Glen, Oh, I think you are absolutely right about business.
I just thought you had a bit over done it on evolution... Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <g...@agent-based-modeling.com> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Date: 2/10/2010 12:56:28 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Buzz arrives > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 10-02-10 11:29 AM: > > Because that's how evolution works? Development constrains the exploration > > space of evolution, and evolution would not be so sucessful if it did not. > > Epigenesis, man. Epigenesis. > > I'm not so sure that's true. It seems to my ignorant eye that evolution > is open ended. I.e., while it's true that history applies pressure to > shape the space to be sampled, it's not true that a) the size of the > space decreases monotonically nor b) constraints need persist from one > instant to the next. Any general cone of decreasing radius through time > is, I suspect, a figment of our imagination. > > Rather, what happens is a high dimensional and very dynamic sequence of > soft constraints chunking forward in time like large set of interwoven > space-filling curves. At any given point, the options available to the > process are constrained (softly, i.e. the process _might_ choose to > violate the constraint in very rare cases), but at the next point, the > constraints are (can be) very different. > > In business, the symptom of applying this convenient fiction is that > entrepreneurs create some arbitrary, pull-it-out-of-the-air agenda, > plan, strategy, etc. and then when they actually start doing something > productive, that fiction is ignored or constantly rewritten to placate > the investors. The worst part about it is that everyone _knows_ the > plan is mostly bullsh*t, overly concretized from a necessarily abstract > kernel. But as long as the rhetoric appeals to a majority of people > involved, it's comforting I suppose. Perhaps sociologically and > psychologically, the convenient fiction has some necessary effect on > those involved? Perhaps everyone would get depressed and shoot > themselves in the head or watch TV all day eating oreos if there were no > "plan"? I don't know. Color me fuddled. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.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 ============================================================ 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
