Modeling of Biological and Social Phases of Big History

Leonid Grinin (1, 2) , Alexander V Markov , Andrey Korotayev (2)

1 RAS - Russian Academy of Sciences [Moscow]
2 HSE - Vysšaja škola èkonomiki = National Research University Higher School of Economics [Moscow]

In the first part of this article we survey general similarities and differences between biological and social macroevolution. In the second (and main) part, we consider a concrete mathematical model capable of describing important features of both biological and social macroevolution. In mathematical models of historical macrodynamics, a hyperbolic pattern of world population growth arises from non-linear, second-order positive feedback between demographic growth and technological development. Based on diverse paleontological data and an analogy with macrosociological models, we suggest that the hyperbolic character of biodiversity growth can be similarly accounted for by non-linear, second-order positive feedback between diversity growth and the complexity of community structure. We discuss how such positive feedback mechanisms can be modelled mathematically

Keywords: Social evolution; Biological evolution; Mathematical model; Population growth; hyperbolic growth

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; History, Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences; Humanities and Social Sciences; History; Humanities and Social Sciences; Philosophy

Leonid Grinin, Alexander V Markov, Andrey Korotayev. Modeling of Biological and Social Phases of Big History. Leonid Grinin. Evolution: From Big Bang to Nanorobots , 6, Leonid Grinin, pp.111-150, 2015, BIOSOCIAL EVOLUTION, ECOLOGICAL ASPECTS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS, 978-570-574-52-03. ⟨hprints-01831551⟩