The Radical New Reality of Systems Science

Seeking the Essential Insights of Complex Adaptive Systems Science

 

The objective of this web page is not to explain the technical details of complex system science. Those are staggeringly intricate and best presented by professional scientists in related fields of research. The aim here is to convey some essential aspects of what this application of scientific method has revealed over recent decades. We have not yet begun to incorporate its implications into our thinking and planning, much less its challenges to our common worldview -- or, 'how we assume the world works.' Those implications flow from evidence indicating that both the biosphere and society are not consequences of predictably deterministic causation alone -- or, what we can term 'mechanistic processes.' It is now factual to claim there is another, remarkably different modality of order creation. And this 'new way things happen' has profound implications for our understanding of how our selves, our human systems, and the biosphere actually manifest. Links to online sources for exploring the science are listed under the "References" tab.

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To begin this exploration, a sketch of the contrasts between our familiar sense of 'how things happen' and the more recently established one of emergent self-organization, leading to selective system agency, are provided below.

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Now, Two 'Ways that Things Happen'

 

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From Deterministic Actions to Emergently Self-Ordering Interactions -- Then 'Network Agency'

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Deterministic Causation: We are all familiar with the concept of deterministic actions, in which every event is caused, or determined by, preceding ones. In this version of causation, changes occur in specific sequences, proportional to the preceding conditions or factors. The measurable states of matter and energy in each moment determine 'what can happen next,' thus how the world becomes arranged and ordered. Such progressively consistent dynamics are the '1,2,3' of "every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Thus, the "output" of any system of actions will be equal to the "inputs." This has been the baseline story of 'how things happen' in our mechanistic modern worldview. It has led us to understand that all phenomena are effectively 'mechanical' processes (like linked gears turning each other in sequentially consistent actions), thereby being potentially controllable.

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​Emergent Self-Organization: However, the same reductive scientific method of quantitative and mathematical analysis that confirms such predictably deterministic causation has now revealed a very different 'way that things happen.' By studying the dynamical activities of larger scale systems, from weather to ecologies, and biological bodies to societies, scientific reduction revealed some unexpected properties. It quantified measurable changes in forms and effects that are not predictably deterministic. In such so-called "complex systems," deterministic actions interact and become interdependently 'linked' in feed back loops. Recursive flows of such feedback associate with sudden synergistic increases of system organization. The system can abruptly become more or differently organized. One can witness these 'emergent forms' in whirlpools of water or flocks of birds in flight making endlessly novel patterns (in what is called murmuration).

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​Reductive analysis can demonstrate that the 'out puts' of such systems (their form of function at a given moment) cannot be deterministically predicted from their preceding states, or the 'in puts.' They change in ways that result in effects, or "properties," which cannot be explained entirely in reference to the separate actions of their component parts nor the preceding state of the system. Thus, their unpredictable ordering and novel properties have been termed "emergent," to distinguish these from predictably deterministic events. Further, once such systems become self-organized, some can maintain their forms and functions, or, re-organize into different forms and functions. These unpredictable system properties, or effects, are termed "emergent" because they 'arise from' the turbulent dynamics of interactivity among system parts, rather than being pre-determined by preceding conditions and events.

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Interdependencies are Different from Dependencies: This contrast between deterministic causation and emergent ordering can thus be understood simplistically as one between 'dependencies' and 'interdependencies.' Deterministic actions can be identified as sequences of proportional cause and effect in which each event is dependently determined by the previous one. But emergent ordering derives from interdependent interactions that cannot be thusly sequenced as progressive individual changes. Interdependence, here, conveys a simultaneous interaction of factors and influences that 'happens all at once,' with influences effecting other influences simultaneously. That non-sequential interaction is associated with the synergistic emergence of self-organizing relationships. It becomes 'intra-action' when 'contained' with the self-imposed limits of a given systems.

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​Emergent Self-Ordering through Networks of Interdependent Feedback: This new story of 'how things happen' gets ever stranger because it is evident that this emergent organization 'emerges' from less orderly conditions. Instead of one state of order determining the next, relatively turbulent, even chaotic conditions can give rise to sudden increases of more ordered patterns and relationships between parts. This cannot happen in deterministically mechanical systems. Such emergence of order from disorder is traced to actions that become interactively interdependent with each other. That involves the concept of "feedback." Here, influence or effects of actions upon each other 'feed back' recursively to generate interactions. Thus, sequences of events 'loop back' upon them selves and can then become ongoing networks of mutually modifying, interdependent feedback flows, which occur both instantaneously and continuously, or concurrently, over time. As a result, distinguishable sequential causation becomes 'tangled' in recursive 'intra-actions' within the system. Everything begins to effect everything all at once. Feedback flows can then become 'fully interactive' so that influence among parts has no exact 'beginning, middle, or end.'

