I begin building the
Theory of Society with the development of relation dynamics. I start by
using the object oriented concepts from Computer Science and Systems
Theory. In order to design highly complex systems it has been
recognized that a certain perspective generally referred to as the
object oriented approach is highly desirable. It makes a difference on
how one divides a complex design project into a set of subtasks or
components. There are two approaches to this subdivision; 1) is to
divide into groups of objects that are similar in functional
description, and 2) divide into objects where the interaction between
the objects has been either minimized or standardized or both. I will
use both. I will begin this chapter with an entity abstraction model
that I will define the types of components that make up an organization
or society. My overall purpose in this chapter is to develop an
analytic (or mathematical) description of how the relationship between
these components.
Following the entity
abstraction model description I will discuss Satashi Watanabe’s
InterDependence Analysis (IDA) base on information theory. This will
lead to the critical concept and definition of a relation distance
between entities. The remainder of the chapter will be devoted to the
dynamics of how relation distance changes over time.
I will develop a
relation dynamics that mathematically parallels the dynamics of
physics. Although, the mathematics is similar there is a significant
difference in interpretation because the configuration space developed
from the concept of relation distance is very different from the
physical space with which physical dynamics deals.
Although, there may be
some interesting points about relation dynamics, its real value is as a
step toward relation thermodynamics. One might think of relation
dynamics as the billiard table portion of organization dynamics. One
might think of the addition of relation thermodynamics of allowing us to
define certain statistical parameters to a very large billiard’s table.
Within relation thermodynamics we will discover that such concepts as
relation temperature, entropy, work, and power have explicit
mathematical definitions that correspond to useful conceptual
understanding about the behavior of organizations. To this I will add
meme dynamics and then human decision making and finally mimeme dynamics
in order to complete the Theory of Society. That’s six building
blocks. Let’s get started.
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(C) 2005-2014 Wayne M. Angel.
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