Democracy and evolution
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I am not sure that we would enjoy today the classical democracy without much of the modern social flavor. --Mikhail
> Jefferson, De Tocqueville et al. knew about the USSR? >> One more aspect of democracy: it was Western Elites' response to USSR's >> Social Project. --Mikhail -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061211/e5818569/attachment.html |
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One thing seems sure is that the world's obsession with multiplying
wealth, power and the complexity of our lives will stop being fun and loose credibility, the same way any 'unstoppable' force built on contradictions does. There's nothing more perfectly certain to be embarrassed than a plan to achieve infinity after all. The question is only how and when. The physics is interesting, and some of the choices are better than others. I am not sure that we would enjoy today the classical democracy without much of the modern social flavor. --Mikhail > Jefferson, De Tocqueville et al. knew about the USSR? >> One more aspect of democracy: it was Western Elites' response to USSR's >> Social Project. --Mikhail -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061212/a555ad0f/attachment.html |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> One thing seems sure is that the world's obsession > with multiplying wealth, power and the complexity of our lives will > stop being fun and loose credibility Money, value and stability are different. Thus we have markets, mechanisms for determining interest and exchange rates, and we see phenomena like inflation. When these economic things get out of whack, the ruling class can draw from their spiritual credit line, and speak of opportunity. |
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That describes, in a jocular way, the concept of homeostasis. When the
regular balances aren't enough, you just rely on your reserves of creativity. The reserves don't cover the gap for infinite strains tending rapidly toward infinity, just for some range of unexpected events. The interesting option is to figure out what the interesting options are. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 9:28 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Democracy and evolution > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > One thing seems sure is that the world's obsession > > with multiplying wealth, power and the complexity of our lives will > > stop being fun and loose credibility > Money, value and stability are different. Thus we have markets, > mechanisms for determining interest and exchange rates, and we see > phenomena like inflation. When these economic things get > out of whack, > the ruling class can draw from their spiritual credit line, > and speak of > opportunity. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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>
> That describes, in a jocular way, the concept of homeostasis. When the > regular balances aren't enough, you just rely on your reserves of > creativity. The reserves don't cover the gap for infinite strains > tending rapidly toward infinity, just for some range of unexpected > events. The interesting option is to figure out what the interesting > options are. > It seems reasonable to say that the parts and connectedness of our system are experiencing increasing change. This doesn't mean something generally frightening will happen, just something we can't predict. It is hard to say, especially in this world of technology and concentrated wealth what compensatory adaptations might occur, how and by whom their are perceived, and whether they will also tend toward infinity. Necessity is the mother of invention. |
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> >
> > That describes, in a jocular way, the concept of homeostasis. When > > the regular balances aren't enough, you just rely on your reserves of > > creativity. The reserves don't cover the gap for infinite strains > > tending rapidly toward infinity, just for some range of unexpected > > events. The interesting option is to figure out what the interesting > > options are. > > > > It seems reasonable to say that the parts and connectedness of our > system are experiencing increasing change. > This doesn't mean something generally frightening will happen, just > something we can't predict. The conclusion is correct. The correct reason is not that the system is undergoing increasing change. It's that it is operating with a mechanism that will necessarily produce overwhelming change, and necessarily upset the processes producing it. > It is hard to say, especially in this > world of technology and concentrated wealth what compensatory > adaptations might occur, > how and by whom their are perceived, and > whether they will also tend toward infinity. but you can partition the universe of possible options for what one could do with a system of multiplying change and see which seem possible and interesting. > Necessity is the mother of invention. Yea, definitely. Seeing the necessity is very helpful, which is why I think it's worth pointing out. Once you see that explosive organizational development (growth) is the way all complex systems begin, and the ones that survive it (evident in great profusion throughout nature) let the destabilization of the multiplier have a constructive rather than destructive result, it gives you a template to try fitting to the popular assumptions for what we should do with the earth. One finds that some of those fit and others don't. That's useful! > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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"The interesting option is to figure out what the
