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A Study of Kevin Kelly’s ‘Out of Control’Devdip GanguliThis essay is
centred around a book written by Kevin Kelly entitled Out of Control. It
is not meant to be an exhaustive review of the book, as we had to scrutinize
carefully, take detailed notes, and summarize in the form of this assignment, a
book of 470 pages in just under two months. Therefore, it can serve only as a
base for a more detailed study of this book, or as a preliminary exercise in
dealing and assessing similar intellectually rich books that project a unique view
of the world. The first part of this assignment gives a chapter-wise gist of the book which “chronicles the dawn of a new era in which machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.” [1] It discusses the future in terms of highly connected networks among humans, and among material objects as well. It puts forth a bold theory that encompasses the future of machines, economics, social systems, and even evolution. The second part assesses the content of the book within the PVM framework. It analyses critically the flaws in the main argument of the book and also suggests a better approach from our course’s perspective. The last part of this essay discusses the utility and relevance of this exercise with regard to our course, Flowering of Organizations. Out of ControlbyIn this summary, there are page references for sentences quoted from the book, and for main ideas as well. The author has read extensively (his bibliography at the end of the book is interesting by itself), and makes use of his readings in his writings. He quotes a number of scientists and other professionals in his book; I make use of these quotes in this essay too. Whenever it is clear that these quotes are meant to support his view or are exactly his own view, I have not mentioned the scientist or professional’s name. Chapter 1 – The Made and the Born This chapter introduces the main thrust of the book. The author is in a test module for living in space called Biosphere 2 – an airtight cottage of glass. Inside, a host of machines and plants combine to create an atmosphere suitable for human beings. He says what is happening in this capsule is also happening on a large scale on the earth. “The realm of the born – all that is nature – and the realm of the made – all that is humanly constructed – are becoming one. Machines are becoming biological and the biological is becoming engineered.” [2] Our world has become so complicated that the marriage between life and machines is a forced one, for we have to turn to the world of the born to understand how to manage the world of the made. “That is, the more mechanical we make our fabricated environment, the more biological it will have to be if it is to work at all…[O]ur technological future is headed towards a neo-biological civilization.” [3] Thus the “Logic of Bios is being imported into machines, the logic of Technos is being imported into life” [4] and the apparent veil between life and machines is disappearing, to reveal that these two were never really separate entities. The following chapters study this unified bionic frontier called “vivisystems”. Some of the vivisystems he studies are artificial – “artifices of human making – but in almost every case they are also real – experimentally implemented rather than mere theory.” Some of these are complex and grand vivisystems: planetary telephone systems, computer virus incubators, robot prototypes, virtual reality worlds, synthetic animated characters, diverse artificial ecologies, and computer modes of the whole world. [5] The author draws most of his insights from nature. A number of chapters are devoted to experimental work in ecosystem assembly, restoration biology, coral reef replicas, social insects (ants and bees), complex closed systems such as Biosphere 2, and new evolutionary theories such as postdarwinism. [5] From these vivisytems the author draws unifying principles for all large self-sustaining, self-improving vivisystems, which he calls the laws of god. This transfer of bio-logic into machines ought to fill us with awe, says the author, but he also warns that “as we unleash the living forces into our created machines, we lose control of them. They acquire wildness…This…is the dilemma all gods must accept: they can no longer be completely sovereign over their finest creations.” Ultimately, the author foresees that the mechanical world will have the characteristics of the biological world – autonomous, adaptable, creative, but consequently out of our control. He feels that this is a great bargain. Chapter 2 – Hive Mind In this chapter the author takes us to the next step in his argument – the emergence of order out of collectivities. He studies bee hives and wonders where is the centralized command of this organization that behaves in a remarkably united manner. Who makes the decisions? [7] This same trait is seen in ant colonies. No one is in control, yet everything seems organized. The collectivity of these insects is ‘much more’ than the sum of these insects. We are seeing at play here the logic of emergence where 2 + 2 is not equal to 4 but to something far more complex and radically different like, say, apples. According to philosopher C. Loyd Morgan, “The emergent step, though it may seem more or less saltatory [a leap], is best regarded as a qualitative change in direction, or critical turning point, in the course of events.” [8] Another example of the logic of emergence is water in a sink. When the stop-gap is removed, the water rushes down the drain creating a little whirlpool over the drain. This whirlpool is an emergent property that is not contained in any one single molecule of water, but it is an inherent property in the collectivity of molecules. Thus a collectivity behaves differently from its constituent member parts. “The total number of possible interaction between…members [increases] exponentially as the number of members increases…More is different.” [9] Thus the concept or idea of ‘colony’ is inherent in ‘bugness’ but you can search an individual insect for forever and never find a ‘colony’. This is a universal law of vivisystems – “higher level complexities cannot be inferred by lower-level existences. Nothing…can unravel the emergent pattern dissolved in the parts without actually playing it out.” In other words, running a system is the best way to discern emergent structures latent in it. “There are no shortcuts to actually “expressing” a convoluted, nonlinear equation to discover what it does. Too much of its behaviour is packed away.”[10] This leads us to wonder what is potentially latent in a collectivity of humans, interconnected by “wires and politics”. The author feels the most “unexpected things will brew in this bionic hivelike supermind.” [11] The four facets of a vivisystem are: 1) absence of imposed centralized command 2) autonomous nature of subunits 3) high connectivity between subunits 4) nonlinear causality of peers influencing peers The advantages of such a swarm system are: 1) Adaptable – parts die; whole persists 2) Evolvable – can shift focus of adaptation from one part of the system to another 3) Resilient – small failures are lost in the activity; big failures are small failures at the next level of connectivity 4) Novelty – size of effect not proportional to size of cause; new possibilities in exponential combinations; imperfections of individuals are allowed, and contribute to novelty The cons of such swarm systems are: 1) Nonoptimal – inefficient because of no central control 2) Noncontrollable – control only by applying force at crucial leverage points; whenever ‘emergent’ appears, human control disappears. 