Categorie: Strategie > Inductie

The Ancients about process and change

In this post I discuss some phrases that pivot around the topics process, change, and time, from The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1961). These topics are interesting in the light of my research that I founded in process ontology. My chosen ontology, what is knowable, is determined by the chosen metaphysics, my assumptions without proof.

Ontological choices are a basis for what you think and do (what you permit yourself), and of particular relevance here, for the theory I develop. They make distinctions from competing ones, and guide your thoughts in some direction, restricting their extension everywhere. Take the assumption that the earth is at the centre of our solar system. Distinct from the heliocentric assumption, it directs our thoughts regarding the movement of celestial bodies. Or take the assumption that people are a primitive, because at a Panglossianistic apex of evolution, and all else is derived, and of derivative importance. This leads to a different view than universal evolution that is indifferent to substrate.

Both initial assumptions tend to unduly allow people an important position, first because they are in a spatial centre, and second because they are the uniquely sophisticated product of evolutionary development, in the chronicle centre as it were. These thoughts are ubiquitous and persistent, and they can be consequential. They are known to go back to the Ancient Greek philosophers in written form and foundational for further thinking.

Another example of such an influential thought is the assumption, very much alive today, that everything is made up of objects and that change is explained from their relations. This is complementary to the thought that process is the pivot and change a primitive. Both strands of thought were developed at the height of Ancient philosophy (the inventive bit according to Russell), but object ontology kept the upper hand for roughly two thousand years (thereby causing a great deal of damage according to Russell).

Anachimander (~546 bc) writes: ‘Into that from which all things take their rise they pass away once more, as is ordained, for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time‘. This resonates with me, first because it mentions the metaphysical notions of making and erasing differences, and repetition. This description of the entire process of existence as a recursive loop is reminiscent of the Ouroboros. Every outcome (of a step cycle) is necessarily again the beginning of the next one. The meaning of the ‘injustice’, different from its modern understanding) of things is not developed to their full complement: askew from their natural order in time. That is necessarily and causally followed ‘as is ordained’ by the ‘reparation and satisfaction’ of that order. He points out that differences are made and erased at every cycle. New differences again present themselves at every opportunity as long as there is time, what Deleuze (1968) calls differenciation (sic).

The saying πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei: everything flows) is attributed to Heraclitus (~540 bc). It is exemplified by the thought that one cannot enter the same river twice. The notion of a river (including its colloquial use) is an abstraction of all the rivers that I can see and where I can take a bath. This notion is of course fortified by the word river to point out this abstraction so as one can mention the word cow to point out the species. Language in this sense tends to objectify phenomena and reinforce linguistically: a river has come to be considered an object instead of a causal process in continual flux defined by change.

Russell writes that: ‘ .. it (the subject matter dpb) is the burning not what burns. ‘What burns’ has disappeared from modern physics‘, when it turned out that matter is exchangeable for energy (p 65). Science seeks what is permanent and it would appear that not the river but the flow is permanent. I wish to mention that this fits with the statement in the Introduction of my PhD thesis that I set out to find a lasting pattern. An ontology that holds that the nature of a river is knowable as an object instead of a flow is bound to generate error. That said this by comparison recent progressive thinking exhibited in physics has not reached every nook and cranny of every obscure scientific discipline.

However, next it has been a source of doubt ever since the Ancients, and he continues to say that: ‘Philosophers, accordingly, have sought with great persistence, for something not subject to the empire of Time. This search begins with Parmenides‘ (p 65). Parmenides (~515 bc), contrary to Heraclitus argues that nothing changes. The unchangeability suggested by Parmenides is the foundation of the notion of indestructibility of substance: ‘A substance was supposed to the persistent subject of varying predicates‘ (p 70). This is a Platonic (aka essentialist) approach also called monism found in many disciplines, including business science. I believe that this is striking, because more than a river, I would consider a business to be in continual flux.

His metaphysics is based on logic and he assumes that words have a constant meaning, which he supposes unquestionable. However Russell writes that: ‘.., no two people who use the same word have just the same thought in their minds‘ (p 68). This statement resonates with me, because individual worldviews differ because of people’s differing life experiences. And in a wider perspective, that the notion of differences as a norm fit reality better than uniqueness. It is, however, distant from Parmenides’ view that nothing changes, as well as from the widely accepted view that it is possible to have identical perceptions of something and to express oneself identically. I believe this is a rare turn of events, especially regarding language, but it is possibly excepted by logic, mathematics and some strands of coding. They are fully symbolic and thereby free of human interpretation: their expression and perception are necessarily identical for different individuals.

