At 09:43 AM 9/9/98 -0500, tom abeles wrote:
>1)... If we step back, what are the stated and unstated
>assumptions underlying the discussion and subsequent model
The unstated assumption is that individual agents (people, business units,
etc.) can influence one another's decisions in a way that causes the
organization to behave in the way that the model does, in terms of
naturally settling into attractor states, which implies major shifts,
rather than gradual changes, are the norm.
>2) We know from complexity that one can not run the same model twice nor
>is the model symetrical in that runing it forward to a point and reversing
>it will not return us to the start. Exactly what does this mean in the
>current context
It means that all we can expect to gain from the model is intuition, not
induction of patterns or deduction of proofs.
>3) Asimov's hero in the Foundation series, Harry Seldon, had a model of
>what he called psycho-history. Is that what we are striving for in this
>discussion?
Interesting you should bring that up. One of my friends, David Brin, has
just finished writing the last of the new Foundation trilogy books that
Asimov's widow authorized. We've been kicking these ideas around for quite
a while. (And for those who are fans of the books, David assures me than
the robots will get their come-uppance.) I'm probably more of a believer
in that sort of predictability than many people are. For example, I look
at the emergence of the paper publishing industry 500 years ago as an
immune response to the corruption of the Church of Rome, and the emergence
of digital publishing today as an immune response to the corruption of mass
media. But don't imagine that I'm arguing cause and effect -- those are
deeply intertwined. I think these kinds of events are predictable in the
way that earthquakes are -- we know they'll happen, we know there will be
more small events than large ones, predicting any particular one or its
size is probably impossible. Still, we can see the kind of patterns that
the Gutenberg-Richter theory describes.
>... Historically, all of these models match the
>curves and give us some way to rationalize the demonstrated behaviors. To
>what end?
The cynical answer is "to make money." The less cynical answer is to
better understand what makes a difference. One of the enormous
implications of complexity in human enterprises, as far as I'm concerned,
is that one-to-one relationships can create forces that guide an entire
organization. We tend to operate in business in a manner that serves
superiors or the mission of our business unit. Complexity suggests that
it is equally important to serve one another, to create the one-to-one
network of influence. Practical management has always known this, but it
is rarely justified in theory.
The other answer I'd toss out is that complexity is a mechanism for
generating serendipity. This message is long enough... I'll let that one
dangle for now.
Nick
--Nick Arnett <listbot@mccmedia.com>
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