Interesting options are." And that may be very difficult. The simplest would be to arrange regulation and taxation so that the curves of increasing concentration of wealth and income were turned in the opposite direction. That would allow some evolution and create increased hope for more equal participation. As the wise man said, "We have a business culture that knows how to create wealth, but not how to distribute it" What of deeper more profound possibilities? We often hear lose talk about the interchangeability among energy, entropy, information, and money. If this is true, we could see that money is just a subset of a larger class of "wealth" of which perhaps real intelligence (the kind that is both rational and deals with meaning for the species)is the more interesting example. If this is true, then the "wealth" in human capacity is already more evenly spread (I am assuming that genetics plus life experience is not much smaller than genetics pus life experience plus formal education) and would allow us - or force us - to reassess what "economy" is all about. Certainly what drives accounting practices is the recognition that some major component of wealth is not captured by the existing system. And it might lead to a different, and highly successful new kind of entrepreneurialism, a kind that could put together this new kind of wealth and compete with the existing system. Does this line of thought have any potential? Aristotle, in "Coming to be and passing away" wrote that we can have growth without development (adding water to wine) and we can have development without growth. (replacing a simple tile floor with a more complex one). This also hints at new ways of thinking about the economy. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.18/584 - Release Date: 12/12/2006 11:17 PM |
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Doug wrote:
>> "The interesting option is to figure out what the >> Interesting options are." > And that may be very difficult. What seems different about my approach is the rigor. It applies to all systems. The 'subjective' part that underlies it is the recognition that natural systems are physical, not imaginary. Imaginary systems are projections that need not function, and physical systems need to function. One of the distracting facts is that though there are easily estimated physical limits to any combination of resource uses, it has been common in the growth of the economy for growth to cause changes in which resources are being used to others with no immediately apparent limit. That's the appearance Michael is raising by mentioning "how the most valuable things in the world are increasingly virtual". That's one reason I focus on the internal limits of growth rather than the external ones. We're simply not going to change the fact that it's humans that have to operate the systems we build, and both the people and the systems have to function. We know something about human weaknesses even if we can fool ourselves about the earth's infinite potentials. The ultimate problem is the lag times in decision making as the growth of productivity allows and requires us to make decisions with ever wider impacts in ever less time. If you're honest about it, what you find is that otherwise unbounded growth always runs into an impenetrable wall of confusion. It's like the proof that the best straight line approximation of an positive exponential is a vertical line at whatever time you ask the question. What you look for, once you understand that hitting that wall is an eventual certainty, is the empirical evidence of it happening. The evidence that the switch in our 500 year economic growth process is under way is abundant. As I understand it, given the complete inability to respond to any of the observation methodology questions I've raised, the entire computational systems research movement has discarded the observation method for learning about things, and so wouldn't know about that. > The simplest would be to > arrange regulation and taxation so that the curves of > increasing concentration of wealth and income were turned in > the opposite direction. That would allow some evolution and > create increased hope for more equal participation. I think that would have the usual negative side effects of imposing political controls on 'free' markets. Another option that might allow the free markets to operate as well or better than they do presently is for people to spend their returns on investment. How that emulates the feedback switch nature uses to resolve growth creatively may not be obvious at first. The trick is imagining something that systems can do to resolve their growth system contradictions from the inside. > Aristotle, in "Coming to be and passing away" wrote that we > can have growth without development (adding water to wine) > and we can have development without growth. (replacing a > simple tile floor with a more complex one). This also hints > at new ways of thinking about the economy. I think that's the second time this has been brought up. It seems logically implied that if humans changed to see their definitions of 'good' and 'better' as qualitative improvement in delivering the same services we might create an infinite scale of 'virtual' wealth in perfecting things and therefore have no physical limits to growth. It sounds 'snaky' to me, because at the limit people would be expected to pay more and more for differences so subtle they would be unable to discern them. In the real world the utopians who have taken something like this approach in the past also seem to have put themselves at a competitive disadvantage and been pushed aside. I think the better choice is the one I observe being used by nature, spending the returns instead of reinvesting them. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com |
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Phil writes.