According to Empedocles (~494 bc), last the sources of change are Love and Strife. The extent of their presence in substances determines their nature. I associate these conceptualisations respectively with a stable state in phase space that tends to last and attract, and an unstable state in phase space which is bound to repel and end. These counteracting forces are immanent to the observed processes and whether they come to the fore and the extent to which depends on outside influences. This image of naturally conflicting immanent forces is the hallmark of complexity and chaos, and thereby relevant for systems constituted by more than two elements.

This has been a discussion of a few selected phrases from ancient history of what Russell refers to a phase of Ancient Greek philosophy. They were not or hardly pursued during two millennia. Other ideas were selected instead to support the development of philosophy and to direct scientific endeavour. This course of events has moulded our thoughts into patterns beyond change or even discussion. I believe it is important that we are wary of such patterns and the consequences they bear. I believe that the foundational assumptions of some scientific disciplines are weak, because anthropocentric, little connection with modern human neuro-psychological theory, and object orientation. I also believe that some solutions, or at least awareness for the patterns that led to them, have been around for a long time.

The Order of Time

Carlo Rovelli, Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-141-98496-4

In the universe there is the possibility of time and space. Masses of bodies modify the structure of the possible space and time between them: closer to a mass there is less time. dpb: if this concerns how much time passes, then does this mean that the grain of the structure of time is finer closer to a mass than further removed? And does that mean that closer to a mass more steps are needed compared to farther away? Time is different at every locus: it is relative and it has no unity.


In the laws of physics there is no inherent difference between past and future. Why is the past so different from the future to us? Based on Carnots proposition, Clausius posits that, if everything else remains equal, heat cannot pass from a cold body to a hot one. Rovelli writes: ‘This is the only basic law of physics that distinguishes the past from the future‘. None of the others do so’ Not Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Heisenberg, Dirac, Schrodinger or elementary particle scientists. But dpb: is this indeed the only asymmetry known to physics? Or the only time related one?

The link between time and heat is fundamental: ‘In every sequence of events that becomes absurd if projected backwards, there is something that is heating up‘ (p 23). This means it is the only irreversible one, all the others are reversible. dpb: Is it inconceivable that irreversible change occurs without something heating up? Chaos theory teaches that deterministic systems can produce irreversible randomness. If such a system reverses its behavior at some point it is likely to deviate from its trajectory back to where the observation started in unpredictable ways, and hence to be irreversible (disorder from order). Another source of irreversibility is complexity, especially life, because what higher level of organization emerges will resist reversal to a previous, less organized state (order from disorder). Take e.g an autopoietic system seeking to maintain its operational closure and its present organization (configuration). It will last longer than expected (Schrodinger).

Clausius formulated the 2nd law, namely dS=>0, implying that heat never passes from cold to hot bodies. But e.g. Popper (1965) argues that heat gets passed from colder to warmer bodies all the time and that entropy is not homogeneous over different locations and is a stochastic parameter. Boltzmann: entropy production is growing disorder into less particular less special situations. dpb: to what is the (decreasing) order attributed when entropy increases? Or in other words: what are these situations and what are their changes? For example: the emergence of an organism increases order of the system in focus but also increases entropy. The point is that entropy by definition defines and scopes the system, because it is a statistical notion extending the system until the energy balance is nil.

Take sunlight for example, a source of low entropic energy, cast on a stone. The atoms that compose the stone are agitated by the high-grade energy of the sunlight. Caused by the agitation the atoms heat up and the temperature of the entire stone rises. The amount of energy carried by the stone increases with what was carried by the sunlight. However, that energy dissipates and becomes less special, aka less capable of work: entropy is produced. At night, when the air cools, the heat carried by the stone (or rather by its agitated atoms) is transferred to the atoms of the air surrounding it. They become agitated and the energy of the atoms in the stone is transferred to the atoms in the air. Entropy is produced and the energy carried in the agitated air atoms is capable of still less work, becoming even less special. From an entropic perspective the system includes the stone, the sun and the air molecules.

