Re: Managing complexity?
> On 02-Apr-2019, at 11:24 PM, Brian Holmes > wrote: > > Because of this permeability, highly invasive techniques are continually > designed and applied in order to get people to behave, not as their own > system with its own autopoietic compass, but instead, as a subordinate or > even determinate part of another, more malleable system. These techniques are > turned upon individuals, communities, societies. Hi Brian, I gather from what you write that you agree with my quest for care of the autopoietic self, the need to work from the inside out, and that the inevitable gaze from within the system means that you can never perceive the whole system; but the central question is how one resists the invasions of power from outside that tend to subvert all of this. I fully agree that constructing an effective resistance is critical, and that we must engage with the political dimension in doing so. The question is how we go about it, and what tools we select for the politics we need. I get the sense that we agree on ends but diverge a bit on what we consider appropriate means. Let me start with observing that this is a discussion thread on how one ‘manages’ complexity. I don’t really need to point it out given you are the original provocateur of the thread but do so just to draw attention to the inevitability of complexity. And this is where I start having concerns about too great a reliance on the construction of structural models of the situation as “an analysis that is crucial to action”, for to do so raises the danger of losing touch with the fundamentals of complexity. My concerns are: To attempt to capture the system in a single model is to resist complexity by resorting to simplicity, whereas one must remain within a position of embracing complexity. One can lose oneself in a level of abstraction distanced to the point of isolation from the practice of everyday life. When the model dominates, the self can define itself only in reference to it and faces the danger of erasing its own autonomy. The desire to be comprehensive makes the model too heavy to be useful. I draw attention to the fact that I do not object to constructing structural models per se but am only concerned about having too great a reliance on them to the point that one considers them crucial to action. I should also add that in the previous post if I gave the impression that I sought to build a dichotomy between open and closed systems, then I apologise that I did not express myself clearly. I would eschew such a dichotomy and posit that it is a shuttle between open and closed modes of being that is crucial. To elaborate, let me propose that each of us lives at three levels of experience: First-Person Experience: Where one is aware of one’s own body and mind as a sentient being. The authenticity of being one feels here is unparalleled, for it is not just a conceptual understanding, but a full sensory awareness that validates one’s existence in the world. Second-Person Experience: Where one interacts with other beings. Third-Person Experience: Where one can comprehend concepts and systems that exist beyond the levels of first- and second-person experience. This covers conceptual models and notions of truth, and also covers aesthetics: skilled artistic practitioners talk about being ‘possessed’ by their craft once they achieve a certain level of mastery in it. In “The View from Within”, the collection of essays on the study of consciousness edited by Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear, the editors’ introduction to the book observes that each of these levels of experience are embedded within social and natural networks (the inevitable partial view from within that lies at the heart of complexity). Therefore, each level cannot hold by itself, and the movement back and forth between the levels is a process by which each critiques, challenges, and thereby, validates the other. Put too much faith in first-person experience, and one faces the danger of being confined to a blinkered self-indulgent perspective that leads to systemic fragility at wider levels of complexity. Put too much faith in third-person experience, and the definition of the self is reduced to referential terms of function or purpose, and the self’s autonomy goes unrecognised. The difference with humans is that we are reflexive beings, we can not only engage with the world, but we can also think about ourselves and the nature of that engagement. We can be within our own autonomy, or we can conceptually step outside it. A reliance on third-person experience encourages us to endanger our own autonomy by anchoring ourselves outside it. The continued movement between all three levels is important. Third-person concepts require validation by the authenticity of the first-person level, and the potential narrow self-indulgence of first-person experience needs the challenge of third-person experience.
Re: Managing complexity?
On 03.04.19 11:38, James Wallbank wrote: > Felix, this is the sort of post that social media conditions me to want > to click "Like" but also to feel that it's an inadequate response. > > I'd only add (or perhaps, draw out): > > * "Managing" is the wrong way to think about maximising human welfare > (or, indeed, achieving any defined objective) when interacting with > complex systems. > > * Perhaps "Surfing" is a better concept - dynamically balancing on > roiling, turbulent, unknowable medium to plot a course at least > approximately intentional. Some of the time. Hi James, I'm glad the clunky set-up of a mailing list doesn't provide the option to simply click "like" :) I'm not a philosopher and I'm skeptical about defining terms too neatly, but I think here, the terminology is crucial. Because it expresses how we conceive the relationship to the larger socio-ecological environment in which we are living. I agree that "managing" is not a good term, with all its connotations of "central management" or "top-down control". But surfing is deficient in the other way, it doesn't really account for the enormous influence humans have on the environment and it evades the political questions about what kind of world we are living in. Human civilization cannot just wait for the right wave to come along, but is part of what produces the waves in the first place. On 31.03.19 15:50, Prem Chandavarkar wrote: > However, self-organising systems are emergent - they can exhibit > fundamental properties that did not exist at all in an earlier state > of the system. As humans, we cannot be blind to what properties may > emerge, unless we say we have no ethical concerns at all if the > system throws up properties such as unfair and degrading exploitation > of others or ecological imbalances. This is really important, in my view. Even as we try to develop a more connected, systemic perspective, one in which agency is distributed and heterogeneous, I think it's crucial to acknowledge that humans are still different from all other agents, in so far as they alone can think, and act, on the level of the overall system and its emergent effects, rather than just within their limited domains. Clive Hamilton, in "Defiant Earth", stresses this point, arguing against Haraway and others, who view humans as just one group of agents among many others. He calls this "anti-anthropocentrism" and argues for a "new anthropocentrism". While I'm not sure that's the greatest of terms, what he means by it is basically this: Because of their unique positions, humans need to take responsibility for the earth, without assuming the ability to control it (as in the the fantasies of "ecomodernist" geoengineers). "Responsibility without control", seems like a good approximation to an way of conceptualization how to life within a complex, nonlinear system. Felix -- http://felix.openflows.com |Open PGP http://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=0x0bbb5b950c9ff2ac signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Managing complexity?
