Konstantin Eduardovich Plokhotnikov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Leading Researcher at the Department of Mathematical Modeling and Computer Science, Faculty of Physics, at the M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Professor of Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
Born on January 27, 1954. He graduated in 1977 from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) with a degree in Theoretical Nuclear Physics. In 1980, he finished post-graduate studies at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and specialized at the M.V. Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics.
In 1980, he defended his candidate thesis “On the Construction of Mathematical Models and a Computational Experiment in Some Biology Problems, Non-stationary Thermodynamics, and Turbulence”; and in 2013 his doctoral thesis “Development and Justification of a New Approach to the Method of Mathematical Modeling: the Problem of the Subject Multiplicity of Models and the Analysis of the Adequacy of Their Research Goals”; in 2018 he specialized in mathematical modeling, numerical methods, and program complexes.
Since 1974, he has developed several mathematical models in such fields of scientific activity as mathematical biology, energy, solid-state, continuous medium, atmospheric physics, field theory, global history and politics simulation. He is an author of 86 publications, including 5 monographs, and 8 textbooks and teaching aids.
He worked at the Hydrometeorological Center of the USSR from 1980 to 1989; at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov from 1989 to 2002. From 2002 up to now, he has been working at the Department of Mathematical Modeling and Computer Science, Faculty of Physics, MSU.
He has been teaching the courses of linear algebra, mathematical analysis, ordinary differential equations, probability theory, statistics, econometrics, computer physics, computational methods, method and art of mathematical modeling, mathematical simulation of global social dynamics.
What is the mathematical modeling of global social dynamics and geopolitics?
It is a set of mathematical models, as well as a few methodological and philosophical constructions aimed at the study of global social dynamics. The characteristic of this approach is the interpretation of the unique features of social dynamics, which is defined and studied by identifying a unified management infrastructure in public life.
There are particular mathematical models of this approach: the normative history model, politics from a position of strength, as well as the model of psychophysics. The latter model introduces the central concept of “power-will infrastructure”.
The geopolitics mathematical model is the evolution of the global history normative model. The central concept of the geopolitics mathematical model is habitat capacity. This concept is defined and calculated. Geopolitics is climate, topography, logistics features of global commodity flows, geopolitical confrontation in terms of “sea – continent,” that is, everything that constitutes the material complex of the Earth inhabitants living conditions.
According to the psychophysics model, an actor (operator, subject, decision-maker, etc.) can be “assembled” from four defined and calculated components, called will, freedom, strength, and power. Given the interconnectedness of all actors, we can talk about a unified power-willed infrastructure, which is an all-pervading managerial framework for the global society.
The geopolitics mathematical model sets a definite framework for the functioning of a unified power-will infrastructure. This framework acts as natural limitations of an objective nature, which is often characterized as a confrontation between the sea and the continent.
What are the results of geopolitics mathematical modeling?
- A habitat density capacity function is built, depending on the average annual temperature and precipitation distribution on the Earth’s surface. A high correlation between the habitat density capacity and the Earth’s population density has been determined.
● The scan of the habitat capacity density by the state was made. Among the record holders in a decreasing sequence were as expected: Russia, USA, Brazil, China, Australia, etc. An indicator having a sense of the specific habitat capacity per capita has been identified and studied. Countries and territories were ranked by this indicator. Particular attention is paid to the ratio of these individual country’s indicators in relation to the Russian Federation.
● The question of the relationship between the density of the habitat and relief was studied. Areas are constructed and compared where 50% of the population and 50% of the habitat capacity are concentrated. Habitat capacity gradient density fields are built. The countries and territories are classified in terms of “high – low” and “favourable – unfavourable”, that is, in four categories that take into account the habitat capacity topography and density. Maps of territories of all four types are built. The diversity index of individual territories and states is introduced and calculated.
