Emerging Structures and Self-Organization

Alan Hirsch is an absolute genius. Let me first say that if you haven't read The Forgotten Ways yet, you're missing a brain stimulus that beats a week marathon of watching 24 episodes and eating ice cream every night.

Digest this quote from Steven Johnson, recorded by Hirsch:
"Self-organization is the tendency of certain (but not all) systems operating on the edge of chaos to shift to a new state when their constituent elements generate unlikely combinations. When systems become sufficiently populated and properly interconnected, the interactions assemble themselves into a new order: proteins into cells, cells into organs, organs into organisms, organisms into societies. Simple parts networked together can undergo a metamorphosis."

Sounds a little heady, but in layman's terms, Johnson is saying that elements working together in systems have the power to undergo magnificent changes. A brain cell, for example, is useless by itself, but millions of them together can do things we have yet to even imagine.

Now, the key phrase in the above statement (in my mind) is "operating on the edge of chaos". Hirsch points out that it is at the edge of chaos where real innovation takes place. When people (complex systems) have enough interaction through informal connections and the complexity reaches a critical point, then you have the equation for spontaneous emergence of some really good stuff.

Therein lies the key ingredient for our CityFocus efforts. In order to see megacities transformed, we don't need a magic structure or a sweet new strategy. We need literally thousands upon thousands of dynamic informal connections inside a loose network that will spark the imaginations of millions.

As an important side note, I stayed in the burbs of Chicago Friday night with the parents of a good friend who is making it big as a musician in L.A. Had a blast. Mrs. Carol Wilson survived a brain aneurysm seven years ago and has some miraculous stories. This is the photo of her and her grandson. Amazing family.