posted to FRIAM 12/16/05
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
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` x
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` *w`O`w*
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `m
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `o
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `o
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `z
` ` ` `–`*boom*
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 ¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸
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e-mail: id@synapse9.com
explorations: www.synapse9.com