Does Embracing Complexity Mean Adopting A Fundamentally Tragic View Of Existence?

[hatrack]

EDIT

As we mature we are ushered into the complexities of life. But when the willingness to accept these complexities is blunted or eliminated, maturity never arrives. Many remain in an adolescent state preferring an optimistic gloss on a simple-minded model of the world. As Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote recently: "Collectively we have been behaving like adolescents – believing we're invulnerable, living for today while ignoring tomorrow, and sneering at anything that smacks of prudence."

And, we have behaved this way when it comes to the financial legerdemain which has brought the world economy to its knees. The high priests of finance had the adolescent exuberance for trading and making money, but none of the appreciation for the hazards embedded in the complex financial instruments they were selling.

The tragic view of life teaches humility in the face of complexity. That humility is notably lacking in the world of neoclassically trained economists, the ones who run the houses of finance and public policy in nearly every Western economy. The levers and pulleys of the economy seem plainly obvious to them. And, the idea that we could fail to understand the risks we are taking with our financial system or find ourselves dangerously short of critical commodities needed to run modern society is labeled preposterous. (These economists sound a little like the adolescents Homer-Dixon describes above.)

But a deeper understanding of the complexities of a world society embedded in a vastly complex biogeochemical system called the Earth requires a more sober assessment. Homer-Dixon says in his book, "The Upside of Down," that the emphasis on efficiency over resilience in our various human systems has left us vulnerable to the multiple threats of climate change, energy depletion and biodiversity destruction.

EDIT

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48765

[FedUpWithIt All]

1. Thank you for everything hatrack.

You are more appreciated than you know.

[glitch]

2. Excellent article, thanks for posting K & R nt

[CTyankee]

3. Yes, as I get older I get more depressed.

I hope it is not so, but my intelligence tells me it IS so on global warming.

Idon'tcompletely know on the financial markets.

He's right on with health care, edcuation and foreignpolicy.

So, we'll see...

[tularetom]

4. How much happier would we all be if we were stupid?

Then we could blame the fucked up world on abortion, or gay marriage, or anyone of a million other scapegoats.

And we could ignore the fact that it was actually our own stupidity that caused everything to be so fucked up.

Yay for stupidity!

[The River]

5. Absolutely Not

Greater complexity = more depth, breath and inclusiveness.

[phantom power]

6. ...

[pscot]

7. Deep, Man. Really deep.

You gonna smoke that thing by yourself, or pass it around?

[eppur_se_muova]

8. But ... but ... Americans Can Do Anything! ®

(Caps are essential.)

I say Fie! to your Second Law of Thermodynamics! Fie, I say!

[GliderGuider]

9. I find it harder and harder to accept the concept of "tragedy".

I've come to the conclusion that "tragedy" is one of those obstructive emotional descriptors, like jealousy and anger, that block us from fully experiencing our existence. "Tragedy" is an anthropocentric concept that imputes intrinsic value to simple change. If some changes are tragic, then all change is tragic, as any change has a negative impact on some aspects of some life forms. By extension, treating all change as tragic seems foolish and futile, as that interpretation blocks our ability to see the inherent positive side of the same change, as well as blocking our ability to express compassion both for those affected by the change and those effecting it.

If you get my drift.

[phantom power]

10. Interesting. I am finding it easier and easier.

Now that probably sounds worse than it actually is. Here is what I mean. I've been thinking a lot about this comment that Kunstler made a few years ago and it goes like this (paraphrase): "The American world view for the past century has been an aberration, in the sense that Americans fundamentally believed that 'life is progress', whereas for most of human history the view was something closer to 'life is tragic'"

I've been pondering the peculiarity that while humans are, on the face of it, capable of avoiding many of life's disasters, we essentially don't. Individually, we exhibit planning behavior and manage to apply the Precautionary Principle, but as a group we mostly fail at this.

It strikes me that this might be viewed as a Tragic Flaw, in the literary sense. And what's coming our way is a kind of tragedy in the literary sense. It's avoidable in principle, but our peculiar tragic flaws more or less guarantee that we won't avoid it. It fits most of the other criteria for a tragedy as well. The ability to see and appreciate our tragic mistakes, and suffer because of them. The presence of many otherwise redeeming qualities, that make our eventual Tragic Fuck-Ups extra tragic, etc.

[GliderGuider]

11. I don't have a problem with the literary usage,

Just with the colloquial usage, with the meaning of, "Oh how sad and awful!"

I think :-) that the neocortex is humanity's tragic flaw.

I do believe that sad things happen to life forms, when that happening is viewed with human empathy. I just think that if we take a step back our understanding of what we're seeing and reacting to changes. It's that damn Buddhist detachment thing again...

[phantom power]

14. I would say...

the tragic human flaw is not just that we have a neocortex, but it sits on top of a bunch of older wiring that is tuned for hyperbolic discount.

Now, the interesting thing about natural selection for hyperbolic discount is, that it is both a reaction to certain consequences of complex systems (mostly, that they are unpredictable with any pragmatically sized model, like an animal's nervous system or a supercomputer cluster of the early 21st century), and yet it also reinforces the unpredictability. Everybody is making local decisions. All those local decisions pretty much guarantee self organized criticality, and then again that's as good as you can do. Everybody has a finite lookahead. And the growth in lookahead is sort of logarithmic in predictive model power. My big fancy brain cannot accurately plan ahead a million times farther than a mouse.

What the hell am I getting at? The "tragic flaw" is the laws of complex systems. You cannot escape a power-law for catastrophe. Humans have had an intuition about that for a long time. Which is probably why we invented tragedies. Now we've got a body of mathematical theory that says we can't even get out of the game.

Super!

[tama]

12. Doesn't

every teenager in growing pains of puberty see and act life as big tragedy?

Ten thousand years of human civilization and growth mania is very much like puberty...

...and now is time to "leave behind childish ways", as someone "important" said?

[GliderGuider]

15. Touché

Very nicely said.

[Bigmack]

13. Thomas Homer-Dixon is one

of my favorite writers. He seems not only to "get it," but also to have good ideas about how to move beyond "it." He's got a new book coming out - think it was published on April 14 - but of course I've already forgotten the title of this new book! Oh well. Thanks for this excellent, as per-usual, post, Ms Bigmack

[XemaSab]

16. I think complexity pushes a superstitious and (ultimately) anxious view of existence

In a simple world, simple actions have simple results.

In a complicated world, simple actions may have results FAR beyond what was intended.

By way of illustrating what I mean, I'll give an example: dating.

In the world of dating, many people feel lost and like the system is outside their control. Having rules about when to return phone calls, pre-date rituals, special clothes, and so forth are a means of imposing a framework of control (albeit "magical" control) over chaos.

In the environmentalist movement there are all kinds of rules and social rituals that border on superstition.

The Biblical rules about appropriate animal sacrifice are nothing compared to the "rules" surrounding tasks as simple as buying fruit at the grocery store.

[phantom power]

17. In a complex world...

Simple actions usually have simple consequences. Except occasionally when they trigger catastrophic failure cascades.

This is actually the worst possible world for a thinking being to inhabit, since it either lulls one into a false sense of security and then eventually fucks you over, or it reduces you to a state of neurosis or possibly catatonia. That's also why I suspect it's the correct model, and why humans invented alcoholic beverages.