General features of complex systems
Complex systems are multiply interactive self-modifying systems. Participants in the system respond to events in the system.
This results in a few consequences, and challenges.
•Nothing exists by itself. The existence of elephants, for example, requires mutual evolution between proto-elephants, plants, predators, parasites, water, sunlight, genetic errors and so on. Elephants would not exist without the systems they exist within. Likewise, humans would not think they way they do without a history of politics, culture, gender roles, art, sciences, elephants, invasions, replication mistakes and modifications, and so on. Thought is a product of the system individual humans exist within. It does not exist by itself in an individual brain with no history or interaction. Social life exists similarly. Elephants and thought etc in some sense are distributed, because they are part of many overlapping systems. Hence we always need to be aware of the dynamic contexts of any challenge (as it does not exist by itself), and these contexts can also be considered to be complex. It may be possible to immerse oneself in the system to gain a sense of pattern and immersion, and of the mutual dynamics of participants. Traditionally sitting in nature and listening an dobserving is one way of doing getting a sense of the system and it could be useful, if only to train people in looking for connection and pattern. However, as always, any understanding gained has to be evaluated and tested.
Changing technology has effects on everything else. The big example being steam power, which not only allowed massive technological change but also organisational change which allowed capitalists to become dominant, and strip the workers of rights of place and skill. That transition required laws to enable a new form of exploitation and worker disempowerment. Computer tech was thought to challenge conventional social power relations, but the power relations seem to have won out, even the internet has produced instability of information and knowledge. It is a reasonable fear that climate technologies can also alter oranisation and future trajectories, Hence their is resistance and perhaps over-optimism..
•Existence is flux, with no permanent balance. Taking this point and the previous point we can say that being and existence are distributed, connected and ongoing processes. Another point is that there is no eternal balance of nature. The system shifts all the time. Joint evolution-conflict is inherent in complex systems and systems change. However this recognition of change and instability, does not mean there are not more stable and less stable ‘equilibrium trajectories’. The more the system is disrupted, the wilder the swings become as it journeys towards a new temporary equilibrium. If the system keeps being disrupted, then it will keep behaving wildly and take longer to settle down. So the less disruptive we can be of the global ecological system, or the more we remove disruptions and (in particular) continuing disruptions, the more time we have to adapt to inevitable change. In terms of planning, the more GHG we produce to keep on running as we are, the worse the situation will become, and the less likelihood of stability.
•Diversity, redundancy and resilience. It appears that diversity of participants is good for system resilience, because it allows a variety of responses. Monocultures are vulnerable to disease sweeping through them, or to parasitic invasions, because all participants respond in similar ways, and hence an invader, which can steer around those responses, will possibly wipe out everything destroying the whole eco-system (but allowing the possibility of an eventual new start after the destruction). If there are a number of different participants providing similar eco-services, then the chance of some of them surviving, and their ecology surviving with them, is greater. The more efficient the system, then the less ‘slack’ it may have, and the less capacity for useful and responsive behaviour. For example, ‘just in time’ economic supply systems work well when the system is stable, but when the system is inevitably disrupted, or some interacting system changes, the lack of redundancy makes the system vulnerable, and over-stretched. Many human organisations are now designed to work with their human participants at maximum stretch and tension, hence they become vulnerable. On the other hand, too much redundancy and diversity might also disrupt a system. We have to experiment to find the most healthy and likely balance in any given situation.
•Evolution and equilibrium without ‘harmony.’ Systems involve maladaptation and adaptation. As already stated, natural systems can be temporarily balanced, but that does not mean they are harmonious in the sense that the English use of that word requires. Creatures eat each other, avoid being eaten, can explode disastrously in numbers, can be killed off by ‘invading species’ and so on. The point is that, while systems adapt to forces and changes, the systems’ adaptation can often be considered to be maladaptive for some participants, or even for a subsystem, and become less welcoming, or even kill them off. Many current human systems, including the dominant systems seem to be self-undermining in this sense, and will lead (if not to the destruction of humanity and other participants) to the destruction of the patterns of organisation and survival they have developed and depended upon. Fossil fuel burning for energy, industrial agriculture, human and ecology crushing use of technology, production of pollution, neoliberalism (and the impact of business on government), corporate information systems, etc. all reinforce, and contribute to, those patterns of self-destruction. Consequently many human systems need change to diminish their self-destructive nature. A particular problem is that information systems rarely act to convey accuracy everywhere.