dpb: Take the example when the atoms composing a cat are agitated when sunlight is cast on the cat. The cat is a self-referencing (autopoietic) system which is organized such that its body temperature is kept in bounds such that it keeps functioning. The temperature of the entire cat rises, until the cat reacts by taking physiological measures to cool its body sweating through its soles. The molecules in the surrounding soil and air are agitated, heating it. Entropy is produced and the same amount of energy as initially input by the sunlight into the atoms of the cat is capable of ever less work, entering a less special state. The system is constituted of the cat, the sun, the soil and the air molecules. The level of organization increased by the participation of the cat, but the entropy production is roughly the same.

dpb: The state of a system becomes less special when entropy is produced: the system becomes less ordered, aka less organized, and the ignorance of the observer regarding the likelihood of future states increases. The stone and the cat are defined by us as we observe the processes and their relations taking place within their physical boundaries. But they are determined by their organization as a stone and a cat respectively.

dpb: Thus, entropy is produced regardless of the level of organization of the discussed systems. While they produce entropy their organizations don’t change: the organization of the stone and the cat remain the same. What does it mean to say that the level of organization decreases when entropy is produced but the organization of the stone and the cat remain the same? The incoming sun(light) and the atoms composing the air are external to the systems in our focus, but not regarding the production of entropy.

However, the amount of uncertainty regarding the future states – in phase space – of these systems increases. This explains the production of entropy in an existing system. If an organism emerges – appears for the first time – the order of what are (post-hoc) its components increases into their organization as the observed system, but the entropy increases nonetheless. The appearance of organisms does not reverse entropy production!

Increasing (dis)order is on account of the observer. When entropy is maximum all the possible next states are equally special, it is observed, and when minimum, say say a crystal at 0 K, the next state is the same as the current one. The notion of particularity only comes to be if we see things in a blurred and approximate way. dpb: the states become less particular from the perspective of someone taking a blurred view. Does blurred mean that e.g. a person cannot distinguish atoms and the relations between them, or the different kinds of fields such as energy and material? Can there also be a relation between blurring and emergence, because observing an emerged system we are incapable to reduce its behavior at the larger scale to that of its components at the smaller scale? And if so, is this knowable, or in other words: can an observer keep the behavior of the components of any system in focus until the point where they become part of the unity they have emerged into? And is the observer in this case aware of the emerged unity? And if so then is the observer one observer or has he become two observers?

According to Rovelli, blurring means that we are incapable of seeing the microscopic level where there is no difference between past and present, and between cause and effect. An observer is required for that! There is a loss of direction, because there is no intrinsic difference between past and future on the smallest scales.

Time passes more slowly for what moves. dpb: I understand this effect in the same way as (potential) time slows down closer to a mass. The dimensions of the squares (graining) of the grid onto which time is canvassed become smaller on the topology closer to a mass and at high relative speed.

There is no single or absolute time and every point in space has a proper time. ‘Now’ is meaningless, because there is no present anywhere that corresponds to any other. The question of a present in/of the universe is therefore improper. The temporal structure of the universe can be said to be made of partially ordered cones. Each approximate generation roughly followed by another. The structure of space-time is not stratified but scattered, and without common direction (wobbly). There is no universal present.

According to Aristotle time is the measure of change, including thinking of change. dpb: this implies that change is a series of events at which configurations transpose to other configurations, whereby whereby these configurations generate corresponding behavior, and events are observations of these transpositions. According to Newton even if nothing happens, time (of some kind) still passes. Leibniz defends the former idea that time results from counting of events, but the latter has caught on and is the more widely accepted. Until the end of the 19th century every place had its proper time, only later local time was replaced with global time schedules. This interpretation is closer to the notion of relativity of time than the wide spread absolute Newtonian interpretation.

dpb: events are grained or quanted into (or: on) the space-time grid of potential space and time, whereby they occupy space and time. When closer to a mass or moving, the time grid particular to it is finer grained and the thing is therefore observed to move slower. In this view there is no empty space or time, aka space and time only come to be when occupied.

Aristotle maintains that the position of a thing in space and time is identified by what surrounds it. There is no ‘empty’ space or time. dpb: this connects with the idea of a rhizome spanning up its own dimensions plus the ones required to describe it by the observer, but not its behavior at the ‘emerged’ scale (Deleuze and Guattari 1987).

