Political Physics: or, How Westerners Think

© 2005 by Ern Reynolds Presented to the Metaphorum conclave, National University of Ireland University College Dublin May 5-6, 2005

Vom Kriege• "How Westerners Think" was

comprehensively revealed to the world by 1832.

• That was when Carl von Clausewitz's masterwork "On War" was published (posthumously, in German).

How Westerners Think

• This vast subject (how Westerners think) is not just opaque to outlanders, but gauzy to Westerners ourselves.

Refer to Your Printed Handout

• I have some lessons of technique to show that I hope you can pick up and improve.

• On the web site it’s 10 pages at the end after the slides.

Clausewitz Concordance• Appendix One is a two-page extract

from my copyrighted Clausewitz Concordance.

• It covers the opening chapter "On War" by which 16 pages are compressed into two.

• I have completed the concordance for all 125 chapters, but I will subject you

to just this brief sample today.• What I will do more thoroughly is show

how I did it.

What’s a Concordance ?

• A concordance is not a word-by-word index, but rather a thought-by-thought index. It is thematic.

• I use some techniques of peculiarly Western thought that I will demonstrate to be cybernetic.

• I am showing you by way of example my own "skeleton key to Clausewitz". • Consider my presentation based "On War" to be a kind

of Cliff's Notes. It’s compression ratio is 8:1.• You have been given the extreme condensation covering

the first 16 pages out of 563 pages from the best English translation -- its first chapter out of 125 chapters.

The Best English Translation

• The best translation is by Howard and Paret, two scholars. It is under copyright, which restrains what I can republish.

• I am not allowed by the Princeton University Press to go beyond publisher’s interpretation of “fair use”.

Less Good – But Legal• I have also furnished a parallel

concordance to a weaker poorer translation by two serving British officers, Colonels Graham and Maude.

• Copyright has long ago expired, so the 1908 version can be freely put up on the internet. Its wording is Victorian.

• Public domain references are in the right-hand columns.

• “Fair use” also allows me to give you the line numbers page by page to the best translation as well (left columns).

Ten Clausewitz Quotes

• Appendix Two consists of ten Clausewitz quotes in which he debunked the notion that warfare could be in any way analogous to algebra or geometry.

• He never mentioned the slide rule or trig tables for determining artillery trajectories.

Her “Skeleton Key”

• What I have identified as the "skeleton key" to each of these quotations depends upon which of 24 foundational principles of cybernetics each prescriptive passage expresses.

• The 24 principles are adapted and extended from Allenna Leonard’s work as published in Barry Clemson’s 1984 book (cover picture coming up).

Foundational Principles ?? 24 ??• I'll bet you did not know, much

less agree, that the science of cybernetics rests on only 24 foundational principles.

• Ockham’s Razor (which is not one of them) tells us that 24 is probably too many.

Ern’s Challenge to You

• I invite you to subtract, add, or modify what I have offered in Appendix Three.

Bing-fa = Soldier’s Mind

• Appendix Four is a bibliography about “bing-fa”, which crudely considered is how Asians are acculturated to think.

• “Bing-fa” or soldier's mind has no gentleness though much subtlety about it.

Bridging the Cultural Divide• Bing-fa is typically more holistic than Western

thought. • Cybernetics (being holistic and Western-articulated)

bridges that cultural divide nicely though not gently. • When Clausewitz furnishes the examples in

comparison to Sun Tzu, Mao Tse-Tung, and Miyamoto Musashi, the conflicts and conjunctions between West and East become clear.

Bing-fa Brought Home

• "One of the most important principles of Asian thought

is that all elements of life are interconnected, so there are no real divisions between philosophy, spirituality, the art of war, the art of acquisition, the exercise of power, and political and business affairs."

Ms. Chin-Neng Chu (1993).

As is cited at the conclusion of the handout:

Homomorphism

• This conference theme covers all aspects of governance.

• Here in the West, it is opaque but true that "governance" is "cybernetics" and vice versa; the two terms completely denote one another.

