Self-Organizations

This is a good way to think about it. Certainly more helpful than many other short explanations I've seen attempted.

Am not economist, but do have econ degree.

Edit for slight clarification: The phrasing suffers from anthropomorphizing a thing. The market is a collection of human interactions. Humans are the agents. The market is an amalgamation of many individuals acting as they best see fit, utilizing their local knowledge. The sum of these actions and interactions performs the calculation.

Same idea, just clarifying where agency exists.

Not really she has a number of major decisions to make (kill her sisters, decide to leave hive, regulate bonding)

https://www.perfectbee.com/learn-about-bees/the-life-of-bees...

I'd push back on your use of "current equilibrium", based on how I interpret this phrase. If my interpretation is off, then I apologize.

It reads to me as if you're presenting the world as having a single equilibrium toward which the market moves. There is no meaningful static idea of equilibrium. However you want to define and measure some optimal state that we can call equilibrium, this target moves discontinuously at least with each birth and death that occurs. Each of these events either introduces or removes a set of preferences (a terrible reduction of humanity). Accounting for these will shift our "equilibrium" in any meaningful calculation of the same. There are 1.8 deaths per second and 4.3 births per second.[0][1]

Again, these birth and death rates represent the minimum rate of change of equilibrium. As a follow-on effect, a birth is very likely to alter the parents' preferences in a way that will shift the equilibrium. Deaths likely shift families' and friends' preferences in a way that will shift the equilibrium. Both these second-order effects are not instantaneous (information does not spread instantly). Invention and innovation represent changes. Discovery of new natural resources represent changes. And people are not static sets of preferences. People change.

Perhaps we may be able to define some equilibrium for an instant. And we can expect with near-certain probability that one instant's equilibrium is very close to neighboring instants' equilibria. But the shifts are discontinuous, and likely impossible to model with a function.

[0] https://www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/world-death-cl...

[1] https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/How-Many-Babies-Are-B...

Bees, ants and termites are considered super organisms. As discussed, they don't really act as a great example of emergent behavior of organisms - more analogous to the organization of, say, cells within a mammalian body. Drawing the lines around species properly is helpful to understand the implications of natural selection, and the fitness functions surrounding emergent behavior.

Without doubt, eusocial insects represent some of the most successful species on the planet from a biomass perspective. At the same time, if you study the evolution of these species, you won't be motivated to "be a bee".

One way to describe the very complex multi-adaptation evolution in brief: wasp egg dumpers, over generations had the tables turned; host wasps started charging rent, then enslaving younger generations; some of the wasps started cloning their slaves, even breeding these clones for specialized roles.

Its a really interesting topic to dive into. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_eusociality

Thanks for the clarification. I did not know that reference, and it seems we're much more in alignment than I thought.

I still hold that the target moves discontinuously, though not universally so. Death is the strongest argument here. A set of preferences exists, and then it doesn't. Some deaths are expected. Some are slow. Some are unexpected. Some are abrupt. Death is a binary off-switch for all preferences the deceased individual may have had. Without this collection of preferences, equilibrium abruptly jumps to some other value. Of course, in a system as large as the market, these death-jumps are going to be so small as to be effectively immeasurable.

Note: expectation of death here means at a specific time. All death is expected on a long enough time scale.

> To a good approximation, markets moves continuously

I agree here. My discussion of discontinuity, though, is that of movement of whatever ideal equilibrium the market is moving toward (but does not achieve). The equilibrium is the target toward which a market moves. This equilibrium is incalculable or at least not calculable in less time than it would take to reach. The target may move discontinuously (though I would argue the discontinuities are small for the most part), and the process moving toward the target may be continuous, both at the same time.

Ninja edit: An equilibrium in this discussion is more akin to a platonic ideal than anything concrete. The market is the system which can be observed. The equilibrium is an abstract and incalculable target.