"I think that would have the usual negative side effects of imposing political controls on 'free' markets." I think we have been led down the wrong path. Marts are free and interesting. Capitalism however is a process of control of markets, using the state apparatus and the very boundedness of the nation state to control money, interest and markets. Our problem is not markets but capitalism. Since capital seeks controls, the only way to prevent the distortion (concentration of wealth and power) is state intervention. Remember, the state interfered by chartering corporations in the first place. Tweaking the charters towards some modest form of bias away from concentration is just a correction on the existing dependence of corporations on state regulation. Doug Carmichael -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.18/586 - Release Date: 12/13/2006 6:13 PM |
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Douglass Carmichael wrote:
> Tweaking the > charters towards some modest form of bias away from concentration is just a > correction on the existing dependence of corporations on state regulation. If the idea is to avoid the fragile concentration of power in the hands of a small number of mere mortals (e.g. leaders that do dumb things and impact many people for the worse), more changes than just the tax codes (e.g. heavily taxing profits) would be needed as there'd still be the possibility of reinvesting the earnings in the companies themselves. The ways in which unregulated reinvestment could occur might easily result in a different sort of concentration of power. |
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In reply to this post by doug carmichael
Doug writes,
> Phil writes. > > "I think that would have the usual negative side effects of > imposing political controls on 'free' markets." > > > I think we have been led down the wrong path. Marts are free > and interesting. Capitalism however is a process of control > of markets, using the state apparatus and the very > boundedness of the nation state to control money, interest > and markets. Our problem is not markets but capitalism. Since > capital seeks controls, the only way to prevent the > distortion (concentration of wealth and power) is state > intervention. of human values and talents, that we tend to refer to as if someone was in charge. That may be the only way our language allows us to speak about such things yet, but I think most people understand that no one really designed it, runs it, built it, or quite understands it. Still, it's no illusion to imagine it has a behavior of its own, that it has many different kinds of cells and circuits, that it looks different from every perspective. I'm not sure what it means to say 'since capital seeks controls'. Perhaps that's about the roots of capitalism in how people use power to multiply power and dominate. The countervailing force in capitalism is its stimulus of individual creativity, which has been a very effective counter to the worst effects of attempted social control by the powerful. I don't agree, though, that state intervention is needed to change what causes the worst parts of the problem, the system's strong tendency of wreck anything good by overdoing it. That's a perpetual trap. The scenario I have in mind is of certain information getting around, and the idea of endless growth loosing its credibility, for a critical mass of influential people. That could cause a wave of change in how money is used to multiply money. The people following the new practice could choose not to do business with those clinging to the old way, interpreting it as 'cheating'. That could 'flip the feedback switch' of the global system and allow it to stabilize. There actually are huge and growing numbers of rich folks, buying certified organic food and certified 'sustainable' design, who haven't quite recognized that they're living a lie by drawing their wealth from various kinds of un-sustainable development. I think it's quite possible the right information could let them see the contradictions in that. > Remember, the state interfered by chartering > corporations in the first place. Tweaking the charters > towards some modest form of bias away from concentration is > just a correction on the existing dependence of corporations > on state regulation. There are indeed a great many choices for how to make investment 'unprofitable'. That's the strange necessary requirement for any sustainable economic system. On the face of it it's 'ridiculous', but you can see the humor by reasoning that it's no more unthinkable than our having actually built our life support system on the natural system model of a bomb! (all explosion all the time!) The trick is to find a way to unplug it that still makes evolving businesses rewarding and fun. That's what the right interpretation of the change I propose would do. The basic question is still, how can large groups of people stay responsive to change, and not be caught off guard by mass delusion and beliefs that are held long beyond their usefulness. Today the most popular thing in the world, our system of multiplying our own creativity, has been found to have no way to stop. Looks to me like a reasonable cause for a little extra spurt of creativity! > Doug Carmichael > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.18/586 - Release > Date: 12/13/2006 6:13 PM > > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
