自序：Economy從哪裡發生？

——共生經濟學的生命原點

錢宏（Archer Hong Qian）

人類生活在一個極其富饒的世界裡。

太陽每天升起，並不向我們收費。空氣、水、土地、草木以及生命自身的生長和修復能力，也都先於人類的市場、國家和貨幣存在。一個孩子來到世界之前，沒有簽訂契約，沒有購買出生權，也沒有向任何組織申請生命許可。

後來，人類創造了農業、城市、市場、國家、科學、工業和互聯網，又創造了能夠在瞬間處理海量信息的人工智能。我們生產得越來越多，走得越來越快，能夠調用的知識、能源和技術越來越豐富。

可是，一個越來越難迴避的問題也隨之出現：

一個本來如此富饒的世界，為什麼被我們組織成越來越昂貴的生活？

為什麼GDP不斷增長，許多家庭仍然為住房、教育、醫療和養老焦慮？為什麼機器越來越高效，人的時間反而越來越緊張？為什麼商品越來越豐富，人與人之間的關係有時越來越疏離？為什麼知識觸手可及，組織卻可能越來越龐大，生命為了維持組織運轉而支付的成本越來越高？

這其實就是二十年前我寫《共生經濟學》最初的問題，也是今天仍然沒有改變的問題。

一、從“終極免費午餐”開始的一次反問

很多年前，我在《時間簡史》中讀到霍金轉述宇宙暴脹理論先驅阿蘭·古斯（Alan Guth）的一個說法：宇宙也許是一頓“終極的免費午餐”（Ultimate Free Lunch）。

經濟學卻用另一句話教育了我們很多年：

天下沒有免費的午餐。

兩句話都對。

人的勞動需要付出，資源有邊界，選擇有機會成本，一個社會不能靠憑空許諾長期生活下去。從這一意義上說，經濟學提醒人們“沒有免費的午餐”，非常重要。

可是，大自然給予生命的陽光、空氣、水、生長力、修復力和無數尚待發現的可能，並不是人類組織創造出來以後再分配給我們的。科技進步又不斷把昨天昂貴的東西變成今天廉價甚至接近零邊際成本的東西。

問題於是變了。

真正值得經濟學研究的，也許不只是“午餐究竟由誰付錢”，還包括：

為什麼一些本來可以越來越便宜的生活，被層層組織成本重新變得昂貴？

為什麼人的創造力越強，有些組織反而越擅長抽取、阻隔和重新分配這種創造？

為什麼有些制度能夠讓有限資源生生不息，有些制度卻能在資源極其豐富時製造匱乏、焦慮和爭奪？

我後來逐漸意識到，貧困與富足之間並不只有資源多少這一條軸線。生命怎樣組織自己，人與人怎樣連接，組織怎樣受託，成本怎樣流動，價值怎樣被承認和承兌，同樣決定一個社會究竟生活在匱乏之中，還是走向豐饒。

共生經濟學由此發生。

二、Economy原本就是料理家園

經濟學究竟從哪裡開始？

這個問題看上去屬於詞源學，實際上決定經濟學往哪裡走。

Economy來自古希臘語 oikos 與 nomos。前者是家、家園以及人賴以生活的地方，後者包含規則、秩序與料理。它最初關心的事情很樸素：怎樣料理家園，使人能夠生活，使資源得以節用，使家庭得以延續。

所以，經濟在最初並沒有與生活分家。

生產、交換、消費、養育、照護、教育、倫理和公共事務，都發生在同一個生命世界裡。

經濟生活中還有一個再普通不過的事實：一個人的支出，往往就是另一個人的收入；一群人的支出，也會成為另一群人的收入。從整個經濟生活看，收入與支出原本就是價值在不同生命主體之間交互流動的一體兩面。

那麼，支出的是什麼？收入的又是什麼？

在現代經濟中，通常是貨幣。

貨幣本身不能吃、不能穿、不能居住，也不能替人照護孩子、醫治疾病、運輸貨物。它之所以能夠從一個人手中進入另一個人手中，又繼續進入第三個人的生活，是因為人們接受它所代表的價值索取與承兌關係。由此往下追問，經濟發生的次序便逐漸顯現出來：生命要生活，生活發生交互，交互生成價值，價值需要承兌，承兌需要貨幣與組織，組織最終需要孞托。

