CHAOS AND CATASTROPHE
Your Editor has three weaknesses (well, three that he will admit to!): analogies, philosophising, and dabbling in areas of knowledge of which he is woefully ignorant.
Recently he has been dabbling in Fractals and the mathematics of "Chaos" (on his home computer and in his own time, of course!). Discussions with a friend revealed some interesting background aspects to this revolution in mathematical thinking. Apparently one of the earliest upsets to conventional views occurred with a meteorological predictive computer model which normally ran on data to three places of decimals. An occasion arose in which, for some reason, the data was supplied to six places of decimals. However, it was run to three places, and the prediction established. Subsequently the operative found there was some computer time available and out of curiosity re-ran the programme with data to six places of decimals, since it was uniquely available. One would think that this would merely improve the precision of the forecast, but no - a totally different prediction was obtained!
This really stands traditional logic on its head, and should cause us to re-examine the whole basis on which decisions and changes are made.
Many years ago, when your Editor was involved in Marketing, he was dabbling in "Catastrophe Theory" (perhaps the predecessor of "Chaos"). The over-simplified example of this is a confrontation with a savage dog, who may either "fly or fight". Varying your distance (or moving your arm) by one centimetre may cause the dog to "flip" across the "cusp" which would separate his headlong flight from his tearing your throat out!
There does seem to be some relevance of these Catastrophe and Chaos theories to the real world of human behaviour and business judgements. It would explain why sometimes the intuitive "gut-feel" of an individual can transcend the sober judgements of a group supported by "experts" and with every modern aid to decision-taking.
There have been many examples of major business groups taking a carefully-planned and well thought-out step into commercial disaster!
Where, then, does this thought lead us? Perhaps to no more profound a view than: if something is working well - don't tinker with it! (or, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!")
On the other hand it could create an awareness of the importance of seemingly insignificant details which, Fractal fashion, could ripple through the workings of a complex plan and make or mar the final outcome.
We have long felt that such a mechanism governs the "cusps" between benign and vicious spirals, good luck and bad luck, success and failure.
We are not suggesting that such factors are readily
identifiable or could be built in to computer models or
decision-support programs - indeed the very concept of
"Chaos" implies unpredictability. But who knows? The
equipment on which we put down these idle thoughts (and on which
we play with our Fractals!) would have been unthinkable a few
decades ago. Perhaps future mathematical models will take account
of subtleties which for the time being we have to dismiss as
elusive, intangible and subliminal - even paranormal.
Comment
This Editorial never actually appeared in print. I wrote it for the last issue of my Journal, but management requested something more technology-specific, so I withdrew it and wrote a boring piece on Electronic Document Management to take its place.
However, I liked my first offering, and so reproduce it here.
The meteorological computer programmer referred to was Edward Lorenz, back in 1961. He went on to write an important paper on "Aperiodicity" - perhaps the birth of Chaos Theory as we know it today.
The significance of Chaos theory (and now we have "Antichaos" theory to contend with!) is that - without going into tedious and complicated discussion - it appears to reflect the way in which complex natural and biological processes occur and can even parody the intricate neural interconnectivity of the human brain. A big and "mind-blowing" subject! Who knows what possibilities it may open up?