Releasing Change: Understanding Flux, Pattern, and Constraint Part II
Note from the editor
What exactly is stopping things from shifting in the desired direction? Which constraints need to be lifted, and what new constraints need to be inserted? In our own approach to creating permanent, across-the-board change overnight, this is always what we seek to discover.
This approach to understanding change is possible because rather than assuming that persistence is the norm and change needs to be accounted for and brought about, we assume that change is natural, and that persistence both requires explanation and presupposes mechanism. We consider the possible alternative versions of a situation, and contrast that with the actualities of the situation.
We give an overview of the universal, local, and idiosyncratic sources of constraints one can consider when we ask the question “why this rather than that?” – idiosyncratic and local sources being the most relevant to our work on change.
For further exploration of the concept of flux and constraint, see Part 1, in which we explore key concepts like pattern, invariance, constraint, persistence, and stability.
–Ellen
Releasing Change: Understanding Flux, Pattern, and Constraint Part II
Laws of Nature
Consider what would at first appear to be an obvious and elementary exception to what we have said in Part I about random flux being what we have a right to expect everywhere in the universe, with persistence of any pattern being what cries out to be explained: Newton’s First Law of Motion (due originally to Galileo, of course)—the law of inertia. We observe an object moving through space uniformly—in a straight line and with constant velocity with respect to a Galilean system of co-ordinates. If we seek to account for this puzzling uniformity (for such uniformity, on our view, is not to be just taken for granted), we can ask, how is it that this object is moving uniformly?
The first thing to note is that there would appear to be nothing stopping it from doing so. Nothing is getting in its way, it is sufficiently far from other objects that none can constrain its continued uniform movement. So there is nothing to stop it from moving straight ahead and nothing to slow it down. Nor is there anything around that would act on it to keep it from moving at this steady pace—nothing, that is, either slowing it down nor imparting acceleration to it and thereby keeping it from continuing as it does.
But how is it in this case that everything except what actually is observed has somehow been precluded?
Let us note that there is, after all, Newton’s First Law of Motion to contend with! The universe does not just fluctuate randomly, by any means, not on anyone’s epistemology, old or new—we never said it did.
Complete random fluctuation would imply the absence of any persisting descriptions or uniform fluctuations and therefore the absence of any fixed properties of anything. But our universe is not like that, and could not be like that. For if there were no properties, one thing would not be different from another. And again, as Augustine had it, omnia non essent si essent aequalia—nothing would exist if everything were the same. Things in this universe do possess properties. There is some order or patterning in Nature—indeed a great deal of it, and infinitely more than has been recognized or that can be observed if one is still operating from the old epistemology.
Now one little bit of that patterning is enshrined in Newton’s First Law. We learn from this law that the object we observe is indeed constrained to move as it does. For it cannot move faster or slower than it is currently moving, in the absence of anything acting upon it, to speed it up or slow it down. And the absence of such perturbations is itself a powerful constraint, excluding all possibilities but the one currently observed.
In this Newtonian example, the absence of any pushes or pulls rules out all elements of the set “possible velocities” except for the velocity at which the object in question was already moving, and likewise rules out all elements of the set “possible directions” bar the one direction it was already moving in. (Note that in the new epistemology of form-and pattern, absences and presences are viewed as logically on a par when it comes to explanation.)
Of course, apart from being constrained in the ways enshrined in Newton’s Laws of Motion, there are numerous other sources of constraint on flux, many of them also embodied in Laws of Nature. Ashby[1] saw all Laws of Nature as sources of constraint on flux, or “variety,” the technical term “variety” being the number of possible states of a defined system distinguishable by a given observer.
Ashby had already defined constraint, as we discussed in Part I, and as we too follow Ashby in doing, as a relation between sets, in which the larger set contains all the conceivable possibilities (variety) and the smaller set only the actually-realized possibilities. He explains:
. . .[A]s every law of nature implies the existence of an invariant, it follows that every law of nature is a constraint. Thus, the Newtonian law says that, of the vectors of planetary positions and velocities which might occur, e.g. written on paper (the larger set), only a smaller set will actually occur in the heavens; and the law specifies what values the elements will have. From our point of view, what is important is that the law excludes many positions and velocities, predicting that they will never be found to occur.