•Complex all the way up and all the way down. Complexity operate at all levels. For example, Humans are part of complex social and ecological systems, they are also built up of complex systems. Most of our body weight can be made up of participants who don’t share our DNA, such as bacteria which live within us. Some of our cells also seem to have parts which started evolving independently but then became part of us, like mitochondria. Killing bacteria we are not harmonious with, can also kill the bacteria that we need for proper functioning. Even though eternal balance is a fiction, this fictional balance of the system is important, and should be attended to, or disrupted minimally without due need (if, for example, the new arrival bacteria or virus is absolutely harmful or lethal). Imbalance needs to be curbed or compensated for. Neoliberalism might be thought of as a harmful virus which has penetrated the system and is killing it. When installed technologies can disrupt the complexity differently at a different levels. For example turbines may kill apex predator birds, or cause migration problems, while keeping the land fairly unchanged and the air unpolluted. Coal dust may bring lung problems at the same time coal offers reliable levels of energy.
•Boundaries are unclear. Different fields interact. Different systems have ‘fuzzy boundaries.’ As implied above, ecologies are no longer independent of human economic and production systems, and economic systems are not independent of ecologies and planetary boundaries. Information is not independent of economic or political actions. In a not entirely accurate slogan “Everything Interacts.” Solutions to current challenges can only be isolated from their effects on other systems in rare and particular cases. Hence we look for disruptions that our response set is causing.
Overlapping fields are a big problem when it comes to climate technologies. Modern society has been powered by fossil fuels, that has enabled development, military superiority, technology, long ‘efficient’ trade routes, transport, suburbs and so on. As the basis of this society, and as largely now owned and controlled by a relatively few extremely rich, ruthless and powerful corporations (some governmental most private), there is an inbuilt resistance to taking climate change seriously, replacing the main cause of climate emissions, or developing climate tech in itself. This is generally supported by other industries which use fossil fuels or provide electricity and by governments. All sides seek to generate economic stability within complexity. The most popular technologies in terms of policy are imaginary technologies or technologies we know will make no difference to fossil fuel sales. Similarly big agriculture (particularly livestock ag) tries to inhibit the important agricultural transition to less polluting mass farms and feedlots. Smaller regenerative and organic farms challenge the agricultural dominance, just as community renewable energy challenges the power of corporate electricity. Likewise, fossil fuel companies can cash on on the illth system which supports many other businesses or sources of power, that have depended on pollution and poisoning from GHG, to oil spills, plastic, micro-plastics, fertliser overflows, industrial chemicals, dumping pollution in rivers, tire dust in the air and so on. Restrictions on ecological damage, damage profits all over the place. Pollution discussion is fairly rare, as is still decent discussion of climate change and options. Corporately installed renewables, can cause resistances, as it is cheaper to destroy the ecologies rather than live with them, different locals get different paybacks which generates social upheaval and discontent, and there is little consultation because businesses have not needed to make consultation and many climate technologies do not have a planned lifecycle, and there is little provision to deal with end products when they are not longer in use.
•Small changes can make large differences. This can be known as the ‘butterfly effect’ or as ‘non-linearity’. Because everything interacts (and the system seems multi-causal), then small apparently irrelevant changes can have unpredictably large effects as the change works its way through the system. Changes do not always even-out as in an averaging effect. Part of working with the system is finding out the difference between averaging and consequential changes. Tipping points occur when stress accumulates and there is a sudden change of state, which is magnified through the system and sends it into instability. We are pretty certain that a massive release of methane as tundras melt will increase the rate of global warming, completely destabilise the weather, and make it impossible to return to what used to be normal. Furthermore the ‘tipped’ change will probably be so rapid, that we cannot adapt or catch up with repairing the destruction it produces. Tipping points, that feed into disruptive and maladaptive change should be avoided. However, the idea that small changes can have big effects should also be taken as encouragement. Even small actions against climate change or for adaptation may have large ‘positive’ effects. They may not, and due to limited predictability we may not be able to tell in advance, but do not be discouraged by the smallness of your individual actions.