3) Nonunderstandable – in linear systems A cause B, B causes A; here A indirectly causes everything else and everything helps to cause A; there is horizontal causality. 4) Nonimmediate – organic complexity entails organic time The future will see a “glorious network culture, a remarkable hivelike being” – “Global opinion polling in real time 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ubiquitous telephones, asynchronous e-mail, 500 TV channels, video on demand…” [12] Chapter 3 – Machines with an Attitude This chapter studies robots, discusses subsumption architecture, reflects on consciousness, and proposes an alternative to natural evolution. What it says about robots is that those with no central ‘brain’ (each leg thinks for itself) are more adaptable, biological and efficient in performing tasks like walking across a field, than those which have a large brain and are designed keeping the human structure in the background. Also, we have to develop robots with the view that they are as potentially alive as we are. Thus, we have to respect machines and see not what they can do for us, but what we can do for them. We have to entertain them. [13] In natural systems, improvements are pasted over an existing system. Similarly in the development of software, old code that works and performs basic functions shouldn’t be suppressed for introducing new code that performs more complicated tasks. The new code should be added on top of the old code, and this latter should be simply ignored. This is a law of god – when something works, don’t mess with it; build on top of it. This is called subsumption architecture. Subsumption architecture is used in developing a country. First a group of people form a town; then a group of towns form a district; a group of districts form a state, and finally, a group of states form a country. When the country is formed, all preceding levels exist at the same time, each with a certain amount of autonomy. Thus when a road has to be paved in a town, the town municipality handles it without having to let the central government know about it. New layers have been added over existing layers without a suppression of the preceding layers. [14] Next, the author makes a case for decentralization. He says centralization, for a system that is complex, always fails. The Soviet economy is an example. He also believes that there is no centre of consciousness in humans. There is no “I” for a person, or a beehive, or a corporation. Like the whirlpool and the molecules, “I”ness emerges when a person, beehive or corporation is formed. Further, our bodies and minds aren’t different things; both are composed of a swarm of sub-level things. Thus, instead of building bulky, ‘intelligent’ robots that think in the head, we need to build a swarm of small, ubiquitous, insect-like, semi-thinking machines. The author says that while it took 3 billion years to move from cells to insects, only half a billion years separates man from insects. This indicates the nontrivial nature of insect intelligence. Towing the line of evolution, the author says that if we produce small robots in sufficiently large quantities, from artificial insects, we will be able to graduate to artificial apes, and so on. We are on the verge of a neo-biological civilization where humans are the ancestors of machines and where, as machines, we can be engineered ourselves. According to natural evolution we are apes; according to artificial evolution, we are machines with an attitude. [15] Chapter 4 – Assembling Complexity As the name suggests, this chapter discusses how to artificially create natural complex systems. It mentions a number of experiments such as recreating prairie land or algae ecologies. A few interesting observations about these experiments are: • The system is sensitive to initial conditions, but is eventually always attracted to order. [16] • Don’t start with designs. Create the right conditions, the right plants and let nature work. [17] • Random eco-systems have no problem in stabilizing, but one can’t say at which system one will eventually arrive at. [18] • Scaffolding species, as the name suggests, are species that help the eco-system to grow and stabilize during certain stages, but are not themselves permanent part of the eco-system. These species have to be introduced and taken out at the right time. • Life encourages an environment that encourages more life. From these results, the author draws a parallel to the world of machines and says that to develop complex machines, we have to give them time to develop bottom-up, and to adapt to the environment. Chapter 5 – Coevolution This chapter introduces the concepts of coevolution, state of stable disequilibrium, and the Gaia Theory. Coevolution occurs when two species evolve in a relationship that makes them highly dependent on each other. Examples abound in the butterfly world, where each butterfly species adapts to one particular plant. Butterfly pushes plant, plant pushes butterfly and the harder they push the more impossible it becomes for them to let go, until a plant/insect system emerges. Mice and kittens are also coevolutionary – the mouse teaches the kitten to catch it faster; the kitten teaches the mouse to escape more cleverly. In South American forests, a particular species of ants have coevolved with the acacia tree. The acacia tree has adapted to provide shelter and food to the ants, while the ants protect the tree from all leaf- hungry predators. [19] “We are weaving together a crowded global hive – a coworld of utmost sociality and mirror-like reciprocation.” [20] A billion years from now the earth will be a sphere of “reflecting, responsive, coadapting, and recursive bits of life looping back upon itself.” Only dead planets maintain atmospheric equilibrium. Imagine a tightrope walker who is halfway between falling off the rope and maintaining his balance, and keeps poised at that strange position. Earth is in such a peculiar state of stable disequilibrium, a state of permanent almost-fell maintained by an invisible hand. This state of almost fell is the hallmark of any vivisystem – economy, eco-system or immune system. The Gaia Theory makes the earth a living unit – “largest manifestation of life.” Lovelock, the first Gaia scientist writes, “The entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, from oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living entity, capable of manipulating the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond its constituent parts.” [21] Moreover Gaia says that everything lives; the only difference is the intensity of life that varies from that