Although i ts validi ty has not been adequately tested (both

exper imental ly and theoret ical ly) , we expect , in consequence of

our fundamental theoretic, that there wil l be shown to exist ascaling relat ion between the populat ion of the larger poli t ical




ent i ties , including civi lizat ions , and the annual com pen sat ion -

their ' take' in PLU's - for the el i te at the el i te margin or the start-ing level of that group (e.g., as what we have been able to identi-

fy as the topmost group of about '500 ' HH's) . That scal ing theo-

ry is a dynamical theory of the growth, development , and evolu-

t ion of the species in the world with t ime. For humans that

growth coupling has existed for the past 11,000 years (see

Foundations..5 of urban civi l izat ions . The connected scal ing

takes place by the combinat ion of agr icul ture and other supply

potent ia ls producing surplus , and technology being able to

increasingly exploit the surplus.

Beyond individual pol i t ies , consider the 'world ' pic ture , the

UN's 180 odd pol i t ies , wi th perhaps one or two bi l l ion HH's

(congratulat ions are in order to fe l low humans; we have just

reached a populat ion of 6 bi l l ion persons) who also require theirsupra - tota l management . The chal lenge is to accomplish that

task in a fashion amicable to a l l concerned.

Among organizat ions who have t r ied to s tudy such problems,

one can note current ly that the MacArthur Foundat ion has a com-

pet i t ion fo r the fol low ing s ta ted purpos es: "To support innov at ion

and excellence in the analysis of the causes, nature, and conse-

quences of international confl ict and cooperation and in thedevelopment of improved unders tandings of social secur i ty and

sustainable development .

"It seeks to support research . . .projects that promise to i l lu-

minate the dynamics of international securi ty, sustainabil i ty, and

cooperat ion. . . ." Apparent ly, a second such compet i t ion is a lso

fo r thcoming .

We believe that our social physics can i l luminate the dynam-

ics of intern ation al relat ions. At least the technica l o rgan ization in

the community of Internat ional Relat ions , the Internat ional

Studies Associat ion, stated in 1986 that our program offers one of

the f irs t s ignif icant theoret ical ly f ou nd ed prog ram s in thei r f ie ld 1 0 .

Perhaps we may in t ime f ind interested supporters who may take

the authori ty of our assert ion more seriously than merely an aca-demic exercise .



IBERALL 15

Our col league, co-author, Dave Wilkinson, has put forth the

claim of one central civilization in the ISCSC community. We,now four authors, do accept that the social physics of humanity

has been involved loosely or intermittently in one such central

'c ivilization' problem of organization for nearly the past 15,000

years, and we point out how difficult and intractable the problem

is — given the 500 year near periodic epoch for individual c ine-

matic (and kinematic) episodes that have a lready occurred — to

outline that epic drama. It is truly a serial Perils of Pauline moviefor human children to write, direct, and act in. At least with a

socia l physics background for the next mil lennium, one can min-

imally bite off pieces to chew on; with world histories l ike those

of Barraclough, or McNeil l , or the Braudelians , or two noble

effor ts by U N ES C O , as wel l a s Foundations .. here to he lp yo u,

and there are some rudiments of a script. In recapitulation, here

are the driving potentials which are needed to drive the five

human f low variables .

1.You have to manage your piece of the problem of the

record of flow variables and driving potentials for your own

organism (for 70-90 years?) , for your family 's HH (even as their

constitution changes in a variety of abodes and phases of your

l i fe) regardless of how many PLU's you opera te with .2. Beyond that, you also have to control the larger problem:

management of the highly organized congeries of producing, d is -

tributing, and maintaining units . These are built on the existing

technological potentials and their changing rates, the so-called

economic productivity, as people are told to view the technolog-

ical scene. We refer to this in HK as the technological rate poten-

tial , wherein we use ' tools ' to augment the capabili ty of ourorganism-driven act ions . In order to permit tha t growing s truc-

ture-function of population to persis t in increasing in the civi-

lizations ' phase of humanity, i t is essential and fundamental to

understand that the drive of technology and its change is the

major process that makes such growth poss ible .

