The boundaries of cybernetic/organic systems are determined by the system itself. In terms of a system exchanging energy and matter across its boundary, it has three options;
- The system can take in new e/m to replace/repair worn out components. A plant cell replacing a mitochondria, a store manager replacing a retiring employee. This maintains the status quo, a stable state, but in a changing environment cannot last.
- The system can shed components, i.e. remove non-essential, redundant, problem or outdated parts. This is a goal of achieving greater efficiency. Cut the fat in business jargon. However, after the cut the system will have to gain new e/m to maintain the new status as above.
- The system can add e/m to create new components, i.e. evolve to a higher level. This process requires some type of synthesis otherwise nothing new has been created.
A system cannot refuse to take in new e/m for any significant period of time. Since energy is dissipating through entropy eventually the system will collapse. Furthermore, in the larger environment other systems will be competing for e/m. Such competition will result in scarcer resources. This will place an internal demand for either greater system efficiency or increased complexity to meet the changing environment. (Typical business response to changing markets.) The status quo will be unsustainable.
In cybernetic and higher level systems the gatekeeper for this new e/m is human, a person, committee, group, Department whatever. That means someone/s will have the responsibility to select what e/m gets into and potentially becomes a part of the system. This could include selecting employment candidates (HR), ideas (Consultants), new technology (IT), shareholders (Finance) and so on. The GK becomes a filter for the whole system.
Now factor in Friction. The GK will have to deal with external Friction, i.e. outside e/m trying to get into the system as well as internal Friction, i.e. competing agendas/needs between departments/organs. This means that new e/m will be filtered through and influenced by Friction. Systems will be created, managed and maintained as much by fear, fatigue, uncertainty, disagreement, chance, outside constraints, unpredictable outsiders and poor doctrines as much as by optimism, planning, cooperation, good fortune and so on. Before a system can win the war with the outside, it has to resolve the war within.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
"Gödel at the lowest level."
Dissipative structures and Friction flow through, constrain and influence all local systems. (Modified from; System Theory in Community Development by Andy Tamas.)
There are four levels of systems environments. Each system creates it's own boundary, (a rule of Autopoietic systems) therefore each system defines it's own internal and external environment.
* The system under consideration and the internal environment of which it is aware. A person is aware of what they perceive, i.e. respiration, tactile sensation, stomachache.
* The deeper internal environment of which the system is not aware. The bacteria living inside the GI tract is alive, active and unnoticed. People are ecosystems for bacteria.
* The systems external environment of which it is aware. The constant flow of sensations, (matter and energy) that enter perception and rise to the level of cognition. The “real world.”
* The systems distant external environment of which it is not aware. The surprise party inside the house or the ice forming on the wing of a plane.
Energy and matter flows around and through each level in an unpredictable fashion. Each local application can seek out, incorporate, get rid of, exchange matter and energy to meet it’s own goals. (The search for negentropy.) Since each application can act independently their ‘choices’ constrain and influence other local applications as to what matter and energy is available for selection. (See Peyton Manning’s influence in the NFL. An unpredictable cascade through numerous teams.)
At the local, human level the influence of other people over different time scales, (genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experience and new experience) provides unlimited opportunities for Friction to develop. That plays a role on the ‘selection’ process and decisions within systems.
This poses a problem with the definition of what a system boundary actually is. To freeze a system with point logic isolates the matter but misses the pattern. The map is not the terrain argument. To focus on the patterns using interval logic means borrowing the entities to focus on the interactions. The water held behind a dam is an example. The matter is continually changing but the pattern remains the same. Finally to remove Friction removes humanity from consideration. There are no people left in the equation.
To deal with this constant state of cross-boundary flow of matter and energy between systems “Bertalanffy coined the German term Fliessgliechgewicht (“flowing balance”) and Nikolai Bernstein “the flowing edge.” We must borrow the entities in order to create and maintain the energy flows through the system. Without energy, there’s no work or life. Without replacing the entities there is no energy source or target. The act of replacement itself requires work. This produces a self-serving need for change in an unfolding and uncertain environment.
There are four levels of systems environments. Each system creates it's own boundary, (a rule of Autopoietic systems) therefore each system defines it's own internal and external environment.