of rocks and physical atmosphere, to that of living cells. And yet, this living earth is 99.9% rock, a lot of water, a little air, and wrapped in the thin-most green film! [22] The chapter concludes by saying that in a coevolutionary world, control and secrecy are counterproductive. “In the Network Era dense communication is creating artificial world ripe for emergent coevolution, spontaneous self-organization, and win-win cooperation. In this Era, openess wins, central control is lost and stability is a state of perpetual almost-falling ensured by constant error.” [23] Chapter 6 - Natural Flux This chapter discusses the life force. It starts by saying that change is crucial to the environment for it gives richness to nature. [24] Life is a networked, distributed being that cannot be sparse. The moment it started, it covered the whole planet. Also, once life starts and crosses what is called the I-point (irreversible-point), nothing can wipe it off, not even a nuclear holocaust. [25] After all, “it takes, on average, all the diseases and accidents of the world, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, no vacations, 621,960 hours to kill a human organism.” The body is so persistent thanks to its complexity and the tenacity of life. [26] The author believes that life is a nonspiritual, almost mathematical property that can emerge from networkable arrangements of matter. In accordance with laws of probability, if you get certain components and organize them according to laws now being discovered, you will get life. There is in fact no purpose in life apart from growth, enlargement and creating machines and creatures alike. [27] Chapter 7 – Emergence of Control Self-control is the property of a system to ‘see’ itself and regulate its own workings. An example of a system with self-control is a toilet flush. The flush is filled up with water until a self-reviewing mechanism indicates to itself that it is full and stops the flow of water. According to the author, the flush toilet because of its feedback loop is a beast of self, according to the Jungian interpretation of the word self. It does not yet have an ego; the self is there before the ego is formed for it is a ‘ground state’. The ego may form if the complexity of the mechanism increases. [28] Soon motors, silicon chips and networks will have selves resulting in a world of “self-governance, self-reproduction, self-consciousness and irrevocable selfhood”. There will be a transfer from ourselves to our second selves. [29] For this, we have to invest machines with the ability to adapt, evolve, and grow without human oversight. By giving them freedom, we shall have intelligent control. Chapter 8 – Closed Systems In this chapter, experiments in sustainable closed systems are discussed, including the most formidable closed system experiment of all, the Biosphere 2. In creating sustainable closed systems, such as coral reefs in an aquarium or keeping shrimps in tiny sealed glass globes with algae (for up to 10 years on only sunlight), the initial soup – the mix of starter elements – is very important. Most closed systems evolve their own eco-system, and remain stable once stability is achieved. Biosphere 2 was a very bold $100 million experiment spread over 3 acres performed in the early 90’s of the last century. In this giant completely sealed and airtight glass building multiple mini-environments were created – desert, mountain, rain-forest, coral reef etc. 8 humans were also part of the experiment. The system was closed meaning there were no inputs of air, water, food or anything else. The air was recycled naturally by the plants in the project and the food was grown in the soil. Naturally, this bold project had many important issues to resolve: “The challenge of creating a living system of any size is daunting. Creating a living wonder at the scale of Bio2 could only be described as an experiment in sustained chaos. The challenge included: Select a couple of thousand parts out of several billion possibilities, and arrange them so that all the parts complemented and provided for each other, so that the whole mixture was self-sustaining over time, and that no single organism became dominant at the expense of others, so that the whole aggregate kept all the constituents in constant motion, without letting any ingredient become sequestered off to the side, while keeping the entire level of activity and atmospheric gases elevated at the point of perpetually almost-falling. Oh, and humans should be able to live, eat, and drink within and from it.” [30] We continue with the Bio2 project in the next chapter. Chapter 9 – Pop Goes the Biosphere A number of interesting results emerged from the Bio2 project. There were a string of problems and failures – like animals dying and pests attacking crops. One thing missing was the surprises of Nature. There was no ‘turbulence’ in Bio2, while in real life, storms, forest-fires, floods, droughts, tornadoes all contribute towards enhancing atmospheric and natural diversity. The Bio2 project also helped to study humans in a closed environment, to see how many food links we can break and still have a species survive, to perform oxygen and carbon monoxide mapping – in other words perform detailed tests on men and animals in a completely closed environment. Theoretically, the Bio2 experiment could have been carried out even in space, and was in fact, a pilot experiment for space colonies. Why our author is so interested in Biosphere 2 is revealed at the end of the chapter. Underneath Bio2 was a whole gamut of machines: 200 motors, 100 pipes, 60 fans, and miles of wiring – all geared creating wind, rainfall and waves. When the author saw this, it was a sublime experience, for he saw how intimate was the marriage between ecology and technology. He then lost all fear that machines will replace life. Life is a technology, and machine technology is a temporary surrogate for life technology. One day the difference between machines and biology will be hard to discern. [31] Chapter 10 – Industrial Ecology In this chapter the author applies his theory to industry and considers its positive effects. He visualizes an intelligent office where chips are embedded in every possible space or object – books, shelves, phones, music systems. Complicated ‘profound’ technologies will disappear to give way to simpler, invisible, ubiquitous chips, powerless by themselves, but very powerful when acting together. [32] A futuristic office could be something like this: “Every room has one electronic display that is a yard-wide or bigger – a window, painting, or computer/TV screen. It is the smartest nonhuman in the room. The big screen does movies, text, super graphics, whatever. It almost goes without saying that it is interconnected with everything, knows exactly what they are up to, and can represent them on its screen with some faithfulness. So I interact with a book in two ways: by handling the actual object or by handling its image on the screen…All rooms talk to each other. The big picture on the wall is a portal into both my own room and into other folks’ room. Say I hear about a book I should read. I do a data search for