所以，Economy從來不只是資源配置。資源為什麼需要配置？因為生命正在生活。交換為什麼發生？因為生命本自具足，又非獨存。貨幣為什麼發生？因為彼此錯開的價值交付需要獲得連續承兌。

經濟由此從生活發生，又不斷返回生活。

現代經濟學後來獲得了巨大的分析能力。價格、資本、勞動、貨幣、投資、出口、消費、增長、均衡，被一個個從複雜生活中抽取出來，成為可以計算和比較的變量。這樣的抽象推動了現代文明，也帶來一個容易被忽略的結果：經濟學越來越知道市場裡發生了什麼，卻未必同時知道生活發生了什麼。

GDP增長了。

誰的生活改善了？

資本增值了。

誰承擔了它沒有進入財務報表的成本？

組織擴大了。

它究竟降低了生活成本，還是要求生命投入更多時間、服從、稅費、證明和焦慮來供養它？

於是，我願意把Economy重新帶回它發生的地方。

生產回歸生活，生活呈現生態，生態激勵生命。

這不是一句修辭。

它是這本書全部理論最終要接受的方向檢驗。

三、我越來越相信，經濟學需要“淨化過剩”

舊稿自序里，我曾引用過一句歸於米開朗基羅的話：“美就是淨化過剩的過程。”

這些年我越來越喜歡這個意思。

一尊雕像似乎不是不斷往石頭上增加什麼，而是把多餘的部分一點點鑿掉，讓本來隱在石頭裡的形態顯現出來。

經濟學或許也到了需要這樣做的時候。

過去幾百年，人類積累了極其豐厚的經濟學知識。斯密、李嘉圖、馬克思、馬歇爾、熊彼特、凱恩斯、哈耶克、科斯、索洛……他們打開的問題，今天依然存在。

我無意把這些思想掃進歷史。

我更願意做的，是把後來覆蓋在真實生活之上的一些多餘層次重新打開：把被“理性經濟人”壓縮的人，還原得豐富一點，把被GDP遮蔽的生活成本重新記賬，把長期被市場—政府二元擺動擠到邊緣的社區重新帶回來，把貨幣重新放回承諾與價值承兌，把組織重新放回生命託付。

值得注意的是，現代國民經濟核算體系的重要奠基者西蒙·庫茲涅茨，其實很早就對自己參與建立的測度體系保持着清醒的邊界意識。1934年，他提醒人們，一國福祉很難從國民收入的計量中推斷出來；1962年又把問題推進到增長本身：必須分辨增長的數量與質量、成本與回報，並追問究竟“什麼在增長，又為什麼增長？”

這個問題還可以繼續往前追問：是誰在增長？誰在生活？經濟究竟為了什麼？

沿着這一追問回到Economy的發生處，我們首先看見的不是GDP，不是消費、投資和進出口，也不是等待“調節”的分配對象，而是生命正在生活。

這樣做以後，一些本來被不同學科分開的問題重新相遇了。

經濟、政治、文化重新相遇。

生命、技術、制度重新相遇。

效率、公平與責任重新相遇。

市場、政府和社區重新相遇。

也許思想的原創，很多時候並不是憑空創造出一個前所未有的複雜體系，而是去掉遮蔽，讓原來彼此相通的東西重新看見彼此。

四、“孞”：從心念到託付

這本書裡，我恢復使用了一個古老而陌生的漢字：

孞。

第一次看到它的人，也許會停一下。

這一停很好。

因為“孞”正要我們重新想一想：我們每天說“信任”“信用”“相信”，究竟在說什麼？

孞與信，同音、同義，不同形，形就是結構。

“孞”，上為“子”，下為“心”，引出赤子之心，君子之心！

我願意把它理解為由心念發生、經關係驗證、最後成為可以相約、相托的生命狀態。

上世紀八十年代，我曾參與錢學森倡導的思維科學研究。那時我心裡經常冒出一些看來很幼稚的問題：中國人為什麼會說“我知道你肚子裡想什麼”？為什麼又說“人算不如天算”“智者千慮，必有一失”？理性的算計、邏輯、意識和神經活動後面，是否還有某種更深的生命活動？

