On Allen's Complexity & Order
The complex processes and comprehensive feedback dynamics by which we interact with other systems is made abundantly clear in the courageous and especially brilliant work of T. H. Allen. Again, idealism may not seem practical in most disciplines, but what could be more practical than such a method of flexible perspectives as T.H. Allen introduces in his most recent work, entitled (with slightly false humility) Toward a Unified Ecology. In fact, rather than merely moving toward the object of his inquiry, Allen gives us the full and deeply developed dialectic picture of a method that allows us to look at and into the world from the infinity of perspectives that are intrinsic to it, making order out of chaos. It is precisely the sort of tool we need to help us sort out the complexity of our knowledge.[1]
It might surprise some readers to find this theorist in the context of Socratic humility, but note that there is a very fine line, over which Socrates himself tried hard not to stray, between self-respect and arrogance. Perfect perception of this line and staying always on the ‘politically correct’ side of it is not a requirement of courageous idealism; only learning from our mistakes is. What could better support the humble ideal of Socratic ignorance, after all, than the discovery that there actually are an infinite number of points of view from which to view any object of knowledge? What better to keep us remembering how little we know and much we still have left to learn? The difference is, perhaps, a matter of our point of view--for what seemed like a prohibition then seems more like a promise now...now that we have the proper tools.
Integrating and organizing all of the subdisciplines of ecology with his own method, including organismic, community, ecosphere, landscape, biome, and biosphere, Allen gives us the capacity to take all these and other views together in order to see, in effect, the whole picture--not merely of ecology, but of any object we might choose to know, no matter how concrete or abstract, how simple or complex. No vague 'organic systems' talk here, for we have the perspective that Plato lacked, which is to say, both the insights of the ancients and the work of twenty-five centuries of courageous idealists, to make this an extremely precise tool (for those who feel the need for one), one that allows us, in a sense, to measure the interactions between any and as many variables as we like.
By using his method to first integrate his own discipline, Allen shows how all of these apparently competing schools of thought are actually complementary, interactive, and flexible perspectives on the same complex but comprehensive object of knowledge. Without considering as many of these perspectives as possible, we cannot meaningfully claim to “know” the object of our study, not at least if we hold the whole truth as an ideal. And in the process of this, he also shows how every object of knowledge is similarly complex and comprehensive, and yet, knowable by the human mind. The possibilities are enough to make a philosopher drool.
And we need not stop at the world 'out there' when we consider the influence that nonlinearity and systems thinking are having on our cultural psyche.[2] For, just as it is now a fair question to ask a physicist, Why are all snowflakes different?[3] And it is fair to ask an ecologist, why did a given organism, or community, or landscape evolve this way instead of that? So it is now fair to ask the psychologist--Why are all human beings different?
The answer that applies equally to all these questions is that "Sensitive dependence on initial conditions serves not to destroy but to create."[4] Just "as a growing snowflake falls to earth, typically floating in the wind for an hour or more, the choices made by the branching tips at any instant depend sensitively on such things as temperature, the humidity, and the presence of impurities in the atmosphere...[thus], any pair of snowflakes will experience very different paths...[and] the final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite."[5]
Likewise, we might argue, the choices made by a growing human at any instant depend sensitively on many things, and thus, any pair of human beings, even those who share quite similar initial conditions, will experience very different paths. The final person records the history of all the changing conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite.[6] And as fractal geometry is the geometry of movement and growth, the physics of flow, so fractal psychology is the psychology of growth and flow by the fractal growth of the self's mind.
This is an insight that can help us answer many an ancient question, including those involving free-will, determination, and social conditioning--and it is especially important for the light that it sheds on the importance of choice in the process. A snowflake may 'choose' in a different sense than an individual, a community, or a culture will 'choose.’. But the role of self-determination of an individual system within the context of other systems is made far more comprehensive within the context of this world-view which we have remembered...with a vengeance.
[1]For instance, some ideas have had extremely robust lives as forces of human activity, such as the golden rule, the conservation of energy, free-enterprise, and democracy. There is much to be considered regarding the dynamics at work in this interaction.