Felix, this is the sort of post that social media conditions me to want
to click "Like" but also to feel that it's an inadequate response.
I'd only add (or perhaps, draw out):
* "Managing" is the wrong way to think about maximising human welfare
(or, indeed, achieving any defined objective) when interacting with
complex systems.
* Perhaps "Surfing" is a better concept - dynamically balancing on
roiling, turbulent, unknowable medium to plot a course at least
approximately intentional. Some of the time.
* Digital networking ("the internet") is a connection machine. It takes
elements and human activities and connects them, profligately, in ways
forseen and unforseen, visible and invisible. (Who'd have thought that a
geeky urge to purchase contraband anonymously would become intimately
connected with melting icecaps? Thanks, Bitcoin!)
* It's this constant and accelerating process of cross-connection that
makes current and future society a complex system, tending towards ever
more complexity, and ever more unknowability. Forever. (Right up until
THE EVENT, of course.)
All the best,
James
=
On 01/04/2019 11:24, Felix Stalder wrote:
On 30.03.19 21:19, Brian Holmes wrote:
However, the surging sense of intellectual mastery brought by the
phrase, "managing complexity," declines precipitously when you try to
define either "management" or "complexity."
Complexity is relatively easy to define. As Jospeh Rabie already did,
the number of actors and the number of ways in which they can interact
with, and adapt to, one another defines the complexity of a "system".
This, of course, leads to the question how to determine the size of the
system. The first generation of cybernetics gave another answer to that
question than the second, as Ted pointed out.
Prem's suggestion that we are dealing with polycentric systems is
certainly right and makes it both easier and harder to define the number
of actors that make them up. Easier in the sense that it puts the focus
on densities and rates of interaction (higher at the center, lower at
the periphery) rather than on precise, yet elusive boundaries. Harder in
the sense that it stresses that each system contains numerous such
centers, shifting the problem from drawing boundaries to deciding the
inclusion/exclusion of centers.
Be that as it may. Let's assume that the number of actors and the ways
of interacting have increased over the last, say, last 70 years. More
important than the simple number of actors (which is hard to ascertain
anyway) is that the ways in which they are interacting has increased,
leading to an exponential, rather than linear rise on complexity.
In my view, there are a number of reasons for this.
* The chains of interactions have grown longer. Many (social and
ecological) systems used to be relatively local phenomena have become
global ones (as a consequence of the expansion of capitalism as
globalization).
* The intensity of interaction has been increasing (as a consequence of
the intensification of capitalism), taking many systems away from
"steady states" closer to the edge of "phase-transitions" (to use the
terminology from complexity theory). In this process, these systems
become more and more non-linear, increasing the need to understand their
internal dynamics (e.g who are the actors and how are they interacting)
while at the same time, making them less predictable.
* The social institutions that have traditionally limited the ways of
interaction by providing and enforcing rules and norms have weakened,
further increasing the leeway for agency (which, of course, not all bad).
Not knowing where to draw boundaries, or which centers are relevant to
the understanding of the system, is a part of the problem of not being
able to "manage" the many actors and their increasing ranges of
interaction and the predictable effects of their interactions. By
"managing" I initially simply meant the ability to track the actors that
make up the system and the ability to intervene in the system to move it
towards desired states. This is a somewhat technocratic view, I admit.
Joseph Weizenbaum argued in the 1970sthat the computer was introduced as
an answer to the social pressures which large corporations and
government agencies faced. Rather than accept social change, the new
computing infrastructure was putting central management on a new
footing. It could now keep track of many more elements and react much
faster to changes in the environment by reorganizing quickly the
relation of the elements to one another. This was, basically, the shift
from Fordism to Post-Fordism and by definition an increase in complexity
that came, as it always comes, at the price of an higher rate of
abstraction as a way of limiting that increase of complexity (a lower
number of variables per element are taken into account).
For simil
Re: Managing complexity?
