StrangeLoop, I understand your argument but I think “exists=efficient” reduces “efficient” into redundancy. One doesn’t need to torture “efficient” like this in order to make their point. My OP and replies from this (almost 1yr old – wow has it been this long?) thread (How to make the pin stand?) strike a note similar to your argument. Excerpt:
Theoretically, balancing a pin vertically on the surface of a dinner table is fairly easy and logical: One only needs to place the pin EXACTLY parallel to the forces of gravity so that they pull the pin STRAIGHT down and without ANY sideways components. On paper it looks perfect, but I have yet to see a pin standing for longer than one second before falling flat on the table. This is the “sensitivity to initial conditions” that I refered to above. It characterizes every complex system of acting/moving agents. The more productive and vibrant the system, the closer it is to the chaotic edge of sustainability. The ONLY thing that would make this “standing needle” system sustainable is limiting the system’s degrees of freedom in some way. For example, placing the pin in a pot of honey. At the minimum, in this “freedom-limited” system the pin would stand longer before it falls. I see anarchy as a needle trying to “stand” on the table unsupported – sensitivity to initial conditions inevitably pulling it down on the table. Minarchy: needle standing in a pot of honey. Communism/fascism/dictatorship: needle in a block of ice/concrete.
The question being: Acknowledging the benefits of BOTH liberty AND sustainability/prosperity, what’s the minimum freedom/liberty – at this stage of human evolutionary development – that each agent MUST give up for sustainability and prosperity of the social structures in which he/she participates? How much MINIMAL “goo” (limitation of liberty) does the pin need to stay straight?
Z.