Complexity and Chaos Theory
Complexity and Chaos Theory are hot. The general ideas are easy, but examples complex. Here’s one view of where this points us in managing human effectiveness.
Chaos and Complexity theories complement each other. Chaos describes how a great many highly complicated patterns can now be described with only two or three simple mathematical equations - frost patterns, snowflakes, the shapes of leaves, of rocky, weathered coastlines, clouds and more - all can be stated extremely simply. This idea of simplicity is tremendously appealing.
With computers able to test equations over and over with slightly different numbers in its equations we can study more detailed patterns than previously. Many sciences can now find shared links previously unknown - biology, chemistry and physics and more. The hope grows that complex management problems can also be grasped more scientifically.
Complexity goes a step further than chaos. It describes systems in which complex patterns “evolve” into surprising results that previously didn’t exist and couldn’t be predicted from the much simpler inputs. A classic example from early texts discuss a highly complex skill developed by only a few technicians who were able to predict when the pressure in certain areas of natural gas pipelines stretching across the continent might become too high. Before a blow-out occurred they could safely divert gas through surrounding valves from their control room. This problem was found to have an astronomical number of variables, so clearly intelligent guesswork and long experience helped these individuals develop a “feel” for the solutions rather than actually knowing how they solved the problems.
The pipeline problem was programmed into a computer simulation and through thousands of “iterations” or repeated trials (and errors) the computer “learned” to manipulate the valves correctly in a relatively few hours versus the near lifetime experience required by human operators. Moreover the machine learned without having to simply test every possible combination, which would have taken a couple of years. The computer’s “thinking” evolved as it applied mathematical “judgements” or educated guesses. This showed that even complex, evolving “chaotic” patterns might be understood more simply.
Complexity opened ideas of thinking machines smarter than humans. Some predict such machines will exist within 20 to 50 years. They may be able to solve a level of problems that we cannot. Whether smarter in total this will mean more capability for all of us overall. Our challenge will still be to harness this power for human ends.
What’s valuable is that even the most complex evolving situations (such as those we live through daily as history emerges from political and business struggles) may be reducible to just a few underlying principles. These few, operating together, can guide how our evolution in thinking a working together takes place. If we can identify those few principles, we could theoretically improve our thinking and results far sooner than waiting for smarter machines. They may well turn out not to be able to solve the sort of world challenges we’re facing anyway.
We clearly have enough problems to be certain we’re dealing with something highly complex. As we continue to dominate the entire planet, dictating all but cataclysmic changes of nature, most of the problems we’ll encounter will be human-made. Pollution, global warming, shortages of food, water, oil and other resources, misuse of atomic energy, unintended disease and genetic effects and so on - all human created, all new in the last century.
Observers have predicted doom since long before Malthus, 200 years ago, who insisted we’d all starve when population outstripped resources. His predictions failed to foresee a bigger population expansion than he could begin to imagine kept going by scientific evolution in food production. Since my high school days alone, world population had more than doubled to nearly 6 billion people - 3 billion additional mouths to feed, yet only roughly the same number are starving - about 140 million… only. That’s a victory in one sense. Yet how can we feed 3 billion more and still fall short by the same 140 million, a tiny number by comparison? That’s a problem of human scope - politics, crime, war, lack of cooperation - in a word, poor leadership. What if population doubles again in our lifetimes?
If, as I argue, leadership, the most powerful force at our disposal to change the world, rests on only five basic skills, we are clearly dealing with something that fits well with Complexity theory. We should be able to count on our ability to evolve our skills, on ourselves learning to make that evolution happen through effective leadership. Yet as we look around the world, we have to admit the problems seem insurmountable at times.
Religious and economic-based wars, political manoeuvring, endless uncertainties, terrorism of many types all hinge on human psychology and behaviour. Individually we try to do right in our spheres of operations, but we have no comprehensive theory to help. Our only certainty is that the world is becoming one interconnected whole. Global travel, communications, banking and industry are eliminating borders more surely than wars could. We see similar news, fear similar diseases and share more similarities in lifestyle, all based on level of development more than on particular cultures.
The one fundamental that seems to me most distinctive to consider from Complexity theory is the concept that effective solutions in complex chaotic situations depend on each player being equally equipped. In the ideal system the goal is for each participant to be an “autonomous agent,” which corresponds in human affairs to each human coming to be a fully developed adult with well-balanced capabilities for success. In fact, studies show the driving problem the world faces - overpopulation - almost immediately cures itself if just one factor in human society is changed. This is, if girls are educated until about age 14 or 15. This apparently gets them to the point of being independent or “autonomous” thinkers and, with birth control available world-wide, population growth rates in such countries plunge to replacement-only levels. Yet we still see locales where educating girls is opposed even to the extent of organized violence.
All this argues for a complexity-based analysis crying out to be solved. If education creates independent thinking, which in turn comes closest to ensuring independent action, and if we wish to continue evolving effectively as a society, we must keep learning and looking for the simple principles that make each person more fully effective. That is the means by which complex systems evolve. Whatever you and I can contribute to that effort, we owe the world.