To grasp Orientation you need to be familiar with Boyd’s Destruction and Creation paper. (You can download a pdf file here, http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf)
In it he states, “To comprehend and cope with our environment we develop mental patterns or concepts of meaning.” This post will look at Orientation in this context.
In the last post I used cultural traditions, genetic heritage and previous experience as observation filters. Tools to help control the amount of raw data that assaults Orientation. Now I’ll expand their use to represent parts of a systemic growth model; initial state, constraints for change and sustainable end state.
Systems models begin with an arbitrary initial state, for example the growth of a redwood tree. A seed requires sunlight, water and fertile soil to activate the growth process; energy, new information that provides the spark. There is a predictable pace and direction of change. The result is a maturing redwood over years, not something else in days. Finally there’s a sustainable end state, the tree can get so big given its total constraints.
This description applies to developing “mental patterns and concepts of meaning” as well. People have an initial starting point, constraints on how fast and in what direction they can change and a limit to how far they can go. This begins with the individual’s cultural traditions, genetic heritage and previous experience.
What happens is that an on-going assault of new information cascades through their “observing window” and hits these three facets. It’s the energy that provides the spark for action. The world is intruding on their perceived reality and they have just three options. Their initial starting point can handle the new information; they fail to recognize and deal with a difference between what they knew and what they observed or they can create a novel solution to match said difference. In Destruction and Creation Boyd clearly points out that in the real world the third state is the most common because “at some point, ambiguities, uncertainties, anomalies, or apparent inconsistencies may emerge to stifle a more general and precise match-up of concept with observed reality.” Here’s why;
The first option, finding a ‘perfect’ match cannot happen. Previous experience ‘never matches up perfectly’ with new, i.e. novel information. Here Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety supports Boyd. It states, “If a system is to be stable the number of states of its control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system being controlled.” In this case the ‘previous experience’ in Orientation would have already had to experienced the ‘new information’. Problem is this can’t happen. It implies that there is nothing really new, everything has been seen before. This is the state of idealists, demagogues and fanatics at worst, stuckness at best.
The second option, failing to recognize and deal with some difference is a self-solving problem. Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection will take care of you very quickly. At it’s crudest you’re either beaten on the field or cut from the team. In the short, anecdotal run you can get lucky, even win on occasion. But in the long run this Las Vegas approach leaves more losers than winners because hope is not a method.
Our initial starting point is never a match for the new information that is being continually thrust upon us. By definition it is always at least one step behind those unfolding events. Because of this the status quo, the initial starting point, has to be immediately abandoned in the search for a new point. That is done through the interplay of analysis and synthesis. In Boyd’s words, “I believe we have uncovered a Dialectic Engine that permits the construction of decision models needed by individuals and societies for determining and monitoring actions in an effort to improve their capacity for independent action.”
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