Commentary on “Biophysical Economics” and Evolving Areas 1

July 20, 2016 15:11 WSPC/S1793-0480 204-BRL 1601001

Biophysical Reviews and Letters Vol. 11, No. 2 (2016) 55–61 c World Scientiﬁc Publishing Company DOI: 10.1142/S1793048016010013

Commentary on “Biophysical Economics” and Evolving Areas

Ophir Flomenbom∗ †Flomenbom-BPS Ltd, 19 Louis Marshal Tel Aviv, 62668, Israel ophir1974@ﬂomenbom.net

GulUnalCoban Dokuz Eylul University, Buca/Izmir, Turkey [email protected]

Yekbun Adig¨uzel Istanbul Kemerburgaz University, Istanbul, Turkey [email protected]

Accepted 31 May 2016 Published 20 July 2016

In this Issue, papers in the area of socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics are presented. We have recently introduced socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics in Biophysical Reviews and Letters (BRL), yet saw 3 to 4 relevant papers just in these most recent three quarters. In this commentary, we therefore would like to elaborate on the topics of socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics and to introduce these concepts to the readers of BRL and the biophysical community of science, with the purpose of supporting many more publications here in BRL, in this evolving area.

Keywords: Socio physics; econo-physics; socio-econo-physics; biophysical economics; economic biophysics; physics of society.

1. Introduction Perhaps, the earliest scientific involvement of biology in economics as a discipline is in explaining the possible economic progress in societies with the energy production from agriculture.1 Dealing with energy, its forms, its transformations, its storage and transportation, and eventually its generation rate has contributed the most in the early progress in the field of biophysical economics, yet is also relevant in the field of socio-econo-physics.2,3 The possibility of explaining the society with methods from mathematical biology and biophysics is indeed of the most intriguing features that can complement the current approaches of economics and social modeling.

∗Chief Editor in Second Quarter Issue, 2016. †Flomenbom-BPS Ltd is a private scientiﬁc company.

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The introduction of mathematical modeling in biology is the required first step in explaining the society with methods from mathematical biology and biophysics, the area that today utilizes various variants of terms, each emphasizing a particular side of the area, e.g. socio physics, econo-physics, socio-econo-physics, physics of society, mathematical-economic-biophysics, and biophysical economics, to name most. The Lotka–Volterra model in ecology4–7 is the earliest most relevant example from mathematical biology that appeared then in economic biophysics.8,9 The Lotka–Volterra model is about the dynamics of interacting prey and predator populations’ sizes. The model has various possible steady state results (fluctuations or extinction) depending on the model’s coefficients. Modeling more complex types of circles and interactions would reveal wider ranges of possibilities in the model.10,11 Variations of the Lotka–Volterra model appear in socio-econo-physics and economic biophysics, e.g. the society deciders model8 utilizing the Lotka–Volterra model with generalizations to explain the structure, interactions and situation of our societies, where the “99%” circle and the top “1%” circle are the two type of entities in the model, a situation that is dealt with in the literature,12,13 lacking proper modeling though. In the “society deciders” model, the society is defined as not fair if “99%” conditions are extreme and “top 1%” conditions are stable, simultaneously. To emphasize just few other examples from many, e.g. Refs. 14–44,modelsin socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics can deal with the flow of opinions in the society,14–16 the citizens’ work place flow,17,18 the flow of information and people’s perception and activities (that can be monitored through mobile phones, social media accounts or socio-metric identity cards) and people’s behavior in a society (that’s of value in order to arrange e.g. city traffic mobility, to map epi- demic disease, ideas’ internalizing flow and type, etc.),21 opinions’ and elections’ prediction based on general sociological patterns,37–39 and the flow of income and wealth in the society.19–32 In addition to these mathematical models, complement- ing the discussion are the models and theories from sociology, about fairness in societies,12,13 explanation of societies’ structures,33–35 etc. These examples are just a few selected themes among many possible sides of the society and economy that can be dealt with socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics. The impact of these areas in the scientific community is mentioned below in a very broad sense before going into the analysis of particular works that are published in this Issue of BRL, yet also in, and during, the recent year.

2. The Impact of Biophysical Economics in the Scientiﬁc Community What’s the impact of socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics approaches in explaining nations? They would probably explain the dynamics behind the economic systems better than economics on its own only if they would not fall into the illusion that the economic and sociological actions of people are always distinctly and distinctively aimed and mathematically rational. This claim is deﬁnitely not July 20, 2016 15:11 WSPC/S1793-0480 204-BRL 1601001