it in my building; my screen says a copy lives in Ralph’s office, behind his desk on a shelf of company-bought books, and was used last week. There is also another copy in Alice’s cubby, next to the computer manuals, that hasn’t ever been read, even though it is her own personal purchase. I pick Alice and send her a loan plea on the net. She says okay. When I physically take the book from Alice’s room, it reconfigures its display to match the rest of the books in my room as is my preference. (I like to have the pages I “dog-eared” displayed first.) The book’s new location is recorded in its internal biography, and noted by everyone’s databank. This book is unlikely to go the one-way journey of most borrowed books.” [33] The old view of industry is industry conquering nature. The new view is industry cooperating with nature. In this new view, designated industrial ecology, biological methods will replace traditional purely mechanical methods. Two reasons why this will happen are: • It takes less material to do the same job better. “Manufacturers will perceive natural biological processes as competitive and inspirational, and this will drive manufactured processes toward biological-type solutions.” • As the complexity of built things reaches biological complexity, Nature is best able to handle messy, counterintuitive webs. [34] The next century belongs to neobiology – computer viruses, engineered genes, industrial ecology. In the end biology always wins because all complexity drifts towards it. Chapter 11 – Network Economics Just as the author applied his theory to industry in the preceding chapter, he applies it to economics in this one. He begins by defining what he calls cyberspace, which encompasses “the realm of large electronic networks which are invisibly spreading “underneath” the industrial world in a kind of virtual sprawl.” [35] He then describes his “religious experience” – when he hooked his Apple II to the net, he saw that the future was not numbers, but connections. [36] A network would be far more powerful than the most expensive computer. Networking will revolutionize business: what we make, how we make it, how we decide what to make, the nature of the economy we make it in. [37] Even today companies that are adopting networking, manufacture products like clothes and cycles in real-time – you order your customized cycle, it is made and delivered to you at the same cost as a mass-produced cycle, and in almost the same time. [38] A purely networked company would have the following qualities: 1) Distributed – Company is not headquartered in any place. 2) Decentralized – Pervasive decentralization by means of subcontracting, also called outsourcing. In the “slow” era, doing everything was profitable. In an ever-changing economy, it is a liability. For example, advertising firm Chiat/Day is dismantling its headquarters; teams will be formed for each project and will work out of hotel rooms. 3) Collaborative – Competitors team to work more effectively; symbiotic relationships are formed; companies act like ecosystems. 4) Adaptive – products are “turned on”, i.e.: they display their own prices based on current supply and demand; they also remember how many times they were picked off the shelf and put back, or other similar statistics helpful to the manufacturer or the shop management. [39] A few concerns with decentralized systems are that people can’t understand them, they have less control over the system, they don’t optimize well. Once systems become discontinuous – non-linear functioning [40] – one can’t rely on statistical sampling for the system is too complex. Some of the traits a networked-based economy would be: • Distributed cores – boundaries of companies blur. • Adaptive technologies – Everything happens in real-time. • Flex manufacturing – “Smaller numbers of items can be produced in smaller time periods with smaller equipment.” [41] • Mass Customization – Products are customized but sold at mass prices. • Industrial Ecology – Closed-loop, no waste, zero-pollution manufacturing, designed for disassembly manufacturing. • Global Accounting – Small businesses become global; game shifts from zero-sum (a win is at the expense someone else’s loss) to positive-sum (economic rewards go to those who play the system as a unified whole). • Coevolved customers – A company teaches and is taught by a customer, and vice versa. • Knowledge Based – Data can’t tell you which job to do. That needs knowledge. • Free Bandwidth – Connecting is free, but selecting what not to connect is key. • Increasing Returns – “Them that has, gets. Them that gives away and shares, gets.” [42] • Digital Money • Underwire Economics – the dark, informal economy booms on invisible, encrypted networks. The main point is to connect everything to everything. With networks there is life, intelligence, evolution and more. In time, a planetary mind will emerge: “In the past, adventurous men have sought the holy grail, or the source of the Nile, or the secrets of the pyramids. In the future the quest will be to find the “I am” of the global mind, the source of its coherence. Many souls will lose all they have searching for it – and many will be the theories of where the global mind’s “I am” hides. But it will be a never-ending quest like the others before it.” Chapter 12 – E-Money This chapter deals with the future of money. At first it talks about encryption technologies and says that just as the monopoly of medieval guilds was broken with the advent of the printing press, the monopoly of governments will be broken with the advent of digital encryption. Encryption breeds anarchy. Encryption is also important because as bandwidth becomes free and entire gigabytes of information are snapped around the clock, what you don’t want to communicate becomes difficult not to do so. [43] The author then suggests some novel ways to deal with piracy. Copying is inevitable on a large network. Instead of preventing copying, we could charge per use, or per page-view. So an author can distribute freely his Collected Works CD, but a user may buy just one limerick from it! The ocean of information flows through you; you pay for what you drink. [44] The last part of the chapter says that the era of anonymous, plastic, electronic cash is coming. [45] Chapter 13 – God Games This chapter deals with concepts not directly related to the book. God games are computer games where you control and build up your environment – play god. He says many people find that most interesting. He also discusses virtual reality and discusses its application in the military. The technique can be used before or while building new planes or military equipment. He ends by saying that “absolute control is boring. To birth the new, the unexpected, one must surrender the seat of power to the mob below.” [46] Chapter 14 – In the Library of Form The next few chapters deal with artificial evolution, and this chapter introduces an important and interesting concept regarding artificial evolution. Borges’ library is a virtual library named after the person who had first thought about it 2 centuries ago. This library contains every possible meaningful, meaningless