這些問題後來沒有把我帶向一種關於心智的簡單答案，反而讓我越來越謹慎。

人的心念顯然不能被簡化成一個邏輯模塊。身體感受、神經活動、記憶、情緒、意願、關係和生命經歷相互作用，才形成那個不斷變化的“我想”“我願”“我相信”“我不相信”。

所以我後來越來越重視 Mind走向Minds。

一個人的心念進入另一個人的心念，發生理解、懷疑、呼應、修正、承諾，才逐漸形成社會秩序。

“信”可以是一句話。

“孞”還包含一個更長的過程：

我願意把一部分時間、資源、希望甚至未來交給你，因為你的行為一次次證明自己值得託付。

由此才有本書所謂的組織孞托。

政府、企業、學校、醫院、銀行、平台以及今天越來越強大的AI系統，它們真正稀缺的資源，最終都不只是數據、資本和權力，而是生命願不願意繼續把自己託付給它們。

因信守約。

因孞成序。

五、人口首先是生命，然後才是數字

從這裡再看人口，問題也會改變。

傳統經濟學和國家治理常常把人口理解為勞動力、消費者、納稅人、人力資本、人口紅利，或者需要配置和調節的統計變量。這些概念各有用途，卻很容易忘掉“人口”這個宏大的詞，其實由一個個出生、成長、相愛、勞動、創造、衰老並終將離去的具體生命組成。

人口首先是生命的代際發生，然後才是勞動力供給。

一個社會年輕人願不願意戀愛、成家、生育，一個家庭有沒有時間照顧孩子和老人，一個社區能不能承載生活，一個人是否相信自己的下一代能夠過得更好，都不是單純的人口政策能夠製造出來的。

當住房、教育、醫療、就業、組織服從和未來不確定性不斷侵占家庭的時間與能力時，人口收縮本身就可能成為一張最誠實的生命資產負債表。

所以，共生經濟學並不追求人口最大化，也不把低生育簡單理解為人的自私。它追問的是：我們的經濟和組織，是否還給生命留下了戀愛、成家、生育、養育、創造以及安心老去的空間？

人口問題因此重新回到生命問題，也重新回到組織孞托。

六、從生命的語言，到AI的語言

我曾經很受弗朗西斯·柯林斯（Francis S. Collins）那本《The Language of God》觸動。

一位領導人類基因組計劃的重要科學家，同時公開討論科學與信仰的關係，這件事本身比任何簡單結論更有意味。

人類解讀三十多億個DNA鹼基對，並沒有因此把生命變成一張已經讀完的說明書。恰恰相反，每解開一層，人們常常又發現更深一層關係。

基因如此。

心智如此。

社會如此。

今天的人工智能同樣如此。

大模型可以讀懂語言，可以計算，可以歸納，可以生成，可以幫助我們越過過去極其昂貴的知識門檻。這是偉大的進步。

但智能不等於生命，信息也不等於心念。

一張沒有任何文字的白紙，在特定歷史時刻可以讓成千上萬人同時知道彼此想說什麼。紙上沒有信息，人與人之間卻生成了巨大的意義。

這就是我越來越關心人工智能為什麼還要走向Mind、Minds以及MindsField的原因。

未來的技術當然還會繼續突破。CPU、GPU之後會有新的處理架構，人工智能也會從語言、圖像和數據處理進一步進入更複雜的現實感應和行動空間。

然而，真正決定技術文明方向的，不只是“還能算多快”，而是：

它為誰賦能？

誰承擔後果？

它幫助生命發現新的可能，還是幫助強組織更高效地控制生命？

這正是後來 LIFE—AI—TRUST 逐漸成為我思考核心的原因。

生命給出目的。

AI提供能力。

TRUST規定受託關係和責任邊界。

沿着這條路，我才進一步提出從AI走向AM——從 Artificial Intelligence 走向 Artificial Mind 與 Amorsophia MindsField/Network——的開放構想。

