Posted by
Jochen Fromm-3 on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/On-Emergence-and-Decision-Making-in-Complex-Systems-tp521791p521793.html
I guess what you are interested in the management aspect:
what do you do as a manager if you are faced with a complex system
in a concrete real-world situation, and how do you find the
right decision to manage a complex system. You might be
interested in Dietrich Doerner's book "The Logic of Failure -
Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations".
Doerner is a Germany psychology professor, and his
recommendations for the right decisions are simple.
We should be aware that our cognitive models are wrong and our
thinking shortsighted: "An individual's reality model can be right
or wrong, complete or incomplete. As a rule it will be both incomplete
and wrong, and one would do well to keep that probability in mind."
Doerner further argues that there is no standard solution, silver
bullet or one-size-fits-all solution in many comlex situtations,
because every complex situation is different (complexity has many
varieties, but simplicity has a unified form). Our ordinary common
sense is probably the best tool we have to solve complex problems.
Finally he recommends the use of simulations and suitable models
in order to deal with complex systems. This is especially recommendable
for systems with a high probability of emergent properties. It is of
course important to find the right level of detail, too little details
means oversimplification, too much details means the model is too
complex and one easily drowns in data.
The answer of Stephen is interesting. Do all examples of
emergence involve some form of spontaneous symmetry breaking ?
If you think of emergence as a process of pattern formation,
then the new pattern obviously breaks the symmetry that existed
before the pattern appeared. Yet often for every symmetry that
is broken a new symmetry seems to appear.
The classical examples for swarm formation and swarm
intelligence are flocking and (ant) foraging, respectively.
Further popular examples are pile building termites
(if you find a chip then pick it up unless you're already
carrying a chip in which case drop it), Langton's ant
and Schelling's segregation model.
Can you find a symmetry breaking in all these examples ?
Probably yes, but one can find often both, a symmetry
breaking and a symmetry making at the same time.
A shoal of fish for example may show more or less
translational symmetry before the creation of the flock
(in the disordered state), and rotational symmetry afterwards
(in the ordered state, for instance in a spherical flock).
The same argument applies to pile building termites:
first the translational symmetry seems to be broken,
and then a new local rotational symmetry appears in
for of spherical heaps, see
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Termites-J.