or nonsensical book that has been or will ever be written in the whole of creation. Every book around us is in there, as also useless books with all the pages filled with gibberish. In other words, every possible letter or word combination exists in Borges Library. In fact to find a readable book in this library takes a long time. Even a book that has only two pages of coherent sentences would take about 500 years. [47] The author says a similar thing can be done with pixels – a Borges’ Library of Forms. One could have an imaginary Borges’ library of pixels. One would be able to find all sorts of forms that have never existed or never been seen before. In fact one can have a sort of artificial evolution on computers. You ‘breed’ objects and see what comes out. Sometimes small changes in genetical structures imply a huge physical change. At other times, large changes in the structures entails very little change in detail. Chapter 15 – Artificial Evolution A very interesting experiment in artificial evolution is discussed here. A computer scientist called Ray designed viruses and let them lose in a sort of simulated ecological environment in his computer. Each of the programs was 80 bytes long. The other ‘organism’ was Reaper, which killed non-mutable codes. Over time various codes evolved – 79, 45, and 51 bytes long. There was even one amazingly small – just 21 bytes. The system developed parasites and hyper-parasites (parasites that feed on parasites). The system also evolved sex and produced offspring. [48] The author says that in the 18th century Benjamin Franklin had trouble convincing people that he could reproduce nature on a small scale – that is, develop in small quantities, the same electricity of lightnings. Today Ray has trouble convincing people that he can develop natural evolution artificially in computers, at a very fast rate. Benjamin’s problem was convincing people about reduced scale. Ray’s problem is convincing people about reduced time-scale. Artificial evolution got a fillip after parallel computing developed. Connectionism is the key to future computing. However, in an experiment where many computers were linked, rational intelligence did not develop. The author feels that with time, that too will come in time. [49] Artificial evolution has a number of uses. It can be used for finding medicines and vaccines. Once developed, these medicines might appear even irrational (too many chemicals apparently redundant, complicated composition) with regard to our knowledge of medicine, but they would surely work. Another application is in parallel computing. While parallel computing has tremendous potential, it is also difficult to program for such a system. Evolution is the natural way to program. Let the computer evolve solutions to our problems. Our job will be only to write parasites and test the program. Large programs are difficult to maintain. In 1990, an entire telephone network in the U.S. was down because of 3 lines in 2 million. Humans can’t keep a billion line program alive. Artificial evolution applied to programming is the key. The evolved program might be terribly redundant – 5 million lines when 2 million would appear to be enough – but it would work unfailingly. [50] We need real-time adaptability that can handle the unexpected that life throws up. Artificial evolution is the key. The only downside of it is that we can create what we want, but the system will also create what we don’t want. There is a strong element of “out of control”. The author ends by asking us, “Give up control, and we’ll artificially evolve new worlds and undreamed of richness. Let go, and it will blossom. Have we ever resisted temptation before?” [51] Chapter 16 – The Future of Control This chapter throws up the idea of injecting characters into artificial characters – cartoons. The author believes that in the future, it will be possible to create an animated character and let it act by itself. A basic character or personality is programmed. So for instance, Mickey Mouse is released into his simulated computer environment in 1997. By 2001 he begins to form his personality. By 2007, he is developed enough to get angry and doesn’t like to do things like jumping of cliffs. So on and so forth. [52] We won’t be able to change these idiosyncrasies without affecting other parts. The author ends by saying that in the future we won’t have control over our artefacts. We will be at most like shepherds – not complete authority, nor completely out of control. [53] The future of control lies in partnership, co-control; we creators must share our destiny with our creations. [54] Chapter 17 – An Open Universe This chapter continues discussing evolution. Evolution doesn’t care about simplicity. As already mentioned, nature can be very redundant, but it always works. [55] A crayfish’s tail is an example of redundant neuron networks that, however, function perfectly well. Some of the traits that define life are [56] : • Patterns in space and time • Self-reproduction • Information storage of its self-representation (genes) • Metabolism, to keep pattern persisting • Functional interactions – it does stuff • Interdependence of parts, or the ability to die • Stability under perturbations • Ability to evolve This list is provocative because although we do not consider computer viruses as living, they satisfy most of the conditions above. Thus, computer viruses are the first examples of artificial life. The universe is big enough to run the game of life, but now it’s running on someone else’s program. We can create our own program. Through artificial life, we can create new life-forms, and be artificial life-gods. We can also be the first species to create our successors. Mankind has had the power to destroy life; now it will be able to create life as well. The question is what creatures shall we create – dumb creatures or enlightened people. “Someday, we will create an open-ended [57] world that can keep going, and keep creating perpetual novelty. When we do we will have created another living vector in the life space.” [58] Chapter 18 – The Structure of Organized Change This chapter is a further discussion on evolution. The goals of artificial evolution are of the following kind [59] : • cars that adjusts frame/wheels to fit the road • Factory flexible enough to produce customized cars • Road aware of its conditions and able to repair itself The chapter also discusses different theories and forms of evolution that are not necessary to examine in view of the broad-based nature of this summary. However, what emerges out of the discussions is that evolution is a driving force that touches many aspects of our lives. [60] The author believes that it is the “unexamined consequences of evolution that will shape our future in the long term. [He] doesn’t doubt that our discussions about the hidden nature of deep evolution will also touch our souls.” [61] Chapter 19 – Postdarwinism This chapter looks at different theories of evolution and puts forth a new one as well. Darwin’s theory of selectionism (nature improves by bits – accumulated micro-change) does not explain the radical jumps in evolution. [62] Natural selection