{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,16]],"date-time":"2025-10-16T13:38:10Z","timestamp":1760621890861,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":54,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,27]],"date-time":"2018-03-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1522108800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper, using Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT), argues that once energy resources are considered, an economy, like an ecology, requires continuous energy to be sustained in a homeostatic state away from the decayed state of its (local) thermodynamic equilibrium. AIT identifies how economic actions and natural laws create an ordered economy through what is seen as computations on a real world Universal Turing Machine (UTM) that can be simulated to within a constant on a laboratory UTM. The shortest, appropriately coded, programme to do this defines the system\u2019s information or algorithmic entropy. The computational behaviour of many generations of primitive economic agents can create a more ordered and advanced economy, able to be specified by a relatively short algorithm. The approach allows information flows to be tracked in real-world computational processes where instructions carried in stored energy create order while ejecting disorder. Selection processes implement the Maximum Power Principle while the economy trends towards Maximum Entropy Production, as tools amplify human labour and interconnections create energy efficiency. The approach provides insights into how an advanced economy is a more ordered economy, and tools to investigate the concerns of the Bioeconomists over long term economic survival.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e20040228","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,27]],"date-time":"2018-03-27T12:17:24Z","timestamp":1522153044000},"page":"228","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["An Economy Viewed as a Far-from-Equilibrium System from the Perspective of Algorithmic Information Theory"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"given":"Sean","family":"Devine","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"810","DOI":"10.3390\/e14112173","article-title":"Life as Thermodynamic Evidence of Algorithmic Structure in Natural Environments","volume":"14","author":"Zenil","year":"2012","journal-title":"Entropy"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6","DOI":"10.3390\/entropy-e10010006","article-title":"An Algorithmic Complexity Interpretation of Lin\u2019s Third Law of Information Theory","volume":"10","author":"Ratsaby","year":"2008","journal-title":"Entropy"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1085","DOI":"10.1002\/bies.10192","article-title":"What is complexity","volume":"24","author":"Adami","year":"2002","journal-title":"BioEssays"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"62","DOI":"10.1016\/S0167-2789(99)00179-7","article-title":"Physical complexity of symbolic sequences","volume":"137","author":"Adami","year":"2000","journal-title":"Phys. D"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1971). The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Harvard University Press.","DOI":"10.4159\/harvard.9780674281653"},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"Daly, H.E. (1993). Sustainable growth: An impossibility theorem. Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics, MIT Press."},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"Ayres, R.U. (1994). Information, Entropy and Progress: A New Evolutionary Paradigm, American Institute of Physics."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"267","DOI":"10.1016\/S0921-8009(97)00081-5","article-title":"REPLY: Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow\/Stiglitz","volume":"22","author":"Solow","year":"1997","journal-title":"Ecol. Econ."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"269","DOI":"10.1016\/S0921-8009(97)00092-X","article-title":"REPLY: Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow\/Stiglitz","volume":"22","author":"Stiglitz","year":"1997","journal-title":"Ecol. Econ."},{"key":"ref_10","first-page":"1","article-title":"Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information","volume":"1","author":"Kolmogorov","year":"1965","journal-title":"Probl. Inf. Transm."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"329","DOI":"10.1145\/321892.321894","article-title":"A theory of program size formally identical to information theory","volume":"22","author":"Chaitin","year":"1975","journal-title":"J. ACM"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Li, M., and Vit\u00e1nyi, P.M.B. (2008). An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications, Springer. [3rd ed.].","DOI":"10.1007\/978-0-387-49820-1"},{"key":"ref_13","unstructured":"Hidalgo, C. (2015). Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies, Basic Books."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"367","DOI":"10.2495\/DNE-V12-N3-367-376","article-title":"The Information Requirements of Complex Biological and Economic Systems with Algorithmic Information Theory","volume":"12","author":"Devine","year":"2017","journal-title":"Int. J. Des. Nat. Ecodyn."