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

Gell-Mann also addresses maladaptive schemata. In a section which offers directassociations with Boyd’s work he notes that one of the most common reasons for theexistence of maladaptive schemata is that they were once adaptive but under conditions thatno longer prevail. The environment of the complex adaptive system has changed at a fasterrate than the evolutionary process can accommodate. Moreover, the mechanisms for varyingand selecting schemata may lag behind 57 . Compare this with Boyd when he asserts in themore recently developed presentation The Conceptual Spiral thatPeople using theories or systems evolved from a variety of information will find itincreasingly difficult and ultimately impossible to interact with and comprehend phenomenaor systems that move increasingly beyond and away from that variety -- that is, they willbecome more and more isolated from that which they are trying to observe or deal with,unless they exploit the new variety to modify their theories/systems or create newtheories/systems 58 .Gell-Mann offers the following graphic illustration of the way a complex adaptive systemworks through the functioning of schemata, one which has obvious (and most likely notaccidental) close parallels with Boyd’s OODA loop graphic and Boyd’s view on the functionof doctrine, shared experience, culture and other factors included in his notion of orientationpattern 59 . It is another variant of the double loop learning graphic included in the previouschapter:Consequences(real world)Selective effect onviability of schemaand on competitionamong schemataDescription, prediction, behavior(real world)Present dataunfoldingSchema that summarizes and is capable of predicting(one of many competing variants)Figure 10: model offunction of schemataPrevious data, includingBehavior and its effectsdoes not progress this neatly and that theories are selected for other reasons as well, referring toKuhn. See in particular chapter 7.57 Gell-Mann, pp.303-04.58 Boyd, The Conceptual Spiral, p.14.59 Gell-Mann, p.25. In fact, similar to Boyd, Gell-Mann includes language, traditions, customs, lawsand myths, all of which can be regarded as “cultural DNA”. All encapsulate the shared experience ofmany generations and comprise the schmata for the society which itself functions as a complexadaptive system. See p.292.137