1.Some systems not only resist policy and stay in a bad state but they get consistently worse. This related back to our discussion on evolution and how everything is constantly changing either for better or worse.
2. Systems fail gradually, like the "boiling frog syndrome" change doesn't always happen quickly, sometimes it slowly creeps up and before anything can notice, the system has failed.
3.Escalation occurs everywhere in our society. From squabbling siblings or friends to rivalry companies and businesses.
4.Escalation can equal monopolization.
5.Rule beating is evasive action to get around a systems rules. This is really important because so many things in nature do this to live their lives. Such as a person with not much money may steal just to eat, this is evading the law but in a necessary way.
1. The world is nonlinear. This is an important thing to remember while thinking about systems because an example of a system drawn on paper can only be linear, but one needs to remember that in reality, this system looks completely different.
2. Archetypes are systems which constantly produce problematic behavior. This is important because we need to be aware that not all systems are perfect, in fact many of them are flawed.
3.Policy-resistance comes from the event of subsystems pulling at each other in different directions.
4.The tragedy of the commons is a situation in which there is growth in a shared erodible environment. This is caused by missing feedback.
5.Privitizations works better than exhortation.
1.How can one tell if an archetype is fixable?
2. Is there a way to predict if a system is going to fail?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Evolution
| Evolution is a vital part to our understanding of ourselves and of our history. To believe that we did not evolve means to believe that we will never change again and always be the same human beings which God put on earth starting with Adam and Eve. The most amazing thing about life is that it finds a way. Without evolution that magical part of life wouldn't exist and nothing would adapt or change to better suit it's environment. Because humans and every other living thing on the planet is constantly changing, it creates the biggest system that there is, if nothing was ever able to adapt then many systems would fail and be lost. But the fact that every living thing is able to change and keep their systems going proves Darwin and survival of the fittest, for systems which do not change or adapt, die out. Therefore evolution and understanding what it does for us is a vital part of understanding how everything in the world is able to better fit it's environment and be able to live successfully and carry on the changes to its following organism |
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Chapter 4 Notes: 552
1. Systems are always changing, therefore the system is never the same.
This reminds me of the saying about the river never being the same river because the water is always flowing.
2. Everything in the world is a model, nothing we picture in our head is reality.
The world doesn't always behave the way we expect it to, therefore, we are always being surprised. If the world was as we expected it to be, life would be unbelievably simple, no one would ever be caught off guard or confused. If each system ran predictably we would most likely not have many things which were spawned from self-organization.
3. Our ignorance of the world overshadows our knowledge of it. The more we learn about the world, the more we realize we don't know. For example, a huge percentage of the earth is water and compared to what we know of the things on land, we know nothing of what lies in the depths of the ocean, or what systems exist there. The more we know of what we already know shows us what we don't.
4. Systems are presented as a chain/series of events, which make them seem simple, this is called dynamic patterns of behavior. However, what we fail to observe is WHY. What is the purpose of a system and why is it occurring. Such as an election, we know we have to elect a new president because we are suppose to, but do we really know the root of why we have to?
5. In the diagrams, clouds are nonexistent boundaries, which to me seems contradictory because although they themselves have no boundaries, they provide boundaries to the system even though Meadows says that they are merely allowing us to ignore other stocks. Clouds can technically be put anywhere, if a person wants to expand further on a diagram they need only replace the cloud with another cloud. T
1. A linear relationship between two elements is a system that can be drawn on a graph with a straight line. This relationship has constant proportions. This relationship is strictly between two things, such as amount of coffee grounds put in a pot and how much coffee is made.
2. A nonlinear relationship is one in which the cause does not produce a proportional effect. BEcause the world is unpredictable, these relationships are frequent. The best example I can think of is interpersonal relationships, if I encourage one person to do something and they do it, it's linear, if I encourage them to do something and they do the opposite, or something extremely dramatic, then it could be nonlinear.
3.In certain situations, clouds can make boundaries too small therefore complicating systems because other factors are necessary to understand the system.
4.WE MAKE OUR OWN SYSTEM BOUNDARIES. This phrase to me really resonated because with counseling, therapists need to set boundaries for their clients and they are totally self-imposed and can be changed with each
5.Although our minds are quick to jump to a single linear cause and effect situation, we should be aware that there are multiple causes for each and every effect. For example, when a plant grows in the backyard, there are many factors associated with its survival, such as climate, animal and other plant life, humans, water etc. All these things contribute to its life.