Commentary on “Biophysical Economics” and Evolving Areas 57

mystifying the research of socio-economic-dynamics in populations, it is rather pointing at the requirements on the current measures and tools to evaluate societies. Yet and therefore, it is better to focus on the needed capabilities rather than the limitations from this point on since the very obvious weak “classical” economic perception is exposed when unexpected global crises happen. The 2007–2009 economic crisis showed that current economic models are missing.8,9,12,13,33,34 The straightforward explanation is that the models were based on wrong and biased assumptions.33 This is the formal way to tell why the traditional economic models do not work in these “unexpected” economic crises. Yet, socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics might have the chance to propose complementary models, simply due to the fact that they have a more general starting point and therefore offer much more flexible perspectives on economic systems and societies. Energy and matter and generalizations (e.g. information) flow all around and we claim that also drive nations. Utilizing this to model our populations, economies, etc., might work better than the “closed box system” approach that will fail sooner or later. Therefore, beyond theorizing, modeling and explaining the flexibility and diversity in nations with socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics may perhaps work better to solve the economic problems and civil unrest (that arising from economic and social biases) of these days and help us to define a fairer and more stable society. That’s yet also the better area to work with sociological surveys,3,45 on implementing sociological models and theories, and other sociological issues. We require flexibility to pose realistic solutions and have to create the systems that could realize that. Yet, the idea and intellectual basis first need to be created with contributions like those in this issue.

3. About Socio-Econo-Physics and Biophysical Economics in BRL Here in this Issue, we publish a review in “classical” biophysical economics46 and a paper about the Lotka–Volterra Variant in mathematical ecology.7 “The society deciders’ model and fairness in nations” was published in a recent Issue,8 utilizing the Lotka–Volterra model, hence the connection with Ref. 7. The Lotka–Volterra variant in Ref. 7, presents prey predator interacting populations, with two preys and a predator, showing various interesting mathematical results emphasizing the diversity in that “society”. The review from Adig¨uzel46 is focusing both on the historical and the contem- porary perspectives of biophysical economics. It is central to this commentary and we therefore elaborate on the review here. The review presents various recent examples showing the current state of understanding and tendencies in biophysical economics.47–50,51–58 Nevertheless, there is also much to say about the historical approach; it is much like the historical evolution of all conceptual areas in general, therefore being nourished from many views of the pioneers and early thoughts in the ﬁeld, here, connecting the energy gener- ated from agriculture with the economic stability and progress of the society in the July 20, 2016 15:11 WSPC/S1793-0480 204-BRL 1601001

58 O. Flomenbom, G. U. Coban & Y. Adig¨uzel

nation. The socio-econo-physics approaches were obviously not eminent in those initial forms. Such as any concepts’ being partly shaped with the culture and the advances in the science and technology, biophysical economics was affected by those factors during its developmental period and it actually emerged as a result of such influences in the prevailing understanding of the World around us. So, agriculture was the main form of production in the beginning and then the means of production changed and advanced with the industrial revolution, in parallel with the other forms of human acts, involving the foundation of the big cities56 that necessitated and still do necessitate many other forms of various services like communications, transportation, distribution of the foods and waste elimination, etc. The ecologi- cal concerns came later along with the realization that high quality energy costs more, resources are scarcea and maintaining stocks of material and resources at highly populated regions is generally more expensive than maintaining the same amounts at much smaller quantities in many places in the periphery, due to the needs of extra expenses with the increasing sizes. For instance, sanitation comes to be a major concern when water and foods need to be stored in large quantities for long term periods.58 Means of sanitation are more general and include, e.g. waste treatment and these come to be a source of extra cost and pollution and are not linear in size. It is worth to mention such issues here since they were not put forth directly in the review, yet will definitely form a valuable collection of issues to deal with in the future works in socio-econo-physics. In the review in this BRL’s Issue, the initial chronological presentation of the subject is linked to the recent views and perspectives and applications just at the second part of the review. Among those examples, the society-deciders model and fairness in nations is presented in the example of advanced form of the research in the field, and the diverseness of the scope of research in socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics. The other examples in the review touch the classic concepts of the biophysical economics perspective, remodeling the growth theory with biophysical economics, presenting other comparative studies and recent perspectives with implementations in the field. These examples cannot be evaluated separately from our current understandings in economics and society. They represent the cognitive changes in societies as an understanding of the economy, nature, environment, science, consumption, and production. These examples also show where all these meet to influence the welfare of the societies and the World in return. Individuals make the society and they are involved in the economy, where these involvements differ a lot for the economy within which they take part in. So, the economy transforms as the humans transform. Socio-econo-physics and biophysical economics can help to understand better the economy, going beyond the approach that “society is a collective system that is depending on the resources in nature”, here yet also we talk about the citizens’ perception, flow of information, citizens’ acts and aims to

aQuality resources and generalizations (health and education, social inﬂuence, relative wealth and real estate, etc.) are scarce also with unlimited energy and food. July 20, 2016 15:11 WSPC/S1793-0480 204-BRL 1601001

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do “better than the others” (the competitive drive), and therefore the acts of individuals, and the environment in response, and the power structure in the society and the citizens’ activities to shift power, will determine the situation of the people and the stability of the society. The questions to deal with are diverse. We can tackle problems involving socio economic crises and ask to solve questions like “where and when do the crises emerge?”, “how to detect, treat and solve these?”, and more generally, “how can our lives be transformed into sustainable economic systems or is it possible to implement such systems to our current models realistically”. Yet, we could pose a distinctive question, which would seem extraordinary within the scope of our current understanding, and that involving fairness in nations. These and other issues not mentionedheremakesocio-econo-physics and biophysical economics worthy areas of research, where we think that would be reﬂected more in the publications and discourses in BRL, and other places also.

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