What does it mean when space and time can be void i.e nothing is there as Newton suggests? Not even electromagnetic fields or other things imperceptible to people. Einstein suggest that time and space are like canvasses on which reality (substances) comes to exist as fields. Gravity, one of these fields, through mass determines the topology of space-time a gravitational field. dpb: Time and space are not absolute but relative, suggesting they interpenetratingly depend on neighboring elements. Does it mean that space and time are potential until something occupies them? Do they substantiate from a potential (virtual) to the real under the conditions of the actual, or in other words that they become?

Moving on to consider quantum properties of space and of time, then in addition to situationalized, individualized, localized and independent as previously described, time is also distributed. This leads to the aspects of granularity, indeterminacy, and relativity which further break down our understanding of time. dpb: the entropic direction of time seems problematic, because time would take the direction of every whole system ‘scoped’ by the entropy production, covering many different loci in space time. But every point in space time has develops its particular space and time.

Quantum effects occur at Planck time scales of 10E-44. On smaller scales there is no time (it is meaningless). Also time assumes only special discrete values: most times do not exist. Hence time is not continuous but granular, leapfrogging from one instance to another separated by intermittencies at the Planck scale.

Time is indeterminate: it is not absolute but in a superposition, its present state is unknown. Something may take place before and after something else does. What takes place is resolved at an event of interaction aka observation. The only point where it becomes concrete is in the relation with the ones it interacts with (or is observed by), instead of uniformly for the rest of the universe. In this view, the world is made up of events taking place in a disorderly way, not things. Events are short-lived and processual, and things persist and are object-like.

The notion of the event as the basic unity of reality fits well with how we experience the world, because it is spatially and temporally delimited. Objects in this view are long events. dpb: Can we say that objects are series of events that are long compared to the duration of human life, and perhaps to other things? In this sense time equals happening.

Thus, the idea of presentism, meaning that reality moves from one present to the next, no longer works. The world is not a single linear succession of presents. The opposite idea of eternalism (block universe), that past, present and future are equally real means that change is an illusion realistically can’t be true. The point is that the present develops in a disorderly distributed and indeterminate  way. But our grammar isn’t suitable: ‘In the world there is change, there is a temporal structure of relations between events that is anything but illusory’ (p 100).

We do not need the time variable to describe the world, but the variables that describe it, and how they change relative to each other. If a number of these relations are established then we might say when an event takes place: ‘.. what the relations are between these variables’ (p 103). dpb: or in other words these are differences (relations) between two series of differences (variables), aka assemblages. The differences should have the adjective comparable to indicate the potential of correlations between correlations.

Fields become manifest in granular form. The grains are not immersed in space but they form it, the structure of space is granular. Spatiality is the web of interactions between these grains. They exist only during those interactions. The latter are the happening of the world, the development of reality.

‘Time emerges from a world without time, ..’ (p 117). dpb: will this be the link to blurring and approximation Rovelli mentions early on in the text as the insight of Boltzmann?

The conventional view is that time determines energy determines the macro state. An opposing view is that the macro state determines energy determines time, whereby the macro state equals the blurred view of systems and their behavior. Or in other words: time becomes determined because / as an effect of the blurring, namely the incompleteness of the description of the corresponding micro-states. dpb: Rovelli refers to this notion as thermal time, because it corresponds to the probabilistic notion of entropy at the macro scale. In processual terms the macro-state can mean the actual, namely the organization of a system restricting the behavior of its constituent elements (components). Possible names for time caused by blurring cased not by heat: emergence time, organization / order time, identity time?

Measurement of speed and position of a particle are non-commutative. The order of the interactions (measuring) matter causing a primitive form of time to develop. Time developing in changing macro states (thermal, others?) and time developing in changing quantum states (quantum) are very similar. Rovelli suggests that this is the time we know, whereby quantum indeterminacy and the large quantities of particles cause the blurring. Time is ignorance. dpb: Emergence takes place in physical systems at various scales and I hoped that Rovelli would express a stronger link to emergence &c.

dpb: so, again: what is blurring? We, and every physical system, interact with a limited number of other systems. We interact with them through only a limited number of variables (aka correlations, assemblages). The configurations we do not notice seem to be equivalent to us. Thus our – and other physical systems’ – vision of the world is blurred.

Thus, blurring is the pivot of the theory of Boltzmann: entropy is the number of configurations of a system we are not aware of. This can of course vary per observed system as well as per observing system, because what is not visible for one can be visible for another. Blurring is not only mental, because interactions with the micro-systems exist. Entropy is relative to the observer aka the one interacting with the system in hand, like speed a property of the object relative to others.

