Foundations of Policy

The universe is an all encompassing, dynamic physical system. It is comprised of matter and energy, all of which interacts through four basic forces. Within this physical system, life exists. The piece of this universe within which any particular variant of life can be found, we’ve called an ecosystem. Thus, within any ecosystem, as we have thus far discussed them, the four basic forces apply. This is why we have referred to ecosystems as physical ecosystems. We do this in order to be able to unambiguously introduce an analogue extension to such ecosystems that we have termed a social ecosystem in which, in addition to basic physical interactions, extended rules exist that allow for the initiation and control of more varied interactions.

We will find, when we examine them in more detail, that the rules of the social ecosystem can change among the various systems; it is not a given that the same rules apply everywhere as they do for physical ecosystems. Whether we are discussing the basic laws governing the forces in a physical ecosystem or the rules that govern a social ecosystem, these laws or rules form the central elements of policy within the respective ecosystem. While we tend to think of policy as being a mutable set of rules, in fact the pairing of variable social rules with the immutable laws of nature show us the full range of characteristics that we want to model in the form of a policy infrastructure.

Any two or more physical entities can interact by way of the four basic forces: the strong nuclear force, the weak force, electro-magnetic force and gravity. The range of these forces is infinite, but their magnitude as a function of distance varies such that each tends to dominate interactions within vastly different domains of separation of the interacting entities. The strong force dominates at separation distances on the order of the size of an atomic nucleus while the weak force dominates at much smaller than nuclear distances. Electro-magnetic forces dominate over distances that are familiar to humans in their everyday lives. Gravity dominates over the range of distances from everyday life to inter-galactic interactions. At every level, there are characteristics of the various forces that lend variability to the result of interactions; specifically, quantum mechanical effects in the basic forces and variability in the initial conditions of interactions. That is, because of our lack of precision on the initial states of the interacting entities and because quantum mechanical effects are modeled with a statistical distribution of outcomes, it is impossible for us to predict exactly the result of any specific interaction. Hence, the old homily that says “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome each time is the definition of insanity.” might be taken with a grain of salt. Not only can repetition of interactions lead to different results, quantum mechanics grounds this uncertainty into the very fabric of nature. On the macroscopic scale of human interactions, repeatability of observable results is considerable, but billiards is still a game requiring great skill and they continue to play best four out of seven games to determine the winner of the World Series in baseball each year. As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, what the same thing is (that we do over and over again) requires case-by-case definition with extreme precision of the initial conditions, with acknowledgement that even then we can’t know the outcome for sure.

Interactions within a physical ecosystem involve only basic physical laws and the characteristics and capabilities of resident species to exploit the mechanisms of physical systems. For example, the most elementary interaction between two entities within a physical ecosystem is bringing them into physical contact. Among the basic forces, the force of gravity is infinite in extent, meaning that an attractive force is constantly at work to bring various entities into physical contact. The initial conditions of motion of the entities determine whether they ever actually touch. Going a bit further afield, we might consider the situation of living entities brought into close physical

Book available at Midori Press (regular)
Book available at Midori Press (signed)
Book available at Amazon (regular)