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            Progressive sequential change               Recursive feedback influence         Fully interactive feedback network

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​The formation of feedback networks can result in sudden, synergistic, inconsistent increases in patterned ordering. Here we become able to distinguish between progressively consistent dynamical events and inconsistently emergent ones.​

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These  differences have to do with what are termed "linear and nonlinear dynamics." In linearly dynamical events, there is a predictably consistent 'trajectory' of 'what happens next.' But in nonlinear dynamical events, the 'trajectory' varies in a much less predictable manner. That contrast in 'how things happen' plays a primary role in 'how the world actually works.' In nonlinear dynamics, the 'order of things' can change exponentially, or in sudden inconsistent 'leaps.'

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Complicated versus Complex System Dynamics

In systems science, the word "complexity" becomes a technical term. The more linear, mechanistic predictability of deterministic causal dynamics can become vastly complicated, as in the parts and actions constituting a jet engine. But the more nonlinear, interdependently interacting dynamics of some system networks are conceived as 'complexes' of interactivity, such as in biological life forms, ecologies, and societies. These  networks of self-organizing relationships are characterized as "complex systems." So, it is essential to differentiate between complexity and complex dynamics and complicated but deterministically dependent phenomena. 

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Network Feedback Synchronization of Increased or New Ordering from Disorder

The partly disordered dynamics of complex system feedback networks creates various potential patterns of feedback flows between parts and factors. It is from this instability that complex networks manifest emergent self-organization. Somehow, multiple concurrent flows of feedback influence can suddenly "synchronize" into more and differently ordered patterns of relationship. That can result in new and different system formation or behavior, thus new system properties. A minor example is a person driving a car suddenly having to decide whether to turn left or right. The decision emerges from uncertainty and instability in potential network feedback flows in one's mind/brain. The decision emerges as a new pattern of syncgronization, or 'alignment,' of feedback flows in mind and body. A large scale example is how a financial system redirects when stock traders respond to new economic information. Stock prices might fluctuate then suddenly rise or fall sharply as feedback flows 'align' in a self-reinforcing manner that is unpredictably emergent, rather than predetermined.

 

This 'selective alignment' of feedback flows is an ongoing activity that can both maintain a system's relative continuity or transform it. An extreme example is the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies, in which a system network literally deconstructs its existing ordering and then radically re-configures its basic chemical components into an entirely different form with new properties -- such as winged flight.

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​The On-Going Self-Creation of Emergently Self-Organizing System Networks

Consequently, we must now think of systems, whether in weather or biology and society, in terms of emergently self-organizing feedback networks which are manifesting as mutually modifying, simultaneously interdependent interactions, in every instant and over time.  Such interactivity necessarily involves considerable instability and disorder. Yet, that appears essential to the increased or sustained order that emerges from underlying disorder in a feedback network, continually, both maintaining and 'building on itself' in a 'bootstrapping' fashion. Multiple layers of interdependent feedback loops emerge to impose self-constraining ordering that orchestrate multiple levels of concurrently emergent interdependencies. Such networks must maintain these dazzling levels of emergence over time to promote their continuing existence.

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​Concurrently interdependent interactions in each instant, and over time:

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What 'Goes Around Comes Around' in a Complex System Network -- but Differently!

It is essential to comprehend here that emergent ordering of complex systems is fundamentally 'transformative.' It is not like a mechanical system in which flows of influence between parts generate consistently proportional, thus predictably repeating effects -- or deterministic system properties. In the interdependently interactivity of complex dynamical system networks, the effects of the feedback interactions are disproportional from one instant to the next, resulting in unpredictably emergent properties, which can transform the systems forms and functions. Mechanistic influence progressively 'adds up' to predictable, repeating system effects. Complex interdependency changes the ordering effects of feedback flows such that when it 'comes back around' it is not the it is proportionally different than where it began.

​The parts of the system are often re-ordered by their influences on each other so that the entire system's forms and functions transform.

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Different 'Ways Things Happen' and Different 'Rules' for 'What Happens Next'

The Laws of Physics describe the constraints or 'rules' that determine how matter and energy can form and change. These are fixed factors that determine what can happen and how from one set of conditions to another, as in how heated water becomes a vapor or how fast and far a rocket will travel given the combustion of a certain amount of fuel. The changes are describable and explainable as 'cause and effect.' The existing 'ordering' of one state of matter and energy determine how that state can change into another one. 'What happens next' is a consequence of deterministic causation across a specifiable sequence of events, thus is predictable. These 'rules' appear incontrovertible. In contrast, what systems science detects as emergent self-organization appears to manifest as an 'unruly' phenomena. Emergent ordering is not a consequence of a predictable sequence of events. Emergent self-ordering in complex adaptive systems involves not only emergent ordering but also the capacity of a system's feedback network to maintain and redirect its self-ordering. Such systems are adaptive because they can selectively alter their forms and operations to produce different effects, or system "properties," in response to external conditions, and in ways that promote their continued existence. They respond selectively to changes in their environments adaptively.

