Notes on Analytical Framework for 21st Century Strategy, Self-Organized Criticality, Complexity and Kurzweil
Self-organized criticality – a class of dynamical system which has a critical point as an attractor (a phase transition as an attractor). The emergence of complexity from simple local interactions could be spontaneous.
Sources: Arxiv Structure, Specifically: Paths to Self-Organized Criticality.
It has been suggested that the scale-free event size of wars (more precisely, purposeful killing) could mean that man-made catastrophes self-organize into criticality, i.e. an attractor exists at the phase transition/critical point between potential and kinetic energy as it applies to human-human relations. However, if you build into the system redundancies, like a type of pressure release or detour, then one may overcome this. This same way of thinking can be applied to markets.
Complexity and contingency govern things like wealth creation (economics). Therefore, a system that can harness the wealth generated by market complexity without regard to any specific outcome is the one the will be successful over time. The dominance of a product over a competitor depends on the accumulation of minor accidental events. The effect (success or failure in the marketplace) comes about when unlinked events become linked (critical point) and together cause the discrete result. The critical point is when complexity is created.
Contingency depends as much the space-time value of events as it does their mere existence.
Also, a system’s response is not necessarily proportional to the size of the impact. A small impacting event could be the catalyst that brings the entire system to a critical point.
A stable phase transition is a frozen accident. The formation of a module that does a specific task is an example of self-organized complexity. The formation of a group of modules into a big module that does something is another.
Large dynamical systems naturally evolve, or self-organize, into a highly interactive, critical state where a minor perturbation may lead to events, called avalanches, of all sizes. Periods of stasis are interrupted by intermittent bursts of activity of all sizes (see Kuhn's Evolution of a Paradigm). Since the systems are noisy, the actual events cannot be predicted, however, the statistical distribution of these events (size/frequency) can be discovered. No quick-fix can stabilize the system and prevent fluctuations, only active flexible management can avoid system failures. If the tape were rewound on history and replayed, with different random noise, the specific outcomes would be different but the topology of the events would be the same. Large catastrophes would be avoided, and others would occur.
Large, catastrophic events occur as a consequence of the same dynamics that produce small, ordinary events. Fractals describe scale-free, or power-law, behavior. The matrix through which the avalanche propagates is predisposed to accommodate events of large sizes. The underlying philosophy is that general features, like the appearance of large catastrophes, and perhaps critical exponents, are not sensitive to the details of the model. Important features of large-scale phenomena are grossly insensitive to the particular details of the models and are shared between seemingly disparate kinds of systems.
Human culture can modulate the basics we get from our genes.
A virus is a naked gene. A meme is like a virus, all it does is try to replicate. An idea can flourish even while reducing genetic fitness to zero. All domesticated species have smaller brains, they have outsourced their toughest problems and no longer need the brainpower.
Pragmatism is based on experience and experiment and not on fixed principles. Pragmatism is an idea about ideas. There will be times when Pragmatism, pragmatically speaking, is no longer useful. Sometimes a belief or idea has a utility apart from its truth-value. This is true of pragmatism as well as other ideological paradigms.
Epistemology: Do I really know what I think I know and how do I know it? Knowledge is distinguished from true belief by its justification – Justified True Belief. Less justified beliefs are “probable opinion” or provisional knowledge. There is the case, however, where a person has a good reason to believe a proposition true, be correct, but not be correct for the reasons used. That is not knowledge. Others have proposed that the evidence for a belief must necessitate its truth before it is knowledge.
Kurzweil: The amount of time needed for evolutionary progress—increases in complexity—has been decreasing as the jumps in complexity have increased. Interestingly, the rate of technological progress fits neatly on this graph. Complexity is being produced swiftly, now.
X -- How long ago the paradigm shift took place, Y -- How long that paradigm shift took until the next paradigm shift. Fruits of evolutionary process grow exponentially because the gains are stored as frozen accidents. Therefore, biological evolution keeps accelerating. Self-organized criticality comes faster and faster (and is scale-invariant). Tech evolution is on straight line with biological evolution. Increased levels of complexity in information processing and energy conversion. Inexorable acceleration is inherent in evolutionary process.
More avalanches (phase-shifts) of all types, with no typical size (effect on entire ecosystem). They can be local or global. The effects can be modular and contained, or they can be universal.
2010: computers disappear
1. images written directly to our retinas by glasses and lenses.
2. ubiquitous high bandwidth connection nto the internet at all times.
3. Electronics so tiny it’s embedded in the environment, our clothing, our eyeglasses.
4. Full Immersion visual-auditory virtual reality.
5. Augmented real reality
6. Interaction with virtual personalities as a primary interface.
7. Effective language technology.
Law of accelerating returns.
Geometry and gravity are connected. Space is curved in a particular way called ‘warped.’
America is decadent, but at the same time it is post-decadent. Structures and institutions that existed for centuries, and in many cases millennia, are decaying, but at the same time we are ‘inventing’ new structures and new institutions and new ways of functioning at an organizational level and interactive level.