Acting on the Homo sapiens form of our hominid kind, we

expanded out over the Earth. By about 11,000 ya, growth into a




local dense form of urban se t t lements began to be supported by

technology producing agricul tura l surplus . Our human bodiescan direc t ly manage perhaps 500 kcal of vol i t ional ac t ion during

each factory day, applying direct driving stresses up to the level

of our bone s tructures . That got us our Homo ances tors ' hunter-

scavenger-gatherer l i fe s ty le . However, with sui tably augmenting

tools - techn olog y - and including lang uage and coop erat ion , w e

now manage to augment tha t f rac t ion of one horsepower each up

to perhaps an average nearer to 100 horsepower (l i terally, until i t

begins to ser iously compromise the to ta l avai labi l i ty of power

s torable in our Earth ' s to ta l environment) .

3. Beyond that is the management of the polit ical scale, per-

haps 2-6 years within the local polit ies . Then there is the bio-

physical - b iochemical - sca le of the genera t ion: reproduction,

nurture , educat ion, absorpt ion in to the productive success ion ofgenera t ions , i .e . , the nominal centennia l problem, and beyond

that the nominal mil lennium problem. We now final ly learn to

appreciate the role for a value sys tem - which re la tes to how and

what command-control is exerc ised for , and that i t has to be

shared by e l i te , pauper , and poli t ica l-economic governor near-

elites alike.

We repeat the value system - for humans - as a set of nineworld images and a tenth compartment re la t ing to ra t ional i ty to

be described below. Even though the values all deal with real

in ternal chemical potent ia ls , we humans do not t rea t them as

such. Neither do most o ther l iv ing organisms. Rather , we humans

opera te them as human managers o f the i r enormous chemica l

fac tory- laden companies whe ther they a re our communi ty , our

city, our nation, our beehive, our forest, or our particular species.They a re l ike some complex form of a Dupont , Monsan to , Union

Carbide , Imperia l Chemical , Genera l Electr ic , e tc . , each of whom

has dozens of p lants s trewn a l l throughout the Earth ' s environ-

ment . In that complex of opera t ions , we see how the production,

the dis tr ibut ion, and the long term maintenance emerges .

We may suppose that the metaphor which describes what weare talking about is contained in the statement that to run one of



IBERALL 7

those complex company sys tems, you do not have to be an expert

chemis t or sc ient is t . Rather you have to be a competent chemicalengineer who unders tands uni t engineering processes and is wil l -

ing to take guidance from a more expert chemis t on the react ion

details he or she wishes to entrain, or is will ing by experimental

trials to develop a chemical chain that provides sufficient yield.

That rea lly expresses the diff eren ce betw een the e ngine ering

guidance of a system and scientific guidance (the science and

engineering that make up our technology). Or, as another target-ing remark indicates , you do not have to know how to des ign a

car , only to drive i t and provide sui table maintenance programs.

4.We return one final t ime to the value system as a driving

potent ia l . The value sys tem for humans consis ts of ten compart-

ments or components . Nine are images:

a. Of self and outer world (for Dupont, i t is a specific pro-

duction plant, and the location and conditions whereby that par-

ticular plant is managed, etc .)

b. Of interpersonal relationships (as one last i l lustration, for

Dupont i t is the collection of unit processes that make up in the

plant, not the 'organs ' of the plant but the organisms, so that the

plant can be used as a genera l purpose manufacturing unit , not

only one product a lone. Plant des igners of such turnkey opera-t ions rea l ly do unders tand how to provide such working des ign,

and they have had such changing and growing ski l ls for mil len-

nia of experiences. You can see this in the early learning experi-

ence of various architects as they developed the art of building

the pyramids that early pharaohs of 4-5 mil lennia ago began to

desire, and they to design.)

c . Of nature (you do have to unders tand your environment)d. Of society

e. Of ritual and institution

f. Of other l iving organisms

g. Of technology, more broadly of culture

h. Of spiritual causality (fathers , leaders, gods)

i . Of art forms (abstract representations designed to attract

a t tent ion within sensory modes)




j . In a weak sense, the capabili ty of forming abstract rational

logical thought

We assume the reader unders tands that the number and orga-

nizational level that this l i tany carries depends on the species.