On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 2:26 AM Prem Chandavarkar wrote: there is no neutral outside ever available. One is always within a system, > or rather, always within a hierarchy of systems, almost all of them complex > and polycentric. Just as when one is within a room one can never see all > four walls simultaneously, a position of observing from within a system > means substantive parts of the system will never be clearly visible to > one’s cognition. > > This should be the starting point for any analysis. One has to work from > the inside out rather than the outside in, and begin with the following > questions: > >- What are the boundary conditions that define the limits to which >one's cognition can clearly perceive the system? >- How porous (or how impermeable) are these boundary conditions? > > Prem, your thinking in this thread has an ethical focus, something like care of the autopoietic self. I find your intention very searching and illuminating. However, upon consideration I doubt whether the dichotomy between closed and open systems, which you build up toward the end of your post, really offers any guide to action. As far as I can see, all human systems strive for a degree of openness as a precondition of learning and change, and for a degree of closure as a precondition of agency. Your posts are crucial in helping us all refine the systems vocabularies that we use. Here's what your reflections provoke in me. Observing systems not only observe other observing systems, they also internalize them, constantly. This is because the boundary conditions that make us who we are, are exceptionally porous. Indeed, if we are lucky enough to have any sort of boundary at all, any sort of psychic and somatic autonomy, it is because a larger society gave us resources for indviduation. By resources, I mean mental images and schemas, corporeal practices, material and technical affordances - all coming from outside the individual, and usually from outside the family, the neighborhood, the province and even the language or country. It is in relation to such outside resources - by internalizing some and at least partially rejecting others - that one becomes an individual, or a community, or a society (Simondon, and later Stiegler, have a lot to say about this). Because of this permeability, highly invasive techniques are continually designed and applied in order to get people to behave, not as their own system with its own autopoietic compass, but instead, as a subordinate or even determinate part of another, more malleable system. These techniques are turned upon individuals, communities, societies. Now, if I understand you right, your aim is to escape such capture and reformulate the conditions under which individuation occurs. That would also be my goal, not because I desperately want to become an autonomous individual, but because I'd like to participate in certain kinds of relatively autonomous communities which barely even exist today. But the problem is, other people and other systems are continually trying to stop us from achieving these kinds of goals. Not only do they create barriers to any deep restructuring of the material and technical affordances with which we shape ourselves and our communities, but they also make great efforts to induce different corporeal practices at the level of our own bodies, and to install different imaginaries and logical schemas in our own minds. A very relevant case in point is the way libertarian and neoclassical economists, acting in concert with capital interests and their representatives in government, convinced a large proportion of the world's educated classes that they are really entrepreneurs, looking to maximize personal profit through innovation. That's an impressive production of subjectivity. The neoliberal movement was able to do that because they have highly advanced techniques for observing, analyzing, and intervening on other systems. The list of such techniques is long. Take an opinion poll: a quaint thing that used to allow a politician to get a rough view, every few weeks or so, of the demos as a differentiated political body. Now compare it to the real-time analysis of Facebook likes at country level, which allows not only for a continuous granular apprehension of what the demos cares about, individual by individual, but also for a differentiated intrusion into our thinking processes, via targeted advertising and symbolic stimulation of all sorts. This occurs simultaneously on the level of the person and the population, and it is hardly the only example of such observation/intervention. Governments, corporations, militaries, police forces and some civil-society organizations develop technical systems for the observation of other systems. Their aim is to assess what's happening, whether in the financial markets, among criminal gangs, in a certain sector of professional endeavor such as scientific research, in a certain ecosystem, etc. When a
Re: Managing complexity?
> On 02-Apr-2019, at 9:18 AM, John Hopkins wrote: > > The 'size' of the system is an externally applied abstraction in that, unless > one is speaking theoretically, a 'system' is always a subset of wider system: > a subset conveniently defined via limits (of interaction with that wider > system) and so-called boundary conditions. This hits the nail bang on the head. The diagram that Brian shared is a useful reflection, and there is nothing substantive one can dispute about it. The point is whether that diagram is a useful framework or launching pad for deciding how one acts, and this is where I have concerns. To look at the diagram (or any diagram for that matter) one must ask where the observer of the diagram is - and it assumes there is a neutral ‘outside’ where the observer stands in order to perceive the system as a whole, and the diagram offers clarity to this gaze. However, there is no neutral outside ever available. One is always within a system, or rather, always within a hierarchy of systems, almost all of them complex and polycentric. Just as when one is within a room one can never see all four walls simultaneously, a position of observing from within a system means substantive parts of the system will never be clearly visible to one’s cognition. This should be the starting point for any analysis. One has to work from the inside out rather than the outside in, and begin with the following questions: What are the boundary conditions that define the limits to which one's cognition can clearly perceive the system? How porous (or how impermeable) are these boundary conditions? As a sentient being, the clarity and authenticity of my boundary conditions are defined by the skin of my body. As one tries to expand awareness beyond the body, this clarity reduces drastically (although there are practices by which I can work to expand the limits of my clear cognition). I cannot treat the limits of my skin as a closed and impermeable boundary, for that would violate the second law of thermodynamics which states that any closed system moves rapidly towards the maximum possible level of entropy (basically, what happens when I die). If I am to continue to live, my body as a system must be open to energy flows from the environment. These may be physical flows, such as air and food, or they may be flows such as companionship and community which preserve my inner mental health. These energy flows must sustain the condition that the biologists Maturana and Varela termed as ‘autopoiesis’, or ‘self-making’. The energy flows through my body resist entropy and remake my body on a constant basis. Of course, this process is on a declining scale and I will eventually die, but that loops into a larger system of autopoiesis at a scale beyond individual bodies. As long as I am alive, I can live only as an open system that achieves autopoiesis - a term that some theorists have defined as ‘the ratio between the complexity of a system and the complexity of its environment’. Since I must think and act from the inside out, this implies that I must perceive and organise my existence as within a nested hierarchy of complex systems. My body, by itself is a complex system, but then works outwards toward family, community, neighbourhood, city, and all of this must respect being embedded within the earth (as Gaia?) - the primary complex living system that no human can escape. The principle of subsidiarity must prevail here, where the lowest level in the hierarchy is self-sufficient to the maximum extent, and delegates what it cannot deal with upwards, and there is a chain of communication in both directions along the hierarchy. Autopoiesis and subsidiarity are the basic principles of life that cannot be violated. Unfortunately the conceptual framework by which we perceive and organise ourselves works in the opposite direction. The economic assumption of the invisible hand as a means of managing complexity rests on the assumption of each individual as a selfish maximiser of his/her own utility. In other words, governance and market regulation seek to push us towards seeking to be closed systems. And the ideal of the social contract treats the individual citizen as politically passive, assumes that government possesses the expertise to offer welfare to citizens through the rule of law, and each citizen will willingly sacrifice a portion of liberty in order to partake in this welfare. This provokes a top-down system that suppresses subsidiarity. Any closed top-down system can resist entropy only through power, and since power has an inherent impulse to conquest, we create a capitalist model that is predicated on indefinite growth. As Kate Raeworth remarked, we have an economy that must grow whether or not we thrive, whereas we need to thrive whether or not the economy grows. There have been two major waves in the history of
Re: Managing complexity?