• In mathematical language they are homomorphic terms – many to one relation always makes 1:1.

Word Substitution as Homomorphism

• Here is an example of homomorphism found in Clausewitz.

• Notice that none of the words need be substituted for one another in order to gain usable insight about multiple topics.

• The word “war” goes unmentioned, but the implied subject can as well be statecraft, commerce, religion, cybernetics – governance in any form.

• Notice also that the "Royal we" is actually Clausewitz writing alone.

“There may be no system . . .[just a mere assemblage of parts]”

• "We admit, in short, that in this [94th] chapter we cannot formulate any principles, rules, or methods:

• History does not provide a basis for them.• On the contrary, at almost every turn one finds peculiar features that

are often incomprehensible, and sometimes astonishingly odd [emphasis added]. “

[Quotation completed next page]

The Quote Completed

• “Nevertheless it is useful to study history in connection with this subject [unstated], as with others.

• While there may be no system [emphasis added], and no mechanical way of recognizing the truth, truth does exist.

• To recognize it one generally needs seasoned judgment and an instinct born of long experience.

• While history may yield no formula, it does provide an exercise for judgment here as everywhere else [emphasis in the original].”

H/P ed. Book Six, Chapter 30 [094 of 125], Pages 516-517 entitled “Where a Decision Is Not the Objective”.

Do Homomorphic Mappings• What Clausewitz labeled an exercise

for judgment can sometimes become an instance of homomorphism being discovered by his reader.

• When such an event is encountered, then his reader has performed a homomorphic mapping, a many 1:1.

• You the reader have interacted with the Great Carl's text to create an instant new sensation.

• It was lurking there on the printed page for centuries awaiting the chance to leap out at you.

• When that sensation overtakes you, the implicit has become explicit, and the inchoate has become realized.

This is supposedto be a formulato achieve ahomomorphicmapping.

1:1 Homomorphism v.<1:1 Isomorphism

Homomorphism denotesMany-to-onealways equals one(and yields less insight).

Isomorphism connotesStrict near one-to-onestays less than one(but adds more insight).

In the Comforting Presence of Truth ?

• Now please, don't get woozy and misty over this just yet.• It is a great comfort to feel the assurance that one is in the

presence of truth. • But still, the nagging sensation persists that some lessons

are yet speaking out to the reader from a shaky source. • This hunch -- arising from experience -- whispers in our

ear that we lack the reliability that comes from an integral system, because we are hearing mainly the noise left from a mere assemblage of parts.

Isomorphism’s Where It’s At …

• That's why we have little opportunity to luxuriate in homomorphism, and must spend much more energy and attention with its fugitive distant cousin – isomorphism . It’s always less than 1:1

Clausewitzwhenyounger.

… So Long As It’s High & Strong• Ross Ashby posed the

question “what is the degree of relationship between the human brain and the Rock of Gibraltar?”

• ANSWER: “Both have endured a very long time. Otherwise the isomorphism between them is quite low.”

• A high strong correspond-ence is much preferred – even when a single facet out of many reaches 1:1 isomorphic strength.

Denotation vs. Connotation

• As we have just seen, the terms "governance" and "cybernetics" are interchangeable more often than we realize, without losing meaning.

• In that special case they stay unified, and the correspondence is fully one to one -- i.e., homomorphic.

• The denotation between the terms stays quite easy, regular and stable.

Equal Does Not Mean Same As

• Whenever the interchangeability of meaning is easy and obvious, mathematicians call that stable regularity "linear" (i.e., causation stays simple, proximate and direct -- in lawyers' language).

• The logic of the verbal situation stays algebraic, in the sense that equal value words may be substituted profitably for each other at no penalty or loss.

Dynamic Balance in Action

• Yet the same two labels (governance and cybernetics) also connote entirely different realms of activity and understanding.

• In mathematical language the two terms lose their homomorphism, but do become isomorphic with each other.