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Conway, J. (2016). Game of Life, Milton Bradley Company."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"905","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02084158","article-title":"Thermodynamics of Computation\u2014A review","volume":"21","author":"Bennett","year":"1982","journal-title":"Int. J. Theor. Phys."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Devine, S.D. (2018, March 27). Algorithmic Information Theory: Review for Physicists and Natural Scientists,. Available online: http:\/\/algoinfo4u.com\/AlgoInfo4u.pdf."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"83","DOI":"10.1070\/RM1970v025n06ABEH001269","article-title":"The complexity of finite objects and the development of the concepts of information and randomness by means of the theory of algorithms","volume":"25","author":"Zvonkin","year":"1970","journal-title":"Russ. Math. Surv."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4731","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevA.40.4731","article-title":"Algorithmic randomness and physical entropy","volume":"40","author":"Zurek","year":"1989","journal-title":"Phys. Rev. A"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8","DOI":"10.1016\/j.biosystems.2015.11.008","article-title":"Understanding how replication processes can maintain systems away from equilibrium using Algorithmic Information Theory","volume":"140","author":"Devine","year":"2016","journal-title":"BioSystems"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"85","DOI":"10.3390\/e11010085","article-title":"The Insights of Algorithmic Entropy","volume":"11","author":"Devine","year":"2009","journal-title":"Entropy"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"44","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1099-0526(199609\/10)2:1<44::AID-CPLX10>3.0.CO;2-X","article-title":"Information Measures, Effective Complexity, and Total Information","volume":"2","author":"Lloyd","year":"1996","journal-title":"Complexity"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"620","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRev.106.620","article-title":"Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics","volume":"106","author":"Jaynes","year":"1957","journal-title":"Phys. Rev."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Ayres, R.U. (1998). Self-Organization in Biology and Economics, IIASA\u2014International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Technical report."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"188","DOI":"10.1016\/0375-9601(96)00453-7","article-title":"The Physical Nature of Information","volume":"217","author":"Landauer","year":"1996","journal-title":"Phys. Lett. A"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"183","DOI":"10.1147\/rd.53.0183","article-title":"Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process","volume":"5","author":"Landauer","year":"1961","journal-title":"IBM J. Res. Dev."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1047","DOI":"10.1038\/35023282","article-title":"Ultimate physical limits to computation","volume":"406","author":"Lloyd","year":"2000","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"840","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01341281","article-title":"Uber die Entropieverminderung in einnem thermodynamischen System bei Eingriffen intelligenter Wesen","volume":"53","author":"Szilard","year":"1929","journal-title":"Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Physik"},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"Nelson, R.R., and Winter, S.G. (1982). An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Belknap."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Arthur, W.B., Holland, J.B., Le Baron, B., Palmer, R., and Tayler, P. (1997). Asset Pricing under Endogenous Expectations in an Artificial Stock Market; Vol. XXVII, the Economy as an Evolving System II. SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Addison-Wesley.","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.2252"},{"key":"ref_31","first-page":"1","article-title":"The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics","volume":"64","author":"Solow","year":"1974","journal-title":"Am. Econ. Rev."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"123","DOI":"10.2307\/2296377","article-title":"Growth with Exhaustible Natural Resources: Efficient and Optimal Growth Paths","volume":"41","author":"Stiglitz","year":"1974","journal-title":"Rev. Econ. Stud."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"261","DOI":"10.1016\/S0921-8009(97)00080-3","article-title":"FORUM: Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow\/Stiglitz","volume":"22","author":"Daly","year":"1997","journal-title":"Ecol. Econ."},{"key":"ref_34","unstructured":"Kerry Smith, V. (1979). Comments on the papers by Daly and Stiglitz. Scarcity and Growth Reconsidered, The Johns Hopkins University Press."},{"key":"ref_35","unstructured":"Schr\u00f6dinger, E. (1944). What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge University Press."