An Enhanced System-Center to Address Global Crises

Credit: all images from Canva.com

This post will highlight a few systems dynamics, use these to make observations on some current global crises, and suggest an approach to reverse these, theoretically, through the strengthening of a different system-center.

Some System Dynamics

A “living system” is characterized by ever-evolving dynamics, seeking always to enrich its constructs with more meaning. It is a system-imperative that such constructs progressively deepen —become more aware of their center and spontaneously act in reference to it, widen — become aware of the diversity of activity within the system and seamlessly coordinate with it, and heighten — progressively see farther and farther beyond the confines of an immediate time and space horizon, and in the process continue to add layers of nuance and precision to their dynamism also clarifying the central intent of what they stand for.

It is when these dynamics are compromised or seize to operate that the construct begins dying. In such a case a system’s first response is to continue to resuscitate it, often through pushing it out of its orbit so that in the ensuing shock it may constructively alter its way of being. if this too fails then the construct is subject to “entropy” necessitating the likely redistribution of any usable parts to the system. If entropy is not kept low, a system more easily enters a “far-from-equilibrium” state and becomes subject to unexpected dynamics of “bifurcation” with system evolution then easily proceeding on largely unplanned trajectories.

Further, in a living system, there is by definition some “center” that also is instrumental in anchoring the general sense or culture of the system. Ideally, this may comprise of many effective sub-centers all acting in consonance — thereby also adding richness to the center — with one or another dynamically leading as the need arises.

Recent crises can be contextualized in reference to such system dynamics.

Some Systems-Based Observations to do with Crises

Looking back to the period since WWII the effective “center” was marked by two poles (the USA — USSR) as defined by the dynamics of the Cold War. Arguably after much global politicking, and at around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the effective system-center morphed to some brand of globalization, upheld primarily by the USA and defined more by an uneven economic and financial thrust as global currencies and trading exited the relative stability of a gold standard to embark on a journey of increased volatility. Being thus, the world has seen the rise of “power laws” that tend to strengthen inequality and inequity. This is in contrast to more ideal system behavior marked by the reality of “longtails”, which would allow the simultaneous existence of an unending number of niches thereby also creating more equitable wealth distribution. Diversity of niches is also an important “system-strategy” because these can fuel system creativity and overall system resilience in unexpected ways.

Further and arguably, given the Obama Administration’s varying commitment and then the Trump Administration's lack of commitment in upholding the USA as the effective center of globalization, a different set of forces seem to be vying to occupy or even to define a new center, influenced primarily by well-funded top-down efforts such as those of the Russians and Chinese, and a handful of more ground-up opportunistic efforts, such as the combination of extremist Shia or Sunni factions, amongst other possible opportunistic efforts.

This means that the effective center, rather than being one of relative consonance, is increasingly becoming dissonant. In the absence of concerted leadership marked by clear goals, this is inevitable. While goals may be easier to espouse— a world marked by greater harmony in which all constructs interrelate with goodwill, for example — there is clearly no concerted leadership and this will tend to lead the world into a far-from-equilibrium reality. It may even be that the previous two US Administrations subconsciously or even consciously were instrumentalized by the “system” to loosen and release the reins so that some other possibilities may come to the surface.

Further, when a person steps into a leadership role — regardless of Administration being served — it is often not as a creative construct dynamically addressing the real needs of the hour, but as an appendage to an existing construct endowed with an outdated worldview that may have been created decades earlier. Such constructs are not, therefore, assisting the system in its need to continue to evolve, but inadvertently oppose the needed developments by setting up artificial feedback loops — or karma — that exponentially increase costs to the system.

The center thus becomes weaker rather than stronger. When this is the case, it is then that crises arise to try to shift the orbit of constructs so that they may be jolted into another path of action. Continued obscurity or action based on dated narratives out of tune with the needs of the hour escalate loops of unneeded complexity and the system moves to a state of being far-from-equilibrium, which in turn engenders the phenomenon of bifurcation.

This may be thought of as another attempt by the system to offer choice so that simplicity, in tune with the deeper need of the system-center, and the truer as opposed to the surface needs of would-be protagonist constructs may be followed, with the system hence returning to a state of lower entropy. In such states increased creativity ensues and “system-purpose” of dynamically evolving constructs so that real meaning gets enhanced, can more forcefully come into being.

If a political party, as a construct, continues to creatively remake itself so that meaning is enhanced, then there will be no need for bifurcation within a party. This of course, is true at other levels of granularity — the individual, the system as a whole. The fact that bifurcation may occur likely means that outdated narratives are fueling action. Instead, it is the evolving needs of constructs materializing more of the depth of what they truly are that should be fueling redefinition.

From this point of view phenomenon such as pandemics, perhaps are due to unnecessary feedback loops and costly trajectories that have to be set right. These signal a severely weakening system center. To the extent that a deep and simple solution is reached such phenomena will of themselves begin to disappear. But if the very surfacing of such crises is then opportunistically used to further divide and to gain power over masses this will only be able to maintain itself in the short-term. For action that does not stem from an impersonal basis — seeking therefore some egoistic gain instead of the whole system good as an outcome — will continue to create more inefficient feedback loops (aka karma) in its wake and only set up the system for even more devastating future crises. This will continue until the system can truly be directed to allow richer meaning to surface in all its constructs.