• That discovery renders the relationship between the two labels more difficult, less regular, and unstable -- though still linked in a perceivable way.

Word Substitution SeldomStays Algebraic

• Consider the circumstance when interchangeability of language terms remains high and strong -- though less than 100% unified and predictable.

• This partial and incomplete condition makes understanding a bit more difficult and somewhat hidden, though still regular.

• Mathematicians label this unstable regularity "nonlinear" (i.e., causation has not stayed simple, but has become com-plex, disjointed, and indirect -- to the disgust of Anglo-American lawyers & judges, who pretend that linearity is all that counts).

Hidden Isomorphisms

• This substitution-of-terms technique furnishes a quick and usable first glimpse for spotting hidden isomorphisms.

• But there are even more powerful tools that will be demonstrated shortly -- the 24 principles of cybernetics that will be deployed after a bit more foundation is laid.

The Complementary Set• This substitution-of-terms technique

furnishes a quick and usable first glimpse for spotting hidden isomorphisms (<1:1).

• But there are even more powerful tools that will be demonstrated shortly -- the 24 principles of cybernetics that will be deployed after more foundation is in place.

• These two-dozen instruments will require more time and closer attention to use than does word substitution. The first one spelled out will be The Complementarity Law.

• We owe the economy and precision of its phrasing to Allenna Leonard.

The “Comple-mentary Set”

The Complementarity Law

• "Any two different perspectives (or models) about a system will reveal truths about that system that are neither entirely independent nor entirely compatible." Dr. Johnson &

his Boswell

Two Quick Takes onComplementarity

• Joseph Campbell described the male-female relationship as one “in conflict and conjunction”.

• The first Queen Elizabeth brought about the “Elizabethan Settlement” which showed Anglicans the “Middle Way” between ferocious Roman Catholicism and the fatal extremes of the Protestant Reformation.

Religious Practice As Communication and Control

• Religions of the world accomplish communication and control by virtual means rather than mechanical ones.

• Their models are much more ephemeral and evanescent than are they concrete.

• World religions deal in parables that are far more poetic than exact.

Compare and Contrast

• Cybernetics seeks to explain phenomena of communication and control by offering models that reveal testable mechanisms.

• No ethics are involved.

• An instrumental definition of religion makes it the realm of thought one turns to only after facts run out.

• Ethics are very involved though not scientifically systematic.Precarious

natural balance.

Can the Conjecture Be Falsified ?• Unlike the realm of speculative religion, in the

realm of science (whether natural or social) any conjecture can be tested for both truth and validity according to whether its statement can be falsified.

• This was Karl Popper's big insight. And when the conjecture survives the rigors of falsification, it becomes an hypothesis that is at once robust while inviting further testing and scrutiny.

The Great Powers of Cybernetics• While many

prescriptive and doctrinal statements as written cannot be falsified and therefore are untestable …

• … very similarly worded assertions made using the Comp-lementarity Law can be tested.

““Any two different perspectives (or models) about aAny two different perspectives (or models) about asystem will reveal truths about that system that aresystem will reveal truths about that system that areneither entirely independent nor entirely neither entirely independent nor entirely compatible.”compatible.”

Drowned in Cybernetics

• We are surrounded and suffused by the constantly active principles of cybernetics.

• Yet we have much trouble distinguishing whenever the unstated (or implicit) overwhelms the explicit.

• We can even be in shallow water sinking fast.

Surrounded Simplifies Our Problem• Principles of political physics are

expressed in universal laws, in the sense that the Law of Gravity is universal.

• Political physics (a Ross Ashby coinage) is defined by your presenter to be the nonlinear science of communication and control, as found simultaneously in biological creatures, machines and social organizations.

• An army is all these swirled together – biological creatures, machines and social organizations – united by purpose and design. Clausewitz knew.

See Past the Gore

• Clausewitz wrote "On War" to be as little about organized violence as "Moby Dick" is only superficially about whaling.