can be an editor but is not the author of evolution. [63] It is not the all to evolution just as addition is not the all to mathematics. [64] Random mutation is now being accepted. Some believe that there is a design and the cells themselves are directing mutations in accordance with that design. But unless we find a way whereby stupid bacteria know what mutation is required, Darwin’s theory reigns. The author’s theory, which he calls Postdarwinism, suggests that “other forces are at work in evolution in the long run. These lawful mechanisms of change reorganize life into new fitnesses. These unseen dynamics extend the Library in which natural selection may operate. This deepened evolution need not be any more mystical than natural selection is. Think of each dynamic – symbiosis, directed mutation, saltationism, self-organization [these concepts will be discussed shortly] – as a mechanism that will foster evolutionary innovation over the long term in complement to Darwin’s ruthless selection.” [65] Postdarwinists believe that evolution was inevitable given the circumstances. [66] The author believes that the difference in the progress between natural and artificial evolution is that the former has a physical body to live in. Also, the latter lacks developmental time. Artificial evolution will take off when it is embodied. Messing with artificial evolution will reveal to us the secrets of natural evolution. Artificial evolution also shows us that evolution is not a biological process. It is a technological, mathematical, biological process rolled into one. Create the right environment and conditions and – bingo! – natural selection is bound to occur. [67] The fundamental dynamics that we can expect to see in artificial evolution are the following: • “Symbiosis – Easy informational swaps that permit convergence of distinct lines • Directed Mutations – Nonrandom mutation and crossover mechanisms with direct communication from the environment • Saltationism – Clustering of functions, hierarchical levels of control, modularization of components, and adaptive processes that modify a cluster all at once • Self-organization – Development biased toward certain forms (like four wheels, which become pervasive standards)” [68] Chapter 20 – The Butterfly Sleeps Sooner or later the dynamics of a system will find its way into a persistent pattern. Given the chemistry of life, it is inevitable that life was born. A “Kauffman Machine” is a small but well-chosen set of functions that connect into an auto-generating ring and produce an infinite jet of more complex functions. Nature is full of them – the process of egg to whale, or the evolution from a blob of bacteria to a flamingo. The author asks if we can make an artificial “Kauffman Machine” [69] . The art of evolution is the art of managing dynamic complexity. Connecting things is not difficult. The art is in finding ways for them to connect in an organized, indirect and limited way. [70] Poised systems are systems on the edge between chaos and rigid order. Nature is filled with poised systems. The universe itself is poised on a string of remarkably delicate values such as strength of gravity and electron mass, that if varied by even 0.000001% would result in a collapse. For artificial evolution to succeed, it must be a poised system. Chapter 21 – Rising Flow Having engaged in evolution for an equal time, all creatures are equally evolved. Humans are no more evolved than bacteria. Why then do we consider man as the pinnacle of evolution? Perhaps flamingos or poison oaks are the point of evolution. We are coevolving, says the author. The ladder theory of evolution that places man at the top is false. [71] Formerly, if God or mystic explanations were rejected, evolution had no goal, no direction. Now, there is a direction to evolution – the development of a collective consciousness. “If we look we may find that direction and goals can emerge in biological evolution from a mob of directionless and goal-less parts, without invoking vitalistic or supernatural explanations…For those with an ear that burn at the combined sound of “goal and evolution”, it helps to consider this trait less as a conscious goal, plan, or wilful purpose, and more as an “urge” or “tendency” [72] . Seven trends of organic or artificial evolution are: 1) Irreversibility – once life is born, it grows exponentially 2) Increasing Complexity – forms grow more complex 3) Increasing Diversity – nature takes ten designs, throws away nine, and makes millions of variations on the tenth one 4) Increasing number of individuals – more individuals, especially when seen as sub-groups – if cells are considered as individuals, or a beehive is considered as one individual 5) Increasing Specialization – evolution moves towards detail 6) Increasing Codependency – living creatures depend on other living creatures 7) Increasing Evolvability – mutation, rates, physical plasticity/flexibility evolves, gets better [73] In fact, evolution itself is evolving; humans are poised to introduce artificial evolution. Even though we will breed species top do our jobs through artificial evolution, we will also have out of control artificial evolution. Which is fine if we keep in mind that the aim of evolution is ‘possibilities’. That is also its destination.[74] Chapter 22 - Prediction Machinery This very interesting chapter deals with predictions. The character of chaos is that over the long-term, little is predictable, but over the short-term, more is predictable. Chaos is different from randomness; there is an order in chaos[75]. The trick is positive myopia – looking a little ahead.[76] Since stasis is the most predictable thing about a system, the pattern of up-up, down-down (maintenance of current direction) is common. The author then looks at a few examples of prediction machinery. An interesting story is that of the roulette cheaters who had tiny chips embedded in their shoes. Once data was fed into these chips as to the speed of the ball, flick and tilt of the wheel (all through the toes), these networked chips could compute where the ball would land in a matter of seconds.[77] They were quite successful and they then formed a prediction company for Wall Street. Supercomputers try to find algorithms corresponding to market movements and predict short term moves (5 minutes) on the basis of the algorithm. This prediction mechanism can be used to predict other things as well. Ultimately, the author believes computers may have some crude form of intuition.[78] Apparently, the U.S. military had already run a simulation of the entire Gulf War two years before the war actually took place. They had the whole region on disks with the help of satellites.[79] The results of the simulations showed that airpower was key to win the war. During the Gulf War, airpower was used with great success. And if we can predict a war, then why not the world? Long-term predictions would fail, but short-term ones might hold. To conclude, we can’t see far ahead, but we can anticipate what is immediately ahead. Chapter 23 – Wholes, holes, and Spaces In the penultimate chapter, the author sums up the purpose of his book. His book is about the current state of cybernetic research – on the breaking science of adaptive, distributed systems, and the emergent phenomena they engender[80]. He rightly says that all that he has done is to throw up questions for discussion. He has, in fact, not explained anything, only raised issues. “This book has been an endeavour to find interesting questions.”