Ascertaining the Normative Implications of Complexity for Politics

Mark Olssen

Paper presented to the Constructed Complexities Workshop, 26-27th November, 2014, Barnett Hill, Guildford, UK

Central to representing the world as a complex dynamical system is to understand it as pertaining to an interdisciplinary approach to non-linear processes of change in both nature and society.

• Today while there exists a multitude of research centres across the globe, complexity research is generating a quiet revolution in both the physical and social sciences.

• liberates philosophy/social science from constraining scientific past based on linear determinism, reductionism and methodological individualism

• supports the social sciences claims that history and culture are important.

• Newtonian mechanics represented the world deterministically as a mechanical system, with parts comprised of particles subject to the unchanging influence of universal laws, and reducible to mathematical codification

• Reality and life was coherent, ordered, predictable and human beings could manage their own realities confident that at the level of the cosmos, as well as of history, society and the global polis, things would pretty much manage themselves

• The core distinctiveness of complexity

approaches can be seen most easily in relation to traditional mechanical models of science

• Newtonian mechanics posited closed systems where time was ‘reversible’ which meant it was irrelevant to events in history or environment, which were represented as capable of moving forwards or backwards, i.e., independently of time.

• Newton’s model presumed a static, atemporal view of the universe

• Laws (e.g. the movement of the planets) were held to operate for all time given constant conditions and not subject to interference.

• Laws constituted a basis for prediction and universal laws

• Causation was represented in linear terms

Complexity

• offers a bold new and more accurate conception of science and the universe

• offers a more advanced formulation of science superseding standard traditional models including quantum mechanics and relativity which came to prominence at the beginning of the twentieth century as corrections to classical mechanics.

• Emphasises chance, contingency, uncertainty, bifurcation, indeterminacy, and inability to predict

Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan• underscored the centrality of uncertainty and non-

predictability in both science and human affairs.

• One of Taleb’s key points is that algorithms can not be utilised as the basis for predicting the future due to contingent contextual conditions which are ceaselessly changing and cannot be predicted in advance.

• Invisible causal generators comprising the system produce different outcomes at different locations in space and time.

• For Taleb, this means that the world of the future is not simply unknown, but unknowable

Bifurcation• Prigogine introduces the concept of bifurcation to explain

the central importance of nonpredictability and indeterminancy in science.

• When a system enters far-from-equilibrium conditions, its structure may be threatened, and a ‘critical condition’, or what Prigogine and Stengers call a ‘bifurcation point’ is entered

• At the bifurcation point, system contingencies may operate to determine outcomes in a way not causally linked to previous linear path trajectories.

• The trajectory is not therefore seen as determined in one particular pathway.

• Although this is not to claim an absence of antecedent causes, it is to say, says Prigogine (1997, p. 5), that “nothing in the macroscopic equations justifies the preferences for any one solution.”

• Or, again, from Exploring Complexity, “[n]othing in the description of the experimental set up permits the observer to assign beforehand the state that will be chosen; only chance will decide, through the dynamics of fluctuations” (Nicolis and Prigogine, 1989, p. 72).

In this description, they say, “we have succeeded in formulating, in abstract terms, the remarkable interplay of chance and constraint” (p. 73).

Figure 1: Mechanical illustration of the phenomenon of bifurcation (from Nicolis and Prigogine, 1989, p. 73)

Highlighting their thesis of indeterminacy, Nicolis and Prigogine make the following comment upon the model: “A ball moves in a valley, which at a particular point becomes branched and leads to either of two valleys, branches b1 and b2 separated by a hill. Although it is too early for apologies and extrapolations…it is thought provoking to imagine for a moment that instead of the ball in Figure [last slide] we could have a dinosaur sitting there prior to the end of the Mesozoic era, or a group of our ancestors about to settle on either the ideographic or the symbolic mode of writing.” (p. 73) 

Although, due to system perturbations and fluctuations, it is impossible to precisely ascertain causes in advance, retrospectively, of course, we find the ‘cause’ there in the events that lead up to an event, in the sense that we look backwards and point to plausible antecedent factors that contributed to its occurrence.

While therefore not undetermined by prior causes, the dislocation of linear deterministic trajectories and the opening-up of alternative possible pathways that can not be pre-ascertained in open environments, is what Prigogine means by ‘chance’

The model of explanation in complexity science places a greater importance on –

• system affects and interactions, • action from a distance, • the unintended consequences of actions• the impossibility of predicting linear

trajectories or the future, • a restricted capacity of individual agents

to understand system developments, • conveys new understanding of

ignorance, restricted cognition, novelty, uniqueness, and creativity of action in open environments.

Normative Implications• In three papers: ‘Discourse, Complexity, Normativity: Tracing the elaboration of Foucault’s materialist conception of discourse’ (Taylor/Francis)

‘Learning in a Complex World’ (Peter Jarvis, ed. Routledge)

‘ Ascertaining the Normative Implications of Complexity for Politics: Beyond Agent-Based Modelling’ (SUNY Press, NY)

Critique of Robert Axelrod

• Neo-positivism

• Bottom-up approach

• No theory of political authority - libertarianism

• Modelling presuppositions

European vs. North American approach

• European approach is less concerned with algorithmic modelling

• An ontological view of world, more adequate to causal sequences we observe, and to world that we experience

• Systemic and holistic, against traditional individualist approaches (Descartes, Kant)

Complexity management, not reduction

• Policy formation and implementation must be seen as complexity management rather than complexity reduction. (Gert Biesta)