[2]Cairns notes that "the word 'soul,' with its accretions of meanings during the centuries, is an unfortunate translation of the Greek word psyche. It is more properly translated, according to the various contexts, as Reason, Mind, Intelligence, Life, the vital principle in things as well as in man; it is the constant that causes change but itself does not change. ... One explanation of his use of different words suggests that he hoped to make us realize that meaning lies not in words but only in that for which words stand."(Plato, "Introduction"in Collected Dialogues, p. xx-xxi.)
[3]The answer being that "Sensitive dependence on initial conditions serves not to destroy but to create. As a growing snowflake falls to earth, typically floating in the wind for an hour or more, the choices made by the branching tips at any instant depend sensitively on such things as temperature, the humidity, and the presence of impurities in the atmosphere. The six tips of a single snowflake, spreading within a millimeter space, feel the same temperatures, and because the laws of growth are purely deterministic, they maintain a nearly perfect symmetry. But the nature of turbulent air is such that any pair of snowflakes will experience very different paths. The final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite."(Gleick, p. 311)
[4]Gleick, p. 311.
[5]Gleick, p. 311.
[6] The ideal form of motion is seen in the complex circular flow of matter through time, contained but infinite, ever-deeper in its convexity. But motion is contrast with movement in interaction where consciousness is involved.[Laban] Our potential for growth is subject to many interacting forces which change human potentials into their actualized forms, by the woven effects of the interacting causes in the course of the life-process. The parts played by attention and intention in such a process are critical variables which steer us by ever finer choices inherent within life-plans and policies. It is a principle similar to that of the half way to the door paradox, in which it seems as if one can never really get out the door one is aiming at because one always has to go half-way first; time is the force perpendicular to the space between us and the door which changes as we choose to move toward the door, thus changing our conditions such that the choice is ever new, and always in need of reevaluation. The geometry of deep psychological reality and growth is non-linear, and as it is an emergent reality, understanding it calls for a sort of psychological travel or penetration of the generic human subject/object to be known. Such that that persons under consideration become subject to the psychologist when they can empathize, inside-looking-out. When we are able to get beyond objectivity in the human sciences, and see from inside the systems we wish to know, our method is no longer observation, but consideration, and what's evident from this view is often something we have long known.
It might surprise some readers to find this theorist in the context of Socratic humility, but note that there is a very fine line, over which Socrates himself tried hard not to stray, between self-respect and arrogance. Perfect perception of this line and staying always on the ‘politically correct’ side of it is not a requirement of courageous idealism; only learning from our mistakes is. What could better support the humble ideal of Socratic ignorance, after all, than the discovery that there actually are an infinite number of points of view from which to view any object of knowledge? What better to keep us remembering how little we know and much we still have left to learn? The difference is, perhaps, a matter of our point of view--for what seemed like a prohibition then seems more like a promise now...now that we have the proper tools.
Integrating and organizing all of the subdisciplines of ecology with his own method, including organismic, community, ecosphere, landscape, biome, and biosphere, Allen gives us the capacity to take all these and other views together in order to see, in effect, the whole picture--not merely of ecology, but of any object we might choose to know, no matter how concrete or abstract, how simple or complex. No vague 'organic systems' talk here, for we have the perspective that Plato lacked, which is to say, both the insights of the ancients and the work of twenty-five centuries of courageous idealists, to make this an extremely precise tool (for those who feel the need for one), one that allows us, in a sense, to measure the interactions between any and as many variables as we like.
By using his method to first integrate his own discipline, Allen shows how all of these apparently competing schools of thought are actually complementary, interactive, and flexible perspectives on the same complex but comprehensive object of knowledge. Without considering as many of these perspectives as possible, we cannot meaningfully claim to “know” the object of our study, not at least if we hold the whole truth as an ideal. And in the process of this, he also shows how every object of knowledge is similarly complex and comprehensive, and yet, knowable by the human mind. The possibilities are enough to make a philosopher drool.