[81] He even says that a number of terms he uses lack a workable definition, and a number of concepts are not yet clear. He even questions words like emergence, complexity, chaos, simulation, stability and the benefits of connectivity. About God he says that, while He gets no honour in academic papers, a lot of scientists speak about God in private conversations. They speak of God as a “coolly nonreligious technical concept…an almost algebraically precise notation standing for whatever “X” operating outside a world that has created that world…God is a shorthand for the uncreated observer making things real…it is merely a handy way to talk about the necessary initial conditions to run a world.”[82] One last question that has stumped the author is, “How large is the space for possible ways of thinking? How many, or how few, of all types of logic have we found so far in the Library of thinking and knowledge?” He says, “My bet is that artificial intelligence, when it comes, will be intelligent but not very humanlike. It will be one of many nonhuman methods of thought that will probably fill the library of thinking space.”[83] Chapter 24 – The Nine Laws of God “Out of nothing, nature makes something.”[84] First, hard rock planet, then, life. First, barren hills, then, forests. First, an acorn, then, an oak tree. The author too would like to do that – a hunk of metal, then a robot, some wires, then a mind, some old genes, then a dinosaur. But how to make something from nothing. From the “frontiers of computer science, edges of biological research, and the odd corners of interdisciplinary experimentation”, the author has compiled the following Nine Laws of God[85]: 1) Distribute Being – Systems are distributed over smaller units. 2) Control from the Bottom Up – When everything is connected a lot of things happen together evading central authority. Control must rest at the bottom, in the units. 3) Cultivate increasing returns – Life begets more life, confidence generates more confidence. Similarly, each time you use an idea, language or skill, you make it more likely to be used again. 4) Grow by Chunking – To make a complex system, begin with a simple system. 5) Maximize the Fringes – A health fringe increases resilience, speeds adaptation, and is the source of innovations. 6) Honour your errors – Errors help in evolution. “Evolution can be thought of as systematic error management.” 7) Pursue no optima; have multiple goals – Complex machinery can’t be efficient; if it works, it is beautiful; forget elegance. 8) Seek persistent disequilibrium – “Neither constancy, nor relentless change will support a creation.” We have to seek the middle point between equilibrium and death – the state of almost-fell. 9) Change changes itself – Change can be structured. Deeper evolution is about “how the rules for changing entities over time change over time”. “These nine principles underpin the awesome workings of prairies, flamingos, 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 artefacts that can adapt, lean and evolve. When our technology adapts, learns, and evolves, then we will have a neo-biological civilization.”[86] The author imagines a world “of mutating buildings, living silicon polymers, software programs evolving offline, adaptable cars, rooms stuffed with coevolutionary furniture, gnatbots for cleaning, manufactured biological viruses that cure your illnesses, neural jacks, cyborgian body parts, designer food crops, and a vast ecology of computing devices in constant flux.”[87] He ends the book by saying, “As complex as things are today, everything will be more complex tomorrow. The scientists and projects reported here have been concerned with harnessing the laws of design, so that order can emerge from chaos, so that organized complexity can be kept from unravelling into unorganized complications, and so that something can be made from nothing.”[88] Assessing the Book This part of the essay examines Kevin Kelly’s book to point out some inherent flaws in his argument and suggest a better direction. There are few logical flaws in Kelly’s argument. He has a highly imaginative, but brilliant mind. If you accept his hypothesis, his conclusions follow quite convincingly. However, in a few places he says questionable things. For instance, on page 54 he says that, the fact that it took less time for insects to evolve to man than it did for cellular organisms to evolve to insects, indicates the non-trivial nature of insect level intelligence. However, in my knowledge, there is nothing to suggest that the developmental time of different species is inversely proportionate to the similarity (or to the inverse difference between the degrees of intelligence) between these species.[89] An ironical example, though not illogical, is when Kevin says that postdarwinists believe that given the conditions existing on earth, it was a question of probability that life would come about. In the same chapter he also says that, “coincidences taken together …provide impressive evidence that life as we know it depends very sensitively on the form of the laws of physics, and on some seemingly fortuitous accidents in the actual values that nature has chosen for various particle masses, force strengths, and so on. In brief, the universe and life as we know are poised on the edge of chaos.”[90] While the first statement that life was still inevitable given the initial conditions still stands, one wonders how come he doesn’t question how such seemingly impossible initial conditions came about in the first place. The main flaw with the book lies in Kelly’s central argument. He says that in nature, when a number of units come together, we see that an Order emerges. This Order makes the collectivity in question behave in an organized, coherent, harmonised, efficient – biological – manner. Examples of such organized groups are ants and bees. Each bee does its work wonderfully in an organized manner, completely submitted to the ‘State’ – the beehive. The beehive doesn’t exist in any one bee, but emerges when the bees come together. Why can’t the same thing be true for humans, wonders the author. Even if this Order doesn’t exist among us now, we, as conscious beings, can create the right conditions so that such an Order emerges. The key to creating this new Order is to network or connect our environment, and ourselves in a comprehensive, all-encompassing manner. Thus when ‘everything is connected with everything’ an Order will emerge that will infuse biological efficiency, adaptation, and evolvability in our environment. The advantages in interconnecting ourselves are enormous and extend to numerous domains. Upon consideration of this hypothesis, a number of questions arise. Can we extrapolate to humans what occurs in the plant/animal world? Is the transfer of our individuality