"Lower" species do not have these ful l ten compartments . They

m ay only ha ve a few of the bottom one s. Yet currently, m id 1999,

exper imenta l da ta i s acc ru ing tha t h igher human p lanning

processes are apparent ly to be found a t considerably lower pri-mate organizat ional s t ructure , i .e . , in rhesus monkeys" - learned

decision making by assessing the value of each possible response

(see Pia t t , Glimcher, Nature, July 15) operating out of such deci-

sion competence at the neural level within the parietal cortex

(The article 's authors s tate that "in [the free-choice they have pre-

sented their test bed and animals], both monkeys and posterior

parietal neurons behaved as if they had knowledge of the gains

associa ted with different ac t ions . These f indings support the

hypothesis that the variables that have been identified by econo-

mis ts , psychologis ts and ecologis ts as important in decis ion-mak-

ing are represented in the nervous system.").

We have to view this as strong suppo rt for our HK m odeling ,

even if we do not subscribe to the thesis that the decision-makingchoices made are to be represented by the economists ' rank

ordering util i ty function assessment. Just as we realize that our

human so-called rationality is not quite up to an abili ty to run and

design an 'automatic fac tory ' . Jus t as we do not yet know how to

design a controller that can handle all aspects of the management

of a flying system. We are not yet ready to trust even an auto-

matic pilot to manage all components of a continental fl ight. I tcan take care of a segment of smooth straight fl ight, but not take-

off and landing and weather condit ions changing suddenly . (Even

a model airplane system is too costly to be trusted by its owner to

manage i ts own f l ight . He or she manages i t f rom controls on the

ground. Else , one soon has a smashed model) .

There are other things that we can do and sti l l not do. Some

of us have been married for nearly 60 years . It s t i l l remains a dif-



IBERALL 19

f icul t learning exper ience.

The major lesson we bel ieve we have to offer for modernhuman l ife is that in order to maintain the continued growth in

populat ion, we have had to learn a new form of symbiot ic a t tach-

ment to animals and plants , and even minerals as managers and

lords of the land. Thus arises the stabil i ty transi t ion from human

valued individual and group l i fe to value- in-exchange and weal th

(when E.col i took up res idence in human guts , i t may have shor t -

ened the species l i fe, but i t certainly made their l iving so mucheasier) . In this br ief paper , we cannot develop our themes com-

pletely, only suggestively, so we move on.

Species management s t i l l remains a di f f icul t learning exper i -

ence. As a minor note very few of us are Mozar t ' s , Beethoven's

or Brecht 's in our art competence, e.g., of music.

Upon those two notes , we close.

Welcome to the enterpr ise

A. Iberal l ret ired scholar , U C L A

F. Ha ssler system s and R & D pol icy, US Dep t . Tran sport .

H. Sood ak Phys ics dept ., C CN Y

D. W ilkinson Pol i tical Scien ce dept . , U C L A

NOTES1. John Ra nda l l , The Making of the Modern Mind ( H o u g h t o n , M i f f l i n , B o s t o n ,

1940).

2 . Temperature: Its Measurem ent and Control in Science and Industry (Nat iona l

Bureau o f S t andards , D .C . , 1941) .

3 . Percy Br idgman , The Logic of Modern Physics (Harva rd Press , Cam br idg e ,

1927) .

4 . Encyc. Brit., Br id gm an , Percy (1975) .

5 . Ar thu r Ibera l l , Dav id Wi lk inson and Doug Whi t e . Foundations for Social and

Biological Evolution (Cr i -de-C oeur . La gun a W oods , C A „ 1993) .

6 . John S t ewar t , "The Deve lopmen t o f Soc i a l Phys i cs , " Amer. J. of Physics 18

( 1 9 5 0 ) p p . 2 3 9 - 2 5 3 .

7 . Kar l Polanyi in Trade and Market in the Early Empires: Economics in History

and Theory, eds . Kar l Po l any i , Con rad Aren sberg and Har ry Pea r son (Free Press ,

Glencoe, IL. . 1957) .

8 . A l e x a n d e r M o o r e Cultural Anthropology: The Field Study of Hum an Beings

(Co l l eg i a t e P ress . San Diego , 1992) .

9 . F . Eugene Yates (ed .) Self-Organizing systems: The Emergence of Order ( P l e n u m



2 0 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

Press , NY 1987).