• Larger more power-ful themes are revealed through the cybernetic insights of political physics.

Labels from Statecraft, Commerce, Warfare, and Religion

• Under the head of executive action, Carl von Clausewitz is famous as the author of the observation that "war is diplomacy by other means".

• He realized that warfare covers only part of the ground that state-craft, commerce, & religion cover.

• But cybernetics i.e., political physics, covers them all. It's the "everything else", or alternatively, Clausewitz's "other means".

General Clausewitz the Earliest Thoroughgoing Cybernetician

• General Clausewitz most desired to be a diplomat. He never heard of cyberneticians (though perhaps he knew of Greek steersmen).

• But the King and ministers of the Prussian state were so admiring of his military gifts (and perhaps jealous of his abilities) that he was never allowed to get out of uniform.

• Clausewitz sensed the prospect of concluding all the blood-and-iron aspects of fatal experiments with communication and control. They could be taken as fully established, so that they need not be repeated further. He wrote down the results.

• But he was never allowed to transfer from military to diplomatic service.

Multiply Modeled & Many Times Muddled

• The proof that the science of cybernetics is so powerful and well-developed lies in this:

• Its principles have been battle-tested repeatedly over the past 6000 years – which is as far back as written history extends. It’s truth may be even more ancient though unverifiable further back.

• As Stafford Beer phrased the situation, the experiments were conducted in the flesh and in the metal -- rather than in models.

The Thesis Proposed Here

• Clausewitz ought to be considered the world’s first extensively-published and explained cybernetician.

• He was no mere historian in the way General Thucydides wrote “The Peloponnesian Wars”.

• Clausewitz’s many examples verify and validate every foundational principle of cybernetics, a.k.a. political physics.

• His 19th Century authorship prefigured and thoroughly supports the science of systems that we celebrate now.

A P P E N D I X O N E Book One Chapter One: 001 of 125

Clausewitz Concordance

© 2005 by Ern Reynolds

  Principle H/P Pg # Lines G/M Vol# Pg # Lines

_____________________________________________________1____________________________

Ashby's Law of 75-76 44-45, 1-4 1 2 28-34

Requisite 77 33-38 1 17-18 33-35, 1-7

Variety 84 29-34 1 21 16-26

86 27-33 1 25-26 33-35, 1-7

___________________________89 9-15________________________________________

Basins of 78 36-37 1 7 29-30

Stability 82 37-46 1 14-15 27-35, 1-5

Principle_________________________________________________________________________

Circular 77 9-13 1 5 1-5

Causality 81 11-15 1 12 1-7

Principle One: 83 11-16 1 15 17-26

positive

feedback__________________________________________________________________________

Circular 77 26-29 1 5 22-27

Causality 83 17-21 1 15 28-35

Principle Two:

negative

feedback_________________________________________________________________________

Complementarity 75 22-32 1 2 8-16

Law 76 18-21 1 3 21-29

81 24-33 1 12 20-33

___________________________84 40-45 1 18 14-23__

Conant-Ashby 75 24 1 2 1-2

Theorem 76 44-45 1 5 9-11

77 21-22 1 11 8-12

80 33-35 1 18 10-12

84 38-40 1 24 2-8

88 4-9________________________________________

Darkness 76 5-7 1 3 1-7

Principle 80 15 1 3 1-7

84 37 1 18 9-10

85 32-36 1 19 28-34__

Eighty-Twenty 87 34 1 23 8-27

Principle________________________________________________________________________

Entropy: The 2d 80 1-6 1 9-10 34-35, 1-7

Law of 83 29-34 1 16 8-16

Thermodynamics___________________________________________________________________

Feedback 81 17-20 1 12 12-15

Dominance 82 29-31 1 14 18-21

Theorem____________________84_________1-11_____________1______16__________29-34__

Gödel's 76 13-15 1 3 12-13

Incompleteness 78 6-10 1 6 21-27

Theorem____________________86_________4-8______________1______20__________18-24__

