Many social orders, including markets and science, can be understood as instances of adaptive systems, i.e., networks of active components whose interactions implement a persistent but mutable structure which is adaptable to its environment. This general model of social structure, being neither...

The approach of some systems biologists, Robert Rosen in particular, to the understanding of biological systems calls for a focus on the organization of the processes internal to such systems, rather than on equilibrium states characterized in material terms and their state transitions viewed as...

Insights from the cognitive sciences into the structure and functioning of the brain as an adaptive system can be deployed in the understanding of complex systems in general – and of the specific social complexes of market and science in particular. Science and market, as institutional...

Legislatures in modern democratic nation states are social arrangements in which individuals selected as representatives interact with each other and with professional lobbyists according to quite specific transactional modes, producing continually updated bodies of legislation. It is widely...

Firms, in most cases, cannot be described adequately as if they were an individual person. And yet, they learn, anticipate, decide, and adapt in order to survive in an uncertain environment. To deal with such aspects of a firm, the theory of the anticipatory system is developed and applied to...

In the aftermath of the financial crisis the Fed pursued a “near zero” overnight interest floor and initiatives to manipulate the size and composition of central bank assets. Bernanke referred to this policy as “credit easing.” I overview the succession of unconventional Fed measures...

We show that the orderliness of market processes and outcomes, and hence the realization and coordination of individuals' plans, are dependent on the social environment in which individuals function. In specific, when atomicity and stable (social) rules are compromised in the case of Big...