10 . David Wi lk inson and Ar thur Ibe ra l l "F rom Sys tems Phys ic s to Wor ld Po l i t i c s :

Invi ta t ion to an Enterprise ," in Persistent Patterns and Emergent Structures in a Wa ning

Century, ed. , M . Ka rnes (Prae ger , N Y 1 986). Ex am in e the pre fa to ry ma ter ia l and the f irst

two chap te rs . The second chap te r i s by DW and AI .

11. A r t h u r I b e r al l an d D a v i d W i l k i n s o n " D y n a m i c F o u n d a t i o n s f o r C o m p l e x

S y s t e m s " i n Exploring Long Cycles, ed . , Ge orge Mod e lsk i (Lynn Rienn er Pub l . , Bou lde r ,

Colorado 1987) .

12. M ater ia l spec if ica l ly based in IS CS C archiva l sources , e .g . , CCR or invi te d pre-

sen ta t ions .

a . Ar thur Ibe ra l l "On the Thermodynamic Theory o f His to ry , " General

Systems Yearbook, 19 (19 74) p . 201 . Pre sen ted a t the ini t ia l m eet i ng of the socie ty , de vo t-

ed to honoring Toynbee; i t was lef t out of the periodica l Mainsprings. Ins tea d, i t w as final-

ly publ ished in General Systems a f t e r rev iew by the phys ic i s t Hen ry M argen au

b . Ar thur Ibe ra l l "Phy s ica l P r inc ip le s fo r Organ iz ing Civ i l i z a t ions . " Inv i ted

I S C S C p o s t - b a n q u e t s p e a k e r ' s l e c t u r e , B l o o m i n g t o n , I n d i a n a ( M a y 3 0 , 1 9 8 1 ) .

c . C o m m e n t a t o r S e s s i o n I S C S C . A s e m i n a r o n " I b e r a l l ' s p h y s i c a l m o d e l i n g o f

c iv i l i za t ions" (May 28 , 1982) .

d . Ar th ur Ibe ral l and David W i lk inson "A Phy s ica l Tu tor ia l on H ord ' s R ev iew

o f I b e r a l l - W i l k i n s o n i n M o d e l s k i ' s E x p l o r i n g L o n g C y c l e s " CCR, 24 (Spr in g 199 1)

pp .84-96 .e . Ar thur Ibe ra l l and David Wi lk inson "On Def in ing Civ i l i za t ion" CCR,

(Spring 1993).

f . (Three more pape rs come to mind bu t do no t eas i ly sp r ing in to hand . One ,

Ibe ra l l p repa re d an inv i ted pape r fo r the 1980 An nua l IS CS C con fe re nc e fo r s e s s ions on

the economic or igins of c ivi l iza t ion (and as a resul t was invi ted to present a paper a t the

organ iz in g conf e ren ce o f the Eas te rn Ec ono m ics Asso c ia t ion) , and - fu r th e r - p repa r a t ion

for one on the dea th o f c iv i l i za t ions . Second , Ibe ra l l jo ined Wi lk inson in an a t t empt to

mo de l the in i ti a l hum an ur - l angu age , o r a t l eas t a m ode l fo r a few h and fu l s o f bas ic w ords .

Anothe r th i rd pape r and t a lk was p repa red a s the ' loya l oppos i t ion ' to Kuhn ' s p resen ta -

t ion on an appropr ia te ann ive rsa ry o f a s econd ed i t ion o f h i s pa rad igm thes i s . Melko , i f

reca l l ed cor rec t ly , was the th rus t beh ind ge t t ing Kuhn to our mee t ing - ups ta te NY, rec -

o l l ec t ion says . Tha t c r i t iqu ing t a lk i s engraved as Chap te r 1 in a sm al l bo ok p ubl i shed in

our Gen .Tech .Se rv . Inc . company , on Nature. Life, Mind a nd Society, Ibera l l (19 76 ). Early

in 1999 , the Phys ic s Nobe l i s t S teven Weinberg rev iews h i s a t t ack ing c r i t ique on Kuhn ' s

p a r a d i g m n o t i o n s f r o m s o m e c o n s i d e r a b l e f a m i l i a r i ty w i t h K u h n d u r i n g c o m m o n s c h o o l

days in the pages of the NY Review. Bec ause o f the co in c iden ce of our dua l wr i t ing a gen-

e ra t ion apa r t , Ibe ra l l d id cor respond br ie f ly wi th Weinberg . Somehow phys ic i s t s t ake a

d i f fe ren t v iew of the theme than do o the rs ) .