The entropy of the world depends on its configuration as well as on our (in general physical systems’) blurring of them. This depends on which variables of the world – our part of the world – we interact with.

Thus, the seemingly low entropy in the far past may be a result of the limited set of variables we interacted with and our blurring of them. Our interactions are limited to a small number of macroscopic variables. The microscopic  configurations are blurred. Since we are responsible for that, with the supposed low entropy as a result. In this view the arrow of time is not universal but it depends on the physical system doing the viewing, us in this case, from our ‘special corner’ of the universe.

Indexicality refers to words which assume a different meaning depending on their use. dpb: like a variable? Indexing makes the perspective of its use explicit. It is not possible to say anything from outside the world. Existence takes place from within (so as the map is useful if we know our position versus it). Thus, time is not external to us (or any physical system) but we are situated within it, seeing time from the inside.

Any energy goes to thermal energy. Low entropy goes to high: production. Without entropy there is no past and no future. Entropy production is increasing disorder. But evolution of organisms increases order by way of organization while entropy is still produced. dpb: Again: What is the subject of entropy? The relevant one is the change of order in phase space (not real space). Even though there are temporary pockets of order in the grand scheme (e.g of evolution), the very grand scheme is of increasing disorder.

The past leaves traces in the future. CR suggests that this is because of low entropy into the past, because there is nothing else to separate the past from the future. dpb: blind spot. Common causes in the past of current phenomena point at low entropy in the past, because of the increasing improbability of their occurring together? ‘In a state of thermal equilibrium, or in a purely mechanical system, there isn’t a direction to time identified by causality‘ (p 146). dpb: but it isn’t just causality but irreversibility.

Time is related to us. What are we? We are not individual entities, but relational identities. What produces this:1) point of view 2) in connection with the working of our brain, we categorize vis-a-vis other humans (the reflection of us we get back from our kind) 3) memory links our histories through narratives.

The mind can see traces of the past left in the brain. But threading them as an interpretation of the flow of time is an internal process of the mind. It is integral to the mind. The mind constitutes (a representation of) time through the retention of traces on the brain of past events (Husserl).

‘Time opens up our limited access to the world. Time, then, is the form in which we beings whose brains are made up essentially of memory and foresight interact with the world: it is the source of our identity‘ (p 164).

Kranen / Cranes

20150518_170830I had originally intended to write this blog as a marketing tool, using the proceeds from my reportedly fundamental research into complexity and business. This objective has failed miserably from the outset: the subject is perceived as technical, abstract with no immediate application or use for potenital reader.

The literature I am basing my research upon is largely in the English language; potential readers of my research proceeds are not necessarily proficient in Dutch.

Dennett says it (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p.338) as follows: ‘Human culture .. is not just a crane composed of cranes, but a crane-making crane.’ followed by: ‘Cultural evolution operates many orders of magnitude faster then genetic evolution and this is part of its role in making our species special, but it had also turned us into creatures with an entirely different outlook on life from any other species.’.

To cut a long story short: as you may not have noticed, I am changing to writing more posts in English, because I reckon it is a better crane to build my ‘addition to human culture’ with, and so, hopefully, delivering knowledge that is more useful to others (or useful to more others), as the language itself can no longer be the hurdle.

Dit blog en ik

Waarom schrijf ik eigenlijk dit blog?

Ik ben opgegroeid op Vlieland en hoewel ik er al lang weg ben vermoed ik dat er wel enige invloed is gebleven. Tot mijn grote vreugde is niets daar namelijk elke dag hetzelfde: natuurlijke omstandigheden veranderen de omgeving zoals de natuur en de ligging van het eiland zelf. Op elk moment is alles in een soort precair, tijdelijk evenwicht. Daarnaast is er een lange traditie van wantrouwen tegen centraal gezag en meer vertrouwen in het zelf oplossen van eigen problemen, noem het liberaal of autonoom. Wat ook de achtergrond is: hoewel volledig ‘law abiding’ is enige moeite met autoriteit me niet vreemd. Tegelijkertijd ben ik een teamspeler, hou ik van organisaties en geloof ik wel in het probleemoplossend vermogen van groepen.