它首先不是一個技術預言。

它是一種文明方向。

七、從發生學、動力學到恊和學

我曾經想用三個詞來理解這個世界：

發生學、動力學、恊和學。

任何經濟秩序都不是從模型里憑空落下來的。

它先發生。

一個需要出現，一個關係建立，一項創造獲得回應，一個家庭形成，一個市場出現，一個組織被託付。

發生以後，各種力量開始流動、碰撞、增減、放大和耗散，於是進入動力學。

而生命真正奇妙的地方，是這些不同力量並不只有衝突和消耗。它們也可能在交互中找到新的關係，使原來彼此分離的能力發生共振，生成任何單一主體都沒有的東西。

這就是我所理解的恊和。

熵增、熵減、熵旋；自組織、自適應、自相互作用；你、我、他的交互主體共生，其實都在這三重過程中展開。

共生經濟學由此也不只是研究一種資源配置方法。

它試圖把經濟重新放回生命怎樣發生、關係怎樣運動、不同主體怎樣共襄生成的問題之中。

所以，本書後來出現了“仨自組織人”、Minds Values、共生權、社區—市場—政府三大經濟形態、GDE、六張資源—資產負債表、價值承兌、思想銀行、組織孞托、LIFE—AI—TRUST交互契合共生秩序……

這些概念看上去很多。它們其實都在追問同一件事情：

一個生命如何更好地活着，又讓別的生命能夠活着，並在彼此連接中創造出原來不存在的可能？

八、從稀缺性時代走向豐饒性時代

傳統經濟學常常從稀缺開始。

這沒有錯。

人的時間有限，資源有限，土地有限，選擇總有代價。

可是，人類文明還有另一面長期被低估：

創造會使可能增加。

一粒種子可以成為一棵樹。

一個思想可以被無數人使用而不因使用耗盡。

一個算法可以被複製。

一個好制度可以降低億萬人反覆付出的交易成本。

一種孞托關係，可以使原本用於懷疑、防範、證明、審批和爭奪的巨大能量重新進入創造。

所以，我越來越願意把21世紀理解為從“稀缺性時代”向“豐饒性時代”打開的一道門。

這並不意味着匱乏從此消失，也不意味着人類可以忘記邊界。

恰恰因為技術第一次讓我們看見如此巨大的豐富可能，我們更需要知道如何不把豐富重新組織成匱乏。

這也是為什麼我不願意把經濟學最終停在增長率上。

GDP可以告訴我們生產了多少。

GDE還要問這些生產轉換成了多少真實生命效能。

貨幣必須回答價值怎樣得到承兌。

組織則必須回答自己為什麼值得生命託付。

人工智能最終也必須接受同一個檢驗。

於是，幾十年前那個“終極免費午餐”的問題，在這本修訂版里並沒有消失。

它只是變得更集中，也更現實了：

一個本來如此富饒的世界，為什麼被我們組織成越來越昂貴的生活？

如果這個問題能夠被重新提出，我們也就獲得了另一種可能：

把那些無效的組織成本一點點減下來，把被壓抑的生命能力一點點釋放出來，把遮蔽的價值重新看見，把失去的孞托慢慢修復。

像雕塑家從石頭中去掉多餘的部分。

美也許一直在那裡。

生活也許本可以更簡單一些。

Economy從家園發生，也應該回到家園。

生產回歸生活，生活呈現生態，生態激勵生命。

生命本自具足，又非獨存。凡事交互主體共生。

這就是我寫作《共生經濟學》的生命原點。

也是我願意把這本書交給讀者的理由。

2023年，這本書已經形成一個可以出版的版本。朱嘉明先生還為之作序。只是當時我越來越清楚地意識到，書中的若干核心問題雖然已經提出，卻還沒有真正展開到我願意停筆的程度。尤其是GDE、思想價值、價值承兌、組織孞托，以及人工智能進入組織以後，人與技術的關係，都還處在繼續生長之中。與其急於把一個尚在展開的思想固定下來，我寧願讓它再走一程。因此，2023年版最終沒有正式印行。

三年過去，世界變化得很快，人工智能更深地進入生活和組織，增長、債務、人口、治理與孞托問題也變得更加集中。原來散落在書中的問題，逐漸匯聚成一條更清楚的思想主線：從生命自組織連接出發，重新理解人、價值、效能、貨幣與組織，並以LIFE—AI—TRUST回應數位—量子時代正在發生的現實。這次修訂，也就成為一部已經發生的書繼續生長的過程。

所以，現在呈現在讀者面前的，是《共生經濟學》的修訂本，也是我願意在此刻正式交出的版本。

錢 宏（Archer Hong Qian）

2026年8月18日，於加拿大溫哥華

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

Where Does Economy Arise?