>That could cause a wave of change in how >money is used to multiply money. The people following the new >practice could choose not to do business with those clinging to the old way, interpreting it as 'cheating'. > A robust system has to at least tolerate clever people acting in their own self interest. The profits from financial instruments are so big that just making something taboo wouldn't slow rational people from doing it. It would have to be illegal to significantly slow, and that would require a broad consensus throughout the major governments and financial centers of the world not to mention a highly-instrumented banking data processing infrastructure for enforcement by agents acting in the public interest. Maybe Ralph Nader in front of a terminal press "Y" and "N"? Perhaps funders of terrorism will motivate such a system and it could then be retasked? Another view is that the `explosions' are unavoidable and akin evolutionarily to punctuated equillibrium. Some problems can only be addressed with huge wealth and a focus that a democracy may have trouble finding. Thus the Gaia of $$$ finds people like Bill & Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett to soak up the excess and ultimately channel it. |
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Markus wrote:
> Phil Henshaw wrote: > > >That could cause a wave of change in how > >money is used to multiply money. The people following the new > >practice could choose not to do business with those clinging > to the old way, interpreting it as 'cheating'. > > A robust system has to at least tolerate clever people acting in their > own self interest. Yes, and perceptions of self-interest can change. For the people of the Soviet Union their totalitarian system lost credibility and the expressed self-interest of the vast majority shifted abruptly as a result. > The profits from financial instruments are so big > that just making something taboo wouldn't slow rational people from > doing it. It would have to be illegal to significantly slow, and that > would require a broad consensus throughout the major governments and > financial centers of the world not to mention a highly-instrumented > banking data processing infrastructure for enforcement by agents acting > in the public interest. Absolutely! We're talking about a system that could not be changed without a substantial global consensus that there's something deeply wrong with a plan to just explosively multiply economic activity and never establish a sustainable system of life support. > Maybe Ralph Nader in front of a terminal press > "Y" and "N"? Perhaps funders of terrorism will motivate such a system > and it could then be retasked? I guess you're trying to say it would take events that could never happen? Never is a big word. There are lots to things that seem like they could never happen just because people haven't thought of how to do it yet. > Another view is that the `explosions' are unavoidable and akin > evolutionarily to punctuated equilibrium. Yes, all complex systems seem to come about through an explosion of organizational development. It perfectly fits the MO of the 'missing data' and whole system change of state patterns of punctuated equilibrium. This could account for the appearance that the great majority of evolutionary change occurs by organizational change spurts in a growth system. It clearly applies to the 500 year growth spurt of modern civilization. Now we're at the 'big wow' point where the future becomes visible, and we begin to see a clear choice. Growth taken to it's absolute limit always leads to an absolutely impenetrable wall of complexity, at which point turbulence or it's equivalents interrupt the whole process. I don't think we want to do that. > Some problems can only be > addressed with huge wealth and a focus that a democracy may have trouble > finding. Thus the Gaia of $$$ finds people like Bill & Melinda Gates, > and Warren Buffett to soak up the excess and ultimately channel it. I'd tend to agree that's a plausible good side of concentrated wealth, even if Bill and Warren are still believers in the idea that the greatest good for all is done by giving them the most money, which I doubt. If people and institutions were no longer able to multiply their wealth by driving the environment around them to multiply its returns to them for..., there would still be a use for single creative individuals having control over how large sums of money are used. I can't predict how that would develop, but I expect it would. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels-3
We definitely need better models of complex system events. Here's
another, to help imagine growth as a spontaneous evolutionary process, as if an organizational 'fire' that begins with a 'spark' of change. It's obvious enough that growth systems produce rapid change in complex systems without a template or discrete determinants from the outside, but growth is often so smooth, fast, and 'sure footed' that it's hard to imagine it as evolutionary. Maybe this alternate model helps, by telling the story of a complex system step change by growth as if in QM notation 'before||after', with the period between the marks consisting of an evolving internal process discovering its place in an unknown world. It starts with the generally unobservable 'earth shaking boom' of an unstable pattern of change forming that will multiply dramatically, zooming to a point of discovering it's own limits and a 'big wow' as the future comes into its view, to perhaps then be transformed by that reversal in the environmental responses into a sustainable system. *ahhh* -- x x x *w O w* m o o z -- *boom* x before | B o o m, Z o o m, W o w, Ahhh-- | after something clicks, takes off, discovers it's place, and settles in During the 'zoom' the environment appears limitless from the perspective of the growth cell, and in the 'ahhh--' the stabilization of new form becomes satisfying by resolving the start-up cell's unstable contradictions. Humanity's institutional rules that the 'zoom' is never to be allowed to stop.... seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming from our being swept up in a vast change in reality. It's good to note that in living systems what comes 'after' is often unequivocally the best part. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com |
