Disclaimer, this not my area of expertise, just want to start with saying that. I skipped the complexity theory entirely during my University studies. I ended up with a Master of Science, with a focus on Artificial Intelligence because I found it interesting and fun. Which it was. Did I work as a AI specialist. Nope. AI wasn’t that popular during the time I finished my master thesis and started to look for work. I thought for a while on going for a Lic but, the effort and time it would take, and I really liked to write code, so I ended up as a developer in the financial area. Right now, I am a Lead Developer and have Scrum Master-like (at least promoting Agile) role.
Well back to complexity. So way am should I write about complexity. Well being a developer isn’t that… easy. Don’t get me wrong, writing code can be hard, and fun, tedious and giving… but that is code. It is bits and bytes. Logic. Predictable… well at least sometimes. What is hard with being a developer is working with people. They don’t agree on things. They say one thing and does another. They produces bugs. Are happy. Are sad. Unpredictable. It is chaotic.
But somewhere in between order and chaos there is complexity.
My interest on complexity really started from the Cynefin Framework. This framework for making sense of the world, created for management defines three systems, ordered, chaotic and complex. Ordered are divided into Obvious and Complicated. There is a difference in the framework between Complicated and Complex, where Complicated is something that have a predictable cause-effect, that can appear as something complex but where there is an underlying structure. For example, a watch. As a layman I would say that “This is complex”, but no it is just complicated. There is a complicated structure in the watch. But it is not complex, it is just complicated. “The sum of the parts equals the function of the clock”, nothing emerges.
What is Complex is not Complicated. Where Complicated is the sum of the parts, Complex is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, self-awareness is based on neurons interacting but the emergent property is that you exist, which then is to say that the sum of the parts actually emerges into something greater than the sum of its parts. When talking about complex you mean systems that contains agents that have a high interdependencies, are diverse and emerges. Complex systems should never end up in equilibrium, there is an inbound requirement of moving between order and chaos, this is where new things emerges.
I am stuck and amazed on complexity theory, and will just keep on reading.
My kids, 3, 6 and 9 years old had their cousin (3 years old) for visit the other day. They ended up in the trampolin, as usually. It is summer so we want to stay outside, there is a trampolin which works perfectly well as babysitter for some time. But maximum 4 children at a time in the trampolin. And yes, the trampolin is surrounded by a net so they can’t fall out.
Anyhow, they are running around in the trampolin, in an ordered way, after each other. Everything is going great. All the sudden somethings change, one of the kids starts rolling a football in the trampoline and they start to chase around and kick the ball. Now we went from kids playing in an ordered safe way, to a situation where these small agents still have a high inter-dependence, they adapt to the environment, and a new game emerges. So this little game-playing in the trampolin is now a complex system, well they were that before as well as all systems with humans and their thoughts, feelings, and unpredictability, is considered complex systems. You just never knows what will happen. But maybe the ordered playing was just the kids in equilibrium, then one agent got bored, started to exploring by increasing the temperature, and is probably now pretty happy with the end result. He/she then stops exploring and starts exploiting – just keep playing. Now the other agents might not know about his/hers plan and starts to explore by their own. This can emerge to something really, really great, or it can end up in chaos (I know the definition of chaos is somewhat fuzzy, for me at least: a small change in the initial property have unpredictable results – e.g. if a butterfly flaps its wings it might set of a tornado in another part of the world). So yeah, nothing good emerges from this, one kid fell and all other kids fell as well. There were legs and tears everywhere and we had to pull the kids out. This could as well have emerged into something great, but it didn’t. They explored too much.
My conclusion is: Complexity is life! Avoid equilibrium.
And please watch everything on Youtube with Dave Snowden on the Cynefin Framework, it is amazing.
Read Thinking in Systems by Donella H Meadows.
Listen to Understanding Complexity on Audible.
It will probably change how you see the world.