Chapter 140 22.10 The helmsman is everyone

Those Stella-based models, such as the "Limits to Growth" model, have an obvious overabundance of feedback circuits.As Norbert Wiener pointed out in 1952, feedback circuits with various combinations of changes are at the root of control and self-management.But forty years after feedback sparked the initial excitement, we now know that feedback loops alone are not enough to foster the behaviors of living systems that interest us most.The researchers featured in this book have discovered that two other types of complexity (and perhaps others) are necessary to generate fully functional living systems: distributed existence, and endless evolution.

The main insight that has emerged from the study of complex systems in recent years is that the only way for a system to evolve into something new is to have a flexible structure.A tadpole can turn into a frog, and a 747 jet can cripple it by adding even six inches to its length.This is why distributed existence is so important for systems with the ability to learn and evolve.A decentralized, redundant organization can adapt without compromising functionality.It is able to control change.We call it "growth". Models of direct feedback, such as Limits to Growth, are able to achieve system stability—a characteristic of ecosystems—however, they cannot learn, grow, or change—and these three complexities, change Mandatory for culture or life models inWithout these capabilities, the world model would fall far behind the constantly moving reality.Models of the absence of learning ability can be used to predict the near future, when evolutionary changes are small; Models of artificial evolution contain "necessary complexity".

However, it is impossible to introduce evolution and learning without detaching the control of this system.When Dana Meadows talks about the human collective intelligence stepping back to understand global problems, and then "intervening and transforming" the system of human activities, she points out the biggest mistake of the "limits to growth" model: Its linear, mechanical, unfeasible idea of ​​control. Control does not exist outside of the self-manufacturing system.Living systems, such as economics, ecology, and human culture, are difficult to control no matter where you start.They can be stimulated, disturbed, cajoled, driven, or at best coordinated from within.There is no platform on Earth from which a free hand can reach into a living system, and there is no reason for there to be a control dial waiting to be turned inside a living system.Large, clustered systems, such as the orientation of human societies, are controlled by a large number of interconnected and contradictory members.And these members, at any moment, have only a little bit of awareness of the whole.Not only that, but many active members of this swarm system are not individual human intelligences at all; they are corporate entities, groups, institutions, technological systems, and even those non-biological systems of the planet itself.

There is a song that says: No one is in charge.The future is unpredictable. Now to the back of the record: the helmsman is everyone.Moreover, we can learn to predict what is about to happen.To learn means to survive.