g . Ar thu r Ibe ral l and D oug W hi te "O n a Chara c te r i s t i c 500 yea r P roces s T im e

in Cul tu re -c iv i l i za t ions " CCR. 32{ Sp r ing 1995) pp .1 46-1 62 . Th is pape r wa s in i ti a l ly p re -

pa red and p resen ted to ISCSC a t i t s 17 lh annua l mee t ing a t Hampton Unive rs i ty in May

1988. White and Ibera l l , wi th some added work got i t publ ished in 1988 in the European

g e o g r a p h y j o u r n a l , GeoJournal: fo r adde d exp osur e , wi th the m aga z ine ed i t o r ' s appro va l ,

we publ ished i t in our book Foundations... in 1993 . Tha t boo k was supp osed to be

rev iewed a t our Dubl in mee t ing , bu t t ime d id no t pe rmi t an adequa te pe r iod fo r d i scus -

s ion . Hol ton , on the ISCSC' s boa rd , thought tha t the 500 yea r p iece was so i l lumina t ing

that he offered to see tha t i t got publ ished in CCR. Thus the f ina l Spr ing 1995 ve rs ion p re -

sented i t in or under the ambiguous t i t le of a forum.



IBERALL 21

h . Rober t Ho l ton "A Response t o Ibera l l " CCR. 32 (Sp rin g 1995 ) p. 163.

Hol ton d id us the great honor and cour tesy of a br ief rev iew of our 500-year model p iece

in that same CCR journal i ssue. The s tunning poin t he made to us , in cr i t iquing our

physics , was that we d id not seem to pay any at ten t ion wi th in that l imi t less physics to the

communica t i ons aspec t s i n t he soc i a l sys t em. We responded wi th de l i gh t . F i r s t we

appended a l i s t o f ou r con t r i bu t ions t o communica t i ons sc i ence wh ich , among o ther

sou rces , we had been l ed by War ren McCul loch and ou r Army research . Then we po in t ed

out that we had been asked to prepare a ta lk on language, but i t had inadver tent ly been

swept of f the program a year ear l ier . So we reworked that paper and i t appears next , wi th

a br ief in t roduct ion to the scene.

i . Ar thu r Ibera ll "A Fr i end ly C oun terc om me nt t o Ho l ton " CCR, 35 (Winter

1997) pp .63-66. That scene i s set by l i s t ing some of the HK bib l iography in language and

communica t i on , as par t o f a phys i cs o f complex sys t ems .

j . Ar th u r Ibera l l and Dav id W i lk inson "On Un der s t a nd in g Lan gua ge " CCR , 35

(Win te r 1997) pp .67 -86 . In t h i s p i ece what had been p romised fo r p repara t i on a year ea r -

l i e r now a ppeared [As a smal l bu r i ed foo tno t e , s i nce t he ques t i on had been asked ob l ique-

ly a t one t ime by Melko , how come th i s b ib l i og raphy i s no t more ex t ens ive ly f es tooned

wi th t he wr i t i ngs o f Wi lk inson in and fo r ISCSC? The answer i s s imp le . Wi lk inson ' s wr i t -

i ngs , w i th a f ew o ther peop le , have bas i ca l l y domina t ed ISCSC ana ly t i c d i scuss ions . I t

would be fool i sh and brash to claim i t a l l for ISCSC. Thus we in HK cut h im his more

modest share. In a s imi lar vein , the authors Iberal l . as wel l as Hassler and Soodak, do notd isp lay thei r o ther scient i f ic- technical wr i t ings . Since Iberal l does claim, par t icu lar ly ,

in terd iscip l inary cont r ibut ion , i f he selected f rom his CV other per t inent wr i t ing but not

conf ined immed ia t e ly t o ISCSC arch ives , he wou ld add ano ther hundred o r so add i t i ona l

r e fe rences . Tha t i s comple t e ly unseemly . ]

k . Ar th u r Ibera l l - Bo ok Rev iew "C ar ro l l Qu ig l ey on t he M at r ix o f

C iv i l i za t i ons : A Dia l ec t i c" CCR . 39 (Spr ing 1998) pp .10 6-134 . Why a o r t h i s " r e v i ew "?