1. How do you know when to create a boundary on a system?
2. When creating a system, do time and delays need to be factored in to make the system accurate?
This reminds me of the saying about the river never being the same river because the water is always flowing.
2. Everything in the world is a model, nothing we picture in our head is reality.
The world doesn't always behave the way we expect it to, therefore, we are always being surprised. If the world was as we expected it to be, life would be unbelievably simple, no one would ever be caught off guard or confused. If each system ran predictably we would most likely not have many things which were spawned from self-organization.
3. Our ignorance of the world overshadows our knowledge of it. The more we learn about the world, the more we realize we don't know. For example, a huge percentage of the earth is water and compared to what we know of the things on land, we know nothing of what lies in the depths of the ocean, or what systems exist there. The more we know of what we already know shows us what we don't.
4. Systems are presented as a chain/series of events, which make them seem simple, this is called dynamic patterns of behavior. However, what we fail to observe is WHY. What is the purpose of a system and why is it occurring. Such as an election, we know we have to elect a new president because we are suppose to, but do we really know the root of why we have to?
5. In the diagrams, clouds are nonexistent boundaries, which to me seems contradictory because although they themselves have no boundaries, they provide boundaries to the system even though Meadows says that they are merely allowing us to ignore other stocks. Clouds can technically be put anywhere, if a person wants to expand further on a diagram they need only replace the cloud with another cloud. T
1. A linear relationship between two elements is a system that can be drawn on a graph with a straight line. This relationship has constant proportions. This relationship is strictly between two things, such as amount of coffee grounds put in a pot and how much coffee is made.
2. A nonlinear relationship is one in which the cause does not produce a proportional effect. BEcause the world is unpredictable, these relationships are frequent. The best example I can think of is interpersonal relationships, if I encourage one person to do something and they do it, it's linear, if I encourage them to do something and they do the opposite, or something extremely dramatic, then it could be nonlinear.
3.In certain situations, clouds can make boundaries too small therefore complicating systems because other factors are necessary to understand the system.
4.WE MAKE OUR OWN SYSTEM BOUNDARIES. This phrase to me really resonated because with counseling, therapists need to set boundaries for their clients and they are totally self-imposed and can be changed with each
5.Although our minds are quick to jump to a single linear cause and effect situation, we should be aware that there are multiple causes for each and every effect. For example, when a plant grows in the backyard, there are many factors associated with its survival, such as climate, animal and other plant life, humans, water etc. All these things contribute to its life.
1. How do you know when to create a boundary on a system?
2. When creating a system, do time and delays need to be factored in to make the system accurate?
Friday, February 10, 2012
Oil and Water - David Orr
"water has shaped the landscape but oil has shaped the mindscape"
-oil is relative to speed and accumulation.
WATER AND OIL COMPLETE OPOSITES
- water makes life, oil is toxic.
This reminds me of the BP oil spill in which the two collided and systems were destroyed because of human's disregard for nature in contrast to the money that can be made through oil.
Orr says people tend to "binge" on oil, meaning when it was noticed as useful for so many things humans took advantage and never looked back.
Oil increased money and land intelligence, which is how fast we can travel over it.
Although oil and water is something we think of on a very basic level, such as putting vegetable oil in a bowl of water to demonstrate their contrast, however, we don't think of it as how it has an effect on the global level. We don't really think of ourselves as being so water-based, or at least I don't really. I understand what biology tells me in that I'm mostly made up of water, but that's not how I think about myself. Because I've grown up in the technology age I have never been exposed to a world that was full of nature, which water is the basis of. Oil however, and its importance in the world, is something I've definitely been exposed to, between watching gas prices go up and down, our country in debt and watching other countries fight and go to war just to be in control of the oil supply. The thing that I think of the most when I think of the difference between oil and water is the BP spill. IT brings it back to the basic level of oil mixing with water yet on a larger scale it shows how oil can destroy water and the systems which live in it. I think this article really lay's it out in a basic, easy to understand way, of how ridiculous it is to be so attached to something so hurtful and toxic.
-oil is relative to speed and accumulation.
WATER AND OIL COMPLETE OPOSITES
- water makes life, oil is toxic.
This reminds me of the BP oil spill in which the two collided and systems were destroyed because of human's disregard for nature in contrast to the money that can be made through oil.
