Big things are happening, AI, Quantum Computing, Fusion. Amazing pronouncements are being made, ranging to the wildly optimistic to the depressingly dystopian.
Some perspective may be useful. A good reference point is the amazing influence that Newtonian revolution has had in our world.
The Newtonian influence extended far beyond physics, permeating philosophy, economics, theology, politics, and government. It gave us Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment.
The founding fathers were deeply influenced by worldview characterized by perfect determinism, complete predictability and direct causality, were every effect has a clear, identifiable cause.
We see Newtonian influence in governments and hierarchical organizational structures, with clear chains of command and defined roles.
» In standardized procedures and protocols, ensuring predictability and consistency in operations.
» In performance measured using quantifiable metrics, such as output, efficiency, and compliance.
» And in the belief that outcomes can be predicted and managed with the right information and controls.
At extremes, problems come in two classes; clock problems and cloud problems.
» Newtonian thinking is good for clock problems.
» We need augmented thinking that bridges clock thinking and cloud thinking.
Complex Systems can take us from:
» Certainty to probability.
» Determinism to emergence.
» Reductionism to holism.
» Observer-independence to context-dependence.
» Linear causality to complex feedback systems.
» Human exceptionalism to continuity with nature.
We need to internalize the lessons from complex systems and network science.
Develop the habit of blurring domains.
A place to start: » Art, Technology, and Science.