And we need not stop at the world 'out there' when we consider the influence that nonlinearity and systems thinking are having on our cultural psyche.[2] For, just as it is now a fair question to ask a physicist, Why are all snowflakes different?[3] And it is fair to ask an ecologist, why did a given organism, or community, or landscape evolve this way instead of that? So it is now fair to ask the psychologist--Why are all human beings different?
The answer that applies equally to all these questions is that "Sensitive dependence on initial conditions serves not to destroy but to create."[4] Just "as a growing snowflake falls to earth, typically floating in the wind for an hour or more, the choices made by the branching tips at any instant depend sensitively on such things as temperature, the humidity, and the presence of impurities in the atmosphere...[thus], any pair of snowflakes will experience very different paths...[and] the final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite."[5]
Likewise, we might argue, the choices made by a growing human at any instant depend sensitively on many things, and thus, any pair of human beings, even those who share quite similar initial conditions, will experience very different paths. The final person records the history of all the changing conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite.[6] And as fractal geometry is the geometry of movement and growth, the physics of flow, so fractal psychology is the psychology of growth and flow by the fractal growth of the self's mind.
This is an insight that can help us answer many an ancient question, including those involving free-will, determination, and social conditioning--and it is especially important for the light that it sheds on the importance of choice in the process. A snowflake may 'choose' in a different sense than an individual, a community, or a culture will 'choose.’. But the role of self-determination of an individual system within the context of other systems is made far more comprehensive within the context of this world-view which we have remembered...with a vengeance.
[1]For instance, some ideas have had extremely robust lives as forces of human activity, such as the golden rule, the conservation of energy, free-enterprise, and democracy. There is much to be considered regarding the dynamics at work in this interaction.
[2]Cairns notes that "the word 'soul,' with its accretions of meanings during the centuries, is an unfortunate translation of the Greek word psyche. It is more properly translated, according to the various contexts, as Reason, Mind, Intelligence, Life, the vital principle in things as well as in man; it is the constant that causes change but itself does not change. ... One explanation of his use of different words suggests that he hoped to make us realize that meaning lies not in words but only in that for which words stand."(Plato, "Introduction"in Collected Dialogues, p. xx-xxi.)
[3]The answer being that "Sensitive dependence on initial conditions serves not to destroy but to create. As a growing snowflake falls to earth, typically floating in the wind for an hour or more, the choices made by the branching tips at any instant depend sensitively on such things as temperature, the humidity, and the presence of impurities in the atmosphere. The six tips of a single snowflake, spreading within a millimeter space, feel the same temperatures, and because the laws of growth are purely deterministic, they maintain a nearly perfect symmetry. But the nature of turbulent air is such that any pair of snowflakes will experience very different paths. The final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite."(Gleick, p. 311)
[4]Gleick, p. 311.
[5]Gleick, p. 311.
[6] The ideal form of motion is seen in the complex circular flow of matter through time, contained but infinite, ever-deeper in its convexity. But motion is contrast with movement in interaction where consciousness is involved.[Laban] Our potential for growth is subject to many interacting forces which change human potentials into their actualized forms, by the woven effects of the interacting causes in the course of the life-process. The parts played by attention and intention in such a process are critical variables which steer us by ever finer choices inherent within life-plans and policies. It is a principle similar to that of the half way to the door paradox, in which it seems as if one can never really get out the door one is aiming at because one always has to go half-way first; time is the force perpendicular to the space between us and the door which changes as we choose to move toward the door, thus changing our conditions such that the choice is ever new, and always in need of reevaluation. The geometry of deep psychological reality and growth is non-linear, and as it is an emergent reality, understanding it calls for a sort of psychological travel or penetration of the generic human subject/object to be known. Such that that persons under consideration become subject to the psychologist when they can empathize, inside-looking-out. When we are able to get beyond objectivity in the human sciences, and see from inside the systems we wish to know, our method is no longer observation, but consideration, and what's evident from this view is often something we have long known.