|
We are products of complexity, but our evolution has focused our
understanding on the situation of hunter gatherers on the
African savanna.
As humanity has become more powerful we can significantly impact
the systems we depend on. But we struggle to comprehend
them. So this web frame
explores significant real world complex
adaptive systems (CAS):
- Assumptions of randomness & equilibrium allowed the
wealthy & powerful to expand the size and leverage of
stock markets, by placing at risk the insurance and
retirement savings of the working class. The
assumptions are wrong but remain entrenched.
- The US nation was built
from two divergent political
views of: Jefferson and Hamilton. It also
reflects the development
of competing ancient ideas of Epicurus and
Cyril. But the collapse of Bretton Woods forced Wall
Street into a position of power, while the middle and
working class were abandoned by the elites. Housing
financed with cash from oil and derivative transactions
helped hide the shift.
- Most US health care is still
operating the way cars built in the 1940s did.
Geisinger is an example of better solution. But
transforming the whole network is a challenge. And
public health investment has proved far more
beneficial.
- Helping our children learn to be
effective adults is part of our humanity, but we have
created a robust but deeply flawed education system.
Better alternatives have emerged.
- Spoken language, reading and writing emerged allowing our
good ideas to
become a second genetic material.
- The emergence
of the global economy in the 1600s and its subsequent
development;
It explains how the examples relate to each other, why we all
have trouble effectively comprehending these systems and
explains how our inexperience with CAS can lead to catastrophe. It
outlines the items we see as key to the system and why.
Example systems frame |
Dietrich Dorner argues complex adaptive systems (CAS) are hard to understand and
manage. He provides examples of how this feature of these
systems can have disastrous consequences for their human
managers. Dorner suggests this is due to CAS properties
psychological impact on our otherwise successful mental
strategic toolkit. To prepare to more effectively manage
CAS, Dorner recommends use of:
- Effective iterative planning and
- Practice with complex scenario simulations; tools which he
reviews.
Complexity catastrophes |
E. O. Wilson reviews the effect of man on the natural world to
date and explains how the two systems can coexist most
effectively.
Adaptive ecology |
Barton Gellman details the strategies used by Vice President
Cheney to align the global system with his economics, defense, and
energy goals.
US vds alignment |
Kevin Kruse argues that from 1930 onwards the corporate elite
and the Republican party have developed and relentlessly
executed strategies to undermine Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Their
successful strategy used the credibility of conservative
religious leaders to:
- Demonstrate religious issues
with the New Deal.
- Integrate the corporate
elite and evangelicals.
- Use the power of corporate
advertising and Hollywood to reeducate the American
people to view the US as historically religious and
the New Deal and liberalism as anti-religious
socialism.
- Focus the message through evangelicals including Vereide and Graham.
- Centralize the strategy through President Eisenhower.
- Add religious elements to
mainstream American symbols: money, pledge;
- Push for prayer in
public school
- Push Congress to promote prayer
- Make elections more
about religious positions.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Strategy is the art of the possible. But it also depends
on persistence.
Inventing Christian America |
Charles Ferguson argues that the US power structure has become
highly corrupt.
Ferguson identifies key events which contributed to the
transformation:
- Junk bonds,
- Derivative
deregulation,
- CMOs,
ABS and analyst fraud,
- Financial network deregulation,
- Financial network consolidation,
- Short term incentives
Subsequently the George W. Bush administration used the
situation to build
a global bubble, which Wall Street
leveraged. The bursting of the
bubble: managed
by the Bush Administration and Bernanke Federal Reserve;
was advantageous to some.
Ferguson concludes that the restructured and deregulated
financial services industry is damaging to
the American economy. And it is supported by powerful, incentive aligned academics.
He sees the result being a rigged system.
Ferguson offers his proposals
for change and offers hope that a charismatic young FDR will appear.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. Once the constraints are removed from CAS
amplifiers, it becomes advantageous to leverage the increased flows. And it is often
relatively damaging not to participate. Corruption and parasitism can become
entrenched.
Financial WMD |
Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
Aligned justice |
Jonathan Powell describes how the government of, the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
actually operated. Powell was Blair's only chief of
staff.
Mechanics of power |
H. A. Hayek compares and contrasts collectivism and
libertarianism.
Libertarianism |
Startup PDCA |
David Bodanis illustrates how disruptive effects can take
hold. While the French revolution had many driving forces
including famine and
oppression the emergence of a new philosophical vision ensured
that thoughtful leaders
were constrained and conflicted in their responses to the
crisis.
Voltaire's disruptive network |
An epistatic meme suppressed for a thousand years reemerges
during the enlightenment.
It was a poem
encapsulating the ideas of Epicurus rediscovered by a
humanist book hunter.
Greenblatt describes the process of suppression and
reemergence. He argues that the rediscovery was the
foundation of the modern world.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the memetic mechanisms
are discussed.
Constraining happiness |
Isaacson uses the historic development of the global cloud of
web services to explore Ada
Lovelace's ideas about thinking
machines and poetic
science. He highlights the value of computer
augmented human creativity and the need for liberal arts to
fulfill the process.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agent networks and
collaboration are discussed.
Arts technology & intelligence |
Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Associatively integrated robots |
Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Developing ideas |
A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Within this
Bell Labs was at the center of three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
Strategic innovation |
Roger Cohen's New York Times opinion about the implications of
BREXIT is summarized. His ideas are then framed by complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory and
reviewed.
BREXIT |
Scott Galloway argues that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google
are monopolists that
trade workers for technology. Monopolies that he argues
should be broken up to ensure the return of a middle
class.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on these arguments
assuming they relate to a complex adaptive system (CAS).
While Scott's issue is highly significant his analysis conflicts
with relevant CAS history and theory.
Monopoly job killers |
The IPO of Netscape is
defined as the key emergent event of
the New Economy by Michael Mandel. Following the summary
of Mandel's key points the complex adaptive system (CAS) aspects are highlighted.
New economy |
Ed Conway argues that Bretton Woods produced a unique set of
rules and infrastructure for supporting the global economy. It was
enabled by the experience of Keynes
and White during and after the First World War, their dislike of the Gold Standard,
the necessity of improving
the situation between the wars and the opportunity created
by the catastrophe of the Second
World War.
He describes how it was planned
and developed. How it
emerged from the summit.
And he shows how the opportunity inevitably allowed the US to replace the UK at the center of the global economy.
Like all plans there are
mistakes and Conway takes us through them and how the US recovered the situation as
best it could.
And then Conway describes the period after
Bretton Woods collapsed. He explains what followed
and also compares the relative performance of the various
periods before during and after Bretton Woods.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of Complex Adaptive System (CAS)
theory. Conway's book illustrates the rule making and
infrastructure that together build an evolved amplifier.
He shows the strategies at play of agents that were for and
against the development
and deployment of the system. And The Summit provides a
key piece of the history of our global economic CAS.
Bretton woods |
A key agent in the 1990 - 2008
housing expansion Countrywide is linked into the residential
mortgage value delivery system (VDS)
by Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla. But they show the VDS
was full of amplifiers and control points. With no one
incented to apply the brakes the bubble grew and burst.
Following the summary of Muolo and Padilla's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Housing amplifiers |
Satyajit Das uses an Indonesian company's derivative trades to
introduce us to the workings of the international derivatives
system. Das describes the components of the value delivery
system and the key
transactions. He demonstrates how the system
interacted with emerging economies
expanding them, extracting profits and then moving on as the
induced bubbles burst. Following Das's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Derivative systems |
Johnson & Kwak argue that expanding the national debt
provides a hedge against unforeseen future problems, as long as
creditors are willing to continue lending. They illustrate
different approaches to managing the debt within the US over its history and of the
eighteenth century administrations of England and France.
The US embodies two different political and economic systems which
approach the national debt differently:
- Taxes to support a sinking
fund to ensure credit to leverage fiscal power in:
Wars, Pandemics, Trade disputes, Hurricanes, Social
programs; Starting with Hamilton,
Lincoln & Chase,
Wilson, FDR;
- Low taxes, limited infrastructure, with risk assumed by
individuals: Advocated by President's Jefferson & Madison,
Reagan,
George W. Bush (Gingrich);
Johnson & Kwak develop a model of what the US
government does. They argue that the conflicting
sinking fund and low tax approaches leaves the nation 'stuck in
the middle' with a future problem.
And they offer their list of 'first principles' to help
assess the best approach for moving from 2012 into the
future.
They conclude the question is still political. They hope
it can be resolved with an awareness of their detailed
explanations. They ask who is willing to
push all the coming risk onto individuals.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Historically developing within the global cotton value delivery
system, key CAS features are highlighted.
National debt |
Robert Gordon argues that the inventions of the second
industrial revolution were the foundation for
American economic growth. Gordon shows how flows of people
into difficult rural America built a population base
which then took the opportunity to move on to urban settings: Houses, Food in supermarkets,
Clothes in
department stores;
that supported increasing productivity and standard of living.
The deployment of nationwide networks: Rail, Road, Utilities;
terminating in the urban housing and work places allowing the workers to
leverage time saving goods and services, which helped grow
the economy.