Hi Felix -- The 'size' of the system is an externally applied abstraction in that, unless one is speaking theoretically, a 'system' is always a subset of wider system: a subset conveniently defined via limits (of interaction with that wider system) and so-called boundary conditions. If one makes a basic assumption that the nature of reality is manifest as a continuity of flows, there is always 'more to consider' with any assumptions one makes about any human-defined system. In the case of a continuity of reality, there are no boundary conditions except in the abstract. Within a techni-social system, complexity is a metric reflecting the granularity of the maintenance of control over that system. The level of control is a metric correlated to the amount of energy available to the system, as the finer 'grain' the control, the greater energy expended in maintaining that control over time. There is a direct relationship beween available energy and the potential of a system to maintain or increase complexity. Pilots, when training on a new aircraft (or new system) have only a certain (life-limited) amount of time/energy to acquire the knowledge to control the system. Because that time/energy factor is deeply embedded in/limited by the fiscal calculation of profit, pilots weren't given the necessary knowledge tools (even the proper complete flight manuals for the 737 that do describe the cause of the fatal issue and solution). And the typical airline company outside US jurisdiction did not understand (and was not properly apprised of) the increased need for pilot training, a factor that would cost the company... jh On 01/Apr/19 04:24, Felix Stalder wrote: This, of course, leads to the question how to determine the size of the system. The first generation of cybernetics gave another answer to that question than the second, as Ted pointed out. -- ++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD hanging on to the Laramide Orogeny http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ ++ # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Managing complexity?
This is a brilliant thread, with fundamental interventions from everyone who has posted. I'm also told the Technopolitics group is meeting in Vienna, which is something like serendipity. I'm gonna throw in my two bits here as well. Felix's idea of "managing complexity" suggests a way of coping with an unruly situation, and (one place where I slightly disagree with Prem) this needn't be limited to the strategy of a single actor, not at all. Instead, think patterned convergence, where multiple actors take up similar approaches yielding more-or-less predictable results: a kind of systemic regularity whose benefits for some mean that it is deliberately promoted. We can see this kind of regularity consolidating in the global marketplace from 1980 to 2008, with some significant perturbations around 2001. There wasn't any steady state, nor even a dynamic oscillation around a single attractor (homeostasis), but instead a periodic return to the same trajectory or the same pattern of change (homeorhesis, as the evolutionary biologists say). The pattern in question was a transition from primarily national, Keynesian economies toward an increasingly integrated global marketplace, knitted together logistically by computer networks. Networks were the coordinating device, the principle products being sold (telco infrastructure, software, online services) and also the indispensable technique for raising capital (computerized finance) - so we really could think of networked computational devices as a "leading technology." This growth pattern was prone to financial crises on the usual ten-year cycle, but the most powerful actors made systematic use of the crises to fuel concentration, rationalization and fresh expansion. They managed the complexity, in short. But the question is how. In discussions years back, some of us on nettime referred to Philip Mirowski's book Cyborg Economics, which Keith Hart just mentioned again. So what does Mirowski say? Basically this: If economic planning could be carried out perfectly well by the self-interested interpretation of "price signals," as Friedrich von Hayek claimed, it meant that libertarian and neo-classical economists could construct the theory of a legitimate global system where strategic actors use mathematical models to infer significant trends from the fluctuation of marketplace signals, and then intervene for their own advantage, whether commercially or financially. This modeling activity carries out the reduction of complexity that Felix talks about. We know that such a theory was built out into practice from the 80s onward, following the pragmatist thrust of operations theory. In cybernetic terms, this is not a simple command-and-control scenario, but a second-order regime, where "observing systems observe other observing systems" (Heinz von Foerster). Whenever you get close to the granularity of the system you see the dynamic interplay of competing strategies: a whirlwind, a vortex, like the turbulent phenomena that fascinated Leonardo da Vinci. But when you draw back to look at how the whole thing evolves, then the ever-fluctuating pattern of results can be described with something like Prem's vocabulary of complexity theory: emergence, strange attractors, tipping points, bifurcations, phase changes etc. A kind of pattern emerges. It's worth noting that all that can also be done by a logistics planner or a financial trader looking at the output of a computer, and indeed that seemed to be the dominant form of management, at least during the neoliberal period. The above is a strong approach to what you might as well call the neoliberal paradigm, but still I find it incomplete. It was natural to discuss it that way on nettime, because it was within the remit: "an immanent critique of the networks." Some of us also did STS-type technical analyses of, say, extreme extraction or just-in-time production, in relation to equally technical discussions of finance, which rounded out the discussion. However, I want to follow Joe Rabie's idea that complex systems are made up of heterogenous elements, whose inputs can't all be calculated in the terms provided by a single integrating signal. The image of a broken sidewalk revealing multiple disconnected pipes and cables from gas and sewer and electricity to telephone and internet, plus stray roots and tunneling rodents I would add, is just too brilliant. To grasp what happens during the breakdown of a formerly coherent system, or better, of the economic subsystem that previously seemed to integrate everything else, I think you'd have to track how a wider range of inputs collide within a more expansive boundary. This totally follows from Felix's idea that "dimensions we deemed irrelevant in the process of abstraction" have now come back in to jostle the system. Here's my pitch. To analyze the present, and to decide whether the political economy actually "steers&q