● An algorithm has been developed for the random drawing of points on the land surface, taking into account the habitat capacity density. This algorithm is necessary to develop a solution to the problem of optimal points positioning in terms of minimizing transport costs between them.
● A mathematical model of traffic flows between individual points acting as logistic nodes is formulated. The basis is the well-known gravitational model and the exponential type of dependence on the generalized distances between points. A minimax transport doctrine is introduced that ensures, when optimizing the points position, a transport costs minimum with a habitat occupancy maximum, taking into account the heterogeneous distribution of the habitat сapacity capacity density.
● A computational method has been developed for calculating the generalized distances between points, taking into account the differences in segments passing by land and by sea. These distances are estimated in terms of specific energy costs for moving a nominal cargo unit weight.
● An algorithm for minimizing traffic flows for a random point arbitrary set is built. This algorithm appears in the form of some modification of the gradient descent procedure, taking into account the coastline and the area incoherence of the points’ positions in the functional transport cost.
● As part of the global traffic calculation, a special indicator was built called the “sea – continent” percentage ratio. Points (territories) are classified in geopolitical terms based on this indicator. This indicator allowed us to formalize the introduction of such well-known concepts in geopolitics as Heartland and Rimland.
● The built of combined global and regional maps containing political and geopolitical markings. The map data analysis for the presence of the so-called geopolitical “fracture” was made. It is possible to speak about the presence of the riftfractures if some geopolitical lines pass not along the border of an individual state, but inside its territory, wedging deeply into it.
● As part of the transport costs minimization problem solution, 318 points were considered, the initial location of which coincided with the position of the 318 largest cities on Earth. Three subtasks were solved numerically in a single complex. When solving each of the three subtasks, the presence of a minimax transport doctrine was critical.
Тhe first subproblem, it was believed that the transport cost by sea is zero; in the second task, it was believed that the transport cost by land is zero and, finally, in the third subtask, the real transport cost values were selected. It is shown that the configuration of the optimal points of the third subtask is a cross between the optimal configurations of the first two subtasks.
How to calculate the true managers of various economies of the world using arrays of digitized economic and financial data?
Precisely such a task was set and investigated based on the US economy example. This task is the first step towards solving an even more complicated problem, which concerns the answer to the question: when will the largest world economy exhaust its main resource – the dollar? In addition, a socio-economic data statistical analysis was carried out and several examples were analyzed on the power-will infrastructure fragments reconstruction.
Under the operator, you can understand something that is responsible for the US economy management. There is a nominee operator, including the US Government, the Department of State, the Federal Reserve, and other structures, and there is a real operator. The US economy’s main statistical characteristics analysis made it possible to open the curtain on the true, that is, the real US economy operator. 14 most widely known indicators were selected for the US economy statistical analysis:
- Gross private investments dynamics;
- Monetary aggregate;
- Euro – US Dollar exchange rate;
- Real gross domestic product;
- The ratio of unemployed to economically active population;
- Personal income;
- Index of industrial production;
- Retail turnover;
- Consumer price index;
- Import;
- Export;
- US government debt;
- The effective interest rate on state bonds (yield in % per year);
- Current US state revenues.
The listed indicators, both economic and financial, are an interconnected system. Who or what provides this relationship? We shall call this the “who or what” operator, like the operator of a forklift for loading and unloading goods, tour operator, mobile operator, and so on. The operator’s actions are expressed in the fact that at some points in time he accelerates a particular growth indicator, on other points in time, on the contrary, he slows it down. The most suitable metaphor for individual indicators management is a car driving when the driver presses the gas pedal or the brake pedal.
In a special way from a management point of view, such important integral logarithmic indices as the gross domestic product and the US national debt were considered. It turned out that on average for the entire study period from 2000 to 2012, the operator preferred to press the gas pedal than the brake pedal of each of these two indicators. At the same time, over the entire period, on average, against the background of US national debt accelerated growth, the GDP growth, on the contrary, has slowed down. Thus, it turns out that the US operator stimulated GDP growth largely due to the acceleration of US debt growth, and this mechanism (officially called quantitative easing), as the analysis showed, is not very effective, although it allowed avoiding the worst after the financial crisis of 2008-2009 – a total default crisis within the country.