Gordon describes the concomitant transformation of:
- Communications
and advertising
- Credit
and finance
- Public
health and the health
care network
- Health insurance
- Education
- Social
and welfare services
Counter intuitively the constraints
introduced before and in the Great Depression and the demands of World War 2
provide the amplifiers that drive the inventions deeply and
fully into every aspect of the economy between 1940 and 1970
creating the exceptional growth and standard of living of post
war America.
Subsequently the
rate of growth was limited until the shift of women
into the workplace and the full networking of
voice and data supported the Internet and World Wide Web
completed the third industrial revolution, but the effects were
muted by the narrow reach of the technologies.
The development of Big Data, Robots,
and Artificial Intelligence may support additional growth,
but Gordon is unconvinced because of the collapse of
the middle class.
Following our summary of Gordon's book RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
American growth |
Carl Menger argues that the market induced the emergence of
money based on the attractive features of precious metals.
He compares the potential for government edicts to create money
but sees them as lacking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
With two hundred years of additional knowledge we conclude that
precious metals are not as attractive as Menger asserts.
Government backed promissory notes are analogous to:
- Other evolved CAS forms of ubiquitous high energy
transaction intermediates and
- Schematic strategies that are proving optimal in
supporting survival and replication in the currently
accessible niches.
Emergence of money |
Eric Beinhocker sets out to answer a question Adam Smith
developed in the Wealth of Nations: what is wealth? To do
this he replaces traditional
economic theory, which is based on the assumption that an
economy is a system in
equilibrium, with complexity
economics in which the economy is modeled as a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
He introduces Sugerscape
to illustrate an economic CAS model in action. And then he
explains the major features of a CAS economy: Dynamics,
Agents, Networks, Emergence, and
Evolution.
Building on complexity economics Beinhocker reviews how evolution applies to
the economy to build wealth. He explains how design spaces
map strategies to instances of physical and
social
technologies. And he identifies the interactors and
selection mechanism of economic
evolution.
This allows Beinhocker to develop a new definition
of wealth.
In the rest of the book Beinhocker looks at the consequences of
adopting complexity economics for business and society: Strategy, Organization, Finance,
& Politics
& Policy.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS explores his conclusions
and aligns Beinhocker's model of CAS with the CAS theory and evidence we
leverage.
Economic complexity |
Sven Beckert describes the historic transformation of the
growing, spinning, weaving, manufacture of cotton goods and
their trade over time. He describes the rise of a first global
commodity, its dependence on increasing: military power, returns for
the control points in the value delivery system(VDS), availability of land
and labor to work it including slaves.
He explains how cotton offered the opportunity for
industrialization further amplifying the productive capacity of
the VDS and the power of the control points. This VDS was quickly
copied. The increased capacity of the industrialized
cotton complex adaptive system (CAS) required more labor to
operate the machines. Beckert describes the innovative introduction of wages
and the ways found to
mobilize industrial labor.
Beckert describes the characteristics of the industrial cotton
CAS which made it flexible enough to become globally interconnected.
Slavery made the production system so cost effective that all
prior structures collapsed as they interconnected. So when
the US civil war
blocked access to the major production nodes in the
American Deep South the CAS began adapting.
Beckert describes the global
reconstruction that occurred and the resulting destruction of the traditional ways
of life in the global countryside. This colonial expansion
further enriched and empowered the 'western' nation
states. Beckert explains how other countries responded
by copying the colonial strategies and creating the
opportunities for future armed conflict among the original
colonialists and the new upstarts.
Completing the adaptive shifts Beckert describes the advocates
for industrialization
in the colonized global south and how over time they
joined the global cotton CAS disrupting the early western
manufacturing nodes and creating the current global CAS
dominated by merchants like Wal-Mart
pulling goods through a network of clothing manufacturers,
spinning and weaving factories, and growers competing with each
other on cost.
Following our summary of Beckert's book, RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The transformation of
disconnected peasant farmers, pastoral warriors and their lands
into a supply chain for a highly profitable industrial CAS
required the development over time: of military force, global
transportation and communication networks, perception and
representation control networks, capital stores and flows,
models, rules, standards and markets; along with the support at
key points of: barriers, disruption, and infrastructure and
evolved amplifiers. The emergent system demonstrates the
powerful constraining influence of extended phenotypic
alignment.
Globalization from cotton |
The structure and problems of the US
health care network is described in terms of complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
The network:
- Is deeply embedded in the US nation state. It reflects the
conflict between two
opposing visions for the US: high tax with safety net
or low tax without. The emergence
of a parasitic elite supported by tax policy, further
constrains the choices available to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the network.
- The US is optimized to sell its citizens dangerous
levels of: salt,
sugar, cigarettes,
guns, light, cell phones, opioids,
costly education, global travel,
antibacterials, formula, foods including
endocrine disrupters;
- Accepting the US controlled global supply chain's
offered goods & services results in: debt, chronic stress,
amplified consumption and toxic excess, leading to obesity, addiction, driving instead of
walking, microbiome
collapse;
- Is incented to focus on localized competition generating
massive & costly duplication of services within
physician based health care operations instead of proven
public health strategies. This process drives
increasing research & treatment complexity and promotes hope
for each new technological breakthrough.
- Is amplified by the legislatively structured separation
and indirection of service development,
provision, reimbursement and payment.
- Is impacted by the different political strategies for
managing the increasing
cost of health care for the demographic bulge of retirees.
- Is presented with acute
and chronic
problems to respond to. As currently setup the network
is tuned to handle acute problems. The interactions
with patients tend to be transactional.
- Includes a legislated health insurance infrastructure
which is:
- Costly and inefficient
- Structured around yearly
contracts which undermine long-term health goals and
strategies.
- Is supported by increasingly regulated HCIT
which offers to improve data sharing and quality but has
entrenched commercial EHR
products deep within the hospital systems.
- Is maintained, and kept in
alignment, by massive network
effects across the:
- Hospital platform
based
sub-networks connecting to
- Physician networks
- Health insurance networks - amplified by ACA
narrow network legislation
- Hospital clinical supply and food
production networks
- Medical school and academic research network and NIH
- Global
transportation network
- Public health networks
- Health care IT supply
network
Health care |
Deaton describes the wellbeing
of people around the world today. He explains the powerful benefit of public
health strategies and the effect of growth in
material wellbeing but also the corrosive effects of
aid.
Following our summary of Deaton's arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. The situation he describes is complex including
powerful amplifiers, alignment and incentives that overlap
broadly with other RSS summaries of adaptations of: The
biosphere, Politics, Economics,
Philosophy and Health care.
Improving wellbeing |
Donald Barlett and James Steele write about their investigations
of the major problems afflicting US
health care as of 2006.
Problems of US health care |
Glenn Steele & David Feinberg review the development of the
modern Geisinger healthcare business after its near collapse
following the abandoned merger with Penn State AMC. After an overview of the
business, they describe how a calamity
unfolding around them supported building a vision of a
better US health care network. And they explain:
- How they planned
out the transformation,
- Leveraging an effective
governance structure,
- Using a strategy
to gain buy in,
- Enabling
reengineering at the clinician patient
interface.
- Implementing the reengineering for acute, chronic
& hot
spot care; to help the patients and help the
physicians.
- Geisinger's leverage of biologics.
- Reengineering healing with ProvenExperience.
- Where Geisinger is headed next.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame their ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
E2E insured quality care |
Robert Pearl explains the perspectives of a health care leader
and son who know that the current health care network interacts
with human behavior to induce a poorly performing system that
caused his father's death. But he is confident that these
problem perceptions can be changed. Once that occurs he
asserts the network will become more integrated, coordinated,
collaborative, better led, and empathetic to their
patients. The supporting technology infrastructure will be
made highly interoperable. All that will reduce medical
errors and make care more cost effective.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame his ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
including synergistic examples of these systems in
operation. The health care network is built out of
emergent human agents. All agents must model the signals
they perceive to represent and respond to them. Pinker
explains how this occurs. Sapolsky explains why fear and
hierarchy are so significant. He includes details of Josh
Green's research on morality and death. Charles Ferguson
highlights the pernicious nature of financial incentives.
Bad medical models |
US healthcare is ripe for
disruption. Christensen, Grossman and Hwang argue that
technologies are emerging which will support low cost business
models that will undermine the current network. Applying
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory to these arguments suggests that the current power hierarchy can effectively resist
these progressive forces.
Disrupting health care |
Atul Gawande writes about the opportunity for a thirty per cent
improvement in quality in medicine by organizing
to deploy as agent based teams using shared schematic
plans and distributed signalling or as he puts it the use of checklists.
With vivid examples from a variety of situations including construction, air crew support and global health care Gawande illustrates
the effects of
complexity and how to organize to cope with it.
Following the short review RSS
additionally relates Gawande's arguments to its models of
complex adaptive systems (CAS) positioning his discussion within
the network of US health care,
contrasting our view of complexity, comparing the forces shaping
his various examples and reviewing facets of complex
failures.