Re: Managing complexity?
There are simpler ways of viewing this: 1. The 'complexity' is so complex that individual actors do not matter any more, and what is there is new emergent phenomenon so complex it's nearly impossible to understand; we need to spend our lives analyzing it while in semi-catatonic paralysis. 2. Complexity is sleigh of hand used to shield actors from responsibility. It's a new deity, akin to the traditional ones, in whose name atrocities were allowed to happen, as nothing else could be done without being blasphemous. It became a classical religion, removing responsibility from individuals, introducing Fate 2.0, and self-reinforcing as it prevents one from going into dangerous and correct direction of action, becoming self-preservation vehicle. If you think that today's highly liberal educated philosophiles are immune to such basic religious contamination, you're an idiot. Which one is correct? Let's see what those that can do, I mean powers that be: when they don't like something, they target and kill, maim and imprison *individuals*. From heads of state to inconvenient loudmouths. Somehow they don't let the complexity overwhelm them into perpetual ruminations in their cabinets. And it works, perfectly: the power of dominant powers that be is more solid today than it ever was. This should give you a hint to the correct answer. --- ru·mi·na·tion/ˌro͞oməˈnāSH(ə)n/ noun 1. ... 2. the action of chewing the cud. Also see https://i.imgur.com/PVpHtDM.jpg * The chains of interactions have grown longer. Many (social and ecological) systems used to be relatively local phenomena have become # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Managing complexity?
On 30.03.19 21:19, Brian Holmes wrote: > However, the surging sense of intellectual mastery brought by the > phrase, "managing complexity," declines precipitously when you try to > define either "management" or "complexity." Complexity is relatively easy to define. As Jospeh Rabie already did, the number of actors and the number of ways in which they can interact with, and adapt to, one another defines the complexity of a "system". This, of course, leads to the question how to determine the size of the system. The first generation of cybernetics gave another answer to that question than the second, as Ted pointed out. Prem's suggestion that we are dealing with polycentric systems is certainly right and makes it both easier and harder to define the number of actors that make them up. Easier in the sense that it puts the focus on densities and rates of interaction (higher at the center, lower at the periphery) rather than on precise, yet elusive boundaries. Harder in the sense that it stresses that each system contains numerous such centers, shifting the problem from drawing boundaries to deciding the inclusion/exclusion of centers. Be that as it may. Let's assume that the number of actors and the ways of interacting have increased over the last, say, last 70 years. More important than the simple number of actors (which is hard to ascertain anyway) is that the ways in which they are interacting has increased, leading to an exponential, rather than linear rise on complexity. In my view, there are a number of reasons for this. * The chains of interactions have grown longer. Many (social and ecological) systems used to be relatively local phenomena have become global ones (as a consequence of the expansion of capitalism as globalization). * The intensity of interaction has been increasing (as a consequence of the intensification of capitalism), taking many systems away from "steady states" closer to the edge of "phase-transitions" (to use the terminology from complexity theory). In this process, these systems become more and more non-linear, increasing the need to understand their internal dynamics (e.g who are the actors and how are they interacting) while at the same time, making them less predictable. * The social institutions that have traditionally limited the ways of interaction by providing and enforcing rules and norms have weakened, further increasing the leeway for agency (which, of course, not all bad). Not knowing where to draw boundaries, or which centers are relevant to the understanding of the system, is a part of the problem of not being able to "manage" the many actors and their increasing ranges of interaction and the predictable effects of their interactions. By "managing" I initially simply meant the ability to track the actors that make up the system and the ability to intervene in the system to move it towards desired states. This is a somewhat technocratic view, I admit. Joseph Weizenbaum argued in the 1970sthat the computer was introduced as an answer to the social pressures which large corporations and government agencies faced. Rather than accept social change, the new computing infrastructure was putting central management on a new footing. It could now keep track of many more elements and react much faster to changes in the environment by reorganizing quickly the relation of the elements to one another. This was, basically, the shift from Fordism to Post-Fordism and by definition an increase in complexity that came, as it always comes, at the price of an higher rate of abstraction as a way of limiting that increase of complexity (a lower number of variables per element are taken into account). For similar reasons, I think, the shift towards markets and quantitative signals (prices, ranking, indices etc) was so successful. It allowed to manage the increase in social complexity by abstracting it away. I think both systems (computers and markets) as ways of managing complexity are reaching an upper limit, mainly because an ever increasing number of actors are no longer conforming to their abstractions (by exhibiting dimensions that we deemed irrelevant in the process of abstraction, or by not behaving according to the models etc.). These are not problems of implementation for technical limits to be overcome by progress, but fundamental limitation of the these two systems of abstraction/management. Not everything can be expressed as a price. Even economists are now arguing again about the difference between value and price. For neo-liberals, is the same: the value of a thing is whatever somebody is willing to pay for it, and therefor it cannot be too high or too low. On 31.03.19 15:50, Prem Chandavarkar wrote: > AI systems do not sit well with consciousness, for AI makes its > decisions on the basis of statistical correlations derived from > computing power, and not on
Re: Managing complexity?