Orr says people tend to "binge" on oil, meaning when it was noticed as useful for so many things humans took advantage and never looked back.
Oil increased money and land intelligence, which is how fast we can travel over it.
Although oil and water is something we think of on a very basic level, such as putting vegetable oil in a bowl of water to demonstrate their contrast, however, we don't think of it as how it has an effect on the global level. We don't really think of ourselves as being so water-based, or at least I don't really. I understand what biology tells me in that I'm mostly made up of water, but that's not how I think about myself. Because I've grown up in the technology age I have never been exposed to a world that was full of nature, which water is the basis of. Oil however, and its importance in the world, is something I've definitely been exposed to, between watching gas prices go up and down, our country in debt and watching other countries fight and go to war just to be in control of the oil supply. The thing that I think of the most when I think of the difference between oil and water is the BP spill. IT brings it back to the basic level of oil mixing with water yet on a larger scale it shows how oil can destroy water and the systems which live in it. I think this article really lay's it out in a basic, easy to understand way, of how ridiculous it is to be so attached to something so hurtful and toxic.
Helpful Video!
This video was so unbelievably helpful for me to understand the ecological hierarchy more in depth. I don't necessarily have the brain for science and I know that's a mental block but I've always had trouble with it, when I first saw the diagram for the ecological hierarchy it made me really nervous to not understand it. Being able to watch this video, in class and again on my own, made me able to visualize the way the hierarchy works. Even being able to look at the picture of each part of the hierarchy made me understand the systems, and system diagrams much more. It allowed me to have a picture in my mind about the relationships between the individuals, populations and communities, which I had trouble understanding before. For instance, it's very easy after watching this to think of myself as the individual, the population my immediate family, and the community of our household and how we interact with each other. To make even more subsystems, I can imagine the doorways between our rooms and the hallways as the corridors and our bedrooms as our patches, within each room being a whole new system. It's difficult to think at first, of a system and its relationship to the things around it but the more I'm exposed to the idea, the more it makes sense to create systems and subsystems out of everything around me.
Notes 2/9/12
ecological hierarchy - observational template (how ecologist organize organisms)
-Individual: organism
-Population: made up of individuals from same species in the same area
- for people, just that live in the same area
-community:
-ecosystems
-biome
-biosphere
-landscape
MACRO AND MICRO
Templates
-applied ecological thinking
-diagrams
-phylogeny (classification)
-place & LEK, local ecological ….
ECOSYSTEM LEVEL
Trophic Level is feeding level
-primary producers: things that photosynthesize (autotrophs)
-primary consumers: eat food (heterotrophs)
-secondary consumers: eat primary consumers (herbevores)
-Tertiary consumers: eat secondary consumers (carnivores )
Keystone Species
connect species
-indirect effect when keystone species is eliminated
LANDSCAPE: space
-elements: patches(size), matrix(connections within patches), corridor (things that connect patches).
- area of patch related to number of species.
-Meadows 3 connections:
resilience occurs because of self-organization, they are able to learn, adapt and evolve because of substructures, (i.e lung, hierarchy of substructures)
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Meadows Chapter 3 Notes: Why Systems Work So Well
If pushed too hard, systems WILL fall apart.
Three important characteristics of systems: resilience, self-organization, or hierarchy.
Resilience: the ability to bounce or spring back into shape, position, etc.
- resilience arises from a rich structure of many feedback loops that can work in different ways to restore a system even after a large perturbation. Multiple loops bring about resilience.
A set of feedback loops that can restore or rebuild feedback loops is resilience at a higher level, even higher meta-meta-resilience comes from feedback loops that can learn, create, design and evolve ever more complex restorative structures.
Ex. of resilient system: the human body
- although it does have limits, human body is extremely resilient.
Ex. of resilient system: ecosystem
-ability to learn and evolve.
Resilient systems are not static or constant, but dynamic.
-systems that are constant over time tend to be unresilient.
- people often sacrifice resilience for stability or productivity.
Many chronic diseases comes from breakdown of reliance mechanisms that repair DNA, blood vessels etc.
The capacity of a system to make its own structure more complex by diversifying, complicating, evolving and learning, is called Self-organization.
-self-organization is often sacrificed for short-term productivity and stability.
-self-organization produces heterogeneity and unpredictability.
Koch snowflake, long edge but contained within a circle. (complex self-organizational system)
Self-organizing systems often arise from simple rules.