• Against fundamentalism – matters of determinism, free will, the existence of God, and the real nature f the world ‘in itself’, as Vico and Nietzsche saw, beyond the limits of positive knowledge. Reality is always mediated which gives it a provisional character

Importance of institutions

• Complexities emphasis upon non-linearity, unpredictability and recursivity of processes, while not denying order, suggest that the policy response to uncertainty and chance should be by coordination through institutions

• in Treatise on Human Nature, Hume suggests that justice is achieved through Institutional coordination (Part 2 of Book 3). Justice is a coordinative virtue arising from insecurities about the possession of transferable goods. Institutionalization and regulation are thus normative consequences of complexity. i.e., complexity requires institutionalization

Edmund Burke’s conservativism

• Seeking to tame complex uncertainties is the key issue for complexity management. Burke saw politics and community as concerned with the ‘taming of chaos’, the ‘ordering of life’ and the ‘constraint of danger’

• Burke’s emphasis upon tradition is as an ‘act of survival’, in order to escape from ‘a wild and dangerous politics’ as a bulwark against the ‘terror of formlessness’

• This protective function of politics as complexity management escalates as life becomes subject to terrorism, climate change, population explosion, nuclear catastrophe, etc.

Against self-regulation laissez-faire

• Complexity politics is concerned with navigating a future, and places emphasis upon regulation and coordination as opposed to neoliberal self-regulation of the economy. Left to itself, complexity in economics leads to entropy and disequilibrium.

• Complexity thus spells the need for regulation of the economy in the way writers like Thomas Pikerty or Elinor Ostrom fortell. Must see it as both local and macro though.

• Hayek took the opposite view. Due to ‘limited knowledge’ the state should not act. I argue the opposite.

Complexity’s normative ethics • Paul Cilliers (2010: viii) notes that: “complexity leads to the

acknowledgement of the inevitable role played by values”

• In a complex and uncertain world, all domains are political and concerned with how we navigate the future. The philosophical lineage suggests Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Heidegger followed by Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze as important theorists of complexity.

• Complexity is constructivist in ethics to the extent the ethical concern becomes managing complexity over time. This suggests a contingently assembled telos or goal dictated by the contingent concerns of the present.

• Complexity asserts a role for human agency and abandons the belief in causal determinism. Agency however is precarious, replete with unintended consequences, and ill or only partially informed

• Political ethics are especially pronounced at points of bifurcation where we are faced with what Deborah Osberg calls “an undecidable choice between several possible ‘ways forward’”. Osberg utilizes notions such as ‘care‘ and ‘responsibility’ as utilized by writers like Nel Noddings, and Carol Gilligan. Also, the ‘imperative of responsibility’ as developed by Hans Jonas (1984).

• As complexity theorizes relations between elements any normative ethics must theorize both system and parts. It is thus necessarily holist in its methodological orientation

• Complexity thus avoids the stark individualism of the Anglo-American philosophical ethics, as well as the ‘thick’ collectivism of Marxism but aims to balance the system pole with the agent pole (or the collective with the individual).

• Because it theorizes a world of interactions and interconnections, of dangers, chance occurrences, uncertainty and unpredictability, responsibility, says Osberg, speaks to an ethic which demonstrates a commitment to a shared future where collegiality and creativity are called for

Toward a Global Thin Community• In a complex world, politics must endeavour to direct

evolution – i.e., it seeks to specify and limit the way in which complexities are managed and by which continuance of life is provided for

• A concern with survival directs attention to issues over resources, infrastructures in a way that deontological ethics seems to ignore

• Mere survival, in Darwin’s sense, aims too low. Darwin failed to adequately theorise how, given complex change, relations between individuals and their environments are themselves transformed.

Continuance ethics• Developed utilising Nietzsche’s philosophy

• Foucault’s ethics – new book (Bloomsbury)

• Conflict between right and the good suggested by ontology of system and parts.

• Resolution of tension between right and good through democracy (transparency, deliberation, accountability, scrutiny)

• Increasing population pressures – raises new conundrums between collective and individual

What kind of theory s this?• seeks a reconciliation between deontological ethics and

good based approaches

• Can incorporate aspects of classical ethics (virtue-based approaches), liberal ethics (democracy, accountability, etc.), Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, etc.

• Today, more than ever, individual aspirations can only be realized, and liberty exercised, through coordinated political action at both the local and the global

• This is to say that individual liberty increasingly presupposes for its exercise collective political regulation and action, both nationally and globally.

• Also positive state and global action to structure opportunities, eliminate threats, manage risks, and direct options to specified ends (e.g., healthy nutrition)

• While complexity constitutes a new mode of perception and scientific ontology, new normative dangers and imperatives become manifest with changing dynamics – climate change, terrorism, demographic changes (population increases), and consequent health scares

• Complexity is consistent with a new form of nominalist historical materialism. As the world becomes fuller, more dangerous, etc. new complex political dynamics are necessitated.

• Given complex evolution can ‘go anywhere’, intervention becomes clearly necessary to seek to steer evolution and try to ensure survival

The end of neoliberalism• the failure of economies to self-regulate together with new

dangers of climate change, population, etc., entail increasing control by states and global agencies – suggesting that neoliberalism is a not a ‘crisis without end’

• In my most recent paper I criticize Agent-Based Modelling approaches, especially the work of Robert Axelrod, in terms of its inherently positivistic approach to complexity analysis. Utilizing game theory, I criticize Axelrod for neglecting any conception of politics or authority, but seeking to explain societal dimensions such as the evolution of cooperation, as naturally evolving based solely upon the self-interested actions of individuals.