“You observe, and observe, and observe, and occasionally stick your oar in and try to improve something for the better. It means that you try to see reality for what it is, and realize that the game you are in keeps changing, so that it’s up to you to figure out the current rules of the game as it’s being played… you stop adhering to standard theories that are built on outmoded assumptions about the rules of play, you stop saying, ‘Well, if only we could reach this equilibrium we’d be in fat city.’ You just observe. And where you can make an effective move, you make a move…The idea is to observe, to act courageously, and to pick your timing extremely well.”
— Brian Arthur as quoted in Complexity by M. Mitchell Waldrop
February was a busy, complicated month, so it’s fitting that my key read for the month was Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by M. Mitchell Waldrop.
At its heart, Complexity tells the story of the founding of the Santa Fe Institute, a theoretical institute dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of complex systems. When it was first conceieved, however, no one was quite sure what it would study (at least as told by the book).
Let me be honest—I read a lot, and this book was a bit of a slog. I’m not 100% sure why—the language wasn’t overly difficult and I would have liked it to be even more scientific than it was. Perhaps it was the fact that the author tried to tell the story of this field of study primarily through sketching mini-biographies of what seemed like an endless string of hard-to-separate-from-each-other white men. (The book didn’t stress that they were white, but come on.) I just didn’t care about every detail of these men’s personal and academic journeys, and their personalities all seemed to run together more or less.
Where I enjoyed the book was when it dove into the actual question of complexity, talking about complex systems in economics, biology, genetics, computer modeling, and so on. Snippets of rare beauty here and there almost took your breath away, especially popping out of pages of otherwise forgettable story.
What I took away from this book is that evolution is a force affecting likely everything that is in flux, and evolution leads to complex systems. Therefore, if one is to understand the world we live in—or merely oneself, one must strive to understand evolution, complex systems, order, chaos, emergence, nonlinearity, adaptation, spontaneous order, and feedback loops.
I believe we are coming near a time where, for the first time ever, we begin to understand—and eventually have choices regarding and a say in—our own evolution. The powers that be—define that how you like—are very unlikely to offer the rest of us a seat at that decision-making table. It’s vital that we as a society educate ourselves, each other, and our children, so that we know enough to demand a seat at that table—or build the table ourselves.
