Beware of models in complex domains
In a complicated domain, the parameters of the problem can be known and several good practices can be hammered out, with largely knowable results. In the complex domain, the initial conditions are unknown and the results are unknown which is why small experiments designed to tell us more about what is going are very useful for creating emergent practice.
If you can show that you can make an unknowable system knowable, you will become a hero in this culture. We are so afraid of not knowing, so afraid of emergence that we are willing to bet trillions of dollars on a contrived view of reality. The consequences of this action are that fatal mistakes are amde when the true complexity of the world creates an emergent situation.
Of course there is a time and a place for models, but when we become addicted to them such they they take us into a complexity domain without the right thinking, we set ourselves up for catastrophic failure.
- Chris Corrigan
Related
Complexity vs a villain to blame
Our species tends to loathe complexity, and prefers to oversimplify everything…
“Ceteris Paribus” is an avoidance of the relationships of life
(Source: chriscorrigan.com)