— The Life Origin of Symbionomics

Human beings live in an extraordinarily abundant world.

The sun rises every day without charging us a fee. Air, water, land, plants, and life’s own capacities for growth and repair all existed before human markets, states, and money. Before a child enters the world, no contract is signed, no birthright is purchased, and no organization is asked for permission to live.

Humanity later created agriculture, cities, markets, states, science, industry, and the Internet, and then artificial intelligence capable of processing immense quantities of information in an instant. We produce more and more, move faster and faster, and have ever greater stores of knowledge, energy, and technology at our disposal.

Yet one question has become increasingly difficult to avoid:

Why have we organized an originally abundant world into a life that grows ever more expensive?

Why does GDP continue to grow while so many families remain anxious about housing, education, healthcare, and old age? Why, as machines become more efficient, does human time seem to become more constrained? Why, amid an abundance of goods, do relationships sometimes grow more distant? Why, when knowledge is within easy reach, can organizations become ever larger, requiring life itself to pay ever higher costs merely to sustain their operation?

This was, in fact, the question from which I first began writing Symbionomics some twenty years ago. It remains the question today.

I. A Question Beginning with the “Ultimate Free Lunch”

Many years ago, in A Brief History of Time, I encountered Stephen Hawking’s reference to a remark by Alan Guth, a pioneer of inflationary cosmology: the universe may be the “ultimate free lunch.”

Economics, however, has taught us another maxim for many years:

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Both statements are true.

Human labor entails effort. Resources have boundaries. Choices carry opportunity costs. No society can live indefinitely on promises conjured from nothing. In this sense, economics is right to remind us that “there is no free lunch.”

And yet the sunlight, air, water, powers of growth and repair, and countless still-undiscovered possibilities that nature gives to life were not first created by human organizations and then distributed to us. Technological progress, moreover, continually turns what was expensive yesterday into something inexpensive today, sometimes approaching zero marginal cost.

The question therefore changes.

What economics should investigate may be more than “Who pays for lunch?” It should also ask:

Why do some forms of life that could become progressively less costly become expensive again under layer upon layer of organizational cost?

Why, as human creativity grows stronger, do some organizations become more adept at extracting, obstructing, and redistributing the fruits of that creativity?

Why can some institutions enable finite resources to renew and regenerate themselves, while others manufacture scarcity, anxiety, and conflict amid extraordinary abundance?

I gradually came to understand that poverty and prosperity cannot be located on a single axis measuring the quantity of resources. How life organizes itself, how people connect with one another, how organizations are entrusted, how costs flow, and how value is recognized and honored are equally decisive in determining whether a society remains trapped in scarcity or moves toward abundance.

This is where Symbionomics arises.

II. Economy Originally Meant Tending the Home

Where does economics begin?

The question may appear to belong to etymology, but in fact it helps determine where economics is going.

The word Economy comes from the ancient Greek oikos and nomos. The former refers to the home, the household, and the place in which people live; the latter carries the meanings of rule, order, and management. Its original concern was simple: how to tend the home so that people can live, resources can be used with care, and the household can continue.

Economy, at its origin, was therefore never separate from Living.

Production, exchange, consumption, upbringing, care, education, ethics, and public affairs all took place within the same world of Life.

Economic life also contains a fact so ordinary that it is easily overlooked: one person’s expenditure is often another person’s income; the expenditure of one group becomes the income of another. Seen across economic life as a whole, income and expenditure are two sides of the same movement of value among living subjects.

What, then, is being spent? And what is being received?

In a modern economy, usually money.

Money itself cannot be eaten, worn, or lived in. It cannot care for a child, treat an illness, or transport goods. It can pass from one person to another, and then into the life of a third, because people accept the claim to value and the relationship of Value Fulfillment that it represents.

Follow this question further, and the sequence through which an economy arises gradually becomes visible: Life seeks to live; Living gives rise to interaction; interaction generates value; value requires fulfillment; fulfillment requires money and organization; and organization ultimately requires Trust.

Economy, therefore, has never been merely about the allocation of resources. Why must resources be allocated? Because Life is being lived. Why does exchange arise? Because Life is self-sufficient, yet never self-contained. Why does money arise? Because value delivered at different times and among different subjects requires continuing fulfillment.

