Glen, Right, it does quite depend on the context. That's why learning how to see the context without looking through the lens of your own or someone else's clumsy reduction is important. That'll hide all the discoveries your new questions today might make if you were not filtering all your data to exclude the evidence!
I also agree that high degrees of simplification isn't the problem. There is no one 'ideal' level, except that to not omit a reference to your original context. In my book, that's really a must. Failing to do so is a major and persistent source of functional fixation and operational blindness. I'm happy to extract some small piece of a complex set of issues to experiment with, as a logic puzzle out of context, to maybe try to see how a slightly altered version might plug back in to a 'real world'. I just need to keep my finger on the more complex realities of the situation too. The cognitive errors from habitually making decisions out of context are so extreme we really need to learn how to look for them, though. Take the fact that the segment of humanity that views adding %'s to their money as an unqualified good (dodging from how it causes the physical effects it pays for) has taken over and continues to operate as if it had an infinite world to expand in. It's a simple appealing reductionist mental rule, thoroughly institutionalized, still growing in its control of the earth by leaps and bounds, doing profound lasting harm by making the physical things we rely on unstable. So... it becomes an 'emergent' 'big surprise' that at growth limits, with it still multiplying, we have erupting difficulties and conflicts in every direction. It would be good if we could see what the systems we are driving are running into. There are some simple rules for doing that. We should use them. Things in our picture that are on multiplying autopilot... you'd ask about first rather than list as being too good to ever ask about...! Phil > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella > Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 3:04 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Young but distant gallaxies > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > Maybe there are two sides to reductionism, the 'good' reduction of a > problem > > that locates the true central solution, and the 'bad' reduction of > the > > environment to fit the solution you prefer. > > I like the basic sentiment; but I wouldn't like the logical conclusion. > Reduction is neither good nor bad, only appropriate or inappropriate > for any given context. > > Even in the seemingly bad case where one myopically hyper-reduces some > problem and/or solution so that important externalities are ignored, > whether such reduction is good or bad depends on your viewpoint. In > microcosm, from the individual who benefits in the very short-term, > it's > good. In the "mesocosm", where the environment embedding that > individual has to compensate (or cannot compensate) for the > hyper-reduction, it's bad. But then in the macrocosm, the individual > probably created a lot of "waste" that is seen by some other set of > processes as a food source, which makes it good again. > > In the end, reduction is just a method and, when used, it'll either > achieve your ends or it won't. The trick is generating reliable > estimates for when it will or won't achieve particular ends. And > that's > why I like the basic sentiment but not the value judgments of "good" or > "bad". > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
