Every new field we decide to consider "relevant" to our efforts stretches us just so much thinner -- forces us into areas of which we are irredeemably ignorant. We hope to avoid producing either another dilettante's "theory of living systems," or a narrow treatment of specific ecological phenomena. In order to do this, by definition, we must find a way of capitalizing on our areas of special understanding and expertise (i.e., ecology), while creatively incorporating what we can in some sense "securely" gain from the other fields

Clark, W.C.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

What is this Case All About?Clark, W.C.IIASA Working PaperWP-73-0071973 Clark, W.C. (1973) What is this Case All About? IIASA Working Paper. WP-73-007 Copyright © 1973 by the author(s). http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/39/ Working Papers on work of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis receive only limited review. Views or opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Institute, its National Member Organizations, or other organizations supporting the work. All rights reserved. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage. All copies must bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. For other purposes, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, permission must be sought by contacting repository@iiasa.ac.at WHAT IS THIS CASE ALL ABOUT?W. C. ClarkOctober 1973 WP-73-7Working Papers are not intended fordistribution outside of IIASA, andare solely for discussion and infor-mation purposes. The views expressedare those of the author, and do notnecessarily reflect those of IIASA.What Is This Case All About?W.C. Clark"Counsellor, what is this case all about?" (No.1)Our perspective on the problem leads us to considerationsof persistence, or the lack thereof, in systems.But "persistence" is a totally aggregate and dichotomousempirical concept. In fact, we are interested in the relativeabilities of systems to persist in the face of various stresses.We therefore turn our enquiries to a (proposed) generalbehavioral attribute of systems which we call resilience.This "resi lienc e" is probab ly not formally differ ent from themore conventional concept of "stability-in-the-large."Much of our present work on "resilience" has concernedanalysis of systems with alternative, non-zero, attractordomains or equilibrium states, fue characteristics of boundaryconditions separating those domains. This emphasis may provideuseful and novel insight of sorts, but it should not bemistakenly taken as our major interest.For, in fact, what we really ultimately want to do thisyear is:(1) characterize in empirical detail the systemsbehavior we term resilient;-2-(2) identify the structural (organizational)attributes of the system which result inthe observed resilient behavior;(3) synthesize a predictive theory of the evolution(development) of our sorts of systems underspecified patterns of history.Note several things about the above:The third point, our ultimate goal, is a--or the--general systems theory problem. Our potentialhandle on GST is our ability to specify thecharacteristics which make our sorts of (adaptive?,self-organizing?) systems unique and therefore letus work with defined special cases of GST. Thereis a parallel here to May's notion that we must becareful to specify which of the many formally "possible"cases (of community matrices) are, in fact, relevantto us.We will know we have answered point two when we candesign both resilient and non-resilient systems ona priori grounds.Concerning the first point, we must be careful indeciding which sorts of systems we are interested in.We have done so on an ad hoc basis in our workproposal (ecological, anthropolbgical, economic),but still have no formal criteria for choice.-3-Finally, we should beware of following points 1, 2, 3in sequence. We know we can always find examples tosupport anything; hence Eddington's disinclination to"put much faith in facts which have not beenexplained by theory."In retrospect, we've said all this before. I just needoccasional enforcement.-4-"What is this case all about?" (No.2)(Dynamic system structures.:.)• The problem of dynamic change in system structure, asopposed to our present focus on change in system state givenstatic structure .•. or, What is Mao up to?• There are two related ways in which resilient (or "preadapted!l)systems originate. The first is the obvious tautology; non-resilient systems which arise for whatever reason will be"filtered out" by an environment requiring resilient behavior.The second concerns environmental heterogeneity and thetime constants of various candidate systems. In any changingenvironment you will always find somebody (species, systems)still solving yesterday's problems today. This is notefficient, but it does mean that when yesterday's problemagain becomes relevant, there will be someone around who hasa lot of practice at finding solutions to it (cf. Lewontin's"Historicity"). Of critical importance is clearly the relativefrequency (rate) of former problem re-occurence as compared tothe rates of problem-solving-unit "growth" during "good"(problem-present) times, and attrition during "bad" (problem-absent) ones.If we include the notion of a minimum "density" of problem-solving-unit necessary to act as a good-times propagule, thenthe characteristic growth and attrition rates described aboveare sufficient to define the minimum frequency of problem-5-reoccurrence necessary to sustain existence of the relevantunit (cf. diatoms in streams).* All this means that we really have two classes of leversavailable to us as we attempt to manipulate system organization;viz. we can change structural time constants, and we can alterthe frequency of problem occurrence, i.e. the environment.Having recognized this, we should, in principle, be ableto "starve" an entire mode of organization (i.e., a style ofproblem solving) out of existence merely by reducing thesuitable frequency of problem occurrence below its thresholdlevel. Similarly, we can nurture any "desired" mode simplyby increasing the relevant frequency of problem occurrence.*The reason this problem-frequency-manipulation does notconstitute a simple solution to system organization problemsis that in shifting the problem-frequency, you initiate aseries of changes in the distribution of dominant problem-solving strategies which in turn feeds back on problem-frequency. The situation becomes a control theory "searching"problem; on ｾ priori grounds we can only conclude that theremay exist a characteristic, in some sense resonant, rate atwhich one can apply particular transient stresses leading toparticular transient shifts of problem-frequency, which issufficient to move the entire system state and structure ina desired direction. It is likewise plausible that by applying-6-such stresses at different rates or frequencies, differentfinal states could be reached.Perhaps this is the theory underlying Mao's culturalrevolution.-7-"What is this case all about?" (No.3)We are missing ethology (n.b., a CSH topic of interest ..• )in our spectrum;(genetics)-ecology-ethology-anthropology-anthropological economics-(ec onomic s)As there are essentially ecological factors (e.g.,functional response curves) imparting "resilience" or whateverto assemblages of beasts, so there are essentially behavioralones. It is only by extending our ecological arguments throughtheir ethological variants that we can make coherent contactwith anthropology/anthropological economics ...Every new field we decide to consider "relevant" to ourefforts stretches us just so much thinner--forces us into areasof which we are irredeemably ignorant. We hope to avoidproducing either another dilettante's "theory of livingsystems," or a narrow treatment of specific ecologicalphenomena. In order to do this, by definition, we must finda way of capitalizing on our areas of special understandingand expertise (i.e., ecology), while creatively incorporatingwhat we can in some sense "securely" gain from the other fields.It seems to me that our theory must therefore be developedalmost completely from the ecological side. That is, we shouldbe most wary of including in our own central dogma ideas whichdo not have at least retrospective roots in ecology. This,of course, cannot and should not amount to a total prohibition,but exceptions should be conscious, pre-meditated exceptions.

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