Chapter 2 Preface: Passion for Truth Wu Hemao

In the research of complex science, in recent years, a trickle has gradually merged into a big river, the Yangtze River, which is magnificent and varied, making it dizzying.This complex book selected by Tianxia Culture Publishing Company has been well received when it was released abroad. It introduces the origin and development of these new insights in a simple and simple way, and successfully describes the reasons why experts and scholars in various fields concentrate on studying this knowledge. , And to the mental journey of forgetting to eat and sleep. Anyone who is successful in learning must go through years of heart-warming and patience.Most people in the world are driven by fame and fortune, and the motivation to support these scholars to endure loneliness and conduct basic research without distraction is often just a passion for truth.This enthusiasm is vividly expressed on the paper under the vivid writing of the translator of this book. If readers read it carefully, they seem to be able to feel the light and heat it emits.

Applications of complexity science to economics and the social sciences are in the ascendant.In the past ten years, the thinking methods developed in the two hundred years of economics have been adopted by scholars in politics, law, society and other fields. Some people call this sharp method covering all disciplines the theory of rational choice.The main point of view of this research framework is to regard society as a system composed of multiple decision-making units with rational choices. The rational choices of each unit interact within the economic or social system through various channels to determine the decisions within the system. The equilibrium state of the unit's resulting configuration.This thinking method has contributed to many considerable progress in social sciences, but it has also laid a lot of ideological shackles. Most scholars have been limited by it for many years without realizing it. It was not until the emergence of complex science that the academic community was provided with an opportunity for reflection and thinking in time. .

true scholar, great wisdom Professor Arthur, who lectures on population and economics at Stanford University, and Professor Arrow, a Nobel laureate in economics, described in the book are true scholars with great wisdom and deep thinking.They were masters in establishing a framework for rational choice, but they were not limited by it. They bravely questioned whether the two basic pillars of rationality and balance are appropriate, and took complex systems as the starting point for rethinking. First of all, in the face of a complex economic system, individual limited rational thinking is not enough to pursue the infinite changes of the outside world to get the best of it; they believe that rational choices based on deductive thinking must be changed, and scholars must re-examine inductive thinking under limited rationality and learning functions.Second, they argue that an economic or social system is a living system rather than a dead equilibrium.In a complex system, it is often difficult to clarify various interactive relationships to obtain a simple and balanced conclusion, and there is often a spontaneous order in a complex system.The equilibrium thinking method from Newtonian mechanics has its own limitations. Scholars must pay attention to how the positive feedback or increasing return factors discussed in this book will cause this phenomenon of order in chaos, so as to grasp the shape and order presented by complex systems.

The rise of complex science provides us with a lot of material for thinking. Its application has gradually become a branch of mainstream economics in recent years. It is currently on the agenda of the annual meeting of the American Economic Association.Reading this book can let us understand how this academic revolution emerged and achieved, which is very interesting. I once studied at Stanford University, had the honor to write a doctoral dissertation with Professor Arrow, and was taught by Professor Arthur. I deeply feel that a true scholar should not only have great wisdom, but also pursue the truth with a pure heart.The two professors have been famous for many years, but they never give up boldly asking new questions and never stop seeking answers.Haoshou is poor and happy, isn't the state of life so far very good and beautiful?I hope that by reading this book, we can all feel the light and heat they emit, and appreciate the beauty of the palace of learning.

October 1994 at National Taiwan University Business School (The author of this article is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Economics, National Taiwan University)