Comparison of social and physical free energies on a toy model

TL;DR

This paper compares social and physical free energies within a toy model of interacting agents, demonstrating their numerical equivalence in certain quasi-stationary states, thus linking social action measures to physical energy concepts.

Contribution

It introduces a comparison between social and physical free energies using a toy model, highlighting their equivalence in specific social dynamics.

Findings

Social and physical free energies are numerically equivalent in certain states.

The analysis is based on a toy model of interacting agents.

The study bridges social action measures with physical energy concepts.

Abstract

Social free energy has been recently introduced as a measure of social action obtainable in a given social system, without changes in its structure. The authors of this paper argue that social free energy surpasses the gap between the verbally formulated value sets of social systems and the quantitatively based predictions. This point is further developed by analyzing the relation between the social and the physical free energy. Generically, this is done for a particular type of social dynamics. The extracted type of social dynamics is one of many realistic types of the differing proportion of social and economic elements. Numerically, this has been done for a toy model of interacting agents. The values of the social and physical free energies are, within the numerical accuracy, equivalent in the class of non-trivial, quasi-stationary model states.