现代社会物理学的内涵认知

Cognition of Connotation of Modern Social Physics

        牛文元(中国科学院自然与社会交叉科学研究中心中国科学院科技政策与管理科学研究所)

         社会物理学

        social physics

        社会物理学起源于久远的古代。到了上世纪90年代,由于互联网的普及,在网络社会中个体行为同粒子行为的极大相似性,催生了现代社会物理学的快速成长。现代社会物理学最显著的特点是"量子化的社会和社会的量子化"。现代社会物理学的科学地位表现在以下3个方面:其一,在各类学科当中,社会物理学是既联系着自然科学,又联系着社会科学的独特学科;其二,在现代社会物理学体系中,将每个个体及其空间占位比拟为离散的粒子运动,将人的整体行为与时间演化比拟为连续的波动行为,具有波粒二象的解释特征;其三,当个体所触及的知识边界接近于人类整体的知识边界时,由此引发的社会结构、社会心理、社会行为和社会功效,与传统社会相比必将出现可预料的跃迁。

        Sociophysics can date back to the remote antiquity when Plato in the ancient Greece and Cicero in the ancient Rome talked about the rules of physics involved in the social field. Around 1830,Auguste Comte,a French sociologist,used the term of sociophysics for the first time and established the scientific idea for social research. In the 1990s,popularization of Internet and the great similarity between individual behavior in network society and partical behavior have brought about the rapid growth of modern sociophysics. One of the most remarkable characteristics of modern sociophysics is the "quantized society and quantization of the society". Despite the confusion and disputes on minor matters,the scientific position of sociophysics can be expressed in the following three aspects:First,in the various categories of disciplines,the sociophysics is a unique discipline both connecting the natural science and social science. Second,in the system of modern sociophysics,the individual of each person and his/her space occupation are assimilated to be dispersed particle motion and the whole behavior of a person and the time evolution assimilated as a continuous fluctuation behavior. Third,when the social evolution has reached the boundary contacted by each individual and the boundary is nearly the same as that contacted by the whole mankind,there will emerge a big leap-forward of social structure,social psychology,social behavior and social efficacy as compared with traditional society.