Complexity checklists |
Friedman and Martin leverage the lifelong data collected on
1,528 bright individuals selected by Dr. Lewis Terman
starting in 1921, to understand what aspects of the subjects'
lives significantly affected their longevity. Looking
broadly across each subject's: Personality,
Education, Parental impacts,
Energy
levels, Partnering,
Careers, Religion,
Social networks,
Gender, Impact from war and
trauma; Friedman and Martin are able to develop a set of model pathways,
which each individual could be seen to select and travel
along. Some paths led to the traveler having a long
life. Others were problematic. The models imply that
the US approach to health and
wellness should focus
more on supporting
the development and selection of beneficial pathways.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The pathways are most
applicable to bright individuals with the resources and support
necessary to make and leverage choices they make. Striving
to enter and follow a beneficial pathway seems sensible but may
be impossible for individuals trapped in a collapsing network,
starved of resources.
Promoting longevity |
Gawande uses his personal experience, analytic skills and lots
of stories of innovators to demonstrate better ways of coping
with aging and death. He introduces the lack of focus on
aging and death in traditional medicine. And goes on to
show how technology has amplified
this stress point. He illustrates the traditional possibility of the
independent self, living fully while aging with the
support of the extended family. Central
planning responded to the technological and societal changes
with poorly designed infrastructure and funding. But
Gawande then contrasts the power of
bottom up innovations created by experts responding to
their own family situations and belief
systems.
Gawande then explores in depth the challenges
that unfold currently as we age and become infirm.
He notes that the world is following the US path. As such it will
have to understand the dilemma of
integrating medical treatment and hospice
strategies. He notes that all parties
involved need courage to cope.
He proposes medicine must aim to assure
well being. At that point all doctors will practice
palliative care.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agency, death,
evolution, cooperation and adaptations
to new technologies are discussed.
Agent death |
Sonia Shah reviews the millennia old (500,000 years) malarial arms race between Humanity, Anopheles
mosquitoes and Plasmodium. 250 - 500 million people are
infected each year with malaria and one million die.
Malaria |
Peter Medawar writes about key historic events in the evolution
of medical science.
Medical science events |
Using John Holland's theory of adaptation in complex
systems Baldwin and Clark propose an evolutionary theory of
design. They show how this can limit the interdependencies
that generate complexity
within systems. They do this through a focus on
modularity.
Modular designed systems |
Lou Gerstner describes the challenges he faced and the
strategies he used to successfully restructure the computer
company IBM.
Compartmented systems |
Grady Booch advocates an object oriented approach to computer
software design.
Object based systems |
Bertrand Meyer develops arguments, principles and strategies for
creating modular software. He concludes that abstract data
types and inheritence make object orientation a superior
methodology for software construction. Complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory suggests agents provide an alternative strategy
to the use of objects.
Software construction |
Tools and the businesses that produce them have evolved
dramatically. W Brian Arthur shows how this occurred.
Tools |
Matt Ridley demonstrates the creative effect of man on the
World. He highlights:
- A list of
preconditions resulting in
- Additional niche
capture & more free time
- Building a network
to interconnect memes processes & tools which
- Enabling inter-generational
transfers
- Innovations
that help reduce environmental stress even as they leverage fossil
fuels
Memetic trading networks |
E O. Wilson argues that campfire gatherings on the savanna supported
the emergence of human creativity. This resulted in man
building cultures and
later exploring them, and their creator, through the humanities. Wilson
identifies the transformative events, but he notes many of these
are presently ignored by the humanities. So he calls for a
change of approach.
He:
- Explores creativity:
how it emerged from the benefits of becoming an omnivore hunter gatherer,
enabled by language & its catalysis of invention, through stories told in the
evening around the campfire. He notes the power of
fine art, but suggests music provides the most revealing
signature of aesthetic
surprise.
- Looks at the current limitations of the
humanities, as they have suffered through years of neglect.
- Reviews the evolutionary processes of heredity and
culture:
- Ultimate causes viewed
through art, & music
- The bedrock of:
- Ape senses and emotions,
- Creative arts, language, dance, song typically studied
by humanities,
&
- Exponential change in science and
technology.
- How the breakthrough from
our primate past occurred, powered by eating meat,
supporting: a bigger brain, expanded memory &
language.
- Accelerating changes now driven by genetic cultural coevolution.
- The impact on human nature.
- Considers our emotional attachment to the natural world: hunting, gardens; we are
destroying.
- Reviews our love of metaphor, archetypes,
exploration, irony, and
considers the potential for a third enlightenment,
supported by cooperative
action of humanities and science
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames these from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory:
- The humanities are seen to be a functionalist framework
for representing the cultural CAS while
- Wilson's desire to integrate the humanities and science
gains support from viewing the endeavor as a network of
layered CAS.
Evening campfire rituals |
Brynjolfsson and McAfee explore the effects of Moore's law on the
economy. They argue it has generated exponential
growth. This has been due to innovation.
It has created a huge bounty of
additional wealth.
But the wealth is spread unevenly across
society. They look at the short and long term implications of
the innovation bounty and spread
and the possible future of
technology.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory.
Brilliant technologies |
Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
Education versus guilds |
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld's New York Times opinion based on The
Triple Package is summarized. Their ideas are then framed
by CAS theory and reviewed.
What drives success |
Peter Turchin describes how major pre-industrial empires
developed due to effects of geographic boundaries constraining
the empires and their neighbors' interactions. Turchin
shows how the asymmetries of breeding rates and resource growth
rates results in dynamic cycles within cycles. After the
summary of Turchin's book complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
is used to augment Turchins findings.
Warrior groups |
Through the operation of three different food chains Michael
Pollan explores their relative merits. The application of
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory highlights the value of evolutionary
testing of the food chain.
Natural systems |
E. O. Wilson & Bert Holldobler illustrate how bundled cooperative strategies can
take hold. Various social insects have developed
strategies which have allowed them to capture the most valuable
available niches. Like humans they invest in
specialization and cooperate to subdue larger, well equipped
competitors.
Insect superorganisms |
Computational
theory of the mind and evolutionary
psychology provide Steven Pinker with a framework on which
to develop his psychological arguments about the mind and its
relationship to the brain. Humans captured a cognitive niche by
natural selection 'building out'
specialized aspects of their bodies and brains resulting in a system of mental organs
we call the mind.
He garnishes and defends the framework with findings from
psychology regarding: The visual
system - an example of natural
selections solutions to the sensory challenges
of inverse
modeling of our
environment; Intensions - where
he highlights the challenges of hunter gatherers - making sense
of the objects they
perceive and predicting what they imply and natural selections powerful solutions; Emotions - which Pinker argues are
essential to human prioritizing and decision making; Relationships - natural selection's
strategies for coping with the most dangerous competitors, other
people. He helps us understand marriage, friendships and war.
These conclusions allow him to understand the development and
maintenance of higher callings: Art, Music, Literature, Humor,
Religion, & Philosophy; and develop a position on the meaning of life.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) modeling allows RSS to frame Pinker's arguments
within humanity's current situation, induced by powerful evolved
amplifiers: Globalization,
Cliodynamics, The green revolution
and resource
bottlenecks; melding his powerful predictions of the
drivers of human behavior with system wide constraints.
The implications are discussed.
Computationally adapted mind |
The stages of development of the human female, including how her brain changes and the
impacts of this on her 'reality' across a full life span:
conception, infantile
puberty, girlhood,
juvenile pause, adolescence, dating years, motherhood, post-menopause; are
described. Brizendine notes the significant difference in
how emotions are processed
by women compared to men.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory associates the stages with
the evolutionary under-pinning, psychological implications and
behavioral CAS.
Evolved female brain |
The complexity of behavior is explored through Sapolsky
developing scenarios of our best and worst behaviors across time
spans, and scientific subjects including: anthropology,
psychology, neuroscience, sociology. The rich network of
adaptive flows he outlines provides insights and highlight
challenges for scientific research on behavior.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory builds on Sapolsky's
details highlighting the strategies that evolution has captured
to successfully enter niches we now occupy.
CAS behavior |
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
Emergence of time |
Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
Conscious access |
Reading and writing present a conundrum. The reader's
brain contains neural networks tuned to reading. With
imaging a written word can be followed as it progresses from the
retina through a functional chain that asks: Are these letters?
What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound
like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? Dehaene
explains the importance of
education in tuning the brain's networks for reading as
well as good strategies for teaching reading and countering dyslexia. But
he notes the reading
networks developed far too recently to have directly evolved.
And Dehaene asks why humans are unique in developing
reading and culture.
He explains the cultural
engineering that shaped writing to human vision and the exaptations and neuronal structures that
enable and constrain reading and culture.
Dehaene's arguments show how cellular, whole animal and cultural
complex adaptive system (CAS) are
related. We review his explanations in CAS terms and use
his insights to link cultural CAS that emerged based on reading
and writing with other levels of CAS from which they emerge.