yet another test model
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Phil:
I like your model, and especially so if we can figure out ways to drill down analytically into the various levels of data that should be found in the period between Before and After. And I just may use it in a lecture in a few weeks (with all due attribution, of course). You wrote: "....seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming from our being swept up in a vast change in reality." Was that a reference to a theoretical change in reality, or do you have some specifics in mind? -tj On 12/16/06, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote: > > We definitely need better models of complex system events. Here's > another, to help imagine growth as a spontaneous evolutionary process, > as if an organizational 'fire' that begins with a 'spark' of change. > > It's obvious enough that growth systems produce rapid change in complex > systems without a template or discrete determinants from the outside, > but growth is often so smooth, fast, and 'sure footed' that it's hard to > imagine it as evolutionary. Maybe this alternate model helps, by > telling the story of a complex system step change by growth as if in QM > notation 'before||after', with the period between the marks consisting > of an evolving internal process discovering its place in an unknown > world. It starts with the generally unobservable 'earth shaking boom' > of an unstable pattern of change forming that will multiply > dramatically, zooming to a point of discovering it's own limits and a > 'big wow' as the future comes into its view, to perhaps then be > transformed by that reversal in the environmental responses into a > sustainable system. > > *ahhh* -- > x > x > x > *w O w* > m > o > o > z > -- *boom* x > > > before | B o o m, Z o o m, W o w, Ahhh-- | after > > something clicks, takes off, discovers it's place, and settles in > > During the 'zoom' the environment appears limitless from the perspective > of the growth cell, and in the 'ahhh--' the stabilization of new form > becomes satisfying by resolving the start-up cell's unstable > contradictions. Humanity's institutional rules that the 'zoom' is never > to be allowed to stop.... seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming > from our being swept up in a vast change in reality. > > It's good to note that in living systems what comes 'after' is often > unequivocally the best part. > > > Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > 680 Ft. Washington Ave > NY NY 10040 > tel: 212-795-4844 > e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com > explorations: www.synapse9.com > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.us "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061216/caeb39ca/attachment.html |
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In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
Phil Henshaw wrote:
> Growth taken to it's absolute limit always leads to an absolutely impenetrable wall of > complexity, at which point turbulence or it's equivalents interrupt the > whole process. I don't think we want to do that. > To control a system a regulator must be able to absorb and respond to at least as much information as the regulated entity can produce. To reduce forms of company-internal entropy, large companies tend to spin-off successful and unsuccessful business units. To reduce forms of external entropy, we also see big companies buy smaller companies simply to nip potential competition in the bud. The need for control is built-in and forces companies away from overly-complicated decision making. The need for control by government is also present, and one form it takes are antitrust laws. Given these forces, there is a push away from the absolute limit. And provided there is room for the participants and the raw materials that makes them go, it's not clear to me why this kind of system couldn't expand, and indefinitely. It is a `small' matter of technology. By genetically engineering more energy efficient food or people, spreading to other planets, etc. the problems of sustainability could be addressed. |
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In reply to this post by Tom Johnson (via Google Docs)
Glad you like it! Sometimes a model works better when it's not
completely consistent with the facts. The beginning of growth is never a big event, but calling it 'an earth shaking boom' conveys the significance of it's as yet undiscovered future. This one also plays a little loose with switching back and forth between an 'inside' and 'outside' point of view without mentioning it. The change in reality idea is both literal and metaphor. Because I can prove that giving up the principle method of concentrating wealth is necessary for establishing any sustainable life-support system on earth (if for no other reason because decision making can't keep up) clearly says we're headed into uncharted territory. One could think of it as a kind of reset button on the whole game, a quite different set of questions and challenges. When a system that will have a successful growth goes through the inflection point (the point where the ultimate limits & goals appear) the measures of change switch from being departures from the past (adding %'s to what is) to homing in on the future (subtracting %'s from the remoteness of the goal). Mostly people have thought that should be avoided at all cost since it sounds like slowing change to a