Economy arises from Living, and continually returns to Living.

Modern economics later acquired extraordinary analytical power. Price, capital, labor, money, investment, exports, consumption, growth, and equilibrium were progressively abstracted from complex Living and turned into variables that could be calculated and compared. This abstraction helped propel modern civilization, but it also produced an easily overlooked consequence: economics became increasingly capable of knowing what was happening in Markets without necessarily knowing what was happening in Living.

GDP has grown.

Whose Living has improved?

Capital has appreciated.

Who has borne the costs that never entered its financial statements?

Organizations have expanded.

Have they lowered the cost of Living, or required Life to contribute ever more time, compliance, taxes and fees, proofs, and anxiety to sustain them?

I therefore want to bring Economy back to where it arises:

Production returns to Living; Living manifests Ecology; Ecology inspires Life.

This is not a rhetorical slogan.

It is the directional test that every theory in this book must ultimately pass.

III. I Have Come to Believe That Economics Needs to “Remove the Excess”

In the preface to an earlier manuscript, I quoted a saying attributed to Michelangelo: “Beauty is the purification of superfluities.”

Over the years, I have come to appreciate this idea more and more.

A sculpture seems to emerge not by endlessly adding something to the stone, but by chiseling away what is unnecessary, little by little, until the form already latent within it becomes visible.

Economics, perhaps, has reached a moment when it needs something similar.

Over the past several centuries, humanity has accumulated an extraordinarily rich body of economic knowledge. Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Marshall, Schumpeter, Keynes, Hayek, Coase, Solow—the questions they opened remain with us today.

I have no wish to sweep these ideas into history.

What I would rather do is reopen some of the layers that have accumulated over real life: restore some of the richness of the human being compressed into the “rational economic man”; bring back onto the books the costs of living obscured by GDP; return community to the picture after its long marginalization by the market–government binary; place money once again within promise and value fulfillment; and place organizations once again within the entrustment of life.

It is worth noting that Simon Kuznets (1901–1985), one of the principal founders of modern national income accounting, was already keenly aware of the limits of the measurement system he helped to build. In 1934, he warned that the welfare of a nation could scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income. In 1962, he carried the question further into growth itself: we must distinguish the quantity and quality of growth, its costs and returns, and ask, “What is growing, and why is it growing?”

The question can be carried one step further: Who is growing? Who is living? What is the economy ultimately for?

Following this inquiry back to the point from which Economy arises, what we first encounter is not GDP, not consumption, investment, or exports and imports, nor a distributive object waiting to be “adjusted,” but Life being lived.

When we do this, questions long separated by academic disciplines begin to meet again.

Economics, politics, and culture meet again.

Life, technology, and institutions meet again.

Efficiency, fairness, and responsibility meet again.

Market, government, and community meet again.

Perhaps originality in thought often does not mean inventing an unprecedentedly complicated system out of nothing. It can mean removing what obscures, so that things that were connected all along can see one another again.

IV. “孞”: From Mind to Entrustment

In this book I restore an ancient and now unfamiliar Chinese character:

孞.

A reader seeing it for the first time may pause.

That pause is useful.

For 孞 asks us to reconsider what we mean when, every day, we speak of trust, credit, belief, and confidence.

孞 and 信 are pronounced alike and share a field of meaning, but they are written differently—and form itself carries structure.

The character 孞 places 子, “child,” above 心, “heart-mind.” To me it evokes the heart of a child, and the heart of a person of integrity.

I understand 孞 as a living state that arises from mind and intention, is tested through relationships, and ultimately becomes a condition in which people can make commitments to one another and entrust themselves to one another.

In the 1980s, I participated in research on the “science of thinking” advocated by Qian Xuesen. At the time, questions that seemed almost naïve kept occurring to me. Why do Chinese people say, “I know what you are thinking in your belly”? Why do we also say, “Human calculation falls short of Heaven’s calculation,” or “Even the wise, after a thousand considerations, will make a mistake”? Behind rational calculation, logic, consciousness, and neural activity, might there be a deeper activity of life?

Those questions did not lead me to a simple answer about mind. They made me more cautious.

Human thought and intention clearly cannot be reduced to a logical module. Bodily sensation, neural activity, memory, emotion, will, relationships, and lived experience interact to form the continuously changing “I think,” “I will,” “I believe,” and “I do not believe.”