Evolved reading |
Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
Receptor indirection |
Antonio Damasio argues
that ancient
& fundamental homeostatic processes,
built into
behaviors and updated by evolution
have resulted in the emergence
of nervous systems and feelings. These
feelings, representing the state of the viscera, and represented with general
systems supporting enteric
operation, are later ubiquitously
integrated into the 'images'
built by the minds of higher animals
including humans.
Damasio highlights the separate
development of the body frame in the building of
minds.
Damasio explains that this integration of feelings by minds
supports the development of subjectivity and consciousness. His chain of
emergence suggests the 'order of things.' He stresses the
end-to-end
integration of the organism which undermines dualism. And he reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness.
Damasio reviews the emergence of cultures
and sees feelings, integrated with reason, as the judges of the
cultural creative process, linking culture to
homeostasis. He sees cultures as supporting the
development of tools
to improve our lives. But the results of the
creative process have added
stresses to our lives.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Each of the [super]organisms
discussed is a CAS reflecting the theory of such systems:
- Damasio's proposals about homeostasis routed signalling, aligns
well with CAS theory.
- Damasio's ideas on cultural stresses are elaborated by CAS
examples.
Emergence of feelings |
Alfred Nemeczek reveals the chaotic, stressful life of Vincent
van Gogh in Arles.
Nemeczek shows that Vincent was driven
to create, and successfully
invented new methods of representing feeling in paintings, and
especially portraits. Vincent
worked hard to allow artists like him-self
to innovate. But
Vincent failed in this goal, collapsing into psychosis.
Nemeczek also provides a brief history of
Vincent's life.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Vincent creates |
Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
Accumulating small changes |
Russ Abbott explores the impact on science of epiphenomena and
the emergence of agents.
Autonomous emergence |
Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
Constraint based phenomena |
|
|
Startup PDCA
Summary
John Doerr argues that company leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. and their
organizations, hugely benefit from Andy Grove's OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters. s.
He promotes strategies
that help OKR success: Focus,
Align, Track, Stretch; replaces yearly performance
reviews, and provides illustrative success
stories.
Doerr stresses Dov Seidman's
view that employees are adaptive in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. In Deacon's conception of evolution an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary. and will
respond to what they see being measured. He asserts culturally supported OKRs/CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations or in OKR terminology it is Conversations: about optimizing performance, Feedback: in all directions to evaluate progress and guide improvement, Recognition of individuals for their contributions. processes will be transformative.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS is Rob's Strategy Studio comments on them
framed by complex adaptive system (CAS) This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
theory. Doerr's architecture
is tailored for the startups KPCB
invests in. It is a subset of the general case of Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic plans, Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
genetic operators and Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
Shewhart cycles that drive all
CAS. Doerr's approach limits support of The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
learning and deemphasizes the
association to planning.
Measure What Matters
In John Doerr's book
'Measure What Matters' he argues that company leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. hugely benefit
from OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters. s: a sharp edged tool
for generating world class This page introduces some problems that make it hard for a
business to execute effectively.
It then presents a theory
of execution.
It describes what the theory says must be done
to execute effectively.
It reviews General
Electric's use of adaptive planning to support effective
execution.
Then it details the execution
requirements.
execution.
They encourage the leaders to make tough choices, unify the
organization's direction and keep teams on track and
motivated.
Like any tool it needs skills to get results. Doerr notes
Edwin Locke's
conclusion that: Hard goals drive
performance, Specific hard goals induce a higher
level of output;
Doerr highlights the need for companies to effectively adopt
such a tool as OKRs. Two thirds of companies are currently
struggling with an employee engagement crisis.
Doerr stresses the influence
of Intel's Andy Grove on him and OKRs. Grove:
- Was a Hungarian emigre, impacted by severe hearing
loss. Intel was founded in response to Fairchild's
lack of interest in execution. Grove made Intel
execute for Founder Gordon Moore. Accepting Drucker as
opposed to Taylor or scientific management was advocated by Fredrick Taylor. He viewed operatives as machines that were to follow precise instructions optimized by designers. Deming followers such as Toyota rejected this approach and improved quality and cost management by training the operatives and treating them as skilled 'agents' who were key to detecting problems and improving the processes they participated in.
& Ford, Grove
set objectives, rather than telling people what to do, and
obtained significant improvements in productivity is the efficiency with which an agent's selected strategy converts the inputs to an action into the resulting outputs. It is a complex capability of agents. It will depend on the agent having: time, motivation, focus, appropriate skills; the coherence of the participating collaborators, and a beneficial environment including the contribution of: standardization of inputs and outputs, infrastructure and evolutionary amplifiers. .
- Applied manufacturing production processes to
management. He concluded ideas
are easy, execution is everything. He avoided the
activity trap by focusing on outputs (key results). He
disconnected goals from salary administration, judging any
link between the two to encourage sandbagging and risk
avoidance.
- Loved to teach.
- Groomed Doerr, when he was an Intel intern, to work at
Intel, build his: sales skills, management capabilities,
leadership; providing him with business insights and
experiences.
- Suffered from Parkinson's
disease corresponds to the breakdown of certain interneurons in the brain. It is not fully understood why this occurs. Dopamine system neuron breakdown generates the classical symptoms of tremors and rigidity. In some instances an uncommon LRRK2 gene mutation confers a high risk of Parkinson's disease. In rare cases Italian and Greek families are impacted in their early forties and fifties resulting from a single letter mutation in alpha-synuclein which alters the alpha-synuclein protein causing degeneration in the substantia nigra, after a build up of Lewy bodies in the neurons. But poisoning from MPTP has also been shown to destroy dopamine system neurons. DeLong showed that MPTP poisoning results in overactivity in the subthalamic nucleus. People who have an appendectomy in their 20s are at lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. The Alpha-synuclein protein is known to build up in the appendix in association with changes in the gut microbiome. This buildup may support the 'flow' of alpha-synuclein from the gut along neurons that route to the brain. Paraquat has also been linked to Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease does not directly kill many sufferers. But it impacts swallowing which encourages development of pneumonia through inhaling or aspirating food. And it undermines balance which can increase the possibility of falls. Dememtia can also develop. Treatment with deep-brain stimulation, after surgical implantation of electrodes in the subthalamic nucleus removes the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in some patients.
, dying in 2016.
OKRs are architected to help VC is venture capital, venture companies invest in startups with intangable assets
funded, focused startups: Intel, KPCB's
Google,
and Amazon;
to deliver exceptional results and returns to their
investors. Doerr writes OKRs act as:
- A yardstick for investors
- Language for execution
- Alignment for employees
Doerr promotes the use of strategies that
empower OKRs:
- Less is more -- use a few
well-chosen objectives
- Set goals from the bottom up
- teams should set half their own OKRs
- Don't dictate -- develop a cooperative social context
- Stay flexible --
modify OKRs to match the shifting situation
- Stretch, but expect some
failure. He offers the examples of:
- Google's Gmail launched offering a near infinite
in-tray, by finding a way to cost effectively provide each
user with a terabyte of storage,
- Google's Chrome
browser, and
- YouTube achieving 1 billion hours.
- Keep OKRs and bonuses separate -- OKRs are a tool not a
weapon.
OKR Amplifiers:
- Focus and commit to
priorities
- Identify the few OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
s
that matter next. Pick those with the most
leverage. Ignore the rest. Leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. must signal, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. what is
currently high priority.
- Limit the scope to 3-5 OKRs per quarter, based on
context and culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
.
- Pair output based OKRs with quality based OKRs to
sustain balance.
- Leaders should model the use of OKRs. Top level
goals must be understood company wide.
- Align and connect for
teamwork
- Public goals increase achievement. Transparency
allows each agent to judge the validity of their goals and
priorities. Social media makes transparency the
default.
- Doerr asserts a meritocracy will flourish when it is
clear that rewards are going to those doing what the
company values.
- Redundant goals are identified
- Objectives seen to support collaboration
- Sandbagging and politicking struggle
- Alignment while important is rare.
- Top down cascade of goals & required results
- Mix in bottom up goals
- Cross functional coordination
- Doerr asserts
- The primary cause of project slip is unacknowledged
dependencies, which can be solved by cross-functional
coordination
- Connected groups are more innovative
- Inter-dependent groups need a tool for coordination
- Transparent OKRs promote collaboration
- Notable results are investigated and promoted.
Connected companies are quicker
- Track for
accountability
- Stretch for amazing
- Doerr likes Jim Collins's Big Hairy Audacious Goals, because, he
asserts that, stretch goals:
- Support innovation is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy.
,
since the harder
the goal the higher the level of performance.
Operational excellence is catalyzed, an infrastructure amplifier. by going
beyond current limits.
- Create a unifying focal point for effort.
- Capture the imagination,
but are tested in the gut.
- Leverage: focus,
commitment, transparency
& collaboration, connections & tracking
- People need to aspire. But they must believe the
goal is legitimate. So good leadership aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model.
& OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters. s can help. Just
give the employees the space to fail and bounce
back. Larry Page
notes that to achieve a high level of aspirational goals
(60%), engineers must ask:
- What radical high risk action is required?
- What can we stop doing, to help the group stretch?
- Where should resources be moved to?
- Where can a partner be found?