To the extent that science traditionally looks for laws, it is therefore, by that same token, already very much concerned with looking for constraints.
Here the larger set is composed of what might happen if the phenomena to be explained were free and chaotic, and the smaller set is composed of what actually is observed to happen. In our own epistemology and in our own approach to change in organizations, with individuals, or out in the wider world, we look at the totality, in all its possible richness, and then ask why the actualities should be restricted to some small portion of the total possibilities.
For instance, to take another example from elementary physics, light is subject to a higher degree of constraint than other bodies. The movement of light particles travelling through a vacuum is constrained not only by the ‘requirement of’ (the universally instantiated invariant pattern of) travelling in straight lines (as per Newton’s First Law), but is additionally constrained by a fixed velocity, exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, or for short, “C”.
In the absence of any other bodies around or near, every conceivable velocity for light is excluded except for one—C. Such general-purpose, universal constraints form one way in which the universe is patterned, and not just randomly fluctuating the way one would otherwise have a right to expect.
Local Sources of Constraint Applying Universally
By Newton’s First Law, all possibilities are ruled out for an unperturbed moving body except present direction and velocity; and so any observed change in the direction or velocity of a body must therefore have its source elsewhere—in the operation of still other constraints. Or again, if light is travelling slower than C, we must look for other, further sources of constraint—perhaps the medium was not a vacuum as we had supposed. It might then be constrained by the characteristics of the medium; or it might instead, or in addition, be constrained by gravitational forces; and so on.
For in all but the simplest, most trivial of instances there will always be further, local sources of constraint which equally embody universally instantiated invariant patterns but inherently require a reference to local conditions.[2]
Thus: Q: “What stops this light ray from travelling faster?”
A: “Light can never travel faster than C.”
Q: “What stops that light ray from travelling even as fast as C?”
A: “The characteristics of the medium through which it is travelling, namely its refractive index; too much stuff in the way!”
In the latter case, a local physical constraint is specified, which is known to be a constraint on the basis of our model of how things work (light particles having to get past the little molecules, etc.), a model ultimately referring back to the known laws of nature—universally operative constraints on flux (the speed of light C, Newton’s First Law of Motion, etc.).
To summarize, although random flux is to be expected anywhere in the universe, all things being equal, the universe, in point of fact, does not fluctuate randomly, as every schoolchild knows. Laws of nature specify general, more-or-less universally operative constraints on variance, with respect to certain descriptive dimensions applied to certain classes of assemblies: universally instantiated patterns, but which always operate by serving as local sources of constraint. Even the fact that light cannot travel faster than C in a vacuum must, to be of explanatory use, be applied, locally, to this particular stream of light particles.)
Idiosyncratic Local Sources of Constraint
Of course, such universally instantiated patterns are not the only local sources of constraint. Far from it! Still other sources of constraint may, as we shall see, be purely local and idiosyncratic to the situation, rather than universal and general-purpose. And even these local constraints will refer back to universally (or at least more widely) instantiated patterns, or ‘laws’, but laws including, for example—and this is vital!—such things as the laws of logic, or the rules of chess or bridge, or the rules of the road.
Moreover, just as the so-called ‘laws of nature’ are themselves constraints applying more or less universally to whole classes of phenomena, the rules of contract bridge, say, have universal applicability to games of contract bridge, whether they are played in Chicago or Shanghai. But this is far from the end of the story.
The constraint embodied in that other well-known law of nature we adverted to earlier, keeps us from getting to Birmingham faster than the speed of light, C. But the cancelled 7:10 constrains us from getting there before “nine o’clock at the earliest” if no other suitable mode of transport is available. For even in local, one-off situations, countless further, really quite idiosyncratic constraints can invariably be found which are nonetheless empirically and logically demonstrable.
It is these kinds of idiosyncratic, one-off local constraints that are of chief interest to us in the technology of Minimalist Intervention. For it is these unique sets of local constraints that can and must be rigorously studied, and judiciously ordered to release the desired transformation all at once, by means of an all-or-none, across-the-board flip from the existing to the desired state-of-affairs. We shall return to this key point at the end.