•Not completely knowable The ‘world and human systems’ are too complicated to be known in detail. The only accurate model of the system is the system itself. In this situation, knowledge has a tendency to become primarily symbolic, which is difficult if the symbols are tied into a symbolic system of self-reinforcing dogma and distraction. However, different people in different positions in the system will inevitably see things differently. This is extra-information not necessarily to be condemned in itself. For example it is reasonable to assume that followers of Donald Trump are actively reporting their discontent and sense of the failure of the system they live in, even if they cannot theorise it in a way which non-followers understand, or if Trump proposes solutions (such as more pollution, greater corporate power, more riches for the hyper rich, and persecuting illegal immigrants and trans people), which will not solve any of their problems. Ignoring their sense of system precariousness is folly. Change may need to be cultivated which they can recognise as benefitting them. As information is never complete, we all (not just our opponents) have an unconsciousness of vital knowledge. This unconsciousness can be reinforced by the unconsciousness and consciousness of others, forming a social unconscious, which leads to problems. Hence a degree of humility about one’s knowledge is important.
Neoliberal economist F.A. Hayek agrees with much of this unknowability in economics and the world. This is the formal reason for his dislike of government planning. Governments cannot know or anticipate everything, which is quite true. However, he tends to ignore corporate planning or cartels, and he reduces all relevant or important information to the price system. This reduction is an unintended way to increase unconsciousness, because not everything essential to the system is priced in capitalism. Power relations even force some ‘externalities’ (illth creation, pollution, health effects etc) outside the price system, so capitalist destruction can have no recognised destructive effect. Power relations constantly distort the price of products. Cartels force up prices, some businesses can temporarily force down prices, to drive others out of business. And it is not certain that everything can be priced, such as the atmosphere, or especially future events and shortages. Events may be vital later on and worth nothing now. So he ends up using proto-complexity theory to reinforce capitalism’s own destructiveness by removing information and removing any consideration of other interacting non-priced systems which are dismissed..
•Systems have limited predictability. They are unpredictable in specific, but possibly by trend. Because of these multiple interactions, maladaptation, cross interaction between apparently different systems, butterfly effects and tipping points, in general, we cannot predict specific events with much expected accuracy. Economic predictions are notoriously unreliable, the classic example being the predictions that economic crashes could no longer occur, because of free markets seeking perfect balance, or because we know how to prevent them. Events take people by surprise. We may, however, be able to predict trends. We know that the weather will get wilder and more intense the more we issue GHG and the more we keep destroying the ecology, but we don’t know for sure what the weather will be like in a specific palce in exactly two weeks. Limited predictability and lack of total knowledge, implies uncertainty is normal, and must be taken as normal. This then means that policies have to be experimental, tried out and tested to find out if they work. Policies may have to be abandoned, despite emotional attachments. Ideal dogmas are likely to lead people astray. People who have different knowledges, from their different locations, must be listened to. Local residents may understand local areas better than people at a distance.