- Doerr recommends starting by envisioning: what amazing
would look like?
Doerr argues for the removal of inhibitors to OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters. This page introduces some problems that make it hard for a
business to execute effectively.
It then presents a theory
of execution.
It describes what the theory says must be done
to execute effectively.
It reviews General
Electric's use of adaptive planning to support effective
execution.
Then it details the execution
requirements.
execution.
His continuous
performance management:
- Has managers building
relationships with their people, to generate a
community.
- Separates OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
and
compensation discussions.
- Uses CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations or in OKR terminology it is Conversations: about optimizing performance, Feedback: in all directions to evaluate progress and guide improvement, Recognition of individuals for their contributions. processes to
drive the interactions that tie the team together, ensuring
the OKRs are clear, aligned and fulfilling. CFRs
support transparency, accountability, empowerment &
teamwork. OKRs and CFRs are mutually
reinforcing. Managers should see how the OKRs are
progressing:
- Check if people need help
- Identify and remove impediments to their success
- Help them grow
- Abandons the annual performance review as demotivating and
unfair.
- That avoids associating a number with a person.
People are complex and can achieve exceptional
results.
- Ongoing conversations and real-time feedback are far
better for generating continuous improvement.
- Compensation discussions can leverage the meaningful
contribution detailed in the OKRs, but should mainly reflect
the broader context of the company and environment.
Otherwise OKRs will be feared and stretch goals
avoided.
- Only measures what matters. People will adapt to
what they see being measured. Encourage teamwork &
leverage of competences.
Doerr sees culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
as the facility for
speeding up decision
making integrates situational context, state and signals to prioritize among strategies and respond in a timely manner. It occurs in all animals, including us and our organizations: - Individual human decision making includes conscious and unconscious aspects. Situational context is highly influential: supplying meaning to our general mechanisms, & for robots too. Emotions are important in providing a balanced judgement. The adaptive unconscious interprets percepts quickly supporting 'fast' decision making. Conscious decision making, supported by the: DLPFC, vmPFC and limbic system; can use slower autonomy. The amygdala, during unsettling or uncertain social situations, signals the decision making regions of the frontal lobe, including the orbitofrontal cortex. The BLA supports rejecting unacceptable offers. Moral decisions are influenced by a moral decision switch. Sleeping before making an important decision is useful in obtaining the support of the unconscious in developing a preference. Word framing demonstrates the limitations of our fast intuitive decision making processes. And prior positive associations detected by the hippocampus, can be reactivated with the support of the striatum linking it to the memory of a reward, inducing a bias into our choices. Prior to the development of the PFC, the ventral striatum supports adolescent decision making. Neurons involved in decision making in the association areas of the cortex are active for much longer than neurons participating in the sensory areas of the cortex. This allows them to link perceptions with a provisional action plan. Association neurons can track probabilities connected to a choice. As evidence is accumulated and a threshold is reached a choice is made, making fast thinking highly adaptive. Diseases including: schizophrenia and anorexia; highlight aspects of human decision making.
- Organisations often struggle to balance top down and distributed decision making: parliamentry government must use a process, health care is attempting to improve the process: checklists, end-to-end care; and include more participants, but has systemic issues, business leaders struggle with strategy.
and alignment. He concludes:
- Company
culture is the medium that supports the leaders OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
s, which highlight their
priorities & insights.
- Culture must encourage accountability and
collaboration.
- There are lessons to be learned from Google.
Standout teams at Google were found to:
- Have clear goals (OKRs), roles &
This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
plans.
- Feel enabled to take risks
- Think they are doing important stuff
- Have the support of their team mates
- Feel their work matters
- Dov Seidman's
philosophy is revealing about culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
:
The complexity of behavior is explored through Sapolsky
developing scenarios of our best and worst behaviors across time
spans, and scientific subjects including: anthropology,
psychology, neuroscience, sociology. The rich network of
adaptive flows he outlines provides insights and highlight
challenges for scientific research on behavior.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory builds on Sapolsky's
details highlighting the strategies that evolution has captured
to successfully enter niches we now occupy.
Behavior defines how things
happen in modern companies. And behavior is shaped
by culture.
- Companies that 'out-behave' out-perform. (Doerr
judges the data backs up Dov's assertion.)
- Culture says what you should do, but the organization
- Must scale it systematically over the whole organization
and
- Measure how the
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS
information flows - since that indicates what you value
- "Collaboration itself--our ability to connect--is an
engine of growth & innovation is the economic realization of invention and combinatorial exaptation. While highly innovative, monopolies: AT&T, IBM; usually have limited economic reach, constraining productivity. This explains the use of regulation, or even its threat, that can check their power and drive the creations across the economy.
."
- For 'Active Transparency': where we open up, share the
truth, bringing others in, being vulnerable; which Doerr
notes aligns well with the OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
/CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations or in OKR terminology it is Conversations: about optimizing performance, Feedback: in all directions to evaluate progress and guide improvement, Recognition of individuals for their contributions. culture. Vision
based leadership aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model.
beats command-and-control. The flatter the
organization, the more agile it becomes.
- OKRs with CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations or in OKR terminology it is Conversations: about optimizing performance, Feedback: in all directions to evaluate progress and guide improvement, Recognition of individuals for their contributions. s
reinforce self-governance organizations. Doerr
references Bono driving
cultural transformation.
- If the current company
archetype asserts there are three company archetypes:
- Blind obedience organizations,
- Informed acquiescence organizations,
- Self-governance organizations; with the prevailing form shifting over the last 150 years from type 1 to type 3. The first two rely on 'top-down' authority & hierarchy. Seidman asserts self-governance organizations are the most farsighted.
is not self-governance then the culture must
be changed, as Lumeris
describe.
Doerr views OKRs & CFRs as a launchpad for improved: GDP is: - Gross domestic product which measures the total of goods and services produced in a given year within the borders of a given country (output) according to Piketty. Gordon argues to include products produced in the home & market-purchased goods and services, following Becker's theory of time use. Gordon stresses innovation is the ultimate source of all growth in output per worker-hour. GDP growth per person is equal to the growth in labor productivity + growth in hours worked per person. GDP has many problems. Gordon concludes that between 1870 and 1940 all available measures GDP is hugely understated because:
- GDP is a poor measure of:
- Value & wealth
- Who gets what
- Global supply chains
- GDP excludes:
- Reduction in infant mortality between 1890 (22%) and 1950 (1%)
- Brightness & safety of electric light,
- Increased variety of food including refrigeration transported fresh meat and processed food
- Convenience and economies of scale of the department store and mail order catalog and resulting product price reductions
- Services by house makers
- Time & health gains from having flush toilets, integrated sewer networks; rather than having to physically remove effluent and cope with fecal-oral transmission
- Leisure
- Costs & benefits of different length work weeks
- Speed and flexibility of motor vehicles - which were not included in the CPI until 1935, after the transformation had occurred. And competition from improved foreign vehicles, while it provides purchaser/user with improved standard of living (less breakdowns, repairs, etc.) is measured as reduced domestic manufacture
- Coercion and corruption to obtain resources
- Consumption impact of finite resources: coal, oil;
- Destruction impact of loss of entire irreplaceable species
- GDP includes items that should be excluded:
- Cost of waste - cleaning up pollution (single use indestructible plastic bags), building prisons, commuting to work, and cars left parked most of the time; should be subtracted
- Guanine-di-phosphate is a nucleotide base.
Robert Gordon argues that the inventions of the second
industrial revolution were the foundation for
American economic growth. Gordon shows how flows of people
into difficult rural America built a population base
which then took the opportunity to move on to urban settings: Houses, Food in supermarkets,
Clothes in
department stores;
that supported increasing productivity and standard of living.
The deployment of nationwide networks: Rail, Road, Utilities;
terminating in the urban housing and work places allowing the workers to
leverage time saving goods and services, which helped grow
the economy.
Gordon describes the concomitant transformation of:
- Communications
and advertising
- Credit
and finance
- Public
health and the health
care network
- Health insurance
- Education
- Social
and welfare services
Counter intuitively the constraints
introduced before and in the Great Depression and the demands of World War 2
provide the amplifiers that drive the inventions deeply and
fully into every aspect of the economy between 1940 and 1970
creating the exceptional growth and standard of living of post
war America.
Subsequently the
rate of growth was limited until the shift of women
into the workplace and the full networking of
voice and data supported the Internet and World Wide Web
completed the third industrial revolution, but the effects were
muted by the narrow reach of the technologies.
The development of Big Data, Robots,
and Artificial Intelligence may support additional growth,
but Gordon is unconvinced because of the collapse of
the middle class.
Following our summary of Gordon's book RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
growth,
The structure and problems of the US
health care network is described in terms of complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
The network:
- Is deeply embedded in the US nation state. It reflects the
conflict between two
opposing visions for the US: high tax with safety net
or low tax without. The emergence
of a parasitic elite supported by tax policy, further
constrains the choices available to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the network.