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What then are the 'rules' that 'govern' such emergently adaptive system network 'operations?' The basic answer appears to be that system networks 'make their rules' as they emergently adapt. That is, a given state of system ordering is configured by 'biased' flows of influence among system parts, across its network. The body system regulates blood circulation and respiration according to one set of 'biased' network feedback flows at rest, then selectively alters those 'rules' when responding to an 'adaptive need' -- such as a threatened animal's response of 'flight, fight, or freeze.' But these changes are not pre-determined. The system has to 'choose' which one to initiate 'from a disordered state of uncertainty.' It is this capacity for unpredictable selective 'choice' that makes the system genuinely adaptive. A bird perceiving a predator must selectively chose between remaining motionless, running left or right, or taking flight. 'What happens next,' in how a complex adaptive system re-configures its network relationships to generate different effects, is 'emergently determined.' None of this appears to violate the laws of physics. Yet it does not exclusively follow the 'rule' of deterministic causation. It is, dynamically speaking, a different way that new ordering is created relative to previously ordered states -- a 'different way that things happen'

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From Deterministic 'Action --> Reaction' to Emergently Self-Organizing 'Interaction --> Agency'

Systems science compels us to consider how these 'two ways things happen,' or change, or become ordered, are different yet inextricably entwined in the 'real world.' Causally deterministic dynamics of 'action then equal and opposite reaction' are not only essential aspects of emergently self-organizing and agenticlly self-directing system networks, the latter 'orchestrate' those causal dynamics in their unpredictably interdependent dynamics.
 

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Continually Emerging, Dynamically Self-Organizing, 'Wholes' that are 'More Than the Sum of Their Parts'

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​Somehow, through mutually influencing interactions, relative disorder becomes 'looped' into recursive networks, in ways that create increased organization, which can then sustain and even adapt itself in a 'bootstrapping' fashion. The generative creativity of underlying disorder becomes constrained into an overall system of self-regulating relationships. In this manner, the parts of a system become interactively linked, from which emerges the relative 'whole' of the system. Such systems can then manifest unpredictably "complex adaptive behavior" that promotes their continued existence, as they interact with their external environments, by re-self-organizing to accommodate to changing factors.

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​The emergence of spontaneous order from partly chaotic interactions becomes constrained by feedback networks,

from which emerges  the self-sustaining self-ordering, adaptive 'behaviors' of a complex system:

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​Most importantly, the 'whole' of a system that emerges from its interdependently interacting parts typically manifests traits or properties that are not evident in the parts, nor could be predicted from the properties of the parts. Thus a "complex adaptive system" is measurably 'more than the sum of its parts.' So, the ordering of the overall system arises unpredictably from the interactions of its parts. It then manifests as an additional network of interactions, or 'intra-actions,' that feedback into the relationships among the parts. This dynamical interplay results in the  overall properties (its forms, functions, capacities, and behaviors) continually emerging from those interactions, and their inherent instability, over time -- in accordance to 'rules' selectively imposed on the interactions of the parts by the overall system network, in the form of different patterns of  'biased flows' of influence among those parts. Such systems are never completely static. They manifest as dynamically active flows of feedback, variably regulated by flows of feedback, constantly responding to internal turbulence and changes in the external environment.

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Self-Organizing Systems Create and Animate the World from Disorder: From hurricanes to fish shoals and societies, emergently self-ordering interactive feedback networks create system forms, functions, and even adaptive behaviors that are continually emerging out of relatively disordered conditions. These complex systems exist because they are continually, actively, emerging from underlying, partly unstable, interactive feedback networks. That makes them fundamentally unpredictable. AND -- they are the 'agents' that create and order both the biosphere and human societies. Such systems effectively 'animate' their 'selves,' and their interactions become linked to animate the entire biosphere. Some are more adaptively complex than others. But, from weather systems to animals and societies, they are expressions of emergent self-organization continually 'building upon itself.'

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​Ordering emerges at multiple levels, from chaotically self-ordering systems to self-directing agent- based collective 'meta systems':

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The New Scientific Story of 'How Things Happen'

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​The Mysterious Ordering of Nearly Everything: From this knowledge arises the 'new scientific story' of 'how the world actually works.' Deterministic causation is inherent in phenomena, but so is unpredictably emergent self-organization. The resulting selective network agency of complex adaptive systems influences nearly every aspect of the biosphere. The trouble is, we can't fully explain how this happens, how ordering emerges unpredictably from deterministic events, and then goes on to sustain itself out of disorder. We can only confirm factually that it happens by measuring the changes in systems 'before and after.' Yet this mysterious emergence of increased and adaptive ordering turns out to be the pervasive source of most of the ordering in and around us. Such is the 'new story' of science.

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​Despite the evidence for emergent self-organization as a somehow unpredictable, non-deterministic mode of order creation, there appears no conclusion that it 'violates the laws of deterministic physics.' Rather, the implications seem to be that those deterministic 'laws,' which constrain the forms and behaviors of matter and energy, form the basis in our universe for emergent ordering through feedback networks from more disorderly conditions. Thus, we must re-conceive our worldview to include the interdependence of these 'two ways that things happen' -- together they 'make the world,' but in importantly different ways.

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Links to online sources for exploring systems science are provided on the "References" page.

For more on how this knowledge of emergently self-ordering system networks changes our perspectives, see

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Next Page in Introductory Sequence:

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"New Self-Directing Systems."

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