The developed data analysis technology made it possible to talk about an indices management scheme from the US economy operator. To do this, we studied the correlation between each logarithmic index. The following curious features were discovered. First, the number of paired correlation coefficients that exceed the absolute value of 0.7, which characterizes the relationship as high, turned out to be eight. Among them, in descending order of the pair correlation coefficient, the following pairs were identified:
- the import-export,
● consumer price index — import,
● Index of Industrial Production — gross private investments dynamics,
● the ratio of unemployed to economically active population — Index of Industrial Production,
● gross private investments dynamics — GDP,
● Consumer price index — export,
● Gross private investments’ dynamics — ratio of unemployed to the economically active population.
The developed methodology allowed us to formulate and solve the forecast problem from the point of view of the forecast of the US economy management by the reconstructed operator. In the forecast procedure, it is believed that the correlation scheme that characterizes the US economy management system by the operator can be extrapolated to the future, which will provide a suitable forecast. It was believed that the communication scheme acts as the main conservative element, the restructuring of which is, of course possible, but will occur last and not suddenly.
How are the “control” and “management” concepts applied to electronic technical devices?
The “will”, “power”, and “freedom” concepts are more appropriate from the point of view of a person acting as a user. Indeed, a person normally has a natural control over his body, he freely chooses and wills certain stereotypes of his body and its parts’ movements. Taking into account that the interface usefulness is characterized, first of all, by its usefulness for a human user, we shall present future perspective interfaces in terms of “will”, “power” and “freedom”.
These concepts are defined and calculated within the framework of the psychophysics model that we developed earlier. The psychophysics model aims to determine the interaction of the operator with the device in the broad sense of the word.
New human-machine interfaces will lead to radical consequences in global power and will infrastructure reorganization.
We have developed a psychophysical futurological perspective of the development of human-computer interfaces based on such a modality of the human psyche as will or volition. The human-computer interfaces evolutionary chain is built: the traditional body interface → field interface → will interface. The main objective of the proposed psycho-resonance technology is to connect the will with electronics without intermediaries. The human-computer interaction in the coming years may develop from the problem of cybernetics, psychology, and other specialized disciplines into a global, universal problem. The “Human-computer interfaces” topic is not only relevant in terms of philosophy, psychology, cybernetics and some other disciplines, but it also has enormous market prospects.
How do you see the future of human-computer psycho-resonance interfaces?
All modern human-computer interfaces have one important drawback – they are too slow. At the heart of the computer’s world is a digital philosophy: information is segmented into information “atoms”, and information processing and recording is carried out in a conveyor way, while parallel information processing is weakly expressed.
It is these digital philosophy ingredients that formed the traditional interfaces’ based on devices such as a mouse, keyboard, screen, and others, Thus, at this development stage of the human-machine interfaces, digital computer philosophy prevailed over the human user, he abandoned his “analogue” language of communication with his own kind in favor of the poorer – digital-machine language.
Now let’s take a look at human-computer interactions in terms of how people communicate, transmit information between each other. When people communicate, a huge amount of information is transmitted directly. This is not only and not so much the verbal communication of one person with another, but the information in the form of information transfer (emotions, gestures, surroundings, etc.), relating to the context of the transmitted message (time and place in the form of emotional and artistic experience, etc.). Thus, it turns out that in the “analogue” form of communication between people transmits a huge amount of important information. In this regard, one can guess that the future development of human-computer interfaces will be aimed at developing fundamentally new “languages” for human-computer communication. Ideally, these new languages will achieve not only the same ease of communication as in the case of person-to-person, but will also provide great enhancement.