Hierarchy: the process of creating new structures and increasing complexity, generated by self-organization.
-lots of subdivisions
Why do self-organized systems, which breed unpredictability, create a system of hierarchy which is organized?
Relationships WITHIN SYSTEMS ARE STRONGER AND DENSER THAN RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SUBSYSTEMS.
-HIERARCHY SYSTEMS CAN BE PARTIALLY DECOMPOSED.
-HIERARCHIES FORM FROM THE LOWEST LEVEL UP.
WHEN A SUBSYSTEMS' GOALS DOMINATE AT THE EXPENSE OF THE TOTALY SYSTEM'S GOALS, THE RESULT BEHAVIOR IS CALLED SUB-OPTIMIZATION.
-ANOTHER SIMILAR PROBLEM IS TOO MUCH CONTROL.
HOW CAN SELF-ORGANIZED HIERARCHIES BE CONTROLLED?
Three important characteristics of systems: resilience, self-organization, or hierarchy.
Resilience: the ability to bounce or spring back into shape, position, etc.
- resilience arises from a rich structure of many feedback loops that can work in different ways to restore a system even after a large perturbation. Multiple loops bring about resilience.
A set of feedback loops that can restore or rebuild feedback loops is resilience at a higher level, even higher meta-meta-resilience comes from feedback loops that can learn, create, design and evolve ever more complex restorative structures.
Ex. of resilient system: the human body
- although it does have limits, human body is extremely resilient.
Ex. of resilient system: ecosystem
-ability to learn and evolve.
Resilient systems are not static or constant, but dynamic.
-systems that are constant over time tend to be unresilient.
- people often sacrifice resilience for stability or productivity.
Many chronic diseases comes from breakdown of reliance mechanisms that repair DNA, blood vessels etc.
The capacity of a system to make its own structure more complex by diversifying, complicating, evolving and learning, is called Self-organization.
-self-organization is often sacrificed for short-term productivity and stability.
-self-organization produces heterogeneity and unpredictability.
Koch snowflake, long edge but contained within a circle. (complex self-organizational system)
Self-organizing systems often arise from simple rules.
Hierarchy: the process of creating new structures and increasing complexity, generated by self-organization.
-lots of subdivisions
Why do self-organized systems, which breed unpredictability, create a system of hierarchy which is organized?
Relationships WITHIN SYSTEMS ARE STRONGER AND DENSER THAN RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SUBSYSTEMS.
-HIERARCHY SYSTEMS CAN BE PARTIALLY DECOMPOSED.
-HIERARCHIES FORM FROM THE LOWEST LEVEL UP.
WHEN A SUBSYSTEMS' GOALS DOMINATE AT THE EXPENSE OF THE TOTALY SYSTEM'S GOALS, THE RESULT BEHAVIOR IS CALLED SUB-OPTIMIZATION.
-ANOTHER SIMILAR PROBLEM IS TOO MUCH CONTROL.
HOW CAN SELF-ORGANIZED HIERARCHIES BE CONTROLLED?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Notes 2/2/12
elements: perfume molecules. oxygen molecules. Bottle. People.
interconnections: taking the cap off. patcholi bouncing of oxygen molecules. people smelling it.
function: to smell.
clouds=background
System: a collection of parts which are held together with some overall function
Boundaries depend of perspectives and space.
Nestedness: multiple levels, systems within systems within systems etc.
Laws of thermodynamics: energy can only be transferred not created or destroyed.
All energy is decaying to pure heat.
Feedback that occurs in systems: balancing, reinforcing. (Self-regulation)
-NonLinear: rapidly depletes a stock
DAVID ORR - Speed
Water:
How water flows, watershed is an area that is drained by one system. A river system is fractal. An ecosystem is like a human body, it's a complex system.
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
- flood control
- soil stability
- biodiversity
Economy:
Money related to water. Sustainable source. Instead of water flow there is a networking economy, goods traded. With corporate businesses, more money is pulled out of the small system then goes in.
Ecological Hierarchy:
Human society, ecosystem, human body.
Human society IS an ecosystem.
Organ system→Organism→Population→Community→Ecosystem→Biome→Biosphere
(ADD PHOTO)
-Taxonomic/Physiological/Military
Individual
- within individual: feeding, mating, moving, behavior.
- within populations: size, density, dispersion, growth and regulation/dynamics
- within community:
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