USF Complexity Spirals
“Teacher, if everything already depends on everything else how can anything ever change?”
“Another insightful question. But, I ask you, what is the difference between more and less and many and few?”
and the student thought a moment and said, “we can have more of a few things, and less of many things?”
“Yes my student. What is the difference between a corn field and a rain forest in that respect?”
and the student said, “In the corn field we have more of only one thing and in the rain forest we have less of many different things.”
“Precisely,” said the teacher, “with many different things we cannot have as many of any one thing, but there are many different ways for things to interact. We call this complexity. What is the difference between a market economy and a state run economy?”
The student responded, “in a market economy each business is free to adjust its strategy to the conditions of the market.”
“Very good”, said the teacher, “with a complex of potential interactions, each actor has more options and the system is said to be dynamically stable. What is the difference between a closed agricultural economy and an open trading economy?”
and the student said, “well, there will be many kinds of businesses in an open trading economy. In either each actor is free to adjust its strategy to market conditions.”
And the teacher responded, “Yes, both of those are true, but there is something more. In the closed agricultural economy there are a limited number of source materials. In the trading economy there are more source materials allowing the production of a larger amount of a greater variety of goods. We call that increasing productivity. And so my student, what is the benefit of increasing productivity?”
“The more we produce of more different things the more room there is for new things?”
“Yes, yes, yes. We have just described the cycle of change. Diversity leads to complex interactions which leads to dynamic stability which leads to increased productivity that in turn makes room for increased diversity. With each turn through the cycle the system accumulates energy and we call that an upward spiral – new bridges being built with each turn – more people and more creatures able to find their fit and share their gift. But what happens if we reduce the number of actors? There are fewer potential interactions, the system has fewer responses to changing conditions, with fewer options production declines, and now there is even less room for new things. We call that a downward spiral – bridges being lost with each turn – fewer people and creatures able to find their fit and share their gift.
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