Sources: Arxiv Structure, Specifically: Paths to Self-Organized Criticality.
It has been suggested that the scale-free event size of wars (more precisely, purposeful killing) could mean that man-made catastrophes self-organize into criticality, i.e. an attractor exists at the phase transition/critical point between potential and kinetic energy as it applies to human-human relations. However, if you build into the system redundancies, like a type of pressure release or detour, then one may overcome this. This same way of thinking can be applied to markets.
Complexity and contingency govern things like wealth creation (economics). Therefore, a system that can harness the wealth generated by market complexity without regard to any specific outcome is the one the will be successful over time. The dominance of a product over a competitor depends on the accumulation of minor accidental events. The effect (success or failure in the marketplace) comes about when unlinked events become linked (critical point) and together cause the discrete result. The critical point is when complexity is created.
Contingency depends as much the space-time value of events as it does their mere existence.
Also, a system’s response is not necessarily proportional to the size of the impact. A small impacting event could be the catalyst that brings the entire system to a critical point.
A stable phase transition is a frozen accident. The formation of a module that does a specific task is an example of self-organized complexity. The formation of a group of modules into a big module that does something is another.
Large dynamical systems naturally evolve, or self-organize, into a highly interactive, critical state where a minor perturbation may lead to events, called avalanches, of all sizes. Periods of stasis are interrupted by intermittent bursts of activity of all sizes (see Kuhn's Evolution of a Paradigm). Since the systems are noisy, the actual events cannot be predicted, however, the statistical distribution of these events (size/frequency) can be discovered. No quick-fix can stabilize the system and prevent fluctuations, only active flexible management can avoid system failures. If the tape were rewound on history and replayed, with different random noise, the specific outcomes would be different but the topology of the events would be the same. Large catastrophes would be avoided, and others would occur.
Large, catastrophic events occur as a consequence of the same dynamics that produce small, ordinary events. Fractals describe scale-free, or power-law, behavior. The matrix through which the avalanche propagates is predisposed to accommodate events of large sizes. The underlying philosophy is that general features, like the appearance of large catastrophes, and perhaps critical exponents, are not sensitive to the details of the model. Important features of large-scale phenomena are grossly insensitive to the particular details of the models and are shared between seemingly disparate kinds of systems.
Human culture can modulate the basics we get from our genes.
A virus is a naked gene. A meme is like a virus, all it does is try to replicate. An idea can flourish even while reducing genetic fitness to zero. All domesticated species have smaller brains, they have outsourced their toughest problems and no longer need the brainpower.
Pragmatism is based on experience and experiment and not on fixed principles. Pragmatism is an idea about ideas. There will be times when Pragmatism, pragmatically speaking, is no longer useful. Sometimes a belief or idea has a utility apart from its truth-value. This is true of pragmatism as well as other ideological paradigms.
Epistemology: Do I really know what I think I know and how do I know it? Knowledge is distinguished from true belief by its justification – Justified True Belief. Less justified beliefs are “probable opinion” or provisional knowledge. There is the case, however, where a person has a good reason to believe a proposition true, be correct, but not be correct for the reasons used. That is not knowledge. Others have proposed that the evidence for a belief must necessitate its truth before it is knowledge.
Kurzweil: The amount of time needed for evolutionary progress—increases in complexity—has been decreasing as the jumps in complexity have increased. Interestingly, the rate of technological progress fits neatly on this graph. Complexity is being produced swiftly, now.
X -- How long ago the paradigm shift took place, Y -- How long that paradigm shift took until the next paradigm shift. Fruits of evolutionary process grow exponentially because the gains are stored as frozen accidents. Therefore, biological evolution keeps accelerating. Self-organized criticality comes faster and faster (and is scale-invariant). Tech evolution is on straight line with biological evolution. Increased levels of complexity in information processing and energy conversion. Inexorable acceleration is inherent in evolutionary process.
More avalanches (phase-shifts) of all types, with no typical size (effect on entire ecosystem). They can be local or global. The effects can be modular and contained, or they can be universal.
2010: computers disappear
1. images written directly to our retinas by glasses and lenses.
2. ubiquitous high bandwidth connection nto the internet at all times.
3. Electronics so tiny it’s embedded in the environment, our clothing, our eyeglasses.
4. Full Immersion visual-auditory virtual reality.
5. Augmented real reality
6. Interaction with virtual personalities as a primary interface.
7. Effective language technology.
Law of accelerating returns.
Geometry and gravity are connected. Space is curved in a particular way called ‘warped.’
America is decadent, but at the same time it is post-decadent. Structures and institutions that existed for centuries, and in many cases millennia, are decaying, but at the same time we are ‘inventing’ new structures and new institutions and new ways of functioning at an organizational level and interactive level.
posted by John Aristides at 8/08/2006 11:58:00 AM
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