- The US is optimized to sell its citizens dangerous
levels of: salt,
sugar, cigarettes,
guns, light, cell phones, opioids,
costly education, global travel,
antibacterials, formula, foods including
endocrine disrupters;
- Accepting the US controlled global supply chain's
offered goods & services results in: debt, chronic stress,
amplified consumption and toxic excess, leading to obesity, addiction, driving instead of
walking, microbiome
collapse;
- Is incented to focus on localized competition generating
massive & costly duplication of services within
physician based health care operations instead of proven
public health strategies. This process drives
increasing research & treatment complexity and promotes hope
for each new technological breakthrough.
- Is amplified by the legislatively structured separation
and indirection of service development,
provision, reimbursement and payment.
- Is impacted by the different political strategies for
managing the increasing
cost of health care for the demographic bulge of retirees.
- Is presented with acute
and chronic
problems to respond to. As currently setup the network
is tuned to handle acute problems. The interactions
with patients tend to be transactional.
- Includes a legislated health insurance infrastructure
which is:
- Costly and inefficient
- Structured around yearly
contracts which undermine long-term health goals and
strategies.
- Is supported by increasingly regulated HCIT
which offers to improve data sharing and quality but has
entrenched commercial EHR
products deep within the hospital systems.
- Is maintained, and kept in
alignment, by massive network
effects across the:
- Hospital platform
based
sub-networks connecting to
- Physician networks
- Health insurance networks - amplified by ACA
narrow network legislation
- Hospital clinical supply and food
production networks
- Medical school and academic research network and NIH
- Global
transportation network
- Public health networks
- Health care IT supply
network
health care outcomes, school Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
success: Khan lab school's Orly
Friedman introduces OKRs to five year olds; government
performance, business results, and social progress. His
stretch OKR is to:
- Empower people to achieve the seemingly impossible
together.
- Create durable cultures is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
for success and significance
- Prime the pump of inspiration for all goals that matter
most
Doerr introduces leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. & founders
who have benefited from OKRs:
- Google's
Larry Page uses OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
s to
scale his approach of thinking big, throughout the
organization. They provide visibility for leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. , while
allowing the organization to push back. Good ideas
& great This page introduces some problems that make it hard for a
business to execute effectively.
It then presents a theory
of execution.
It describes what the theory says must be done
to execute effectively.
It reviews General
Electric's use of adaptive planning to support effective
execution.
Then it details the execution
requirements.
execution together
make magic, delivered on time and on track. Google
discriminates between Committed OKRs that are expected to be
100% achieved and Aspirational OKRs,
which have impacts of orders of magnitude when successful,
but will fail some of the time. Discard failed
OKRs.
- Google CEO
Sundar Pichai describes
stretching to make the web application centric, which
demanded a multi-process browser architecture and an order
of magnitude faster JavaScript implementation. A
stretch goal achieved with the help of former Sun
Microsystem's virtual machine expert Lars Bok.
- YouTube's CEO
Susan Wojcicki & VP of Engineering Cristos Goodrow
agreed human attention is the scarce commodity on the
Internet. So they use stretch
to massively grow YouTube daily watching time, using Jim
McFadden's "watch next" user recommendations strategy, and
note that consequently daily views soared, and
This page reviews the catalytic
impact of infrastructure on the expression of phenotypic effects by an
agent. The infrastructure
reduces the cost the agent must pay to perform the selected
action. The catalysis is enhanced by positive returns.
infrastructure redesign
initiatives flourished:
- Wojcicki had run leadership OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
meetings for Larry
Page, noting his use of strategic binding "this is the
direction we want to go, now tell us how you're going to
get there."
- Goodrow had seen firsthand how engineers hate abandoning
good goals & are hopelessly optimistic in
estimating. So he advocates prioritizing the
important things.
- Wojcicki drove the purchase of YouTube by Google, noting
how user-generated content was becoming transformational,
and how fast YouTube performed for users.
- YouTube's proposed 'watch time' increase goal was in conflict with
Google Search's "service users requests fast and get out
of the way" goal. It took her six months to win the
argument. Similarly, ignoring click-bait videos
initially reduced watch time, but was judged
the right thing to do, culturally is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
.
- Remind's
Brett Kopf, who has A.D.H.D. is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a chronic condition including hyperactivity, impulsiveness and low attention. Dopamine response profiles to temporal discounting tasks are abnormal for ADHD sufferers. Imaging studies show differences in the brains of ADHD sufferers. Stimulants have been found to have a calming effect on ADHD sufferers. However, overdiagnosis seems likely, with a strong correlation of diagnosis to age at time of school admission! Causally associated factors include:
- Family history
- Genetics
- May be influenced by high doses of Tylenol during pregnancy (Sep 2016).
- Environmental factors - a consistant daily schedule, praise for good behavior, clear bondaries, enough sleep and limiting distractions are all part of behavioral therapy for ADHD.
- CNS developmental problems.
and is dyslexic, leveraged
OKR objectives to help him and the organization focus,
and enable teachers to use Remind's communication platform is agent generated infrastructure that supports emergence of an entity through: leverage of an abundant energy source, reusable resources; attracting a phenotypically aligned network of agents. to support
children in achieving their learning goals.
- Nuna's
cofounder Jini Kim is helping to effectively expand Medicaid is the state-federal program for the poor. Originally part of Lyndon Johnson's 1965 Bill, eligibility and services vary by state. Medicaid currently pays less for care than Medicare, resulting in many care providers refusing to participate in the program. Less than 10 percent of Medicaid recipients, those in long-term care including nursing homes where 64% are dependent on Medicaid, use one-third of all Medicaid spending which is a problem. The ACA's Medicaid expansion program, made state optional by the SCOTUS decision, was initially taken up by fifty percent of states. As of 2016 it covers 70 million Americans at a federal cost of $350 billion a year. In 2017 it pays for 40% of new US births.
, for her autistic is a major hereditary mental disorder that starts before age three when it features: a strong preference to be alone, a desire for things to stay the same, and areas of creative ability - they see the ordinary as beautiful and have special talents for: poetry, foreign languages, music, art, and calculations. They generate less but more original ideas. It occurs as a spectrum of symptoms, from mild to severe, across the population of sufferers (ASD). Before age two the circumference of an autistic child's head is larger than typical and regions: amygdala, frontal lobe; develop prematurely, altering activity in other regions. Autism highlights aspects of the brain's specialized regions and processes for interacting with other people. Autistic's interests are restricted. They struggle with social interactions & verbal and nonverbal communications. Autistics do not attribute minds to other people: attributing mental states to others allows us to predict their behavior; a critical skill for social learning and interaction. While their visual area MT detects motion, the superior temporal sulcus does not respond to biological motion in autistics, undermining the understanding of intention. And they gaze at mouths rather than eyes when looking at faces. The default mode network is disrupted. Autistic adolescents have unusually large numbers of synapses, because of a failure of synaptic pruning. Autistics almost never pretend. They can't explain the difference between an instance of an object and a memory of it. Mild autism still maintains some pressure to conform socially and often results in depression and anxiety. Autism occurs in every country and social class. It lasts a lifetime. It has genetic and neurological causes. Identical twins are 90% likely to both have autism if one of them does. With 50% of genes active in the brain, mutations are likely to impact the development and operation of the brain. The genes: SHANK3, CDH10; are involved but account for a very small percentage of the risk. Facial gaze studies indicate a high genetic influence and an opportunity to identify more genes associated with autism (Jul 2017). Copy number variations: an extra copy of a segment of 25 genes of chromosome 7 increases the risk of ASD, while deletion of the segment causes Williams syndrome; and de novo mutations which drive up the number of autism cases as paternal age has increased in the US. ASD is associated with a reduced fusiform face area response. Tests [in development] for autism include: SynapDx's blood test. brother and all
other compromised or poor Americans, with the help of OKRs
to build focus.
- MyFitnessPal's cofounder, Mike Lee, found OKRs encourage
networks that connect an organization's work, and with
alignment the impact of the top line goals are
amplified. That allowed Mike and brother Albert to
cope with the exponential increase in use of their
smartphone app. The company grew, setting up multiple
products and layers, and eventually introduced a process to
check dependencies of different parts of the organization
and provide coordination. Experience and
Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
Shewhart cycles improved the To benefit from shifts in the environment agents must be flexible. Being
sensitive to environmental signals
agents who adjust strategic priorities can constrain their
competitors.
flexibility of their process and
the effectiveness of the OKRs. But with MyFitnessPal's
purchase by Under Armour, two goal setting processes had to
merge. Mike:
- Had a boss to align with
- Was responsible for a newly formed "Connected Fitness"
division, with three extra apps to coordinate. Lots
of dependencies quickly developed, but with little
alignment in the far larger division.
- Had to cope with two different company cultures; used
customer needs, vision, & OKRs, to generate alignment,
shared understanding, enable prioritization, and drive
focus on what mattered.
