Author: Thomas Lee Abshier
The Wisdom To Choose Action or Inaction
In Dr. Robert Malone’s recent post he made the following observations and proposed the following resolution.
Premises:
- Western society believes problems must always be met with action
- Modern society assumes science and engineering can perfectly predict outcomes
- There’s a fundamental difference between complicated systems (like computers) and complex systems (like biology and society)
- Complex systems are inherently unpredictable due to their chaotic, self-assembling nature
- Modern technocrats mistakenly view human society as a complicated rather than complex system
Arguments:
- Complex systems cannot be controlled with the precision of complicated systems
- Complicated systems (computers) can be fully understood and predicted
- Complex systems (biology, society) have unpredictable emergent properties
- Large-scale social interventions often fail
- Historical examples like the “war on poverty” demonstrate unintended consequences
- The “butterfly effect” makes long-term outcomes impossible to predict
- Current global initiatives reflect dangerous hubris
- UN’s Agenda 2030 assumes predictable outcomes
- Centralized planning ignores the complex nature of human societies
- Decentralization and incremental change are preferable
- Allow societies to evolve naturally
- Test changes on small scales before broader implementation
- Avoid censorship that prevents natural adaptation
Conclusion:
- Wise leadership requires:
- Recognition of the difference between complex and complicated systems
- Humility in approaching interventions in complex systems
- Understanding when not to act is as important as knowing when to act
- Favoring decentralized, incremental changes over large-scale interventions
- Allowing natural adaptation and evolution of societies rather than forcing engineered solutions
The article advocates for a more cautious, humble approach to social change that respects the unpredictable nature of complex human systems.
To understand Dr. Malone’s arguments, we need a deeper understanding of the difference between a complex and complicated system
The terms “complex” and “complicated” are often used interchangeably in everyday language, but in systems theory, they have distinct meanings:
Complicated Systems:
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Structure: These systems have many parts, but the relationships between these parts are generally well-defined and predictable. Think of a Swiss watch or a jet engine.
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Predictability: Given enough information, the behavior of a complicated system can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. If a part fails or needs adjustment, experts can usually diagnose and fix it because the system’s operation follows known laws or rules.
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Hierarchy: They often have a hierarchical structure where components are arranged in levels, with control flowing from top to bottom.
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Change: Changes in such systems can be managed through detailed planning and engineering because the outcomes of modifications can be calculated in advance.
Complex Systems:
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Structure: Complex systems are characterized by a large number of interacting components where the relationships are not just numerous but can also change and evolve. Examples include ecosystems, human societies, or the economy.
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Emergence: These systems exhibit emergent behavior, meaning the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Properties and behaviors emerge from the interactions among the parts that could not have been predicted just by studying the parts in isolation.
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Adaptation: They often adapt and change in response to external or internal stimuli. The parts of the system can learn, evolve, or adapt, leading to new patterns and behaviors over time.
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Nonlinearity: Small changes in initial conditions can lead to dramatically different outcomes (the butterfly effect).
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Feedback Loops: Feedback – both positive (amplifying) and negative (dampening) – plays a significant role in how the system behaves over time, often leading to unexpected results or self-organization.
Key Differences:
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Control: Complicated systems can often be controlled or managed by understanding and manipulating their components. Complex systems, however, might be influenced but not controlled in the same straightforward manner because of their adaptive nature and emergent properties.
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Understanding: To understand a complicated system, you might need deep knowledge of how each part functions and fits together. To understand a complex system, you need to observe its behavior over time, understand the patterns of interaction, and often, accept that there will always be elements of unpredictability.
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Management: Management of a complicated system can often be reduced to following a set of procedures, whereas managing a complex system requires more nuanced strategies, often involving learning, experimentation, and adaptive management.
While a complicated system might be difficult to understand or build due to its intricate design, a complex system is difficult to predict, control, or manage because of its dynamic and adaptive nature.
Commentary by Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
11/10/2024
There is a common distinction between complex and complicated systems, but they are very different in their behavior and predictability. Complex systems typically have a non-linear cause-effect relationship between their components, and the imprecision of measuring the initial conditions yields wildly inaccurate results when calculating the system’s future state based on initial conditions. However, even though a system is complex and incalculable, it is still just a sequence of physical actions that strictly obey the law of cause and effect and render a world of complex interactions as mechanical as a more well-behaved system.
There is a deep cause for the imprecision in predicting the future states in complex systems. Namely, the exact current state of the universe is impossible to measure, even in principle. The velocity and momentum of a quantum of energy or mass can only be measured with the certainty the Uncertainty Principle allows.
