Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World

The monography presents a mathematical model, "World 3", of the world for the years 1900—2100. The purpose of the model are the conditional; inprecise projections of dynamic behaviour modes of the five model outputs: population, capital, food, non-renewable resources, and pollution. Models of this global scope are not new, they can be traced back even to the ancient world, nevertheless from the very beginning they are controversial. The first class of models is "ecological"; decisions based on ecological models are cautious about the possibilities for human expansion because of unclear interactions and clear bounds. The second class, "technological", supposes that no unbreakable constraints to mankind evolution exist. The first model can be traced as back as to Upanishads ("the vital essence in man is the same as that in a gnat, the same as that in an elephant"), the second to Genesis ("fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and over every thing that moveth upon the earth"). The authors claim that the philosophy of their model is synthesis of both elementary models. Nevertheless their project was motivated by the finitness of the world resources and as such from the ecological model. As it is well known from mathematical optimization and from experience of course, too, just because of this finitness, the short horizon decisions used to be, from the longer horizon criteria, the bad decisions. And as it is well known from feedback theory, the uncautious control based on unprecise model may lead to unstability.