An excerpt from the Dao of Complexity
The world is still in the grip of worldviews driven by two classical – and outdated – physics theories. One, the mechanical worldview, is based on the work of Isaac Newton. Newton essentially was focused on two questions: how the planets travelled around the sun, and (essentially) how two billiard balls knocked into each other. His work was of enormous significance to science; the problem comes when we want it to apply as a ‘theory of everything’. It presents a picture of a world that works like a machine – a world made of bits that operate under the direction of forces, a world that is as predictable as the cogs, wheels and gears of a train engine or a cotton mill. This world is ‘closed’. It is unaffected by anything outside of its own regime. It is reducible to its separate parts. It is predictable. It offers the promise of certainty and control. It is a very tempting metaphor to adopt when we are wanting to organise and manage the human world.
The other physics theory that has gained salience as a worldview focused on the behaviour of gases and liquids. This theory, from equilibrium thermodynamics, also applies to situations closed to outside influences. It promises that things will reach equilibrium and not deviate very far from there.
These classical physics theories, both applicable to closed systems, established the ground in physics for future developments, such as relativity and quantum mechanics. They were a huge step forwards in the field of science. The problem arises when we wish to assert that these theories apply to the human world. One particular difference is that situations in the human and natural world, and indeed in the galaxies of the heavens, are almost always open to their wider contexts. They can almost never be regarded as isolated and unaffected by their surroundings.
However, starting with the French Enlightenment, those concerned with governance and organisation adopted the mechanical worldview and focused on managing through plans, hierarchies, measures and controls. Economists preferred the equilibrium worldview and felt assured that if you minimise control, leave things alone and adopt a laissez-faire approach, then economies will naturally tend towards balance. These are orthodox views, still commonly held. They both in their different ways, simplify things, offer the power of mathematics to understand what is going on, and appeal to reason. They make us feel that our human world can be understood through rational means. But they have become more than merely orthodox; they are hegemonic. They offer dominance and power to those who are in control of a hierarchy or to those who benefit from laissez-faire economics. And those who benefit have a vested interest in leaving things be.
But are these theories really applicable to the dynamics of the social and natural world? Clearly not, when we recognise that situations open to their wider context do not necessarily find balance or reach equilibrium, nor do they function predictably like machines. This was the key breakthrough of Prigogine and others: the word for which, in effect, Prigogine received the Nobel Prize, was open. For open systems, we have to dig deeper to explore if there are any general principles that would help in our understanding. I am hoping to play a part in rattling the iron cage of the machine metaphor, a cage in which our imaginations seem to be imprisoned, held in place by the interests of those who hold its key.