I would define complexity as the interaction between autonomous agents. An ecosystem is surely the prime example, with the multiple destinies of multiple species playing out in a circumscribed milieu, with limited resources, and so inevitably one at the expense of the other – or with one being the (unwilling) resource of the other. One might say that evolution is the unknowing arbitrator of the process as it throws out non-intentional permutations which allow each species to gain possible advantages. Joe. > Le 31 mars 2019 à 17:14, Allan Siegel a écrit : > > Hello, > As I recall ‘complexity’ as discussed extensively by Henri Lefebvre is > related more to urbanism (as Joe mentioned) than management. Complexity is > more about the politics and social realities relating to the ‘right to the > city’ than managing systems. Managerial complexity invariably leads towards > some technocratic abyss as opposed - let’s say - a more ideological based > discourse. > Best > Allan > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Managing complexity
Hello, As I recall ‘complexity’ as discussed extensively by Henri Lefebvre is related more to urbanism (as Joe mentioned) than management. Complexity is more about the politics and social realities relating to the ‘right to the city’ than managing systems. Managerial complexity invariably leads towards some technocratic abyss as opposed - let’s say - a more ideological based discourse. Best Allan # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Managing complexity?
Let me throw in my two bits worth: Complex systems can be of two types: linear and non-linear In linear systems there is a relationship between input and output - small inputs result in small outputs and large inputs result in large outputs. The complexity of the system comes from the number of components in the system. Non-linear systems often do not have a relationship between input and output. A small input can result in a large output, and a large input can result in a small output. Both linear and non-linear systems can exhibit polycentricity - change cannot be confined to a single component of the system. The best metaphor for this is a spider’s web - the attempt to tweak the tension in a single strand results in a redistribution of tension across the entire web. ‘Management’ and ‘complexity’ do not fit well in a polycentric system, for management is an activity where one intervenes in order to control output, and in a polycentric system, it is almost impossible to ascertain with precision the impact of any intervention. Similarly it is impossible to ‘manage’ non-linear systems, because one cannot have any control over the output. Non-linearity often results from components of the system being sentient - even if they do not rise to the extent of self-conscious intelligence, there is a genetically ingrained impulse to recognise patterns in the environment and respond accordingly, and this can shift the behaviour of the system as a whole. In polycentric systems and in non-linear systems, the term ‘managing complexity’ is an oxymoron. I find a similar situation in my discipline of architecture where the latest buzz word is ‘designing for sustainability’. ‘Design' is used here in an interpretation very similar to ‘management’ - the desire to control results, failing to recognise that climate and other natural systems are inherently non-linear (while it is not essential to this post, if you want to read more on what I have written on this subject, see https://premckar.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/to-design-so-as-to-sustain/ <https://premckar.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/to-design-so-as-to-sustain/>) To live with complex systems we must allow them to be self-organising. This is the argument used in the argument for free markets, falling back on Adam Smith’s metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’. However, self-organising systems are emergent - they can exhibit fundamental properties that did not exist at all in an earlier state of the system. As humans, we cannot be blind to what properties may emerge, unless we say we have no ethical concerns at all if the system throws up properties such as unfair and degrading exploitation of others or ecological imbalances. These problems are exacerbated because we make assumptions about the system that are not correct. We believe that the system is ‘natural’ in the sense that components in the system are there because they inherently belong in the system. But taking markets as an example, as Karl Polanyi has pointed out, many of the components of markets were not meant for that purpose. To pursue the goal of markets we force fundamental distortions and reshape them as ‘fictitious commodities’. Lives get reduced to labour, and land is stripped of its connection with environment and memory and reduced to being an asset. Similarly we believe that the social contract can emerge from rational communication, failing to recognise emotion, especially when that emotion is exploited in political rhetoric to inflame tribal passions. It cannot be a totally laissez-faire approach. To live within complex systems, our mindset must change from seeking to manage the system to seeking harmony with it. Harmony is a term that has strong ethical implications that we must come to terms with. For harmony, we have to acquire what the philosopher Morris Berman calls ‘a participating consciousness’, whereas we currently pursue individualised consciousness that is framed by ego. A participating consciousness cannot come from a knowledge system. It has to be ingrained through rigorous practices by which one builds harmonious awareness of consciousness beyond the self. Such practices are routinely found in performing and creative arts, as well as within certain spiritual traditions. Without seeking to romanticise the past, one must recognise that the incidence of participating consciousness has dropped precipitously in modern times. AI systems do not sit well with consciousness, for AI makes its decisions on the basis of statistical correlations derived from computing power, and not on the basis of consciousness. AI systems run into problems difficult to foresee or comprehend once the decision process gets detached from sentient consciousness, especially when the AI system encounters non-linear contexts. The computer has much to offer us. But we have moved too fast from computer-assisted-design to AI-driven-design, an
Re: Managing complexity?