This is why I have increasingly emphasized the movement from Mind to Minds.

When one person’s mind enters into relation with another’s—through understanding, doubt, resonance, correction, and commitment—social order gradually takes shape.

信 can be a statement of belief or promise.

孞 contains a longer process:

I am willing to entrust to you some portion of my time, resources, hopes, and even my future, because your conduct has repeatedly shown that you are worthy of that entrustment.

From this arises what I call Organizational Trust in this book.

For governments, companies, schools, hospitals, banks, platforms, and today’s increasingly powerful AI systems, the ultimately scarce resource is not merely data, capital, or power. It is whether life remains willing to entrust itself to them.

By 信, commitments are kept.
By 孞, order is generated.

V. Population Is Life Before It Is a Number

Seen from here, the population question also changes.

Traditional economics and state governance often understand population as labor, consumers, taxpayers, human capital, a demographic dividend, or a statistical variable to be allocated and adjusted. Each of these concepts has its use. Yet they can easily make us forget that the grand abstraction “population” is composed of concrete lives—each one born, growing, loving, working, creating, aging, and eventually departing.

Population is first the intergenerational arising of life, and only then a supply of labor.

Whether young people are willing to fall in love, form families, and have children; whether families have time to care for children and the elderly; whether communities can sustain everyday life; and whether people believe that the next generation can live better than they do—none of these can be manufactured by population policy alone.

When housing, education, healthcare, employment, organizational demands for compliance, and uncertainty about the future continually consume the time and capacity of families, population contraction itself may become one of the most honest balance sheets of life.

Symbionomics therefore does not seek to maximize population, nor does it simply interpret low fertility as selfishness. It asks instead: do our economies and organizations still leave life enough room to love, form families, bear and raise children, create, and grow old with peace of mind?

The population question thus returns to the question of life—and to Organizational Trust.

VI. From the Language of Life to the Language of AI

I was deeply moved by Francis S. Collins’s The Language of God.

That a leading scientist of the Human Genome Project could at the same time openly explore the relationship between science and faith was, in itself, more meaningful to me than any simple conclusion.

Humanity’s reading of more than three billion DNA base pairs did not turn life into an instruction manual that had finally been read from cover to cover. Quite the contrary: with every layer opened, deeper relations came into view.

So it is with genes.

So it is with mind.

So it is with society.

And so it is with artificial intelligence today.

Large models can understand language, calculate, generalize, generate, and help us cross knowledge thresholds that were once prohibitively expensive. This is a great advance.

Yet intelligence is not life, and information is not mind or intention.

A blank sheet of paper bearing no words at all can, at a particular historical moment, allow thousands of people to know what one another wishes to say. There is no information on the paper, yet immense meaning is generated among people.

This is why I have become increasingly concerned with why artificial intelligence must continue toward Mind, Minds, and MindsField.

Technology will of course continue to advance. New processing architectures will follow CPU and GPU, and artificial intelligence will move beyond language, images, and data processing into more complex forms of real-world sensing and action.

But what ultimately determines the direction of technological civilization is not simply “How much faster can it compute?” It is:

Whom does it empower?

Who bears the consequences?

Does it help life discover new possibilities, or help powerful organizations control life more efficiently?

This is why LIFE—AI—TRUST gradually became central to my thinking.

LIFE gives purpose.

AI provides capability.

TRUST defines the entrusted relationship and the boundaries of responsibility.

Along this path, I further proposed the open-ended movement from AI to AM—from Artificial Intelligence toward Artificial Mind and the Amorsophia MindsField/Network.

It is, first of all, not a technological prophecy.

It is a direction for civilization.

VII. From Genesis and Dynamics to Synergetics

I once tried to understand the world through three terms:

Genesis, Dynamics, and Synergetics.

No economic order simply drops out of a model.

It first arises.

A need appears. A relationship is formed. A creation receives a response. A family takes shape. A market emerges. An organization is entrusted.

Once something has arisen, forces begin to flow, collide, increase, diminish, amplify, and dissipate. We enter the realm of dynamics.

The real wonder of life is that different forces do more than conflict and consume one another. Through interaction, they may discover new relations; capacities that were previously separate may resonate and generate something no single actor possessed alone.

