Thread by @commandodev

1/ Boyd's OODA loop is probably the most valuable mental model I know of for reasoning about the increasing pace of change in the world. But - it's was formulated at a time before much of current complexity science. What's missing?

2/ I want to share some of what I've been looking at to start answering that question, what a view to taking a fresh look at OODA in the context of a couple more decades of progress.

3/ One of the really valuable meta anaysis of Boyd's work and related ideas is Evolutionary Epistemology by Franklin C. Spinney (whose own story is pretty fascinating in it's own right en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_…).

4/ The full title is:

Evolutionary Epistemology
A Personal View of John Boyd’s
“Destruction and Creation” ... and its centrality to the ... OODA Loop

I think that D&C is one of Boyd's most underappreciated papers, to this behind the curtain look is intriguing!

5/ The whole paper is fantasticly insightful, but I want to pull out a few highlights. Link to the paper is at the end of the thread :-)

6/ To survive and grow relatively free of debilitating constraints, individuals and
groups must MAKE DECISIONS and TAKE ACTIONS to overcome physical obstacles and
social competitors

7/ Implication: The combination of GOAL STRIVING & scarcity sets the stage for
competition among individuals and groups as they struggle to OVERCOME
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS

8/ So how do we make decisions in order to take actions?

We gather variety of observations about a single domain
Break down & correlate these observations from a variety of perspectives
Combine these correlated perspectives into a comprehensive description of that domain.

9/ Destruction and Creation

10/ But we can never build a perfect description of a domain. As @swardley is fond of saying: a perfect map of a thing is the actual thing itself. There are some fundamental reasons for this because SCIENCE

@swardley 11/ Godel:

Any consistent system of axioms is incomplete--i e., it contains
true statements that can not be deduced from the postulates that make up the
system.

@swardley 12/ Generalization: even though a system may be consistent, its consistency
can not be demonstrated within the system (must appeal to systems outside it).

@swardley 13/ Heisenberg:

We can not simultaneously determine position and velocity of a particle.
Generalization: When the precision of the observer approaches the precision of
the observed, the observer perceives uncertain or erratic behavior.

@swardley 14/ 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

All natural processes create entropy.
Generalization: entropy must increase in a system that can not communicate in an
ordered fashion with other systems external to itself

@swardley 15/ IMPLICATION
The never ending cycle of increasing mismatches, destruction, and creation is a
natural manifestation of a dialectic engine -- an analytic/synthetic process ...

@swardley 16/ Powered by the continuous effort to survive and improve one’s capacity for independent action, and ...

@swardley 17/ Regulated by alternating cycles of ENTROPY INCREASE TOWARD MORE DISORDER and ENTROPY DECREASE TOWARD LESS DISORDER.

@swardley 18/ Observations can be categorized by the interaction between the observer and the object of observation. There's a rough correlation to #Cynefin here: Classical Newtonian physics -> Einsteinian Relativity -> Quantum mechanics -> Natural Science: Evolutionary Biology

@swardley 19/ Observations & actions are the only points where the OODA loop comes into contact with external reality. Anywhere that you're not exchaning information with external reality you are increasing entropy.

@swardley 20/ This is what Boyd's fast transients are designed to do: cut of the opponent's exchange of energy with the outside work and focus it inwards inducing a collapse into CONFUSION and DISORDER

@swardley 21/ How many companies do this to themselves as a matter of course? Cutting themselves off from traumatic contact with the outside world and falling into institutional insanity?

@swardley 22/ Boyd's work stands alone, in large part because he was so broad in his search for inspiration. I think it can be particularly valuable to look at his work in the context of newer or less realted.

@swardley 23/ Further areas of study for me will be Hofstadters strange loops, @EricBeinhocker's The Origin of Wealth

@swardley @EricBeinhocker 24/ Almost forgot a link to the paper: fasttransients.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/evolut…