The elegant idea of "current global disorder results from a failure to manage complexity" is the mirror image of the idea of 'order in chaos', which ties increasing complexity and the emergence of the disorder together. Thus it also calls for the manageability of complexity, no matter how high is its complexity while it means time to time the unmanageability problem will rise, for those, whoever they are, organizes societies globally or global societal order. This latter is a 'class point of view', of the organizer class. For complexity and chaos theories emergence of the disorder is about boundary conditions and emergence phenomena. For Gramsci, it is the time of molecular changes, when old is dying yet the new can't be born. For Bogdanov it is the type of crisis. Indeed as Joseph, you say it might be about a complex system and its environment, two complex systems encounter. Or as a result of the internal activities, differentiation of parts, of one complex system. There is an ongoing debate within systems and complexity thinkers' community today which is about "what went wrong?". Prestigious systems and complexity thinkers call for going back to the roots and original sources to discover what went wrong or missed so that the unified science, the most general general systems theory, promised by Bertalanffy or Boulding's vision of GST, or Cyberneticıans failed. As for Castell's suggestion about Russia and lack of PC-industry, it implies that the Internet (the network) is the emergence phenomena. So it is the noosphere getting flesh and blood (software and hardware). I think there is a grain of truth in what Castell suggest. In this article ( http://www.systema-journal.org/article/view/406/357) David Rousseau et. al. argue why the GST failed and describe what a genuinely universal GST would look like. Funny enough, he is describing the first chapter of Bogdanov's Tektology, the Russian version first ever emerged GST. See: https://snuproject.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/alexander-bogdanov-not-ludwig-von-bertalanffy-is-the-founder-of-the-new-world-outlook-and-it-is-not-systemology-it-is-tektology/ Best, Orsan On Sun, 31 Mar 2019 at 13:54, Joseph Rabie wrote: > I have not been following this thread, so please excuse me if I repeat > something already said. > > Brian, I do not agree with your definition of complexity (as below) as a > form of disorder coming from malfunctioning entities. > > Complexity, in my view, is a natural phenomena caused by the multiple > interactions that occur between different systems that collide with each > other, by the fact that they operate autonomously (and not necessarily > competitively) within the same body: whether it be our own, society, the > world... > > As an urbanist, this is certainly the case of cities. As a "simple", > physical example, look at all the utility networks (water, gas, > electricity, telephone, optic fibre, sewage, drainage...) operating under > our pavements. They do not compete, but when one sees the same pavement > being dug up over and over again, one sees the difficulty of organising > their coexistence. > > Joe. > > > > Le 30 mars 2019 à 21:19, Brian Holmes a > écrit : > > However, the surging sense of intellectual mastery brought by the phrase, > "managing complexity," declines percipitously when you try to define either > "management" or "complexity." The latter is vexing because the disorder > comes from so many sources: faulty airplane equipment, disgruntled voters > in the north of England, the harvesting of behavioral data by Internet > companies, persistent trade imbalances between Germany and Southern Europe, > the volatile relations of US and North Korean leaders, etc. When exactly > does complexity get bloody complicated, and for whom? > > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Managing complexity?
I have not been following this thread, so please excuse me if I repeat something already said. Brian, I do not agree with your definition of complexity (as below) as a form of disorder coming from malfunctioning entities. Complexity, in my view, is a natural phenomena caused by the multiple interactions that occur between different systems that collide with each other, by the fact that they operate autonomously (and not necessarily competitively) within the same body: whether it be our own, society, the world... As an urbanist, this is certainly the case of cities. As a "simple", physical example, look at all the utility networks (water, gas, electricity, telephone, optic fibre, sewage, drainage...) operating under our pavements. They do not compete, but when one sees the same pavement being dug up over and over again, one sees the difficulty of organising their coexistence. Joe. > Le 30 mars 2019 à 21:19, Brian Holmes a écrit : > > However, the surging sense of intellectual mastery brought by the phrase, > "managing complexity," declines percipitously when you try to define either > "management" or "complexity." The latter is vexing because the disorder > comes from so many sources: faulty airplane equipment, disgruntled voters in > the north of England, the harvesting of behavioral data by Internet > companies, persistent trade imbalances between Germany and Southern Europe, > the volatile relations of US and North Korean leaders, etc. When exactly does > complexity get bloody complicated, and for whom? > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Managing complexity?
