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Complexity . . .

Complexity . . . . . . we manufacture it in pico seconds . . . and make new discoveries. every minute of everyday . . . “Every 2 days, we create as much information as we did since the dawn of civilization to 2003.” - Eric Schmidt, Google. Drowning in Data and Options. V elocity

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Complexity . . .

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  1. Complexity . . .

  2. . . . we manufacture it in picoseconds . . .

  3. and make new discoveries every minute of everyday . . .

  4. “Every 2 days, we create as much information as we did since the dawn of civilization to 2003.” - Eric Schmidt, Google

  5. Drowning in Data and Options • Velocity • Volume • Variety • Veracity

  6. but biological change - evolution - often requires millions of years.

  7. What happens when complexity races ahead of the brain’s ability to understand it?

  8. Gridlock

  9. We become unable to fix our problems and pass them from generation to generation as they grow worse.

  10. Every civilization and organization reaches a cognitive threshold.

  11. Why?

  12. Two Clocks The slow pace of evolution The rapid pace of progress

  13. The uneven rate of change between biology and complexity causes a gap to occur.

  14. This gap produces 3 symptoms: • Gridlock. • Substitution of facts with unproven beliefs. • Irrational policy and predatory practices.

  15. The last evolutionary milestone in cognition occurred when we stood upright.

  16. An avalanche of new sensory input. • Rapid growth of the frontal cortex. • A “special event” in evolution (4-5 million years).

  17. When civilizations are young, problems are simpler and easily managed by the right and left brain.

  18. Over time problems become larger, more complex – the number of wrong choices exceed the number of right ones.

  19. We enter a “High Failure-Rate Environment” (HFRE) > right options wrong options

  20. In the United States • Tax code in 1939, 504 pages. Today, 73,950 pages. • 1.5 million prescription errors. • 100,000 preventable medical deaths. • In 1980, credit card contracts were 400 words. • Today, 20,000 words of fine print.

  21. AFRICA: a similar explosion of complexity – legal, financial, medical, energy, etc.

  22. Complexity makes facts -knowledge- difficult to acquire.

  23. When complexity makes knowledge difficult to attain we substitute knowledge with beliefs.

  24. What is a belief? • Unproven. • Cognitively inexpensive. • Small and large.

  25. The human organism requires both beliefs and knowledge.

  26. Ancient Beliefs

  27. All scientific discoveries and innovation begin with unproven beliefs

  28. Civilizations/ organizations thrive when BOTH exist side-by-side.

  29. But when beliefs dominate, knowledge takes a back seat.

  30. We become susceptible to manipulation and ideology and follow false prophets.

  31. Public policy becomes shaped by irrational beliefs, rather than knowledge or fact.

  32. Mayan Fetishism and Sacrifice

  33. A Reoccurring Spiral • The first sign complexity is outpacing our cognitive capabilities is gridlock. • The second is a confusion between beliefs and knowledge. • The third is policy becomes irrationaland predatory practices ensue. The conditions for sudden collapse.

  34. In 1976, Dr. Richard Dawkins called viral beliefs and behaviors “memes.”

  35. Like genes, memes replicate, mutate, or grow extinct.

  36. As complexity accelerates, “supermemes” take over.

  37. 5 Modern Supermemes(evolutionary obstacles to progress) • Irrational Opposition • Personalization of Blame • Counterfeit Correlation • Silo Thinking • Extreme Economics

  38. Supermemes thwart empirically-based progress.

  39. “We live in a time when we have Paleolithic emotions, Medieval institutions and God-like technology, and this is a dangerous situation.” Dr. E.O. Wilson Harvard University - 2009

  40. A cognitive threshold is not our only evolutionary challenge . . .

  41. We are not born blank slates.

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