stop, and because operating a growth system without growth amounts to constant internal war with no relief, sort of the definition of feudalism. Since the growth of the modern world began around 600 years ago we've had what I'd call 'feudalism with relief', a strange amalgam of liberty, creativity and overlords... It's things of those kinds that are bound to change. The tools I use to "drill down analytically into the various levels of data that should be found in the period between Before and After" are on my web site. The collection is sort of a mess, with things of various vintage, and unsuccessful experiments, but I think I've got at least a good start on a rigorous method for exploring the data of unstable systems, a large part of the data science has been discarding for a long time as useless. The big stumbling block seems to be the old habit of thinking that the way to understand data is to replace it with 'timeless' formulas. I turn that around to look at patterns in the data for what's out there in the real world that's original. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> Phil: I like your model, and especially so if we can figure out ways to drill down analytically into the various levels of data that should be found in the period between Before and After. And I just may use it in a lecture in a few weeks (with all due attribution, of course). You wrote: "....seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming from our being swept up in a vast change in reality." Was that a reference to a theoretical change in reality, or do you have some specifics in mind? -tj On 12/16/06, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote: We definitely need better models of complex system events. Here's another, to help imagine growth as a spontaneous evolutionary process, as if an organizational 'fire' that begins with a 'spark' of change. It's obvious enough that growth systems produce rapid change in complex systems without a template or discrete determinants from the outside, but growth is often so smooth, fast, and 'sure footed' that it's hard to imagine it as evolutionary. Maybe this alternate model helps, by telling the story of a complex system step change by growth as if in QM notation 'before||after', with the period between the marks consisting of an evolving internal process discovering its place in an unknown world. It starts with the generally unobservable 'earth shaking boom' of an unstable pattern of change forming that will multiply dramatically, zooming to a point of discovering it's own limits and a 'big wow' as the future comes into its view, to perhaps then be transformed by that reversal in the environmental responses into a sustainable system. *ahhh* -- x x x *w O w* m o o z -- *boom* x before | B o o m, Z o o m, W o w, Ahhh-- | after something clicks, takes off, discovers it's place, and settles in During the 'zoom' the environment appears limitless from the perspective of the growth cell, and in the 'ahhh--' the stabilization of new form becomes satisfying by resolving the start-up cell's unstable contradictions. Humanity's institutional rules that the 'zoom' is never to be allowed to stop.... seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming from our being swept up in a vast change in reality. It's good to note that in living systems what comes 'after' is often unequivocally the best part. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.us "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061217/be49658d/attachment-0001.html |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels-3
Marcus wrote:
> Phil Henshaw wrote: > > Growth taken to it's absolute limit always leads to an absolutely > > impenetrable wall of complexity, at which point turbulence > > or it's equivalents interrupt the > > whole process. I don't think we want to do that. > > > To control a system a regulator must be able to absorb and respond to at > least as much information as the regulated entity can produce. ..well, unless you rely on how a system 'out of control' will take care of itself, like Tom Sawyer, or cities or markets designed around infrastructure that defines a fair playing field which lets people do what they like, out of control. That's what free markets are all about after all, fair exchange where the participants are completely free to do what they like with what they take away from it. > To reduce forms of company-internal entropy, large companies tend to > spin-off successful and unsuccessful business units. To reduce forms > of external entropy, we also see big companies buy smaller companies > simply to nip potential competition in the bud. The need for control is > built-in and forces companies away from overly-complicated decision > making. The need for control by government is also present, and one > form it takes are antitrust laws. How businesses actually operate certainly does provide great evidence of how complex systems work. One of the things I find interesting is the role of an organization's central structure in providing a path of least resistance for things that are essentially out of control. You have great people? The whole job is getting out of their way and letting them work. When government does that for society at large sometimes it means fostering basic scientific research, and sometimes it means removing barriers to the powerful for doing whatever they want with the rest of us. Some good some bad. > Given these forces, there is a push away from the absolute limit. And > provided there is room for the participants and the raw materials that > makes them go, it's not clear to me why this kind of system couldn't > expand, and indefinitely. It is a `small' matter of technology. By > genetically engineering more energy