Ik hou niet van de ‘communis opinio’ en voorzover dat in tegenspraak lijkt met de afkeer van centraal gezag (dus een voorkeur voor decentraal gezag): het verschil is een eigen mening versus ‘gefundenes fressen’. Als laatste ben ik niet dol op franje: het gereedschap moet ook bij een beetje tegenwind blijven werken. En dat geldt ook voor een theorie of een model: op zijn minst moet de centrale gedachte overeind blijven en die mag best bij een tegenargument met een ‘workaround’ of een ‘patch’ opgelapt worden, maar moet niet verzanden in een dogma.

Waar moet het onderzoek, waar het blog verslag van doet, toe leiden?

Het ‘werkdoel’ is een indicator te vinden voor het potentiële succes van een bedrijf: je steekt de thermometer ergens in en dan weet je of het bedrijf kans heeft om te blijven bestaan of dat het vooral moet stoppen met proberen. Duidelijk is dat een bedrijf in een omgeving van andere bedrijven bestaat en van instellingen en in een wirwar van markten voor arbeid, middelen en grondstoffen. En dat dat allemaal niet los van elkaar te zien is. Analoog aan evolutietheorie past een ieder zich aan aan haar omgeving en is zelf simultaan de omgeving voor anderen. Dat leidt er toe dat bedrijven niet los van die omgeving kunnen worden gezien. Ze zijn eigenlijk een soort ‘verdichting’ in een veld van (mogelijke) voortbrengingsprocessen, noem het een economie. En een theorie voor bedrijven is dan al gauw een economische theorie, want de eerste is maar één perspectief van de tweede.

Het is duidelijk dat de vigerende economische theorie (neo klassiek) vaak niet voldoet, al was het alleen maar omdat er nog nooit een steekhoudende voorspelling mee is gedaan, zeker niet voor de toekomst. Ik kan niet met gezag zeggen dat ik de state-of-the-art in micro-economie ken, maar het uitgangspunt is dat er evenwichten ontstaan in de concurrentie tussen bedrijven. Dat is niet zo. Ik heb me nog niet verdiept in het laatste nieuws betreft de aandeelhouderswaarde theorie, maar ook daar liggen dogma’s of op zijn minst twijfelachtige aannames aan ten grondslag. Ik kan me nog herinneren dat ik macro-economie ‘hard work’ vond, omdat er niets vanzelfsprekend aan is en ik alles uit mijn hoofd moest leren om het te kunnen onthouden: hoe kun je zo een groot en veelkantig systeem nou platslaan in economische cycli en een ‘well-behaved productiefunctie’? Het is een logische theorie, maar niet de werkelijkheid. Daaraan werken is wel een radicale ‘scope creep’ ten opzichte van het oorsponkelijke plan: een economische theorie in plaats van een praktisch meetinstrument.

Waar baseer ik me eigenlijk op?

Het vinden van literatuur is niet de lastigste opgave; toegegeven het is vaak een intuïtieve keuze. Een paar sleutelwoorden zijn: ver-uit-evenwicht, complexiteit, systeem, entropie, (wan)orde, dynamica en zelf-organisatie. Dan is heel kort lezen vaak wel genoeg om het kaf van het koren te scheiden: als het riekt naar een dogma, algemeenheden of mystiek, dan levert het gegarandeerd niets op. Als het gaat over peuteren aan begrip over alledaagse dingen, liefst op een waterscheiding tussen verschillende wetenschappen dan is de kans groter dat dit de moeite waard is.

Oh en veel grote wetenschappers uit verschillende disciplines hebben wel een bijdrage geleverd aan het onderwerp complexe adaptieve systemen, buiten hun vakgebied. Kijk maar eens in de literatuurlijst bij mijn blog: nobel winnaars galore. Eigenlijk per definitie buiten welk vakgebied dan ook, want dat bestaat als zodanig niet.

Dat laatste is wel een belangrijke motivatie om dit te doen: alles wat ik lees is echt boeiend op de manier zoals de natuur dat is. Het zit vol met verrassend gedrag, al dan niet gewenst. De schrijvers hebben, zeker in het begin, vaak hun nek uitgestoken door hardop te vloeken in de kerk die hun vakgebieden waren. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan de meteoroloog Lorents die aantoonde dat deterministische vergelijkingen niet-periodiek gedrag konden vertonen, een gotspe in de 60-er jaren van de vorige eeuw.