* The system under consideration and the internal environment of which it is aware. A person is aware of what they perceive, i.e. respiration, tactile sensation, stomachache.
* The deeper internal environment of which the system is not aware. The bacteria living inside the GI tract is alive, active and unnoticed. People are ecosystems for bacteria.
* The systems external environment of which it is aware. The constant flow of sensations, (matter and energy) that enter perception and rise to the level of cognition. The “real world.”
* The systems distant external environment of which it is not aware. The surprise party inside the house or the ice forming on the wing of a plane.
Energy and matter flows around and through each level in an unpredictable fashion. Each local application can seek out, incorporate, get rid of, exchange matter and energy to meet it’s own goals. (The search for negentropy.) Since each application can act independently their ‘choices’ constrain and influence other local applications as to what matter and energy is available for selection. (See Peyton Manning’s influence in the NFL. An unpredictable cascade through numerous teams.)
At the local, human level the influence of other people over different time scales, (genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experience and new experience) provides unlimited opportunities for Friction to develop. That plays a role on the ‘selection’ process and decisions within systems.
This poses a problem with the definition of what a system boundary actually is. To freeze a system with point logic isolates the matter but misses the pattern. The map is not the terrain argument. To focus on the patterns using interval logic means borrowing the entities to focus on the interactions. The water held behind a dam is an example. The matter is continually changing but the pattern remains the same. Finally to remove Friction removes humanity from consideration. There are no people left in the equation.
To deal with this constant state of cross-boundary flow of matter and energy between systems “Bertalanffy coined the German term Fliessgliechgewicht (“flowing balance”) and Nikolai Bernstein “the flowing edge.” We must borrow the entities in order to create and maintain the energy flows through the system. Without energy, there’s no work or life. Without replacing the entities there is no energy source or target. The act of replacement itself requires work. This produces a self-serving need for change in an unfolding and uncertain environment.
"Hell is other people."
I mentioned that as humans in interaction we have to deal with the Clausewitzian idea of a "unified concept of of a general friction (Gesamtbegriffeiner allgemeinen Frikition)"
He identifies eight sources which I'll modify from the original;
* Danger, which brings and breeds fear.
* Physical exertion, "fatigue makes cowards of us all."
* Uncertainties and imperfections in information. Add to that the limits placed on the time and power for computation.
* The resistance within one's own team, group or system.
* Chance. It cannot be eliminated. This confines the use of any "optimal" program or plan to the past. Optimal ideas or systems have no place in the future.
* Physical and political limits. There's no free lunch and someone else decided on the menu.
* Unpredictability in dealing with other systems. Consider how the rest of the world has to view dealing with North Korea.
* Disconnects between ends and means. In human enterprises the application of linear thinking to wicked problems, using hope as a method, thinking that the past perfectly predicts the future, cultural biases, i.e. Rhetorics of thinking are just a few examples.
Friction is "a structural feature" of all local level organic systems. Like the Dissipative structure from which all energy and matter comes out of and returns to friction is everywhere. Only the degree and type can be controlled and that comes at a cost, usually an increase in any of the other areas. For practical purposes we are dealing with people and people in interactions cannot escape friction.
He identifies eight sources which I'll modify from the original;
* Danger, which brings and breeds fear.
* Physical exertion, "fatigue makes cowards of us all."
* Uncertainties and imperfections in information. Add to that the limits placed on the time and power for computation.
* The resistance within one's own team, group or system.
* Chance. It cannot be eliminated. This confines the use of any "optimal" program or plan to the past. Optimal ideas or systems have no place in the future.
* Physical and political limits. There's no free lunch and someone else decided on the menu.
* Unpredictability in dealing with other systems. Consider how the rest of the world has to view dealing with North Korea.
* Disconnects between ends and means. In human enterprises the application of linear thinking to wicked problems, using hope as a method, thinking that the past perfectly predicts the future, cultural biases, i.e. Rhetorics of thinking are just a few examples.
