...the perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so t… - Kenneth E. Boulding

Knowledge is not something which exists and grows in the abstract. It is a function of human organisms and of social organization. Knowledge, that is to say, is always what somebody knows: the most perfect transcript of knowledge in writing is not knowledge if nobody knows it. Knowledge however grows by the receipt of meaningful information - that is, by the intake of messages by a knower which are capable of reorganising his knowledge.

If there is one idea that has dominated the history of the United States, it is the idea of progress. Yet analyses of this idea are surprisingly rare. Furthermore, in spite of having been founded by a rather small revolution, the dominant dynamic of the United States has been evolutionary, through social mutation (invention), production, and selection. In this paper, therefore, I propose to look at the larger question of the nature of evolutionary change, and the conditions under which change can be identified as progress.

Integrative power [is] the ultimate power