Complex Adaptive Systems

While reading Brian Klaas’ Fluke, I came across the fascinating mental model of ‘Complex Adaptive Systems’. This post is going to be slightly jargon heavy. Please bear with me.

A watch is a complicated system of engineering. However, if you remove one spring, the watch won’t morph into an unpredictable entity. Its behavior can be predicted. The same holds true for an aircraft cockpit, a spacecraft or a computer processor. There is an element of linearity in the interaction between its constituent parts. Complex systems on the other hand involve multiple entities or agents that are constantly interacting, engaging, influencing each other and also adapting. Hence, the name complex adaptive systems. The classic example of such a system is Traffic. Each car slowing down or breaking down can cause ripple effects across the traffic system resulting in alternate routes springing up, major jams, and decisions to not venture out being taken.

Like a locust swarm or the stock market, complex adaptive systems are an aggregation of infinite adjustments and behaviours that contribute to the system’s functioning. While there is no centralized control mechanism, some order ‘emerges’ from the apparent chaos and feedback loops play a critical role. Emergence is also borne out in the Central Limit Theorem which postulates that as sample size increases, the behaviour of random groups tends to coalesce towards a mean. Explains why stereotypes sometimes work.

This concept of emergence can also be a powerful lens to view societies. ‘Emergence’ is also a function of the prevailing levels of ignorance in a society. Once upon a time, eclipses carried deep significance for many communities. They were seen as harbingers of doom and a significant trigger for many rituals. Today, thanks to Kepler, we hardly take note of them when they occur.

Almost all our social systems are complex adaptive systems. Cities, markets, the economy, large families, ecosystems, and our immune system can all be explained through this phenomenon. In this backdrop, the role of institutions is critical. Institutions provide a framework to regulate the millions of individual interactions, foster trust, provide predictability, and allow societies to function. Through laws, regulations, incentives, and sanctions, institutions shape the feedback loops that govern decision-making processes and behaviours. Remember the Delta wave of COVID-19 in Delhi? When we had an absent State for a couple of weeks, what we saw was order breaking down and institutions scrambling to adapt to the new ‘emerging’ norms based on millions of individual transactions. Contact tracing during the first lockdown was also a graphic demonstration of how intricate and myriad, our individual, seemingly innocuous acts are in reality. A sneeze could bring a local economy to a standstill, destroy lives and push people to poverty.

Think your life is unremarkable? Think again. You probably are influencing the future just by reading these lines.

Further reading: Farnam Street on Complex Adaptive Systems