Paradoxically, all constructs — regardless of scale — do have power in the moment. If as a consumer, the cheapness of goods is what matters most, regardless of how the good was sourced, created, and how its lifecycle will add to unnecessary cost, karmically, crises will arise: an aggressive China funded by such consumers who buy products made irreverently, arises, and then the world has a more convoluted problem to solve. Quads may be created to try to contain the aggressor nation, but the problem has to be looked at much more deeply to nip the unneeded dynamics in the bud. The fractal effects of action at the margin have to be such that the very nature of aggregate dynamics at the next level of granularity becomes of a positive nature.

Complacency is easy though and constructs mostly seeking short-term gains reinforce a social reality easily accruing to a formidable complacency. The social crises reinforce political crises in that complacency allows actors with vested interests to more easily gain power. These in turn then more easily fuel economic crises — with power laws instead of longtails ruling — which in turn results in environmental crises — of the nature of Climate Change, amongst others, which signals that everything has proceeded along less optimal paths for too long, and has now affected the very material container from which life arises.

Creation of a Different System-Center

Therefore, consciously creating a vibrant system-center is critical. Once that exists then other system constructs are more easily enriched. But such a center has to be created organically rather than be forced. Arguably the inability of any previous center to adequately maintain itself was due to its not being organic, but being fueled by some set of vested interests. By definition, such an approach can never address the real needs of the hour, instead progressively creating more and more destructive feedback loops, or karma, that weakens the whole system.

It is only when a center is the seed or mirror of vaster possibility, containing in itself an implicit understanding of the nature of things that may naturally arise in the system, that its continuance may be unchallenged. But already the nature of such a seed or center is hinted at in sustainable systems that have arisen at the physical, chemical, and biological levels, and which observation will also affirm exists at the human level (re: Forbes article — Secret to a Living Culture).

It is because it is natural, that such a seed might be able to fuel sustainable growth at the different levels of complexity — at the level of the living cell, at the level of natural ecosystems, at the level of humans, at the level of cultural collectivities, at the level of nations — that make up a world system. This idea has recently been briefly elaborated in the following youtube presentation, “Simulations of Necessary Conditions of World Peace Leveraging a Quaternary-Based, Quintuple-Layered Complex Adaptive Systems Model”, originally presented at IAMOT 2021 held at Nile University in Egypt in September:

The seed — an idealized model of conditions necessary for World Peace — is based on the following salient features, that have been tested via a simulation:

1. As already expressed, a quintuple layered system comprising of the living-cell layers, the ecosystem-services layer, the human dynamics layer, the cultural layer, and the country-level layer.
2. The human-dynamics layer, modeled as being the instrumental causal layer, sets into motion dynamics across other layers. This causality is set into motion by manipulating sliders (in the simulation) for each of the four organizational principles: knowledge, power, presence, harmony.
3. The four organizational principles of knowledge, power, presence, and harmony are based on research of drivers of sustainability in complex adaptive systems across multiple layers of granularity (as also expressed in the above-mentioned article “Secret to a Living Culture”).
4. Negative values for these drivers imply the opposite of knowledge, power, presence, and harmony. Positive values imply that many useful aspects of knowledge, or power, or presence and service, or harmony are in play.
5. An additional source of development is captured in the forward integrity of the fourfold organizational principles affecting operations at each of the other layers in the quintuple-layered system.
6. Sources of volatility exist at three levels. The first is a baseline level of volatility that will tend to propagate variations of the status quo from one time period to the next (in the 20-year simulation). The second is a level of volatility injected into different regions of the world. The third is general global volatility.

Simulations of boundary conditions brought about by setting the combination of values in two sets of sliders (1. Strength of four organizational principles; 2. Strength of forward propagation of four principles across the five layers) to some extreme yield the overall bounds within which World Peace may exist:

1. With the quaternary basis set to the extreme negative (minimum development) and the ability to propagate that tendency forward in an organized way also set to zero (minimum organization) world peace stumbles along in a mildly negative way.
2. With minimum development and maximum organization so that the negative quaternary basis propagates to each of the other layers in the quintuple-layered system, world peace becomes exponentially negative. This implies that the dimension of organization is extremely important in influencing long-term results.
3. With maximum development and minimum organization world peace stumbles along in a mildly positive way from year to year.
4. With maximum development and maximum organization world peace grows exponentially in a positive direction.

While typical scenarios fall between the realities set up by extreme boundary conditions, a significant trend occurs as more possibility is mobilized along the quaternary bases:

1. With only one of the quaternary bases active, whether knowledge, or power, or service, or harmony, even with positive carry-forward organization capacity so that cellular-integrity, cultural-integrity, ecosystem-integrity, and country-level-integrity are upheld, world peace will still only stumble along in a mildly negative way.
2. With any two of the quaternary bases active, and given higher carry-forward organizational integrity, world peace will fluctuate between mildly negative and mildly positive values over the years.
3. With any three of the quaternary bases active, and given higher carry-forward organizational integrity, world peace will tend to increase by some multiple of ten, over the course of twenty years.
4. With all four quaternary bases active, and given higher carry-forward organizational integrity, world peace will tend toward exponential positive growth toward the end of twenty years.

It is to be noted that the finding that there appears to be exponential growth in world peace with full quaternary activation across the quintuple-layered system, is in line with the researched trend of similarly massive increases in innovation witnessed as systems switch from a physical to a chemical to a biological complexity, which also exhibits a far more organized bases and expression of fourfoldness.

If a system-center of this nature could be forged and abided by, global crises may diminish. But, it is always easier to formulate a goal, and much more formidable to mobilize leadership in such directions.

The practical manifestation of a system-center mirroring such a seed will be taken up some other time.