<table><tr><th>From:</th><th>jeffrey E. &lt;jeevacation@gmail.com&gt;</th></tr><tr><td>Sent:
To:</td><td>Sunday, June 7, 2015 1:02 PM
Joi Ito</td></tr><tr><td>Subject:</td><td>Re:</td></tr></table>

mean but funny..) ; if you have read kant =AO his principles are equivalent to arrows in cat theory. =AO he did not have the formal apparatus to analyze. . =AO amusing. economics is a description of the cate=ory of exchanges. . it is not limited to money or information , =AO it is a process , not a noun

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Joi Ito •z l<mailto > wrote:

Not your=old age question?

: - )

It's like Jeopardy except that Watson won't have the answer=

One of my faculty, Cesar Hidalgo, recently wrote a book called "Why In=ormation Grows". http://www=amazon.com/Why-Information-Grows-Evolution-Economies/dp/0465048994 <http://www.amazon.com/Why-Inform=ation-Grows-Evolution-Economies/dp/0465048994>

I haven't read it yet, but I've had some conversations with=him. He's trying to approach it from a physics perspective and agu=s that life is "information" and "order". Not=sure this is right.

"What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in on=y a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on=institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MIT Hs antidisciplinarian Cesar Hidalgo, understanding the nature of econ=mic growth demands transcending the social sciences and including the natu=al sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the gr=wth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth o= order.

At first glance, the universe seems hostile to order. Thermodynamics dictat=s that over time, order--or information--will disappear. Whispers vanish i= the wind just like the beauty of swirling cigarette smoke collapses into =isorderly clouds. But thermodynamics also has loopholes that promote the g=owth of information in pockets. Our cities are pockets where information g=ows, but they are not all the same. For every Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and P=ris, there are dozens of places with economies that accomplish little more=than pulling rocks off the ground. So, why does the US economy outstrip Br=zil's, and Brazil's that of Chad? Why did the technology corridor =long Boston's Route 128 languish while Silicon Valley blossomed? In ea=h case, the key is how people, firms, and the networks they form make use =f information.

Seen from Hidalgo's vantage, economies become distributed computers, ma=e of networks of people, and the problem of economic development becomes t=e problem of making these computers more powerful. By uncovering the mecha=isms that enable the growth of information in nature and society,Why Infor=ation Grows lays bear the origins of physical order and economic growth. S=tuated at the nexus of information theory, physics, sociology, and economi=s, this book propounds a new theory of how economies can do, not just more= but more interesting things."

> On Jun 7, 2015, at 6:51 AM, jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com <mailto:jeevacati=n@gmail.com> > wrote:

>

> my age old question . if LIFE is the an=wer , what is the question, .......... what set of problem= are living systems solving for?

>-

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