  A P P E N D I X O N E Book One Chapter One: 001 of 125

Clausewitz Concordance

© 2005 by Ern Reynolds

  Principle H/P Pg # Lines G/M Vol# Pg # Lines

_____________________________________________________1___________________________

Heisenberg’s 1

Uncertainty

Principle________________________________________________________________________

Hierarchy 90 16-19 1 27 21-24

Principle________________________________________________________________________

Homeostasis 77 1-5 1 4 22-27

Principle 79 36-38 1 9 25-27

___________________________82________32-35_____________1______14__________20-24__

Predictable 80 29-34 1 11 2-7

Outcomes 1 12 12-15

Principle______________________________________________1______14__________18-21__

Recursive 76 9-13 1 3 6-12

System Theorem 81 34-36 1 26 8-26

87 20-31

___________________________89________16-28_______________________________________

Redundancy of 85 21-23 1 19 15-19

Information

Principle________________________________________________________________________

Redundancy of 85 23-26 1 19 19-23

Potential

Command

Principle _____________________________________________________________________ _

Redundancy of 85 20-21 1 19 13-15

Resources

Principle ___________________________________

Relaxation Time 82-x2 11-13 1 13 30-33

Principle 24-25 1 14 10-13

___________________________85_________7-14_____________1 ___18-19_ ____32-35, 1-8_

Self-Organizing 86 21-27 1 21 7-15

Systems

Principle _____________________________________________

Steady State 78 7-8 1 8 20-23

Principle 82 35-37 1 14 26-27

________________________________________________________________

System Holism 75 7-12 1 1 1-8

Principle 82 14-15 1 13-14 34-35 & 1-2

86-87 39-45, 1-2 1 21-22 30-35 & 1-6

88-x2____11-19, 36-45 1 25 9-24__

Viability 87 10-20 1 22 18-32

Principle 88 21-31

_________________________________________________________________________________

A P P E N D I X T W 0: _Selected Clausewitz Quotations

H/P signals the Howard/Paret translation:

  Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz [1780-1831], On War

[1832], Edited and translated from the German by Michael

Howard & Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, Princeton

NJ 1984).

  G/M signals the Graham/Maude translation:

  Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz [1780-1831], On War

[1832 ]new and revised edition, edited and translated from

the German by Cols. [UK] James John Graham [1873] &

Frederick Natusch Maude [1908]in 3 vols. (Keegan Paul,

Trench, Trubner & Co., London 1908).

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

H/P ed. Book One, Chapter 6 [006 of 125], Page 117:

"By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about

the enemy and his country -- the basis, in short, of our

own plans and operations. If we consider the actual basis

of this information, how unreliable and transient it is,

we soon realize that war is a flimsy structure that can

easily collapse and bury us in its ruins. The textbooks

agree, of course, that we should only believe reliable

intelligence, and should never cease to be suspicious, but

what is the use of such feeble maxims? They belong to that

wisdom which for want of anything else better scribblers of

systems and compendia resort to when they run out of ideas

[emphasis added].”`2

 Homeostasis Principle

  H/P ed. Book Two, Chapter 2 [010 of 125], Pages 134-135:

"Numerical superiority was a material factor. It was chosen

from all elements that make up victory because, by using

combinations of time and space, it could be fitted into a

mathematical system of laws. It was thought that all

other factors could be ignored if they were assumed to be

equal on both sides and this cancelled one another out.

This might have been acceptable as a temporary device for

the study of the characteristics of this single factor; but

to make the device permanent, to accept superiority of

numbers as the one and only rule, and to reduce the whole

secret of the art of war to the formula of numerical

superiority at a certain time in a certain place was an

oversimplification that would not have stood up for a moment

against the realities of life [emphasis added]."

