Sometimes, we read or listen to something, a book, article, podcast and immediately realize, “Yes, this explains so much.” This happened recently when I started reading Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being, by Neil Thiese. The title first drew my interest; and after reading (so far) the first 3 chapters, my impression has been confirmed.
The theory bridges the gaps between viewing the universe at its most infinitesimal, described by Quantum Mechanics, and at its most vast, described by Relativity. It is a step beyond Chaos Theory, which basically reveals that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but predictably so. It describes the behavior of cumulous clouds, whirlpools, waves, ice, repetitive patterns in nature, and such.
This might all seem very intellectual or abstract at first, but with more reading the relevance to daily life became abundantly clear. The theory can be a metaphor or lens through which to get clarity on many problems we face.
We might assume that if we understand all the parts in an organization or system, we can predict the behavior of the whole; we likewise treat the universe as a massive, predictable machine, often without realizing we do so. Complexity reveals a different perspective. It shows, for example, we can predict how the water in a glass might act overall, but not the location of any single molecule. We can use the computational agility of computers to model how aspects of a human body will act but can’t do the same with a human being as a whole. We might research and study a question all we can, but still need to be humble and not assume we are in possession of the only right answer.
Complexity postulates 4 basic rules to explore the universe, and it is these rules that I found truly applicable to our lives.
- Numbers matter: A complex system only arises when there are sufficient numbers to do so. For example, if we have just a handful of ants, no self-organizing properties occur, like cooperative tunnel building, or cooperative finding and sharing food. If you get 25 or more individuals, you do. A thousand, and even more cooperation can emerge.
2. Interactions are local, not global: Numbers matter, and so do individuals. We might think interactions happen mostly top-down. For example, we might imagine there’s one boss ant, or that our brain oversees every bodily interaction. We might expect that we can control all that happens in our lives. But it’s more complicated than that. There’s no one part that sees and controls the whole. The mind influences the gut; the gut influences the mind. In nature as well as in our human body, organization arises locally, from one part, cell, or individual meeting others.
Authoritarians imagine they are in control, or crave to be, and they do whatever they can to assert this. Clearly, some individuals have more influence than others, or control more higher-order details than others. But no one person stands outside the web of human connection, the web of life. No living being, no earthly one anyway, is ever outside the universe looking in. They, we influence others and are in turn influenced.
3. Negative feedback should prevail: Both positive and negative feedback loops are needed and occur, and by negative and positive we do not mean bad or good. It’s more about the direction of energy asserted. The positive loops generally speed things up, the negative slows things down. The negative aid balance, adaptability, and a return to homeostasis. Stability is found in balance, not rigidity.
The negative ones prevent one element, one individual or group from overwhelming the others and crashing the whole. For example, in a healthy body, normal cells in normal tissues regulate themselves and each other through contact inhibition. They are prevented from dividing, for example, through negative feedback by surrounding cells. But when a mutation occurs, as in a developing cancer cell, it can grow explosively and dangerously if unchecked by surrounding cells. It can grow enough to exhaust and crash the system.
In 1929, the US Congress passed legislation to try to control run away economic policies and growth, and end policies that allowed a few individuals and corporations to run the whole economic system for their own profit and drive it to collapse. During the depression, President Roosevelt pushed further regulatory legislation and saved the system. In the 1980s, President Reagan began dismantling those regulations. When ex-President DT was in office, and since then, he pushed to further eliminate regulations and impose total top-down control. The result: immense growth of power by a small number of individuals, an immense concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. An immense push toward dictatorship. An immense threat of system collapse.
4. The degree of randomness is key. Some degree of randomness is needed in a complex system along with cooperation, so creativity can occur, and the system can adapt, evolve, and sustain itself. Without some randomness, no new ways of acting are discovered. There’s no life. If living cells acted in totally predictable ways, or like machines, our bodies would be too stiff, too restricted to face disease, injury, or threats.
Going back to political complexity, for an authoritarian to rule, they must convince others to do their bidding. They must control education, for example, to convert people into followers, true believers, and restrict the breadth of their/our thinking, restrict their/our independence and diversity of thought, and control randomness. But this course of action acts like a cancerous growth in a body. It not only destroys democracy; it threatens the stability and existence of the country as a whole.
The 4 rules and the web of complexity described by Thiese reminds me of the image of the web or Net of Indra possibly first described in India around 1000 BCE. The image is of a shimmering web with every being in the universe depicted as a multifaceted jewel on a gossamer thread, and each jewel reflects all the others.
Susan Murphy, in her book A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing The Climate Crisis, describes this image of a web as a holographic view of reality, and describes our role in facing the dual threats of dictatorship and climate crisis. Namely, we need to inhabit the awareness that our suffering is tied to everyone’s suffering, our health is tied to everyone’s health. The climate crisis is everyone’s crisis. Numbers matter. Local is global. Unrestrained economic growth is cancerous.
Our awakening as individuals to awareness of our part in the web and our ties to all others reveals the role we can and must play, to refresh and protect the system, the country, and the world.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