},{"key":"ref_36","first-page":"3","article-title":"The Entropy Law and the Economic Process in retrospect","volume":"12","year":"1986","journal-title":"East. Econ. J."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"473","DOI":"10.1016\/S0921-8009(98)00098-6","article-title":"The Second Law, the Fourth Law, Recycling and Limits to Growth","volume":"29","author":"Ayres","year":"1999","journal-title":"Ecol. Econ."},{"key":"ref_38","unstructured":"Daly, H.E. (1992). Steady State Economics, Earthscan Publications Ltd."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Daly, H.E. (2007). Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, Selected Essays of Herman Daly, Edward Elgar Publishing.","DOI":"10.4337\/9781847206947"},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"273","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1099-1743(199807\/08)15:4<273::AID-SRES200>3.0.CO;2-B","article-title":"Thermodynamics, information and life revisited, Part I: \u2018To be or entropy\u2019","volume":"15","author":"Corning","year":"1998","journal-title":"Syst. Res. Behav. Sci."},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chaisson, E. (2001). Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, Harvard University Press.","DOI":"10.4159\/9780674260818"},{"key":"ref_42","first-page":"361","article-title":"Inequality, Limits and Growth from a Bioeconomic Viewpoint","volume":"3","year":"1977","journal-title":"Rev. Soc. Econ."},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"181","DOI":"10.1016\/j.strueco.2003.10.003","article-title":"Accounting for growth: The role of physical work","volume":"16","author":"Ayres","year":"2005","journal-title":"Struct. Change Econ. Dyn."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"453","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1099-1743(199811\/12)15:6<453::AID-SRES201>3.0.CO;2-U","article-title":"Thermodynamics, information and life revisited, Part II: \u2018Thermoeconomics\u2019 and \u2018Control information\u2019","volume":"15","author":"Corning","year":"1998","journal-title":"Syst. Res. Behav. Sci."},{"key":"ref_45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"57","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1020633317271","article-title":"Thermoeconomics: Beyond the Second Law","volume":"4","author":"Corning","year":"2002","journal-title":"J. Bioecon."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8007","DOI":"10.3390\/e17127857","article-title":"Energy flows in Low Entropy Complex Systems","volume":"17","author":"Chaisson","year":"2015","journal-title":"Entropy"},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"147","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.8.6.147","article-title":"Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution","volume":"8","author":"Lotka","year":"1922","journal-title":"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA"},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"151","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.8.6.151","article-title":"Natural Selection as a Physical Principle","volume":"8","author":"Lotka","year":"1922","journal-title":"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA"},{"key":"ref_49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Herrmann-Pillath, C. (2013). Foundations of Economic Evolution. A Treatise on the Natural Philosophy of Economics, Edward Elgar.","DOI":"10.4337\/9781782548362.00008"},{"key":"ref_50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"465","DOI":"10.1007\/BF00623322","article-title":"Selforganization of matter and the Evolution of Biological Macromolecules","volume":"58","author":"Eigen","year":"1971","journal-title":"Naturwissenshaften"},{"key":"ref_51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6881","DOI":"10.1021\/j100335a010","article-title":"Molecular Quasi-Species","volume":"92","author":"Eigen","year":"1988","journal-title":"J. Phys. Chem."},{"key":"ref_52","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"25","DOI":"10.1016\/0895-7177(94)90188-0","article-title":"Life as a Manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics","volume":"16","author":"Schneider","year":"1994","journal-title":"Math. Comput. Model."},{"key":"ref_53","first-page":"10570","article-title":"The building blocks of economic complexity","volume":"206","author":"Hildago","year":"2009","journal-title":"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA"},{"key":"ref_54","unstructured":"Chandler, A. (1977). The Visible Hand, Harvard University Press."}],"container-title":["Entropy"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/20\/4\/228\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T14:58:41Z","timestamp":1760194721000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/20\/4\/228"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,27]]},"references-count":54,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,4]]}},"alternative-id":["e20040228"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/e20040228","relation":{},"ISSN":["1099-4300"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"1099-4300"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,27]]}}}