Great, but there's a huge missing piece. I see no recognition that growth systems themselves actually represent real physical near-living *things* on their way to becoming something else. A growth system is not a string of dots, a curve on a page, it's a spiral network of loops in the world, that thread through the dots on the page.
A growth system's interior network of loops has a rolling instability of organizational development, that *always* turns into something else. That's what growth is for. There are internal speed-lag bumps, you might call them, that get resolved or produce turbulence. You don't get that from reading measures of change, until you've spent a lot of time reading the progressions of loops. I see a recognition of that inside perspective in the discussion yet. The amazing breadth of the misunderstanding is clearly displayed in the global professional consensus that prosperity can be maintained with a 'stable system' of growth. As soon as you restate that as a plan for perpetual exploding complexity in our personal lives and their impacts on the earth, the disconnect becomes apparent. Maintaining a stable system of growth is a perfect formula for general system failure caused by complications you're not thinking about. If you look at the science I think it was quite obvious a hundred years ago, and that's when we should have begun the transition away from institutionalized compound growth stimulus... With only 500 years of 3.5% growth you get a productivity enhancement of about 30 million. Maybe you'd think that's something we could work with..., no?, if we could still remember what it was for, I guess. :), fyi a little more at http://www.synapse9.com/ObservingSystems.pdf & > Hi Phil. Actually there's been quite a bit on growth, from > cancer to the corporation to countries, not that I mean to > imply any semantic parallels here (: There may or may not be > computational or mathematical models to a greater or lesser > degree. I think this is because so many of the presentations > are domain driven to show a new approach and solution to the > domain problem that "complexity thinking"--as many seem to > say around here--offers. Representation of the problem and > the solution varies. > > Mike > > > > > > >>> "Phil Henshaw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 06/29/06 10:49 PM >>> > Thanks, There certainly seems to be a lot going on; 32 > major speakers > and 320 papers in 16 sessions! > > I searched the NECSI site for the subject of 'growth' and > found 44 pages. There was no mention of NECSI's growth > itself, though that might > have been interesting. All but 7 hits were NECSI06 conference > abstracts. Only one clearly referred to dynamic system > growth as involving changes in the organization of the > system... Everyone seems to assume growth refers to the > shape of a curve, and not what's > happening inside the thing producing the curve. > > That seems remarkable given that a) growth curves are most > commonly evidence of internal loops in local processes that > are emerging as a system, and b) almost anything we can > interpret as a natural system > traceably comes into being by growth. > > Shouldn't we use the curves to help point us toward what > they're coming from? > > > > > > > > I'm at the NECSI conference in Boston this week and recommend > > a look at the program web page with links to abstracts and > > papers, http://www.necsi.org/community/wiki/index.php/ICCS06. > > Extremely interesting variety of presentations. > > > > Mike > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, > > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