Hoe werkt dit in mijn hoofd?

Ik heb me tot doel gesteld om die indicator te vinden, en ik heb dat niet al te concreet omschreven. Dat maakt het voorlopig tot een niet-wetenschappelijk onderzoek, omdat er niets te bewijzen, te falsifiëren of zelfs maar te kwantificeren valt. De scope van het onderzoek kan nog worden aangepast al naar gelang de bevindingen. Ik ben gaan lezen in literatuur die aan die criteria hierboven voldoet en die ik toch al wilde lezen en probeer daarin informatie te vinden die bouwstenen levert voor het model dat die indicator oplevert. Daar doe ik dan popwetenschappelijk verslag van, zie het als leesverslagen met aantekeningen.

Ik heb me afgevraagd of ik dit onderzoek niet in een academische omgeving zou moeten doen. Dat levert wel de nodige geloofwaardigheid op, infrastructuur, toegang tot allerlei bestaand onderzoek en collega’s die op zijn minst mee (of  eigenlijk tegen) lezen. Allemaal aspecten die er nu niet zijn. Dat zou natuurlijk niet kunnen met zo’n algemene formulering van het doel en de al te lichte verslaglegging. Ik zou dat dus moeten inperken en preciezer moeten schrijven en dat lukt, althans voorlopig, nog niet, omdat het aandachtsgebied eerst groter moet worden (zo groot dat het niet meer groter kan) om te weten welke spijker het blijkbaar is die ik op zijn kop moet slaan.

Intussen raakt mijn hoofd steeds voller met ideeën, noem het concepten, nee: noem het memes, die strijden om een plaats in het model en de onderlinge rangorde op basis van hun ‘fitness’. Die fitness zet ik nu alleen af tegen hun eigenschappen in relatie tot de evolutietheorie, hun dynamische eigenschappen en tegen hun wiskundige onderbouwing. Hoe ver ik kom hangt nu af van hoeveel concepten erin passen met enige ‘elbow room’ en in hoeverre zich dat kan verdichten tot een soort samenhang, een model.

De mate waarin er echt groot nieuws bijkomt begint af te nemen. In toenemende mate begin ik stukjes model te testen aan de werkelijkheid. Ik begin naar toepassingen te zoeken voor onderdelen en ik zoek naar manieren om het gedrag van complexe adaptieve systemen aan mensen uit te kunnen leggen en te illustreren. Ik zit, met andere woorden, met één been in de ontwikkeling van een theoretisch model en met het andere in de werkelijkheid en dat is ook nodig.

En als ik dan zo’n grote mond heb over de bestaande economische modellen en dat ze niet werken, of dat ze speciale gevallen zijn van een andere theorie, moet ik me dan niet gaan werpen op de state-of-the-art van die economische theorie, om daar aansluiting mee te kunnen vinden of te kunnen aantonen dat ze onverenigbaar zijn? Het is geen aantrekklijk idee om werk te steken in iets waarin ik weinig vertrouwen heb om dan uit te kunnen leggen dat ik dat niet heb. Als ik eerlijk ben zit het nog iets anders: ik denk dat ik focus verlies als mijn model niet voldoende stevig en samenhangend is om stand te houden. Ik denk dat de memes die nu mijn hoofd bevolken met complex adaptieve bouwstenen dan worden herbevolkt door uitgekristalliseerde neoklassieke economische modellen, waardoor mijn model-in-spe verwatert. Ik ga dus voorlopig liever recht op het resultaat af en ik neem het risico dat de richting vruchteloos zal blijven. Uiteindelijk zal er toch een vergelijking moeten plaatsvinden, maar dan wel voorbereid.

Hoe gaat het hierna verder?

Deze post is eigenlijk alleen maar een tussenstand, een reflectie, en niet bedoeld als mijlpaal. Die zit er wel aan te komen, want mijn literatuur over complexe adaptieve systemen raakt op. Dan houdt het dus op met comfortabele boekbesprekingen en bespiegelingen en dan moet het echt ergens heen. Eerst heb ik dan nog een paar boeken te lezen over methodes, wetenschappelijk en ook pop-, die moeten leiden tot een duidelijk en concreet onderzoek en, uiteindelijk, uitkomsten.

