Re: <nettime> Managing complexity?

Complex systems can be of two types: linear and non-linear
In linear systems there is a relationship between input and output - small inputs result in small outputs and large inputs result in large outputs. The complexity of the system comes from the number of components in the system.
Non-linear systems often do not have a relationship between input and output. A small input can result in a large output, and a large input can result in a small output.
Both linear and non-linear systems can exhibit polycentricity - change cannot be confined to a single component of the system. The best metaphor for this is a spider’s web - the attempt to tweak the tension in a single strand results in a redistribution of tension across the entire web. ‘Management’ and ‘complexity’ do not fit well in a polycentric system, for management is an activity where one intervenes in order to control output, and in a polycentric system, it is almost impossible to ascertain with precision the impact of any intervention.
Similarly it is impossible to ‘manage’ non-linear systems, because one cannot have any control over the output.
Non-linearity often results from components of the system being sentient - even if they do not rise to the extent of self-conscious intelligence, there is a genetically ingrained impulse to recognise patterns in the environment and respond accordingly, and this can shift the behaviour of the system as a whole.
In polycentric systems and in non-linear systems, the term ‘managing complexity’ is an oxymoron. I find a similar situation in my discipline of architecture where the latest buzz word is ‘designing for sustainability’. ‘Design' is used here in an interpretation very similar to ‘management’ - the desire to control results, failing to recognise that climate and other natural systems are inherently non-linear (while it is not essential to this post, if you want to read more on what I have written on this subject, see https://premckar.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/to-design-so-as-to-sustain/)
To live with complex systems we must allow them to be self-organising. This is the argument used in the argument for free markets, falling back on Adam Smith’s metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’.
However, self-organising systems are emergent - they can exhibit fundamental properties that did not exist at all in an earlier state of the system. As humans, we cannot be blind to what properties may emerge, unless we say we have no ethical concerns at all if the system throws up properties such as unfair and degrading exploitation of others or ecological imbalances.
These problems are exacerbated because we make assumptions about the system that are not correct. We believe that the system is ‘natural’ in the sense that components in the system are there because they inherently belong in the system. But taking markets as an example, as Karl Polanyi has pointed out, many of the components of markets were not meant for that purpose. To pursue the goal of markets we force fundamental distortions and reshape them as ‘fictitious commodities’. Lives get reduced to labour, and land is stripped of its connection with environment and memory and reduced to being an asset. Similarly we believe that the social contract can emerge from rational communication, failing to recognise emotion, especially when that emotion is exploited in political rhetoric to inflame tribal passions.
It cannot be a totally laissez-faire approach. To live within complex systems, our mindset must change from seeking to manage the system to seeking harmony with it. Harmony is a term that has strong ethical implications that we must come to terms with.
For harmony, we have to acquire what the philosopher Morris Berman calls ‘a participating consciousness’, whereas we currently pursue individualised consciousness that is framed by ego.
A participating consciousness cannot come from a knowledge system. It has to be ingrained through rigorous practices by which one builds harmonious awareness of consciousness beyond the self. Such practices are routinely found in performing and creative arts, as well as within certain spiritual traditions.
Without seeking to romanticise the past, one must recognise that the incidence of participating consciousness has dropped precipitously in modern times.
AI systems do not sit well with consciousness, for AI makes its decisions on the basis of statistical correlations derived from computing power, and not on the basis of consciousness. AI systems run into problems difficult to foresee or comprehend once the decision process gets detached from sentient consciousness, especially when the AI system encounters non-linear contexts.
The computer has much to offer us. But we have moved too fast from computer-assisted-design to AI-driven-design, and paid insufficient attention to the intervening stage of computer-augmented-design where the computer offers a lot, but human consciousness ultimately drives the key decisions.