Systems

[Jim Choate]

On Sat, 9 Dec 2000, Tim May wrote:

> Or physicists could speak of spin glasses. And they could natter on 
> about correlation lengths, long-range order, phase transitions, etc.
> 
> (People would find it quite confusing if every time I referred to 
> "fractionally-settled spin glasses" as a metaphor for free markets. 
> Thank your lucky stars. Though I do occasionally draw on phase 
> transitions as a metaphor.)

Actually they're not directly comparable. An individual elements final
state in a spin glass is dependent upon the state of all its neighbors. It
is further predicated that some of the potential states aren't allowed,
thus applying 'stress' to the spin glass array. The goal is to find a
minimum energy system, that may not be maximal but is 'good enough'. It's
quite similar to 'annealling' algorithms in result.

A free market exchange on the other hand predicates that *only* the two
participants are involved and that each exchange is not predecated upon
the state of previous or contemporanious exchanges. The same can't be said
for spin glasses.

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