Friction is "a structural feature" of all local level organic systems. Like the Dissipative structure from which all energy and matter comes out of and returns to friction is everywhere. Only the degree and type can be controlled and that comes at a cost, usually an increase in any of the other areas. For practical purposes we are dealing with people and people in interactions cannot escape friction.
"Boundaries exist in time as well as space."
Metaphors make for weak models but this will do for now. Computers function on two systems levels. An operating system that we don't see but is the starting point for usage and the applications that we actually use. Without both systems the computer is useless.
In systems thinking many discussions revolve around the local or applications level. Education, business, cognitive, communication, cooperative, competitive systems are simply local applications of systems thinking. They, like computer applications are a very limited subset of principles, ideas and constraints. Like a spreadsheet these systems address and are useful within a limited field.
On the global or operational level something much larger is happening. Without the global operating systems running unseen in the background the local applications cannot function. So what are these global operating systems? I see a trinity.
Dissipative Structures or system per Pregogine. Stuff exists and things happen. Initial starting point is the big bang or the uncaused cause, take your pick. The end point is the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Autopoietic systems that recreate themselves out of this mess and define their own boundaries. These systems tend to use energy and matter to maintain the status-quo. They are incapable of goal-driven evolution but subject to internal errors, i.e. genetic mutation. To stay at this level invites eventual decay and death.
Allopoietic systems that are goal-seeking. These systems use matter and energy to create something other then themselves. Novelty, adaptability and change are their reason for being. These systems provide the motive for the active 'hunt for negative entropy.'
I have adapted this model from Fritjof Capra's Web of Life. The last system is my take on his idea of consciousness.
Why this trinity of operating systems? Because stuff exists and interacts. That stuff and the interactions are suspended between the decay towards entropy and the drive towards emerging complexity. That suspension creates tension and bifurcation points between the status-quo and change.
Applications are governed by these operating systems. It is unseen and unavoidable. Since the applications that humans are really with contain organic systems, esp. other people they must deal with the notion of Clausewitzian friction, reason, emotion and chance. Any discussion of local systems must take into account the global constraints and friction. Without these elements the problem cannot be framed nor can a solution be found.
Two short papers that I'm inferring a lot of this from;
Principles of Systems and Cybernetics: an evolutionary perspective, http://pcp.lanl.gov/papers/PrinciplesCybSys.pdf
and Destruction and Creation, http://goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf.
In systems thinking many discussions revolve around the local or applications level. Education, business, cognitive, communication, cooperative, competitive systems are simply local applications of systems thinking. They, like computer applications are a very limited subset of principles, ideas and constraints. Like a spreadsheet these systems address and are useful within a limited field.
On the global or operational level something much larger is happening. Without the global operating systems running unseen in the background the local applications cannot function. So what are these global operating systems? I see a trinity.
Dissipative Structures or system per Pregogine. Stuff exists and things happen. Initial starting point is the big bang or the uncaused cause, take your pick. The end point is the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Autopoietic systems that recreate themselves out of this mess and define their own boundaries. These systems tend to use energy and matter to maintain the status-quo. They are incapable of goal-driven evolution but subject to internal errors, i.e. genetic mutation. To stay at this level invites eventual decay and death.
Allopoietic systems that are goal-seeking. These systems use matter and energy to create something other then themselves. Novelty, adaptability and change are their reason for being. These systems provide the motive for the active 'hunt for negative entropy.'
I have adapted this model from Fritjof Capra's Web of Life. The last system is my take on his idea of consciousness.
Why this trinity of operating systems? Because stuff exists and interacts. That stuff and the interactions are suspended between the decay towards entropy and the drive towards emerging complexity. That suspension creates tension and bifurcation points between the status-quo and change.
Applications are governed by these operating systems. It is unseen and unavoidable. Since the applications that humans are really with contain organic systems, esp. other people they must deal with the notion of Clausewitzian friction, reason, emotion and chance. Any discussion of local systems must take into account the global constraints and friction. Without these elements the problem cannot be framed nor can a solution be found.
Two short papers that I'm inferring a lot of this from;
Principles of Systems and Cybernetics: an evolutionary perspective, http://pcp.lanl.gov/papers/PrinciplesCybSys.pdf
and Destruction and Creation, http://goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf.
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