efficient food or people, spreading > to other planets, etc. the problems of sustainability could be addressed. Well, sure, things veer away from absolute limits or they don't survive, and the world seems mostly made up of things that have in some way or another passed that test. An analogy I've been thinking about is that walking is understood as 'organized falling', where you take a step because it catches you from falling flat on your face, but it's just shy of catching you entirely, so you shortly need to take another step to keep you from falling flat on your face again, etc. If you decide to pick up the speed to a jog or a sprint it's a simple matter of having your steps be just a little less successful at keeping you upright, and as your steps lag in the task of preventing you from falling you accelerate, moving faster and faster. At some point before you're exhausted it's good to take steps that are *more* than sufficient to stabilize your fall, either to pace yourself by easing back to a jog, or just to not run smack into things as you arrive at your door. This is steering, and a plan to fall forward ever faster forever, and have your legs magically keep up with it somehow, is dreaming not steering. I think there is good reason to suspect that the plans for me and my descendants to continually multiply the complexity of our tasks forever is faulty. I notice that you use as your assurance, as is rather common, the phrase "it's not clear to me why this kind of system couldn't expand, and indefinitely". Isn't it odd the way we establish long range plans with a test showing an absence of clarity? I find it hard to know when to use it, though it pays off SO well sometimes, but I hope to have the sense to just say "I don't know.." when that's the case. It seems like a much stronger and more versatile general observation. > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
>..well, unless you rely on how a system 'out of control' will take care >of itself > The basic mechanism is evolution. Fit organizations survive and weak ones do not. As organizations become more fit, they control more of the ecology. It's a basic requirement of any organization to fight for its survival or get squeezed out. When dominant organizations stop fighting, e.g. by forming cartels, they become fat and more vulnerable to attack or systematic intervention by government (much the same kind of the same thing). Of course the cartels can have strong influence over the government and thus inequity can persist. |
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Marcus writes:
> > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > >..well, unless you rely on how a system 'out of control' will take care > >of itself > > > The basic mechanism is evolution. Fit organizations survive > and weak ones do not. Except you leave out the long list of 'control' mechanisms where weakness is the enduring strength. A manager who knows when to let things develop unhindered is a far more useful person to have around than one that thinks the whole world needs to be micro-managed, for example. > As organizations become more fit, they control more of the ecology. Isn't the survival of the fittest concept that unfit organizations disappear, leaving the impression that surviving organizations are more fit, a organization replacement rather than improvement idea? As we've been discussing about civilizations, it's frequently the diverse cultures able to follow the lead of any part with a useful point of view that survive environmental change by adapting without replacement. Is that Darwinian selection?, or something else? > It's a basic requirement of any organization to fight for its > survival or get squeezed out. That depends partly on the environment. It's certainly valid in the present competitive environment which ensures that every business's profits will be used to multiply its competition, but might not necessarily follow were that not the case. > When dominant organizations stop > fighting, e.g. by forming cartels, they become fat and more vulnerable to attack or > systematic intervention by government (much the same kind of the same > thing). Of course the cartels can have strong influence over the > government and thus inequity can persist. Sure, what survives is not necessarily what's 'fittest' in any holistic sense, and prospering by restraint of trade (or holding power by slandering other people's ideas) produces a sick business. There's lots of motivation to shut competitors out of one's markets by any means available, but the line between healthy competition and unhealthy restraint of trade is fuzzy. Should businesses that ignore or hide their contributions to global warming, for example, be penalized by taxing their wares? Or should we just use the survival test to judge economic systems in which businesses dominate that ignore the value of the commons? I think price mechanisms measure some of the important things, and we need a variety of other measures so that people's choices can reflect their whole values. One major problem with this ideal is that there's something wrong with politics, a dirty business where people habitually cheat and slander each other while being exceedingly timid about admitting their uncertainties, rather than openly collaborating from different points of view... From my natural systems view it appears one thing missing is the assumption that every complaint probably has some valid basis, in that we all seem to have the same equal basis for our own views, i.e. that ultimately we all made them up based on an independent whole life experience of which no one else is aware! :-) > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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