This is what I mean by synergy.

Entropy increase, entropy reduction, and entropic rotation; self-organization, self-adaptation, and self-interaction; the intersubjective symbiosis of you, me, and others—all unfold through these three processes.

Symbionomics, therefore, is more than the study of a method of resource allocation.

It seeks to return economy to the questions of how life arises, how relationships move, and how different subjects co-generate new possibilities.

This is why the book eventually came to include the Three Self-Organizing Persons, Minds Values, Symbiorights, the three economic forms of Community–Market–Government, GDE, the Six Resource–Asset/Liability Statements, Value Fulfillment, the Mind Bank, Organizational Trust, and the LIFE—AI—TRUST order of interactive fit and symbiotic co-generation.

There may seem to be many concepts here. In fact, they all ask the same question:

How can a life live better, allow other lives to live, and—through connection with them—create possibilities that did not previously exist?

VIII. From an Age of Scarcity toward an Age of Abundance

Traditional economics often begins with scarcity.

There is nothing wrong with that.

Human time is finite. Resources are finite. Land is finite. Every choice carries a cost.

Yet human civilization has another side that has long been underestimated:

Creation expands possibility.

A seed can become a tree.

An idea can be used by countless people without being exhausted by use.

An algorithm can be copied.

A good institution can reduce transaction costs that would otherwise be paid repeatedly by hundreds of millions of people.

A relationship of 孞-Trust can redirect enormous amounts of energy—previously spent on suspicion, defense, proof, approval, and contention—back into creation.

I have therefore become increasingly willing to see the twenty-first century as a doorway opening from an “Age of Scarcity” toward an “Age of Abundance.”

This does not mean scarcity will disappear, nor does it mean humanity can forget boundaries.

Precisely because technology has, for the first time, allowed us to glimpse possibilities of abundance on such a scale, we need all the more to understand how not to organize abundance back into scarcity.

This is why I do not want economics to end with the growth rate.

GDP can tell us how much we have produced.

GDE must also ask how much real life effectiveness that production has generated.

Money must answer how value is recognized and fulfilled.

Organizations must answer why they deserve the entrustment of life.

Artificial intelligence must ultimately pass the same test.

And so the question of the “ultimate free lunch” that confronted me decades ago has not disappeared from this revised edition. It has simply become more concentrated and more real:

Why have we organized an originally abundant world into a life that grows ever more expensive?

If we can pose that question anew, another possibility opens before us:

to reduce, little by little, the ineffective costs imposed by organizations; to release, little by little, the capacities of life that have been suppressed; to see again the value that has been obscured; and to repair, little by little, the 孞-Trust that has been lost.

Like a sculptor removing the excess from stone.

Beauty may have been there all along.

Life, perhaps, could have been simpler all along.

Economy arises from the home, and to the home it should return.

Production returns to Living; Living manifests Ecology; Ecology inspires Life.

Life is self-sufficient, yet not self-contained. Everything is intersubjective symbiosis.

This is the life origin from which I write Symbionomics.

It is also why I am willing to place this book in the hands of its readers.

By 2023, the book had already taken shape in a form ready for publication, and Mr. Zhu Jiaming had written a preface for it. Yet I became increasingly aware that several of its central questions, though already raised, had not unfolded far enough for me to be willing to stop writing. GDE, Minds Values, Value Fulfillment, Organizational Trust, and the relationship between human beings and technology after artificial intelligence enters organizations were all still growing. Rather than hurry to fix an unfolding body of thought into a finished form, I chose to let it travel a little farther. The 2023 edition was therefore never formally published.

Three years have passed, and the world has changed rapidly. Artificial intelligence has entered more deeply into life and organizations, while questions of growth, debt, population, governance, and 孞-Trust have become more concentrated. Problems once scattered throughout the book have gradually converged into a clearer line of thought: beginning from life’s self-organizing connections, to rethink the human person, value, effectiveness, money, and organization, and to respond through LIFE—AI—TRUST to the realities now emerging in the Digital–Quantum Age. This revision has therefore become the continued growth of a book that had already begun to live.

What now stands before the reader is the revised edition of Symbionomics—and the version I am ready, at this moment, to release.

Archer Hong Qian

Vancouver, Canada

August 18, 2026