- Intuit's Atticus Tysen, describes using OKRs to help the
IT department migrate to the cloud as the overall company
transformed from a US software product company to a global
application platform. All 600 IT people tackle 2,500
active objectives each quarter. Half of the goals are
aligned with goals of more senior leaders. Employees
check their manager's OKRs seven times per quarter, helping
ensure they align with the company mission. Tysen used
transparency to ensure the whole company understood IT's
priorities and constraints. Global teams must work
asynchronously, so IT adopted and deployed: Slack, Google
Docs, Box, BlueJeans; so the whole company can focus on its
work, as alignment melted away geographic boundaries.
Tysen considers the OKR process as dynamic with priorities
changing over time. Instead of integrating teams
through programs, transparent OKRs mean engineers now link
to each other's objectives across teams, when that is what
is needed.
- Gates
Foundation's Patty Stonesifer gained focus and
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time for Bill & Melinda Gates
to track
the strategic effectiveness of the foundation's high value
complex investments and iteratively adjust.
- Lumeris's
Andrew
Cole transformed the company culture to enable company
wide use of OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
s & CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations or in OKR terminology it is Conversations: about optimizing performance, Feedback: in all directions to evaluate progress and guide improvement, Recognition of individuals for their contributions. s
- Adobe's Donna Morris replaces annual performance reviews,
with continuous
performance management, and voluntary attrition
dropped sharply.
- Zume Pizza's cofounders Julia Collins & Alex Garden
leverage OKRs & CFRs to help the organization
continuously improve its: Discipline, Engagement,
Transparency, Teamwork, Conversations, Culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture:
- Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
, and Leaders aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. .
- Bono, cofounder at ONE
Campaign --which aims to catalyze a nonpartisan, grassroots,
activist coalition, to improve public policy towards extreme
poverty & preventable disease-- uses OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters.
s to transform culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
from the
top. High
minded aid is problematic. ONE had to bring the
aid recipients into the governance process, and focus on the
real problems. It was easy to have too many
goals. OKRs allowed ONE to integrate a process that
encouraged focus, while supporting: risk, is an assessment of the likelihood of an independent problem occurring. It can be assigned an accurate probability since it is independent of other variables in the system. As such it is different from uncertainty. , trust and distrust are evolved responses to sham emotions. During a friendship where no sham emotions have been detected trust will build up. , passion; with
effective strategies.
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS theory views OKR is objectives and key results, Intel CEO Andy Grove's methodology for leveraging goals and strategies. Key results are: specific, time-bound, measurable & verifiable. They are expected to change as the actions proceed. The OKR framework is a main subject of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters. s as This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergent
This page discusses the tagging of signals
in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Tagged signals can be used to control filtering of an event
stream. Examples of CAS filters are reviewed.
tagged bundles of Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
action
Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information model. Signals can indicate decision summaries and level of
uncertainty.
signals and The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
models,
utilized within a Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
PDCA cycle.
Framed in this way, the Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraints
on, and generalized architecture underpinning Doerr's framework
can provide context:
He distinguishes between positive and negative goals, and
general and specific goals. Unless a goal is specific it
is hard to tell if it has been achieved. Specific goals
can also constrain how a goal is achieved. When results
are not immediate goal degeneration can occur. For CAS,
contradictory goals are the norm. Dorner gives typical
examples: minimizing costs conflicts with maximizing benefits; H. A. Hayek compares and contrasts collectivism and
libertarianism.
liberty to benefit from success undermines
equality of opportunity.
The linked nature of complex systems can create problems for
goal setting. If a positive and a negative goal are linked
then when they are executed they will undermine each
other. Long term and implicit goals can lose focus to
short term explicit goals. Dorner observes that
intermediate goals can be used to support the achievement of
long term goals increasing the specificity.
Dorner argues that labeling a set of problems with a conceptual
label obscures the multi-faceted nature. To organize the
set Dorner suggests:
- Finding interdependencies can highlight central problems
which affect a number of peripheral ones. Obtaining
money or energy are typically central issues.
- Rank problems in importance and urgency, with rational
assessments of which must be solved first depending on the
current situation.
- Delegating relatively independent problems to other
agents. Dorner stresses the difference between
delegation & just dumping responsibility on
others.
Dorner describes another problematic strategy using intermediate
goals - 'repair service' behavior where complaints drive the
priorities. A series of easy intermediate goals becomes
the focus of attention. This allows the agents to achieve
a result, with little uncertainty or risk of failure.
However, the hard goals may be being ignored.
Dorner notes contradictory goals are difficult to cope with,
generating strategies including Newspeak, from 1984, and
developing conspiracy theories which insidiously support
self-protection during a period of environmental
confusion.
This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
Evolution Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
operates by gathering together,
& tagging, recipes of helpful strategic actions.
Grove & Doerr recognize that, to build a focused
operational Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agent (startup) to
achieve a VC is venture capital, venture companies invest in startups with intangable assets funded goal,
they can leverage
the skill set already present in their carefully
selected teams of entrepreneurs and engineers. And
this has the added benefit of avoiding Taylorism or scientific management was advocated by Fredrick Taylor. He viewed operatives as machines that were to follow precise instructions optimized by designers. Deming followers such as Toyota rejected this approach and improved quality and cost management by training the operatives and treating them as skilled 'agents' who were key to detecting problems and improving the processes they participated in. . But
for their approach to extend to the This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single child cell. The mechanism and
resulting strategic options are discussed.
general
case, of
any company, the Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic
'recipes' must be:
- Pinker
Computational
theory of the mind and evolutionary
psychology provide Steven Pinker with a framework on which
to develop his psychological arguments about the mind and its
relationship to the brain. Humans captured a cognitive niche by
natural selection 'building out'
specialized aspects of their bodies and brains resulting in a system of mental organs
we call the mind.
He garnishes and defends the framework with findings from
psychology regarding: The visual
system - an example of natural
selections solutions to the sensory challenges
of inverse
modeling of our
environment; Intensions - where
he highlights the challenges of hunter gatherers - making sense
of the objects they
perceive and predicting what they imply and natural selections powerful solutions; Emotions - which Pinker argues are
essential to human prioritizing and decision making; Relationships - natural selection's
strategies for coping with the most dangerous competitors, other
people. He helps us understand marriage, friendships and war.
These conclusions allow him to understand the development and
maintenance of higher callings: Art, Music, Literature, Humor,
Religion, & Philosophy; and develop a position on the meaning of life.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) modeling allows RSS to frame Pinker's arguments
within humanity's current situation, induced by powerful evolved
amplifiers: Globalization,
Cliodynamics, The green revolution
and resource
bottlenecks; melding his powerful predictions of the
drivers of human behavior with system wide constraints.
The implications are discussed.
explains how the human mind reflects
the influence of the cognitive niche is Tooby & DeVore's theory that reflects a flexible competitive strategy, described by Steven Pinker, which leverages the power and flexibility of intelligence to defeat the capabilities of genetically evolved specialists focused on specific niches. .
- Judging the success of
networks of actions is a complex problem, which Holland
and Samuel
studied.
- Holland notes
the critical nature of modeling in "extracting
regularities from incidental and irrelevant
details." And he describes the
The page discusses the search
dilemma. It describes how evolution
solves the dilemma. It introduces some problems that
impact non
evolutionary searches and suggests some strategies for
such situations.
search dilemma.
- Samuel's
The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
modeling framework
introduced the prioritization strategy used by Isaacson uses the historic development of the global cloud of
web services to explore Ada
Lovelace's ideas about thinking
machines and poetic
science. He highlights the value of computer
augmented human creativity and the need for liberal arts to
fulfill the process.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agent networks and
collaboration are discussed.
AI systems.
- YouTube's
recommendation algorithm, 'watch next',
Representative democracy's robustness is dependent on emotional
and cultural
aspects of humanity. The impact of YouTube's
recommendation engine on the adolescent mind has
undermined the genetic
operators provided by culture. Typical parental constraints on
the associations allowed to adolescents are undermined and
emotional links are built to the most emotive ideas, based
simply on their capacity to sustain attention to YouTube.
An outline
mechanism is described that reintroduces 'parental'
constraints. Legislative enforcement of the capability is
required.
Details of the theoretical complex adaptive system (CAS)
requirements of genetic operations are introduced. The
minds implementation of the schematic operators is
explained. Traditional cultural constraints limiting large
changes in the schema base are outlined.
appears to have undermined
representative democracy's historical cultural is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
schematic operators.
- When
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory is positioned relative to the natural
sciences. It catalogs the laws and strategies which
underpin the operation of systems that are based on the
interaction of emergent agents.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS fitness benefits from faster
response to complex signals, the CAS can leverage Representing state in emergent entities is essential but
difficult. Various structures are used to enhance the rate
and scope of state transitions. Examples are
discussed.
structurally enhanced state.
