|
Ayten,
The sections of Anticipatory Systems that I included into
BioTheory, especially sections 1 and 3, have a great deal of discussion about
social systems as complex systems and about planning; how to use "lesions from
biology" to improve social and civic planning, etc. It's mostly in prose, too,
so it's easier to read. As he describes, his work at the Center for the Study of
Democratic Institutions was a major turning point for him, in completely
unexpected ways.
One of the reasons biological-derived solutions are so suitable for
social problems has to do with the notion of optimality. When we are looking to
create a plan for a city or for a social system like education, for example, we
want to create a plan that maximizes the optimality of the system when the plan
is in use. One of the hallmarks of living organisms is that optimality is their
primary issue, as a system. In a simple, reactive system, like the water cycle,
there is no such thing as optimality. These things simply interact and have
impacts on one another and there is no sense of value out of the interaction.
Living system, in contrast, exploit the potential for optimality out of any
context. What is negative for one species may have potential for optimality
for another. Living systems also pursue what is necessary for optimality,
however that is defined from within their organization. If they are low on fuel,
they pursue food. If they are too near their temperature parameters (either too
hot or too cold), they pursue a direction that ameliorates that. So
optimality is very much front and center in how living systems are organized,
and an anticipatory mode of control increases optimality, most of the
time.
One of the reasons this has gone unnoticed for so long (my father
discusses his disgust at himself for not noticing it sooner, in those excerpts
from the book) is because all living systems are dual anticipatory/reactive
systems. There is purely reactive behavior and there is also a reactive
component in anticipatory behavior, as well. In our temperature example, from
above, an organism senses a sub-optimal temperature and reacts, but reacts
in an anticipatory manner. If there were a though process involved, it might
sound like this: "Ooh, it's getting cold! If I stay here, I'm going to be in
trouble soon. I better move toward warmth, now." But in a single celled
organism, there is no thought process, only the "instinctive" imperatives that
the encoded models provide. When humans take a species out of its native
habitat, the information the encoded models provide is suboptimal, under most
circumstances.
Organisms tend to be able to sense changes or conditions that
naturally arise in their evolutionary context. So, deep sea organisms lack eyes
or other sensory organs that have to do with the sunlight, or they have some
means of generating light/phosphorescence, etc. A plant that evolved near the
equator doesn't have any warning about winter coming when it's planted in a
garden in western New York; its models are mute. So, it dies when the
freeze comes, and we call them "annuals". They may be very long-lived perennials
in their native habitat, but here people plant new ones every year because they
die.
Another aspect of anticipation that is discussed in those excerpts
is the fact that, in social planning or economic planning, when people argue,
they argue more about things deriving from their internal models than about
anything intrinsic to the situation. Religious wars and political upheaval are
perfect examples of problems created by a difference between what their models
have encoded in them. Humans are particularly difficult to "predict" because we
are anticipatory systems within anticipatory systems; a physical one and a
mental one, and each one has the reactive capability built in as well. So these
many aspects all interact with one another to generate behaviors. Our mental
models are far more independent of "real" time than our physical models
are. This is both a strength and a weakness. The trick is to maximize the
strength and minimize the weaknesses; which is one definition of
optimality.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 3:52
AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Anticipatory
Systems
Dear Judith,
In reference to your following quotation and the further
clarifications and information provided these days by you and Tim I have a few
reflections to make:
"He used a high-tech camera as
an example of a machine with anticipation built in. He recommended that our
modes of government and city planning, social system analysis, etc, all be
examined for ways to build in a "feed-forward" control system rather than
purely feed-back. It's important to note that while all living systems are
anticipatory they also have the capability for purely reactive behavior as
well. That's something all systems possess. But anticipatory controls are
superior under most circumstances because they prevent the system from
entering an "error state". An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure!"
You know that I am not a biologist but am
very much interested in understanding well what is still to be
uncovered from those still hidden within the Rosen treasure.
To make the new entry more digestable for me, I am each
time interpreting every piece of concept and knowledge
continuously flowing from your end (you and Tim) into my own
built-in professional and personal bagage and gradually unfolding.
I usually find them compatible and reflecting my own life-time
difficulty in making people around me to understand certain subtle differences
in approaches which look the same on the surface. My thinking process
and my practical actions, almost all my life-long activities
concerning river basin planning and implementation, have been shaped by
my education, training and practising in an area which required an
interdisciplinarity, building the whole as the parts relate
and fit in, (as against multidisciplinarity- adding parts to make a
sum) which requires attention to relationships and growing together by
influencing each other in the process towards a target, never fully
reached. Interdiciplinarity deals with complex systems requiring a
process approach with all the characteristics of anticipatory systems where
feed-back and feed-forward are continuously operating. It is
very similar to living system, with only difference it starts with a
man-made starting point with a man-made endind point, but always to be revised
on the way. At times initial conditions are also affected. This is also basic
difference between project versus process approach, which is in a way
self-organizing, nonlinear and dynamic as well as synergistic. It is certainly
never as self-organized and emergent as the nature is where the biology forms
an integral part.This is certainly ideal but many times politics
determines both the initial conditions and the fixed targets. This is what we
are trying to replace. To go with that my personal aim is to apply my own
understanding and Rosennean approach as an amplifying, correcting and maturing
tool to social-ecological systems to make a dent within the
process of replacing the ongoing (declining) social paradigm with a
nature/human friendly one from within.
This is similar to healing a failing health by
improving the body's immune system or reforestation on the side of living
systems and restoring an ailing historical structure growing from its own
original credentials (purpose/function, shape/content.. as causations in
nature).
This is just for you and Tim to reflect on. Please let me
know if I am out of the track. Even if I am I must say how much I appreciate
the work progressing in this list.
My best,
Ayten
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:11
PM
Subject: Re: Anticipatory Systems
Hi Jerry,
One of the applications for studying natural anticipatory
systems is to develop the ability to create anticipatory controls for our
own technological needs. He used a high-tech camera as an example of a
machine with anticipation built in. He recommended that our modes of
government and city planning, social system analysis, etc, all be examined
for ways to build in a "feed-forward" control system rather than purely
feed-back. It's important to note that while all living systems are
anticipatory they also have the capability for purely reactive behavior as
well. That's something all systems possess. But anticipatory controls are
superior under most circumstances because they prevent the system from
entering an "error state". An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure!
I would dispute that these encoded models are all in the genes,
Jerry. There's so much more that's going on than just
genetics.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005
9:54 AM
Subject: [ROSEN] Anticipatory
Systems
--- Judith Rosen <***>
wrote:
How the information in these internal predictive
models
is encoded, how it is integrated with "real"
behavior of
self/environment, how it acts on system
behavior... these are all wide
open areas which are
just screaming for one of you guys to pursue.
Judith,
A robot is also qaulified as being anticipatory. It
is
quit common practice to have machine learning,
pattern
recognition to learn environment and anticipate
consequances
of future actions so to adjust current
action. A robot can learn
environment and get around
obstacles along the way. These type of
ASs are
algorithmic such as computers and they are closed in
the
sense that the change of environment is
predetermined. The
description of self and
environment is syntactic. Its mechanism is
deduction.
Life as being anticipatory is model-based intead
of
algorithms based. A insect changes its behavior to
adapt to
evironmental change not thro genotype but
thro mutation of the
genes. New genes are created in
next generation that are
hypothesis not in older
generations. New behaviors are generated
by
interpretate the new genes. This process is inductive
and
semantic. New knowledge is created by enlarging
the understanding
of environment and self thro these
new genes or
hypothesis.
Jerry
__________________________________________________
Do
You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
|