Glad you like it! Sometimes a model works better when it's not completely consistent with the facts. The beginning of growth is never a big event, but calling it 'an earth shaking boom' conveys the significance of it's as yet undiscovered future. This one also plays a little loose with switching back and forth between an 'inside' and 'outside' point of view without mentioning it. The change in reality idea is both literal and metaphor. Because I can prove that giving up the principle method of concentrating wealth is necessary for establishing any sustainable life-support system on earth (if for no other reason because decision making can't keep up) clearly says we're headed into uncharted territory. One could think of it as a kind of reset button on the whole game, a quite different set of questions and challenges. When a system that will have a successful growth goes through the inflection point (the point where the ultimate limits & goals appear) the measures of change switch from being departures from the past (adding %'s to what is) to homing in on the future (subtracting %'s from the remoteness of the goal). Mostly people have thought that should be avoided at all cost since it sounds like slowing change to a stop, and because operating a growth system without growth amounts to constant internal war with no relief, sort of the definition of feudalism. Since the growth of the modern world began around 600 years ago we've had what I'd call 'feudalism with relief', a strange amalgam of liberty, creativity and overlords... It's things of those kinds that are bound to change. The tools I use to "drill down analytically into the various levels of data that should be found in the period between Before and After" are on my web site. The collection is sort of a mess, with things of various vintage, and unsuccessful experiments, but I think I've got at least a good start on a rigorous method for exploring the data of unstable systems, a large part of the data science has been discarding for a long time as useless. The big stumbling block seems to be the old habit of thinking that the way to understand data is to replace it with 'timeless' formulas. I turn that around to look at patterns in the data for what's out there in the real world that's original.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> Phil: I like your model, and especially so if we can figure out ways to drill down analytically into the various levels of data that should be found in the period between Before and After. And I just may use it in a lecture in a few weeks (with all due attribution, of course). You wrote: "....seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming from our being swept up in a vast change in reality." Was that a reference to a theoretical change in reality, or do you have some specifics in mind? -tj On 12/16/06, Phil Henshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 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 *w O w* m o o z -- *boom* x 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 ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com ============================================================ 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 -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ==========================================
============================================================ 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
