Cheers,
jeh
hoburg@ultryx.com
-- 8< --
Out of nothing, nature makes something.
How do you make something from nothing? From the frontiers of computer
science, and the edges of biological research, and the odd corners of
interdisciplinary experimentation, I have compiled The Nine Laws of
God governing the incubation of somethings from nothing:
These nine laws are the organizing principles that can be found
operating in systems as diverse as biological evolution and SimCity.
Of course I am not suggesting that they are the only laws needed to
make something from nothing; but out of the many observations
accumulating in the science of complexity, these principles are the
broadest, crispest and most representative generalities. I believe
that one can go pretty far as a god while sticking to these nine
rules.
Distribute being. The spirit of a beehive, the behavior of an economy,
the thinking a supercomputer, and the life in me is distributed over a
multitude of smaller units (which themselves may be distributed). When
the sum of the parts can add up to more than the parts, then that
extra being (that something from nothing) is distributed among the
parts. Whenever we find something from nothing, we find it arising
from a field of many interacting smaller pieces. All the mysteries we
find most interesting --life, intelligence, evolution --are found in
the soil of large distributed systems.
Control from the bottom up. When everything is connected to everything
in a distributed network, everything happens at once. When everything
happens at once, wide and fast moving problems simply route around any
central authority. Therefore overall governance must arise from the
most humble interdependent acts done locally in parallel, and not from
a central command. A mob can steer itself, and in the territory of
rapid, massive, and heterogeneous change, only a mob can steer. To get
something from nothing, control must rest at the bottom within
simplicity.
Cultivate increasing returns. Each time you use an idea, a language or a
skill you strengthen it, reinforce it, and make it more likely to be
used again. That's known as positive feedback, or snowballing. Success
breeds success. In the Gospels, this principle of social dynamics is
known as "To those who have, more will be given." Anything which
alters its environment to enhance increasing production of itself is
playing the game of increasing returns. And all large, sustaining
systems play the game. The law operates in economics, biology,
computer science, and human psychology. Life on Earth alters Earth to
begets more life. Confidence build confidence. Order generates more
order. Them that has, gets.
Grow by chunking. The only way to make a complex system that works is
to begin with an simple system that works. Attempts to instantly
install highly complex organization --such as intelligence, or a
market economy --without growing it, inevitably lead to failure. To
assemble a prairie takes time --even if you have all the pieces. Time
is needed to let each part test itself against all the others.
Complexity is created, then, by assembling it incrementally from
simple modules which can operate independently.
Maximize the fringes -- In heterogeneity is creation of the world. A
uniform entity must adapt to the world by occasional large
earth-shattering revolutions, one of which is sure to kill it. A
diverse heterogeneous entity, on the other hand, can adapt to the
world in thousand daily mini-revolutions, keeping it in a state of
permanent, but never fatal, churning. Diversity favors remote borders,
the outskirts, hidden corners, moments of chaos, and isolated
clusters. In economic, ecological, evolutionary, and institutional
models, a healthy fringe speeds adaptation, increases resilience, and
is almost always the source of innovations.
Honor your errors -- A trick will only work for a while, until everyone
else is doing it. To advance from the ordinary requires a new game, or
a new territory. But the process of going outside the conventional
method, game, or territory is indistinguishable from error. Even the
most brilliant act of human genius, in the final analysis, is an act
of trial and error. "To be an Error and to be Cast out is a part of
God's Design," wrote the visionary poet William Blake. Error, whether
random or deliberate, must become an integral part of any process of
creation. Evolution can be thought of as systematic error management.
Pursue no optima; have multiple goals -- Simple machines can be
efficient, but complex adaptive machinery cannot be. A complicated
structure has many masters and none of them can be served exclusively.
Rather than strive for optimization of any function, a large system
can only survive by "satisficing" (making "good enough") a multitude
of functions. For instance, an adaptive system must tradeoff between
exploiting a known path of success (optimizing a current strategy), or
diverting resources to exploring new paths (thereby wasting energy
trying less efficient methods). So vast are the mingled drives in any
complex entity that it is impossible to unravel the actual causes of
its survival. Survival is a many-pointed goal. Most living organisms
are so many-pointed they are blunt variations that happen to work,
rather than precise renditions of proteins, genes, and organs. In
creating something from nothing, forget elegance; if it works, it's
beautiful.
Seek persistent disequilibrium -- Neither constancy nor relentless change
will support a creation. A good creation, like good jazz, must balance
the stable formula with frequent out-of-kilter notes. Equilibrium is
death. Yet unless a system stabilizes to an equilibrium point, it is
no better than an explosion, and just as soon dead. A Nothing, then,
is both equilibrium and disequilibrium. A Something is persistent
disequilibrium -- a continuous state of forever surfing on the edge
between never stopping but never falling. Honing in on that liquid
threshold is the still mysterious holy grail of creation and the quest
of all amateur gods.
Change changes itself -- Change can be structured. This is what large
complex systems do. They coordinate change. When extremely large
systems are built up out of complicated systems, then each system
begins to influence and ultimately change the organizations of other
systems. That is, if the rules of the game are composed from the
bottom up, then it is likely that interacting forces at the bottom
level will alter the rules of the game as it progresses. Over time,
the rules for change get changed themselves. Evolution --as used in
everyday speech --is about how an entity is changed over time. Deeper
evolution --as it might be formally defined --is about how the rules
for changing entities over time changes over time. To get the most out
of nothing, you need to have self-changing rules.
These nine principles underpin the awesome workings of prairies,
flamingoes, and cedar forests, eyeballs, natural selection in
geological time, and the unfolding of a baby elephant from a tiny seed
of elephant sperm and egg.
These same principles of bio-logic are now being implanted in computer
chips, electronic communication networks, robot modules,
pharmaceutical searches, software design, and corporate management, in
order that these artificial systems may overcome their own complexity.
When the technos is enlivened by bios we get artifacts that can adapt,
learn, and evolve. When our technology adapts, learns, and evolves
then we will have a neo-biological civilization.
OUT OF CONTROL
The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization
by Kevin Kelly
A William Patrick Book
Publication Date: June 21, l994
Price: $ 28.00/hardcover/527 pages
ISBN 0-201-57793-3