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"More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates
our wealth, our economy, our very way of being," says W. Brian
Arthur. Yet despite technology's irrefutable importance in our
daily lives, until now its major questions have gone unanswered.
Where do new technologies come from? What constitutes innovation,
and how is it achieved? Does technology, like biological life,
evolve? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker
and economist W. Brian Arthur answers these questions and more,
setting forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology.
"The Nature of Technology "is an elegant and powerful theory of
technology's origins and evolution. Achieving for the development
of technology what Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions "did for scientific progress, Arthur explains how
transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really
works. Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions
to the high-tech wonders of today, Arthur takes us on a
mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about
technology and how it structures our lives. "The Nature of
Technology "is a classic for our times.
A new view of the economy as an evolving, complex system has been
pioneered at the Santa Fe Institute over the last ten years, This
volume is a collection of articles that shape and define this
view?a view of the economy as emerging from the interactions of
individual agents whose behavior constantly evolves, whose
strategies and actions are always adapting.The traditional
framework in economics portrays activity within an equilibrium
steady state. The interacting agents in the economy are typically
homogenous, solve well-defined problems using perfect rationality,
and act within given legal and social structures. The complexity
approach, by contrast, sees economic activity as continually
changing?continually in process. The interacting agents are
typically heterogeneous, they must cognitively interpret the
problems they face, and together they create the
structures?markets, legal and social institutions, price patters,
expectations?to which they individually react. Such structures may
never settle down. Agents may forever adapt and explore and evolve
their behaviors within structures that continually emerge and
change and disappear?structures these behaviors co-create. This
complexity approach does not replace the equilibrium one?it
complements it.The papers here collected originated at a recent
conference at the Santa Fe Institute, which was called to follow up
the well-known 1987 SFI conference organized by Philip Anderson,
Kenneth Arrow, and David Pines. They survey the new study of
complexity and the economy. They apply this approach to real
economic problems and they show the extent to which the initial
vision of the 1987 conference has come to fruition.
A new view of the economy as an evolving, complex system has been
pioneered at the Santa Fe Institute over the last ten years, This
volume is a collection of articles that shape and define this
view--a view of the economy as emerging from the interactions of
individual agents whose behavior constantly evolves, whose
strategies and actions are always adapting.The traditional
framework in economics portrays activity within an "equilibrium
"steady state. The interacting agents in the economy are typically
homogenous, solve well-defined problems using perfect rationality,
and act within given legal and social structures. The complexity
approach, by contrast, sees economic activity as continually
changing--continually "in process." The interacting agents are
typically heterogeneous, they must cognitively interpret the
problems they face, and together they create the
structures--markets, legal and social institutions, price patters,
expectations--to which they individually react. Such structures may
never settle down. Agents may forever adapt and explore and evolve
their behaviors within structures that continually emerge and
change and disappear--structures these behaviors co-create. This
complexity approach does not replace the equilibrium one--it
complements it.The papers here collected originated at a recent
conference at the Santa Fe Institute, which was called to follow up
the well-known 1987 SFI conference organized by Philip Anderson,
Kenneth Arrow, and David Pines. They survey the new study of
complexity and the economy. They apply this approach to real
economic problems and they show the extent to which the initial
vision of the 1987 conference has come to fruition.
In The Nature of Technology, ground-breaking economist W. Brian
Arthur explores the extraordinary way in which the technology that
surrounds us and allows us to live our modern lives has actually
been developed. Rather than coming from a series of one-off
inventions, almost all the technology we use today comes from
previous developments: these technologies are not being created,
but are instead evolving. With fascinating examples, from laser
printers to powerplants, Arthur reveals how our own problem-solving
skills and creative vision can evolve alongside these technologies,
and how this understanding can even improve our understanding of
the wider world.
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