The human cerebellum is involved with the efficiency of fine movement. It modulates the force and range of motion and is involved in motor coordination and the learning of motor skills. Damage to the cerebellum impairs standing, walking, or performance of coordinated movements. A virtuoso pianist or other performing musician depends on their cerebellum. The cerebellum receives visual, auditory, vestibular, and somatosensory information. It also receives information about individual muscular movements being directed by the brain. The cerebellum integrates this information and modifies the motor outflow, exerting a coordinating and smoothing effect on the movements. However, patients born without a cerebellum have survived reasonably well. The cerebellum is part of the implicit learning mechanism. It is required for the rabbit eye-blink to be classically conditioned to respond to a sound, and puff of air (threat to eye). It integrates the sound and puff and outputs the response to the motor area (blink). Levitin has shown the cerebellum participates in aspects of emotion and auditory processing. He found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout a session listening to music, modeling the beat, rewarding a match between the internal and external rhythm and integrating movement. And he notes the cerebellum providing Williams syndrome sufferers with their capability to play music.
allows practiced responses to signal sets to be
habitualized. Analogously culture is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means as defined by Frans de Waal. CAS theory views cultures as operating via memetic schemata evolved by memetic operators to support a cultural superorganism. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human culture reflects adaptations generated while hunting and gathering. Dehaene views culture as essentially human, shaped by exaptations and reading, transmitted with support of the neuronal workspace and stabilized by neuronal recycling. Damasio notes prokaryotes and social insects have developed cultural social behaviors. Sapolsky argues that parents must show children how to transform their genetically derived capabilities into a culturally effective toolset. He is interested in the broad differences across cultures of: Life expectancy, GDP, Death in childbirth, Violence, Chronic bullying, Gender equality, Happiness, Response to cheating, Individualist or collectivist, Enforcing honor, Approach to hierarchy; illustrating how different a person's life will be depending on the culture where they are raised. Culture: - Is deployed during pregnancy & childhood, with parental mediation. Nutrients, immune messages and hormones all affect the prenatal brain. Hormones: Testosterone with anti-Mullerian hormone masculinizes the brain by entering target cells and after conversion to estrogen binding to intracellular estrogen receptors; have organizational effects producing lifelong changes. Parenting style typically produces adults who adopt the same approach. And mothering style can alter gene regulation in the fetus in ways that transfer epigenetically to future generations! PMS symptoms vary by culture.
- Is also significantly transmitted to children by their peers during play. So parents try to control their children's peer group.
- Is transmitted to children by their neighborhoods, tribes, nations etc.
- Influences the parenting style that is considered appropriate.
- Can transform dominance into honor. There are ecological correlates of adopting honor cultures. Parents in honor cultures are typically authoritarian.
- Is strongly adapted across a meta-ethnic frontier according to Turchin.
- Across Europe was shaped by the Carolingian empire.
- Can provide varying levels of support for innovation. Damasio suggests culture is influenced by feelings:
- As motives for intellectual creation: prompting
detection and diagnosis of homeostatic
deficiencies, identifying
desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural
instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments
required by the cultural process over time
- Produces consciousness according to Dennet.
can assist
individual, company and society level Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents with making accurate rapid
responses.
- RSS is Rob's Strategy Studio agrees with Doerr's judgment that
there is
The productivity of
complex adaptive system (CAS) is reviewed highlighting the most
significant variables: access to raw
materials, agency based leverage of additional wage
labors/consumers & amplifying
infrastructure build-out; when they expand markets for
goods & services. The CAS and classical economic
approaches are compared.
Important CAS aspects are highlighted:
- CAS reflect the history of
all the events of the network of agents and their environment
- The relevant economic
history is reviewed demonstrating the contribution of
power, politics, war...
- Chemical
structures capture and preserve important recipes that
allow agents to increase search/operational effectiveness
and wealth & the
system to be robust
- Environment matched
to system strategy: Superorganism
and beetle
- Cliodynamic models of historical agent networks allows a
realistic assessment
of productivity over a full network cycle
- The models must be matched
to the proximate environment
- Internal failures
of the agent network
- Existential
threats to the agent network
Human agents must dedicate: focus, time,
coherence and skills; to productively generate wealth. And they could
do much more - learning to develop
and use formal schematic plans
during their education, and using the skill when participating
in a superorganism.
CAS level
productivity improvements are due to:
- Meta ideas that can be reused and recombined
- Distribution of these ideas allow parallel searching
- Isolated agents can be integrated into the current network
during each growth phase, but cliodynamic assessments show
agents are dropped again from the network during the decline
phase of the cycle
- Network
effects and leverage of power drive productivity
improvements.
Human agent level productivity
- Agent level productivity
improvements of significance
- More time: Increased light,
reduced moving & travelling, quicker & better
eating, reduced rework, motivated & effective
- Broader utilization with adoption of standards &
undermining of monopoly
constraints
- Weapons & armor
- Power available: Driving
flows &
actions in required direction
- Iterative theory & practice
- Infrastructure & tools: catalytic
reduction in cost of repeated operations
- Agent level productivity improvements of
limited effect
significant potential for
productivity improvement. In part these
improvements come from learning based on careful observation
and iterative improvement:
- Learn additional applicable memetic schemata. This
is the essence of effective education and training. Darwin
and Leonardo
da Vinci integrated additional observations and
discoveries into their personal, iteratively improving, sets
of memetic recipes, organized in a common place, a format of note book where multiple areas of interest were recorded, described, cross referenced, and iteratively developed over a period of time. John Locke's common place method's cross reference included an index 'hash chain' linking themes, such as 'money' to the pages where the themes were discussed. Steven Johnson explains how the idea of a common place book inspired Tim Berners-Lee's design for the world-wide-web. Walter Isaacson notes Leonardo da Vinci's use of a 'zibaldone' or common place book. Charles Darwin also used the format in his note books.
format. Vannevar
Bush was a professor of engineering -- dean of the MIT School of Engineering, a founder while a student of Raytheon and the top science administrator to President F.D. Roosevelt. He developed the Differential Analyzer, encouraged Claude Shannon to study genetics, promoted the education-industrial-military complex arguing university and industrial labs should be contracted to develop government research and set the vision of the World Wide Web with his Atlantic article 'As We May Think' outlining the memex. & Robert
Millikan demonstrate how brokering ideas from academic
networks can support formation of Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
good
ideas. Learning is undermined when:
- Visibility of plans, including: goal networks; supports
alignment, as Doerr repeatedly stresses. In single
focus startups, it is likely that visibility will be
particularly helpful. In larger organizations
targeting multiple niche markets it is probable that
conflicting goals will occur (Aug
2018). It can be difficult to sustain these
visible conflicting goals due to the power of
This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
extended phenotypic alignment.
And Apple's
Jony Ive had to hide
emerging ideas from Steve Jobs, until they had grown
strong enough to defend themselves.
- CAS use
Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic plans: DNA (DNA), a polymer composed of a chain of deoxy ribose sugars with purine or pyrimidine side chains. DNA naturally forms into helical pairs with the side chains stacked in the center of the helix. It is a natural form of schematic string. The purines and pyrimidines couple so that AT and GC pairs make up the stackable items. A code of triplets of base pairs (enabling 64 separate items to be named) has evolved which now redundantly represents each of the 20 amino-acids that are deployed into proteins, along with triplets representing the termination sequence. Chemical modifications and histone binding (chromatin) allow cells to represent state directly on the DNA schema. To cope with inconsistencies in the cell wide state second messenger and evolved amplification strategies are used. , Scientific papers, US
legislation; to support both execution by
agents and This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution of: agents,
the distributed plans, and the CAS.
- Doerr, following
Grove, promotes
This page introduces some problems that make it hard for a
business to execute effectively.
It then presents a theory
of execution.
It describes what the theory says must be done
to execute effectively.
It reviews General
Electric's use of adaptive planning to support effective
execution.
Then it details the execution
requirements.
execution
over Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
ideas, but while this makes
sense in their local environment, VC is venture capital, venture companies invest in startups with intangable assets funded technology
startups -- which is a rich niche with a competitive middle
game occurring in it, that emerged from AT&T's A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Within this
Bell Labs was at the center of three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
transformational 'opening'
contribution -- other situations will benefit from the
strategic
search and application of new knowledge and other wealth is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. .
John Doerr's book champions involved leadership aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. John Adair developed a leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. , including
the use of: goals, The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
models of progress,
checking; building a Shewhart
cycle is the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycle developed at Bell Labs by Walter Shewhart. Each activity that an organization identifies it will 'do' is formally described in a 'plan' including a model of the expected outcomes of the act if it successfully achieves its goals. If a subsequent 'check' of the results of the action relative to the predicted model is unsatisfactory the initial plan is modified to correct for identified problems and the cycle is re-executed. The cycle allows learning to become represented in the improved plan. Following the process institutionalizes the learning. . Leveraging his insights should help ensure
companies achieve high levels of productivity is the efficiency with which an agent's selected strategy converts the inputs to an action into the resulting outputs. It is a complex capability of agents. It will depend on the agent having: time, motivation, focus, appropriate skills; the coherence of the participating collaborators, and a beneficial environment including the contribution of: standardization of inputs and outputs, infrastructure and evolutionary amplifiers. &
enable them to move towards a fully This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
schematic
approach, supporting strategy
and The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Samuel
modeling is described as an approach.
learning.
.
 Politics, Economics & Evolutionary Psychology |
Business Physics Nature and nurture drive the business eco-system Human nature Emerging structure and dynamic forces of adaptation |
 |
integrating quality appropriate for each market |
|
 |