I have not read Castells, but your paraphrase brings an interesting memory to mind. The day after Brezhnev’s death, I found on the street in NYC, near the Mission of the USSR to the United Nations, a number of 16mm films, including B’s massive biopic, “Life Story of a Communist.” More interesting in this context was a short film called “Machine Construction in the Soviet Union.” In it, the latest achievements in computerization and applied robotics were extolled. The configuration of devices depicted was symptomatic of a certain kind of “oversight” in both senses: it was a computer controlled-robot which assembled with great precision mechanical wrist watches. Further East, the first Casio watches were soon to appear. Keith Sanborn > On Mar 30, 2019, at 4:19 PM, Brian Holmes > wrote: > > The idea that the current global disorder results from a failure to manage > complexity is an elegant formulation. It offers a concise guide through a > welter of contradictions, ranging from domestic political squabbles all the > way to inter-state disputes, declines in corporate profit rates and > ecological breakdowns. Plus, where could one find a more striking observation > than that of Manuel Castells, when he says that the Soviet Union fell into > terminal stagnation due to its inability to produce a personal computer > industry? After all, computers bring order to large amounts of data, and > personal computers extend that ordering capacity to ever larger amounts of > people. Maybe a better computer (AI) could solve our present problems? > > However, the surging sense of intellectual mastery brought by the phrase, > "managing complexity," declines percipitously when you try to define either > "management" or "complexity." The latter is vexing because the disorder > comes from so many sources: faulty airplane equipment, disgruntled voters in > the north of England, the harvesting of behavioral data by Internet > companies, persistent trade imbalances between Germany and Southern Europe, > the volatile relations of US and North Korean leaders, etc. When exactly does > complexity get bloody complicated, and for whom? > > Management looks easier to define, since it's just about resolving problems. > But how do we even know what counts as resolution? Is Kim Jong Un his own > self-contained problem or is he inseparable from nuclear proliferation, the > rearmement of Japan, Iranian centrifuges, the emergence of a Chinese > blue-water navy and the US "pivot to Asia"? Is all that international > complexity even an issue, or is it just a distraction from the more urgent > conundrums of feminism and race relations? Who decides and why does their > decision matter? Is it a kind of Heisenberg uncertainty situation where a > clear definition of resolution makes a full enumeration of complexity > impossible, and vice versa? > > Felix, I am totally curious about how one could redo, for the present > conjuncture, Castells' fascinating observations about the Western countries' > long search for new ways to manage complexity in the 70s and 80s. Does one > first need to define a systemic order in which certain phenomena become too > complex? Does one need to develop categories allowing for the identification > of significant perturbations? Do the complexities also have to be sorted as > to scale? Are there functional or normative criteria that could help one > decide when complexity is sufficiently well managed? How could one create an > anticipatory image of a new (meta)stable state? How to develop a practical > approach to the spiraling chaos of the present? > > best, Brian > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Managing complexity?
The idea that the current global disorder results from a failure to manage complexity is an elegant formulation. It offers a concise guide through a welter of contradictions, ranging from domestic political squabbles all the way to inter-state disputes, declines in corporate profit rates and ecological breakdowns. Plus, where could one find a more striking observation than that of Manuel Castells, when he says that the Soviet Union fell into terminal stagnation due to its inability to produce a personal computer industry? After all, computers bring order to large amounts of data, and personal computers extend that ordering capacity to ever larger amounts of people. Maybe a better computer (AI) could solve our present problems? However, the surging sense of intellectual mastery brought by the phrase, "managing complexity," declines percipitously when you try to define either "management" or "complexity." The latter is vexing because the disorder comes from so many sources: faulty airplane equipment, disgruntled voters in the north of England, the harvesting of behavioral data by Internet companies, persistent trade imbalances between Germany and Southern Europe, the volatile relations of US and North Korean leaders, etc. When exactly does complexity get bloody complicated, and for whom? Management looks easier to define, since it's just about resolving problems. But how do we even know what counts as resolution? Is Kim Jong Un his own self-contained problem or is he inseparable from nuclear proliferation, the rearmement of Japan, Iranian centrifuges, the emergence of a Chinese blue-water navy and the US "pivot to Asia"? Is all that international complexity even an issue, or is it just a distraction from the more urgent conundrums of feminism and race relations? Who decides and why does their decision matter? Is it a kind of Heisenberg uncertainty situation where a clear definition of resolution makes a full enumeration of complexity impossible, and vice versa? Felix, I am totally curious about how one could redo, for the present conjuncture, Castells' fascinating observations about the Western countries' long search for new ways to manage complexity in the 70s and 80s. Does one first need to define a systemic order in which certain phenomena become too complex? Does one need to develop categories allowing for the identification of significant perturbations? Do the complexities also have to be sorted as to scale? Are there functional or normative criteria that could help one decide when complexity is sufficiently well managed? How could one create an anticipatory image of a new (meta)stable state? How to develop a practical approach to the spiraling chaos of the present? best, Brian # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