Complementarity Law AND Homeostasis Principle

  H/P ed. Book Two, Chapter 2 [010 of 125], Page 146:

"[A senior commander] may be able to gauge how long a

column will take to march a given distance under various

conditions. This type of knowledge cannot be forcibly

produced by an apparatus of scientific formulas and

mechanics; it can only be gained through a talent for

judgment, and by the application of accurate judgment

to the observation of men and matter. The knowledge

needed by a senior commander is distinguished by the fact

that it can only be obtained by a special talent, through

the medium of reflection, study and thought; an intellectual

instinct wbich extracts the essence from the phenomena of

life, as a bee sucks honey from a flower. In addition to

study and reflection, life itself serves as a source.

Experience, with its wealth of lessons, will never

produce a Newton ... [emphasis added]"

 Self-Organizing Systems Principle

  H/P ed. Book Two, Chapter 5 [013 of 125], Pages 165-166:

"A critic should therefore not check a great commander's

solution to a problem as if it were a sum in arithmetic.

Rather, he must recognize with admiration the commander's

success, the smooth unfolding of events, the higher

workings of his genius. The essential interconnections

that genius has divined, the critic has to reduce to a

factual knowledge. To judge even the slightest act of

talent, it is necessary for the critic to take a more

comprehensive point of view, so that he, in possession of

any number of objective reasons, reduces subjectivity to

the minimum, and so avoids judging by his own, possibly

limited, standards [emphasis added]."

 Conant-Ashby Theorem

  H/P ed. Book Two, Chapter 5 [013 of 125], Page 168:

"It is never necessary or even permissible to use

scientific guidelines in order to judge a given problem

in war, if the truth never appears in systematic form,

if it is not acquired deductively but always directly

through the natural perception of the mind [i.e.,

inductively AND abductively]; then that is the way it

must also be in critical analysis ... While this cannot

always be completely achieved, it must remain the aim of

critical analysis. The complex form of cognition should

be used as little as possible, and one should never use

elaborate scientific guidelines as if they were a kind

of truth machine ... A far more serious menace is the

retinue of jargon, technicalities, and metaphors that

attend these systems. They swarm everywhere -- a lawless

rabble of camp followers [emphasis added].”

   Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem AND Conant-Ashby Theorem

AND

Redundancy of Resources Principle

  H/P ed. Book Three, Chapter 1 [015 of 125], Page 178:

"These very critics usually exclude all moral qualities

from strategic theory, and only examine material facts.

They reduce everything to a few mathematical formulas of

equilibrium and superiority, of time and space, limited

by a few angles and lines. If that were really all, it

would hardly provide a scientific problem for a schoolboy

... Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does

not mean that everything is very easy ... It takes more

strength of will to make an important decision in strategy

than in tactics [emphasis added]."

   Basins of Stability Principle

  H/P ed. Book Three, Chapter 15 [029 of 125], Page 214:

"Geometry cannot govern tactics as it governs siege warfare:

when individual differences, and chance play a more

influential part. In strategy the influence of geometry

is even less significant [emphasis added]."

   Hierarchy Principle AND Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety

  H/P ed. Book Four, Chapter 11 [043 of 125], Pages 261-262:

"The fact that these matters are important does not mean

that they are complex and obscure. Far from it: everything

is quite simple, and needs only moderate skill in planning.

The great requirements are the gifts of quickly sizing up a

situation, of vigor, persistency, and a youthful enterprising

spirit -- all of them heroic qualities to which we shall have

to refer again. Clearly most of these are not qualities that

can be acquired through book learning. If they can be taught

at all, a general will have to receive his instruction from

sources other than the printed word. The impulse to fight a

great battle, the unhampered instinctive movement toward it,

must emanate from a sense of one's own powers and the absolute

conviction of necessity -- in other words, from innate courage

and perception, sharpened by experience of responsibility.

Apt examples are the best teachers, but one must never let a

cloud of preconceived ideas get in the way; for even the rays

of the sun are refracted and diffused by clouds. It is the

theorist's most urgent task to dissipate such preconceptions

which at times form and infiltrate like a miasma. The errors

intellect creates, intellect can destroy [emphasis added].”

