Chaotics

The new discipline of chaotics will alter our thinking about the real forces of change in our society. As presented here, chaotics emphasizes that the real world cannot be understood in terms of conventional deterministic philosophies or standard chaos theory, but that complexity in itself has a powerful but subtle role to play. How does this apply to business and society? To what degree are our lives governed by misguided notions—or do our businesses succeed by chance—because real societal and business forces and their effects are not really understood? Beginning with the foundations of the discipline, this book applies chaotics to business and wealth creation and to society. On the social side, it examines a sea-change in the philosophy of everyday living, be it the concept of employment or our relationship to the environment. The book examines personal identity and its loss in modern society, as well as the search for new contacts and gratification through technology. The authors look at the stunted growth of philosophy against science but emphasize what philosophy has to tell us in a chaotic world. A major new text which will be of interest to professionals and scholars in business, government, and society.

Beginning with the foundations of this new discipline, this book applies chaotics to business and wealth creation and to society, examining how real world forces might be better understood when viewed through the lens of chaotics.

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An economist, a mathematician, and a management consultant, all working in telecommunications, warn that chaos is both a great danger and a powerful tool for the US over the coming decades. They reconceive economics in the new framework, and warn, for example, that the biggest obstacle to continued prosperity is not competition from Japan or any other external rival, but the cultural and economic marginalization of millions of Americans. They take robust computer systems as a case study. The glossary does not indicate pronunciation, but provides extensive explanations of terms and concepts. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

GEORGES ANDERLA, an economist by training, was head of the EC Information Technology Directorate, where he set up Euronet, an early European academic forerunner of the Internet.

ANTHONY DUNNING is Information Resources Manager in the office of the Directorate-General for Telecommunications, Information Market and Innovation of the European Commission.

SIMON FORGE is a director of the Cambridge Strategic Management Group, a telecommunications and information technology consultancy, and is on the board of Futures.