Identifying Impermanence
How to predict ecosystem changes. Time is the ultimate test. Via Negativa and finding good fit.
When looking at an ecosystem a question that an ecologist with a complexity science bent might ask themselves is: How resilient is this system to change? In other words, how much of a shock would this system need to sustain before it moved from one paradigm to another: How far does a river need to be diverted for a fertile plain to turn into a desert? How many degrees warmer do the oceans need to get before the gulf stream stops flowing?
In a recent paper it was proposed that to answer these questions it may be better to look at how long things last rather than how great an impact they can withstand. When we only look at discontinuities precipitated by individual causal agents we miss changes that happen under the surface: Many small independent perturbations that build up over time or smaller shocks in unobserved high leverage areas that force a change that a larger shock wouldn't have.
If instead of considering impact size we look at how long something has historically lasted in one paradigm we may be better prepared for predicting how long it will survive into the future.
This is a theme I've touched on before. Things are always changing. Though, some change slower than others. In our world of flux these slow-moving objects are the closest thing we have to a life-raft to help us navigate the waters. It would do us well to identify them. Sometimes, like in the ecology paper, we have historical measures of a well-defined system that we can use to predict what the slower moving things will be. In most cases however we don't. When we come across systems are there any ways that we can identify what is going to last?
In Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander has a beautiful description of how design proceeds through a series of subtractions.
When you have a design problem if you think about it in terms of what should be created to solve the issue there is quite literally a near infinite list of potential solutions that could be selected from. When confronted with these options you don't have much information on how well each will 'fit' ahead of time. As such, selecting from the list becomes impossible. We simply don’t have the time to try out each of the options.
Instead to find a design that works we can proceed with the much easier task of identifying the - finite - list of existing things that don't fit.
You can imagine running through this process when creating a table. As we go about the design process we can look for the disconformities - places where the table makes it hard to sit, where it requires excessive diligence to avoid walking into, parts of the room that it blocks off, and so forth. If you can identify and then carefully remove each of these issues you will have found a table that is appropriate to its context.
Removing what doesn’t work in this way is a via negativa process, as Nassim Taleb puts it:
Via negativa: In theology and philosophy, the focus on what something is not, an indirect definition. In action, it is a recipe for what to avoid, what not to do—subtraction, not addition, say, in medicine.
[via negativa is] the principle that we know what is wrong with more clarity than what is right, and that knowledge grows by subtraction
In the case of identifying what will last a long time we can follow this same process. Look at the room or landscape around you. If you pay attention you can start to see the parts that stick out, the bits that are not appropriate to their context and will be weathered away sooner rather than later.
These kind of awkward parts are visible with companies that no longer serve the market they operate in1, ideas that no longer resonate with average people2, or public transport that no longer serves its community3.
If we can identify these things before they disappear we give ourselves the opportunity to replace them with something better or at the very least a chance to prepare for the change to come.