Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

Correspondingly, the complex system has a number of disparate time and space scales.Complex systems are constantly revising and rearranging their building blocks as theygain experience.Complex adaptive systems anticipate the future.They exhibit coherence under change, via conditional action and anticipation 49 . For thisthey employ internal models of the world (as in systems theory).They are characterized by rich patterns of tight, moderate and loosely coupled linkages.Chains of interdependency branch in complicated patterns among actors. This protectsthe system against environmental shock by providing multiple paths for action. If onepattern of interdependency in a network is disrupted, the dynamic performed by thatsubsystem can usually be rerouted to other areas of the network. This makes it difficultto damage or destroy the complex system, for complex interaction leads to amazingresilience 50 .Complex systems indeed are robust (or fit). They resist perturbation or invasion byother systems.Importantly, all operate in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics,exhibiting entropy and winding down over time unless replenished with energy 51 .Emergent order and self-organizationComplex adaptive systems exhibits emergence: the interactions of agents may lead toemerging global properties that are strikingly different from the behaviors of individualagents. These properties cannot be predicted from prior knowledge of the agents. The globalproperties in turn affect the environment that each agent “sees”, influencing the agents’behaviors. A synergistic feedback loop is thus created—interactions between agentsdetermine emerging global properties which in turn influence the agents. A key ramificationof emergence is that reductionism does not apply to complex systems. Since emergentbehaviors do not arise from simple superpositions of inputs and outputs, reductionismcannot be used to analyze the behaviors of complex systems.A second fundamental behavior of complex systems is adaptive self-organization.Massively disordered systems can spontaneously ‘crystallize’ a very high degree of order. Selforganizationarises as the system reacts and adapts to its externally imposed environment.Such order occurs in a wide variety of systems, including for example convective fluids,chemical reactions, certain animal species, and societies. A third important behavior ofcomplex systems is evolution at the edge of chaos. They are never stable, always unfolding,always in transition, never in equilibrium. There is no optimum in system fitness. Dynamicsystems can occupy a “universe” composed of three regions 52 .The first is an ordered, stable region. Perturbations to the systems tend to die outrapidly, creating only local damage or changes to the system. Information does not flowreadily between the agents.In the second region, chaotic behavior is the rule. Disturbances propagate rapidlythroughout the system, often leading to destructive effects.49 Holland, p.4.50 Russ Marion and Josh Bacon, 'Organizational Extinction and Complex Systems', Emergence, Vol. 1,issue 4, (2000), p.76.51 Gell-Mann, p.235.52 See Waldrop, pp.225-235.135