to a lower, larger Order – “surrender[ing] the seat of power to the mob below” - a safe thing to do? We know that each of the seven levels of consciousness – Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind, Ananda, Chit, Sat – are all involved in matter. Over time these are emerging. It is true that on the Life plane there are instances of collectivities behaving in a collective manner, but the question is whether Kevin’s Order emerges after these units are brought together or, if this Order exists in the first place. We know that on the Vital or Life plane there is the general force of nature, or Universal Nature, that directs its constituent members. The plant and animal world is governed and guided by the instincts of Universal Nature. Ant or insect colonies behave in a remarkably structured way because of Universal Nature, which exists in the first place. The primary difference between the animal kingdom and man is that in us, the Mental principle is active in full measure. We are predominantly mental beings and our defining mental trait is the ability to see ourselves – our actions, our behaviour – in an objective manner. We are the first species who can stop for a moment and force the mind in us to focus on ourselves. No other species has this self-reflecting capacity. This self-reflective property, which is possible only because of the mind, places us in a completely different league than the animal kingdom. Kevin is suggesting that we “surrender to the mob below”, submit ourselves to a vague ‘global mind’, in order that it may dictate our lives in a more biological – harmonious, efficient – way. Now supposing we indeed do that, what could be the consequences? Perhaps nothing would happen. A theory derived from an observation on the Life plane will fail to work on the Mental plane. However, it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that something dangerous would occur, with consequences unforeseen by our author. Universal Nature works well for creatures of the Life plane. But it appears very dangerous if mental beings were to submit to it, for that would be going against the very grain of the evolution of consciousness. Universal Nature is indeed active in us too (in the form of habits, impulsions) in a very large measure, but our mind acts as a check against its complete domination. The global mind of Kelly appears to belong not to the Mental domain, but purely to the vital world. By submitting ourselves to this ‘global mind’, we would be relinquishing our individuality to dark, ugly and dangerous vital forces. The mind, under such circumstances, would be stunted and remain only as an instrument in the hands of these forces. No good can happen by kneeling down at the altar of a principle of the past. The way of the future is upwards beyond the mind, not below it. Kevin does acknowledge that there is going to be substantial ‘Out of Control’ if his idea is worked out, but I feel he is missing out on the point that, not only our creations, but even we ourselves, will be out of our control. What Kelly wants from artificial evolution (gnatbots do your work, cars adjust to roads), as well as the general tenor of the book, rests squarely on the vital level. His main thrust of handing over our individuality to the group consciousness – in fact, a vital entity – through networking, is also a purely vital concept. Therefore we can say that Kelly’s book lies mainly in the vital-physical realm:  Having shown the main flaw in the author’s argument, I must hasten to add that there are still some very interesting ideas in the book that can be used with great benefit on the material plane. For instance, he points out various advantages that would accrue out of networked machines running on biological principles. He mentions results such as discovering new vaccines, advances in space exploration, solving complex math, inventing household machines that can make life easier for us, and programming for parallel computing. These uses in the field of science and medicine, if possible, can turn out to be very helpful. Even material comforts are not excluded as a positive benefit. Though, from our perspective, to make life more comfortable is not the aim of life, mastery on the physical plane is not excluded in the grand scheme of things either. However, in the midst of all this, the central goal has to be something else. We can’t be connecting computers with the aim of merging our selves with a planetary hive-mind. The driving goals of our life must be movements that lead to realms beyond the mind, and regions deep behind the heart. All life is indeed yoga, but the spirit behind our actions is the determining factor. As long as human beings remain in control, or relinquish their control at the feet of a Force aligned with the evolutionary impulse in creation, we can safely harness some of the technologies mentioned in this book with very positive results. Relevance of this project Undertaking this project has had many benefits. Simply reading carefully such an intellectually rich book for about an hour everyday was an experience. Skills such as taking notes, making short presentations on complicated and numerous ideas, and writing the summary, were developed and will serve in other classes too. The main benefit however, and its true relevance to our Flowering of Organizations class, is that we realised that the field of application for the concepts learnt in class is very large. One of the definitions of the word ‘organization’ in Encarta is ‘Something organized into an ordered whole’. A book that presents a world view or a certain perspective on some particular topic can equally be called an organization. Once we accept this, all that we have said about organizations will apply to book-organizations. Successful book-organizations would centre around a thesis that is aligned with the evolutionary impulse. Unsuccessful ones will not, like in my book’s case. Doing this exercise has given us a concrete example of how what we have learnt in class can be extended and applied to a wide spectrum of things. The assignment has helped to see that what we are studying is not restricted to the limited field of business, but applies to any kind of organization, anything ‘organized into an ordered whole’, be they companies, countries, books, or ourselves. Thus, this study of a book-organization is an excellent preliminary exercise for assessing all kinds of more complicated, larger organizations. This is a fine base for what is to come, and is sure to help even beyond next year. [1] Blurb on back jacket [2] Page 1 [3] Page 2 [4] Ibid. [5] Page 3 [6] These chapters are rich with ideas, some of them not seminal to the author’s thesis. This summary will not deal directly with these complicated lenghty concepts. It will introduce them only to the extent that the author poses them as particularly valid proofs of his hypothesis. Those chapters that deal primarily with his hypothesis will find more place in this summary rather than complimentary chapters which deal with related side-issues, even though the latter chapters are usually longer. |
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