  Darkness Principle

  H/P ed. Book Six, Chapter 8 [072 of 125], Page 388:

The constantly recurring shadow-boxing in the dialectics of

war has, as theory, hardened into systems, which are, of

course, equally misleading. Only a theory that will follow

the simple thread of internal cohesion as we have tried to

make ourselves do, can get back to the essence of things."

Complementarity Law

  H/P ed. Book Six, Chapter 30 [094 of 125], Pages 516-517:

"We admit, in short, that in this chapter we cannot

formulate any principles, rules, or methods: history does

not provide a basis for them. On the contrary, at almost

every turn one finds peculiar features that are often

incomprehensible, and sometimes astonishingly odd

[emphasis added].”

  Nevertheless it is useful to study history in connection

with this subject, as with others. While there may be no

system [emphasis added], and no mechanical way of recognizing

the truth, truth does exist. To recognize it one generally

needs seasoned judgment and an instinct born of long

experience.

  While history may yield no formula, it does provide an

exercise for judgment here as everywhere else [emphasis

in the original]."

  A P P E N D I X T H R E E

  24 Principles of Cybernetics

(not exhaustive and in no particular sequence)

An An explanation of Ross Ashby and Stafford Beer's deep structural

insights follow. Their statement is taken almost entirely from Allenna Leonard's

technical notes on cybernetics, found in pages 199-224 of Barry Clemson, Cybernetics:

A New Management Tool, (Abacus / Gordon & Breach, New York 1984).

 A.A. A. Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety: The control achievable by a

given regulatory sub-system over a given system is limited by (1) the variety of the

regulator, and (2) by the channel capacity between the regulator and the system. Only

variety in the regulator can destroy variety coming out of the environment as a

disturbance. The upper limit on the amount of regulation achievable is given by the

variety of the regulatory system divided by the variety of the regulated system.

(Note that Ashby and Beer impart to "variety" a technical definition. Quite simply

it means all the possible states of the system.)

 B. B. Basins of Stability Principle: Complex systems have basins of stability

separated by thresholds of instability. A system "parked" on a ridge will roll

downhill. (Reminiscent of the properties of the environment in which the system-in-

focus is embedded. It also suggests why crossing system boundaries is always

potentially destabilizing.)

.C. Circular Causality Principle One: Given positive feedback (i.e., a two part

system in which each stimulates any initial change in the other), radically different

end states are possible from the same initial conditions. (Reminiscent of amplifiers

in reverberation; equifinality.)

 D.

D. Circular Causality Principle Two: Given negative feedback (i.e., a two part

system in which each part tends to offset any change in the other), the equilibrial

state is invariant over a wide range of initial conditions. (Reminiscent of

attenuators.)

 E. E. Complementarity Law: Any two different perspectives (or models) about a

system will reveal truths about that system that are neither entirely independent nor

entirely compatible. (Reminiscent of the environment's properties and paradoxes, as

well as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.)

 F.

F. Conant-Ashby Theorem: Every good regulator of a system must contain a

model of that system. (Reminiscent of concentration of forces upon essential

variables. (To the extent that master model omits something essential, the regulator

will be expensive, overlarge, ineffectual, or all three.)

G. Darkness Principle: No system can be known

completely. (Reminiscent of a chance or gamble.)

H. Eighty-Twenty Principle: In any large, complex

system, eighty percent of the output will be produced by only

twenty percent of the system. (Reminiscent of concentration of

forces.)

  I.

Entropy: The Second Law of Thermodynamics: In

any closed system the differences in energy can only stay the

same or decrease over time; or, in any closed-to-information

system, the amount of order (or organization) can never increase

and must eventually decrease. This natural law is not absolutely

true but is merely statistically reliable. The disintegrative

force of entropy is exactly half as strong as the one forcing

coherence, which R. Buckminister Fuller labels "syntropy".

Cosmography, (Macmillan, New York 1992), pp. 56-57.