What About Change? A Figure-Ground Reversal
Someone has said that we are all minor characters in other people’s soap operas. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark is of course the central character, and amongst the most minor characters are two young students, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern. In Tom Stoppard’s satirical play, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the selfsame story is told except that the two central characters are now Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, and the part of Hamlet is one of the minor parts. Figure and ground have been reversed. Our view of change involves a similar figure–ground reversal in relation to the traditional view.
In the traditional view, change is seen against a background of persistence—change is the figure and persistence the ground. Persistence has traditionally been regarded as general and all-pervasive, change as specific and exceptional; and in our own epistemology these attributions are reversed.
In our own scientific approach to complexity and change, it is no longer taken for granted that persistence is the normal, natural order of things, everywhere present. It is no longer the background against which change is seen to occur locally as an anomalous or aberrant phenomenon, a disruption of the pre–existing stable order, requiring explanation.
On this new epistemological view of the universe, flux (continuous random fluctuation) is everywhere the background, against which background local regions of relative persistence occasionally appear, for shorter or longer spells, here and there. This view thus constitutes a figure-ground reversal of the usual view, which regards persistence as the backdrop against which changes are seen to occur locally as anomalous or aberrant phenomena capable of being explained ‘causally’.
All This has Everything to Do with How We Go About Creating Change
If the natural tendency of all things, as on the traditional view, is persistence, it is only to be expected that change, which must require one to go against that natural tendency, will be difficult. If things tend to persist as they are, resistance–to–change will be more–or–less universal, and will need to be overcome by brute force or by cunning manipulation.
By contrast, we view change as being easy and natural, and resistance-to-change as being largely illusory, for the simple reason that there would be nothing but flux, ceaseless change, everywhere, if it were not for the specific constraints currently in place. Change should always be quick and easy, effortless and natural, and resistance to change should be the exception, not the rule.
It never ceases to amaze us how such good news as this is something so many people find so hard to swallow. The reason is, of course, that it goes against their own experience, which is itself, in turn, only the result of the old, misleading epistemology in practice. Change programmes, change management, and the like are all rooted firmly in the old epistemology of substance-and-forces, cause-and effect.
Releasing Constraints on Change
If we wish to achieve a major change, then on the traditional view rooted in the old epistemology of cause-and-effect, we need to expend enormous efforts on making that change happen. On our alternative epistemology of flux-and-constraint, by contrast, it is assumed that any change will occur swiftly and naturally unless it is actively stopped from happening, whether deliberately or by default.
Where the traditional view is based on the notions of substance and forces, cause and effect, our alternative view is based instead on the notions of form and pattern, flux and constraint. On our alternative view, then, we can only achieve change by releasing it: we identify the precise constraints keeping the desired change from occurring easily and naturally, and selectively remove those constraints.
In a our recent article (August 5th), “Achieving the Impossible”, we explained:
[W]e view…the existing state-of-affairs as the only state-of-affairs currently possible given the constraints currently in place, and we [are] always looking for the smallest shift in those constraints that would make the “impossible” desired state-of-affairs the only possible state-of-affairs once those constraints [are] altered. And of course, that shift happens instantaneously once we’ve replaced the previous set of constraints with the minimally different new set of constraints.
That’s what every minimalist intervention does. The idea is to replace what is currently the only possible state-of-affairs by one that is currently impossible, but which, following the intervention to modify the set of prevailing constraints, will henceforth be the only possible state-of-affairs, while simultaneously rendering the preexisting state-of-affairs now impossible in turn.
What exactly is stopping things from shifting in the desired direction? Which constraints need to be lifted, and what new constraints need to be inserted? In our own approach to creating permanent, across-the-board change overnight, this is always what we seek to discover.
© Copyright 1994, 2022 Dr James Wilk
The moral right of the author has been asserted
[1] 1956 section 7/15
[2] As a nice example of this, staying with the present example of light travelling through a medium, cf. Fermat’s Principle that “light travels between two given points along the path of shortest time” first formulated in 1662. See also Richard Feynman, on the physics of mirages; for a brief exposition see Larry Krauss’s account in his Fear of Physics, New York: Basic Books 1994, pp. 51-53.