Bec ause , r egard ing Q u ig l ey as one o f t he mos t im por t an t con t r i bu to r s t o c iv i l i za t i ona l t he-

o ry , Melko wan ted t o have a b road spec t rum o f r ev i ewers o f Qu ig l ey ' s main book con t r i -

bu t ion . Ibera l l was a su i t ab l e coun te rpo in t . Thus he was i nv i t ed . The j ob had t o be donerespons ib ly and r espons ive ly , and r egard l ess o f how the r eader j ud ge s t he r ev i ew i t wa s

done wi th considerable care . A second reason, connected wi th the f i r s t , was that Iberal l

had r ev i ewed an impor t an t book , Cav a l l i -S fo rza , fo r t he June ISC SC m eet ing a t Pom ona .

The t o t a l sub j ec t t ha t Cava l l i -S fo rza t r ea t s wi th h i s co l l eagues was The History and

Geography of Human Genes. I t wa s a case tha t Ibera l l ' s i n t e rd i sc ip l i nary back groun d

inc lud ing phys io logy and b iophys i cs was t hough t t o be usefu l i n r ev i ewing the book . Th i s

may have a l so i n f luenced the nex t f l u r ry o f r ev i ews .

1. Ar thur Iberal l . Th ree b ook re vie ws in CCR , 40 (Spr ing 1999 ) pp .90 -10 5.

Read as a connected s t r ing , they te l l a most complete and powerfu l s tory about a theoryand un fo ld in g a t heo ry fo r c iv i l i za t i ons . W hat t h i s au tho r l ea rns f rom h i s own rev i ew wr i t -

ings i s that he s tar ted as a complete novice in the 1960s when he happened by accident to

buy a copy o f Mel l aar t ' s Earliest Civilizations of the New E ast, whi le on vacat ion , in a

smal l bu t go rgeous book s to re i n Bermuda wh ich car r i ed Hudson and Thames books . And ,

30 odd year s l a te r , he no t es t ha t hav ing j o ine d ISC SC , foun d an th ropo lo g i s t s and o ther

social scient i s t s to befr iend, e .g . , Wi lk inson, and spent a great deal of US Army research

money , he comes ou t wi th an ou t look and perhaps comparab l e knowledge t o Mel l aar t ' s

a l so 30 years la ter . That i s what these reviews of Spr ing 1999 tel l th i s au thor . And so now

this p iece. Jo in us , we say once again in our enterpr i se .

13. Ar thu r Ibera l l "Ou t l i n ing Soc i a l Phys i c s fo r M ode rn S oc i e t i es : Loc a t ing



2 2 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW

C u l t u r e s , E c o n o m i c s a n d P o l i t i c s : T h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t R e c o n s i d e r e d , " PNAS-USA, 82

(1985) pp .5582-5584 .14 . Le t t e r and Response . Ar thu r Ibera l l : P .W.Ander son . Physics Today Feb. 1994.

15 . Har ry Soodak and Ar thu r Ibera l l "Homeok ine t i cs : A Phys i ca l Sc i ence fo r

C o m p l e x S y s t e m s , " Science, 201 (1978) pp .57 9-582 .

16. Ar th u r Ibera l l , Har ry Soo dak , and Conra d Arens berg "H om eok ine t i c Phys i cs o f

Soc i e t i es - A Ne w Di sc ip l i ne : Au tono m ous G roups , Cu l tu res , Po l i t i es , " in Perspectives in

Biomechanics, Vol .1 , Par t A, eds . , H. Rue l e t a l (H arw oo d A ca de m ic, NY 1980) .

17 . L .Demet r iu s "Se l f -o rgan i za t i on o f Macromolecu l a r Sys t ems : The No t ion o f

A d a p t i v e V a l u e " PNAS-USA, 81 (1984) pp .6 068 -607 2 .

18. C . M cE ved y and R . Jones , Atlas of World Population History (Pengu in Bo oks ,

NY, 1978).

19 . M . Piat t and P. G l im ch er "N eura l Corre late s of De cis io n Var iables in Par ietal

C o r t e x , " Nature, 400 (1999) pp .23 3-238 .

art-iberall-from physics to world history to the study of civilizations

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