Another deep factor related to the Uncertainty Principle prevents knowing the exact initial conditions of a system (mass/velocity, time/energy). I postulate that each quantum of mass and energy is composed of smaller, more elemental components, which I call Conscious Points. Each Conscious Point has an actual position and velocity, but those parameters are unmeasurable by human senses and instrumentation, which can only detect units the size of energy quanta. Conscious Points have a dimension smaller than every quantum of energy. This puts Conscious Points at a size dimension below the level of detection and measurement in a realm where the smallest measurable dimension is the quantum.
These subquantum components, the Conscious points, are enrolled in a Group Entity, which is the essence or spirit of the photon or mass. Each Conscious Point operates independently, but when it is part of a mass or photon, it is part of a group entity. I define a Group Entity as an ad hoc spiritual entity that forms when a quantum of energy forms. The function/purpose of the Group Entity is to conserve the energy of the quantum. Each Conscious Point carries a portion of the momentum of the quanta. Each Conscious Point considers the forces acting upon it each Moment before moving. One of those forces that may act upon a Conscious Point is the instantaneous change required to execute the energy conservation associated with being part of an entangled photon pair.
A world composed of humans with consciousness and free will in a biologically adaptive world is inherently unpredictable because the viewer cannot know the force-direction of the spiritual input being applied to the mechanical/physical/complicated but predictable body-mind. The ability to see into the spiritual realm and choose any action I want in the next moment truly gives me free will. Because of this layer, we introduce the fact/reality of unpredictability. This unknown input makes human systems complex and unpredictable even when knowing all humans’ state of mind and intent at a given time.
Humans have free will, meaning that any/every human can make any choice in every successive Moment. On its surface, the brain appears to be only a complicated system (knowable, linear, binary, and identifiably physical and mechanical). However, the nervous system is a complex system. The synapses take milliseconds to integrate and fire for each sensory/input stimulus cycle and neural response. While the brain produces complicated patterns of neural firings in response to the inputs of other neurons and the afferent sensory signals, even this does not rise to the level of unknowable complexity.
There is another input level to the brain’s complicated neuroanatomy/neurophysiology. This input is not physical. I believe there is another input, one from the spiritual realm. Decisions and spiritual forces from God, angels, demons, spirits, and others can influence the nervous system. It is from this realm that complexity arises. We all have a spiritual vision, meaning we can all see forces operating in the spiritual/non-physical realm. And we have free will because we can operate on that level.
We are not constrained by the determinism of physical beings who respond to the impulses produced by complicated sequences of synaptic firings. Instead of the limitations of physical sequence, which is mechanical, the human brain-soul-spirit includes another variable, another force/factor/input to the neural-synaptic network equation, the free will choice arising from the spiritual-metaphysical realm. If an unobservable metaphysical force were to affect and influence the synaptic network physically, the brain-neural network would be both a complex and in-principle unpredictable output system.
Thus, the human nervous system is complicated and complex, and it has free will. God, the divine mind, has free will, as it has no sequence of cause and effect that it must follow. Likewise, the human mind can exercise volition/free will.
Natural systems, such as biology, ecology, and weather/climate, modify themselves in complex ways because of non-linear feedback loops between variables. There is nothing fundamentally indeterminate about natural systems. Still, the future state of all natural systems is uncomputable/unpredictable because the system’s initial condition cannot be known at its ultimate level of precision. This limitation is because the positions of all Conscious Points, which compose the masses of all natural systems, cannot be determined in principle.
In my Theory of Absolutes/Conscious Point Hypothesis, I postulate that the universe is unknowable in its exact condition at any Moment by human consciousness because of our dependence upon sensory data to take measurements. All sense detectors (whether human or instrumentation) measure only quantum-sized units, and as detectors, they are composed of quanta. Quanta cannot measure any increment of distance smaller than themselves.
The quanta can be seen and measured (their location and momentum are uncertain, meaning they cannot be precisely located. But it’s even worse than that because the position and motion of each quantum are unknowable in principle. The Conscious Points constitute each quantum and are unobservable because they are smaller than a quantum. To make matters even worse, the quantum forms a group entity that keeps track of momentum, and if one of the Conscious Points in the mass/group entity were to have its entangled pair be measured, then that mass would experience a change in motion and position.
Note that each time a quantum collides and exchanges momentum, all the Conscious Points associated with that quantum communicate with every Conscious Point in the colliding system and with all Conscious Points with which it was previously entangled. This constellation of interactions influences the next-moment trajectory of every Conscious Point.
Thus, each Conscious Point responds to 1) the sum of the fields in the local space of the Conscious Point, 2) the presence of charged particles in its local vicinity (whose position cannot be perfectly known, and 3) the measurement of its entangled Conscious Point pair. Thus, the universe is composed of energetic entities that maintain their identity. Still, because their actual position and velocity are mediated by Conscious Points, which cannot be measured, the quanta we can and do see cannot be precisely located. Hence, the phenomenon of complexity arises. The initial conditions can never be precisely known, which will cause them to be in disparate states of alignment.
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