  J. Feedback Dominance Theorem: For high gain

amplifiers, the feedback dominates the output over wide

variation in input.

  K. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem: All consistent

axiomatic foundations of number theory include undecidable

propositions.

L. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: The more

precisely the position is determined, the less precisely

the

momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.

M. Hierarchy Principle: Complex natural phenomena

are organized in hierarchies with each level made up of several

integral systems. (Reminiscent of overlaps.)

  N. Homeostasis Principle: A system survives only so

long as all essential variables are maintained within their

physiological limits. (Reminiscent of balance, coordination,

integration, and boundaries.)

O. Predictable Outcomes Principle: Every system is

perfectly designed to get the results that are achieved. (Lack

of a reliable constraint to protect an essential variable is

always noticeable and determinative of "unintended consequences"

in advance.)

  P. Recursive System Theorem: If a viable system

contains a viable system, then the organizational structure must

be recursive, or, in a recursive organization structure, any

viable system contains, and is contained in, a viable system.

(Reminiscent of overlaps.)

    

  Q. Redundancy of Information Theorem: Errors in

information transmission can be protected against (to any level of

confidence required) by increasing the redundancy of the messages.

(Lines of communication bring reinforcement and resupply.)

R. Redundancy of Potential Command Principle: In any

complex decision network, the potential to act effectively is

conferred by an adequate concatenation of information. (A victory

on main objective settles all minor issues.) (Reminiscent of

synergy.)

  S. Redundancy of Resources Principle: Maintenance of

stability under conditions of disturbance requires redundancy of

resources. (Think once again of concentration of forces.)

T. Relaxation Time Principle: System stability is

possible only if the system's relaxation time is shorter than the

mean time between disturbances.

 U. Self-Organizing Systems Principle: Complex system

organize themselves; the characteristic structural and behavioral

patterns in a complex system are primarily a result of the

interactions among the system parts. (Reminiscent of emergence.)

 V. Steady State Principle: If a system is in a state

of equilibrium (a steady state), then all sub-systems must be in

equilibrium. If all sub systems are in a state of equilibrium, then

the system must be in equilibrium.

W.  System Holism Principle: A system has holistic

properties possessed by none of its parts. Each of the system

parts has properties not possessed by the system as a whole.

(Reminiscent of concentration of forces.)

  X. Viability Principle: Viability is a function of the

balance maintained along two dimensions: (1) autonomy of sub-

systems versus integration of the system as a whole, and

(2) adaptation versus stability.

           

 A P P E N D I X F O U R

 Bing-Fa -- How Easterners Think

(sequence is thematic rather than alphabetic)

      Sun Tzu, The Art of War [300 B.C.E.], translated by Samuel B.

Griffith II, (Oxford University Press, London & New York 1963).

Macro to Musashi's micro.

   Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, 2nd ed. [1937], translated

by Samuel B. Griffith II, (Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co of

America, Baltimore MD 1992).

 

Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings [1645], translated by

Victor Harris, (Overlook Press, Woodstock NY 1974). Micro to Sun

Tzu's macro.

   Boye De Mente, Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business, 5th ed.,

(Passport Books, Lincolnwood IL 1987).

   Ms. Chin-Ning Chu, The Asian Mind Game, (Rawson Associates, New

York 1991).

   Ms. Chin-Ning Chu, Thick Face Black Heart, (AMC Publishing,

Beaverton OR 1992).

   Ms. Chin-Ning Chu, Do Less, Achieve More, (HarperCollins, New

York 1998).

   Keng Sang-tzu and Others, Thunder in the Sky: On the Acquisition

and Exercise of Power [221 B.C.E.], translated by Thomas Cleary,

(Shambhala, Boston 1993). Forword by Ms. Chin-Ning Chu at p. vii

states:

  "One of the most important principles of Asian thought

is that all elements of life are interconnected, so

there are no real divisions between philosophy,

spirituality, the art of war, the art of acquisition,

the exercise of power, and political and business

affairs."