The person-to-person analogue language communication is a fragment of a broader concept of human-computer interaction, that is, a human-computer interface whereby a human operator interacts directly with the device.
What are the principles of psycho-resonance electronic technology?
We have formulated a procedure for the creation of an electronic “yes-no” switch, based on psychoresonance interaction between the operator and the device. The signal is digitized and processed in a computer, where, following relevant criterion, a decision is made on the presence/absence of volitional influence. The operator transmits a chain of volitional actions, represented as a random sequence of “0”, “1” characters, for example, 00111001010001011101100, which are expected to be reproduced in the same sequence on a computer. Thus, the operator connects with the computer remotely. In this regard, we can talk about the fundamentally new human-computer interface development. By power-volitional influence is meant the provision of a situation in which the operator and the psycho-sensor become a whole, while the will and freedom that underlie the operator’s power over the psycho-sensor remain with the operator.
The “psybutton” project can be given a different interpretation and meaning. We distinguish two classes among the whole variety of meanings. According to the first class, the management (power) is material and is implemented with the help of one or another intermediary. For example, in brain activity, such a mediator is a nerve impulse, which is an electrochemical reaction wave. According to the second class of meanings, management is carried out by an intermediary of an immaterial nature, although, by itself, it (an intermediary) cannot manifest itself without material support. For example, information is often referred to as such an intermediary, based on the assumption that there is a common information field. For the implementation of both the psycomputer project and the psybutton project, the most suitable is Ukhtomsky’s interpretation of the neural conduction resonant theory.
The concept of “power-volitional infrastructure” allows one to approach the formulation of such a difficult question as “which mechanism inside us controls our own body, considered as a device?” In other words, we can talk about the psychophysical problem formulation in the “psybutton” project context. The first class of control meanings is realized within the modern theory of brain activity framework, which, as you know, is built in terms of “neuron-axon-synapse”. Within this framework, it is possible, to some degree, to imitate the nerve fiber activity, simulating certain simple physiological reflexes. The second class of control meanings is the most mysterious one. It is often associated with what is now called parapsychology or simply parascience.
There is another terminology, for example, psy or psychophysical phenomena, psychophysics or psychotronics. These studies are characterized by gross empiricism, which reproduces the same experimental stereotypes for 100 years now. The psybutton project contains one important advantage – the project is based on the psyphysics mathematical model. The advantage of psyphysics model is the mathematical, rigorous, determination of such modalities of the psyche as the will, freedom, power, and strength, and based on this, the formulation of the actual meaning of the operator-device interaction.
The psybutton is the psychoresonance device developed based on R.G. Jahn and B.J. Dunn’s psyleron. What is common to psyleron and psyatom is that they are psychoresonance devices. Otherwise, they have little in common. In particular, the issues of volitional modality identification are not posed or considered in the psyleron.
What is psycomputer?
A psycomputer is a device that allows a human operator to establish communication with a computer without mechanical manipulators such as a keyboard, mouse, joystick, etc. We can talk in psychophysical language about direct mental contact with a computer, which involves the construction of a special resonant medium, which is a bridge between a human operator and a computer device. Theoretical and technical development of the desired resonant medium involves also the use of neurocomputing ideas, which, as you know, originate from models of brain activity within the “neuron-axon-synapse” doctrine framework.
Thus, a psycomputer can be either an ordinary computer plus a resonant medium that provides a connection between a person and a computer, or just the desired resonant medium. The psycomputer creation, from the point of view of the fact that this is a specially created resonant medium, means the construction of an artificial reality in which a person’s power resource can be significantly expanded. This expansion will affect a number of not only natural but also social realities fragments.
Interview: Ivan Stepanyan
The interview used materials from the study guide K.E.Plokhotnikov “Mathematical modeling of global social dynamics” (M .: Flint, 2018. – 388с. ISBN 978-5-9765-3945-7.), which is used to teach the interfaculty course of the same name at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov.