•All systems take in energy and produce ‘waste’ Energy sources can vary from food and use of other organisms to nuclear. The Waste is important. Waste is material or energy which can be recycled: such as organic excretions, dead bodies etc. If the systems produce more waste than can be recycled or produce pollution (waste which can not be recycled), then they will eventually come to points of strain, transition to something else, or decline from self-poisoning. This can be an example of cumulative small changes making a big difference
•Emergent patterns. Patterns emerge from system interactions which cannot be predicted by the actions and behaviours of participants. The system is “greater than the sum of its parts.” Trying to understand the systems by reducing them to parts is often not helpful, although it can help to understand participants. Reductionism is only useful up to a point. Introduction of a new ‘system’ can change the patterns of emergence. As systems can be maladaptive, we cannot assume that the emergent patterns are friendly towards all current participants
Technology, energy and physical entropy may add to the problems. Technologies can add to problems by adding links, breaking links or strengthening links between systems and thus altering the system without intention. The more energy expended, the more the system may be changed. Energy, not already part of the natural system, easily generates illth. Some technology may tend towards high physical entropy, in that it wears out or decays quickly or encourages the decay of other events, again changing the system. The effects of technology are likely to be unpredictable, hence we cannot assume that a technology will be beneficial until it is used at a large extent.
•When complex systems are undergoing change, previous knowledge may no longer be helpful. When the system is moving into a new state, history may not be enlightening and nothing is the same. For example, in agriculture, changed and unstable weather conditions, with no continuity with previous experience, make it difficult to know what and when to plant. It may stretch a farmer’s finances. It may be hard to get good years which compensate for the bad years. If the system stabilises, this may start producing a new set of traditions and regular behaviours. Similar problems occur with insurance. Insurance is based on history, knowing what is likely to happen and charging the insured so that the risks of payouts are covered by the income. When you don’t know the likelihood of disaster this can no longer be done with any ease or certainty. It means insurers have a higher risk of going bust. One way to deal with that is to lower coverage for floods, fires etc, or massively increase charges, just to make sure the insurer can survive. Neither is good for customers, and insurers may find that people decide it is not worth paying for what they perceive as unreliable coverage. Loss of custom further drives up prices and the cycle keeps getting worse. This means, that while we cannot ignore history, again we have to be experimental, within the boundaries within which we can survive. We have to be ready to change, and to support people from being severely hurt by unexpected change. Social services almost certainly need to be changed, increased and improved to help people handle, and survive, the problems we face.
•Complex systems escape control. This should be pretty obvious by now. The firmer we try to control things, then the more likely the system will follow its suppressed dynamics and ‘rebel’. People have tried to enforce a mode of economy, living and control which disrupts the natural dynamics and boundaries of the system we depend on for life. People are still trying to enforce that system, despite it not working. The systems as a whole always react to what we do, and can appear to disrupt the process of control. The implication is that we need to be gentler, and work with the ‘human’ and ‘natural’ systems in ways which are sensitive to the response of those systems, and which may then generate a modified course of action. It is possible that one way of doing this is to relax centralised government and corporate control, and let locals experiment with what to do. The central authorities main job should be to help locals respond, and provide backing financial and informational, to allow people to experiment. For example community power is likely to increase local revenues to enable more adaptation and to provide resilience when the main grid system collapses. But this needs helping. At the moment it can be quite difficult to achieve, because the system is set up for corporate large-scale operations, and that system acts as an inhibiter and obstacle to change. Useful local change may give support for politicians who want to cultivate local responses, and the change may be able to be transferred elsewhere.
•Unintended consequences are normal. If we live in a system with uncertain knowledge, and which escapes control. Then we will always generate unintended consequences. These consequences must be looked for (as they will be present), and not ignored as they tell us something about how the system works, or how it responds to our actions and ideas. What appears to be disorder is useful for understanding system processes. Repressing that disorder not only does not remove the system disorder, but it stops us from dealing with it until it is too great.
Dealing with the challenge
While this can make everything seem impossible we should remember that:
People deal with complexity all the time
- In conversations – who knows where they will end up?
- In daily life. Life seems to always be suffering some disruption.
- Community is always complex, yet we generally live successfully enough with others.
- Community can sometimes be built in “niches” outside the notice of the main power and economic systems and create its own “scenius” which helps experimentation.
We have always lived within complex systems. We have evolved within complex systems. They make up our normal environment. Problems may largely arise when we go out of our way to ignore complexity, we aim for complete control over a system and attempt that control through force, when societies get so big that our understanding is overwhelmed, or we as a society refuse to change to meet new conditions.
The next page discusses this… some more
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 