De vraag is welke kant op: uitgaande van mijn huidige aanpak / schrijfstijl is naast het blog een boek de aangewezen weg. Dat klinkt eerlijk gezegd als ‘kissing your sister’ in zoverre dat het dan een toepassing wordt van een model dat nog steeds niet goed onderbouwd is. Zelf denk ik, zonder ook maar enige tegenspraak te hebben gemobiliseerd, dat hoewel mijn schrijfstijl niet erg wetenschappelijk is, mijn denktrant dat wel is. Dus ik geef de moed niet op.

Aan de andere kant is het een dure oplossing om op eigen doft onderzoek te blijven doen, alhoewel ‘private research’ wel goed klinkt, vind je niet? Ergens moet toch een keer een punt worden gemaakt, maar welk concreet punt dan en in welk gremium? Zou een artikel in een wetenschappelijk blad niet een oplossing zijn, dan is er hopelijk aandacht van kritische lezers? En is de benadering dan biologisch, evolutionair, fysisch, wiskundig of economisch en wordt het resultaat fundamenteel of toegepast? En dan daarna een toegepast model om een consultancy op te bouwen of een boek of wordt het toch een faculteit?

Wat in elk geval moet gebeuren is die indicator te bouwen en te toetsen, dat was het voornemen en dan is dat afgevinkt (). Even nog 3 bruggen verder dagdromen: beter is het een logisch construct te bouwen voor een nieuwe of aangepaste ‘firm theory’ of micro economie op basis van cas inclusief een wiskundige formulering. En op die manier de ‘momentopnames’ die de huidige theorie biedt over te zetten naar video.

Lane over Individuele Keuzes en Marktaandeel

Deze post is gebaseerd op het artikel ‘Information Contagion: Is what is good for each best for all?’ van David Lane, 1997, in SFI Proceedings The Economy as an Evolving Complex System. De vraag is hoe keuzes van individuele kopers via hun interacties leiden tot een marktaandeel. Verder lezen Lane over Individuele Keuzes en Marktaandeel

Lane en Maxfield over Strategie in Complexe omstandigheden

Deze post gaat over strategieontwikkeling in complexe omstandigheden en is grotendeels gebaseerd op het artikel van David Lane en Robert Maxfield getiteld ‘Foresight, Complexity and Strategy’, 1996, opgenomen in SFI Proceedings: ‘The Economy as an Evolving Complex System’. Verder lezen Lane en Maxfield over Strategie in Complexe omstandigheden

Kauffman en Darley: Natural Rationality

Dit artikel van S.A. Kauffman en V.M. Darley, in Santa Fe Proceedings, The Economy as an Evolving Complex System, beschrijft een model van een economisch systeem, waarbij het gedrag van agenten het gevolg is van de voorspellingen die ze doen over het gedrag van andere agenten in hun nabijheid. De conclusie is dat agenten beperkt rationeel gaan handelen door de interactie met hun omgeving. Dit is interessant, omdat duidelijker wordt hoe een agent (lees: bedrijf of bedrijfsonderdeel) zich kan gedragen om zijn fitness te verhogen in een veranderende omgeving. Verder lezen Kauffman en Darley: Natural Rationality

Signals and Boundaries

Uitgangspunt was om de ontwikkeling van een onderneming te zien in haar omgeving zoals organismes co-evolueren in hun omgeving. In eerdere posts komt steeds de vraag terug waar het één, de onderneming, eindigt en het ander, de omgeving, begint. Voortbordurend op wat in de vorige post, Inductie, is geschreven: wat zijn de communicaties (‘messages’) tussen die verschillende entiteiten. En in dezelfde categorie: waaruit bestaat de communicatie binnen deelsystemen van ondernemingen. En de (of in elk geval een) heilige graal: zijn organismes, netwerken en CAS en de verschillende deelsystemen daarbinnen te sturen? Verder lezen Signals and Boundaries

Inductie

Een uitgangspunt van dit onderzoek is het gedrag van ondernemingen in hun context te onderzoeken als een organisme, zie onder andere de post Leven. Ik benader ondernemingen daarbij als een systeem: als geheel in haar context en zonder te kijken naar de details, zie ook de post Complicity en Simplexity. Op dit abstractieniveau heb ik geen verklaring voor het bestaan of het functioneren van bedrijven: het model heeft als het ware geen motor. Mogelijk zouden daarvoor vanuit de details wel (deel)verklaringen kunnen worden gevonden, maar die kan ik niet gebruiken. Verder lezen Inductie