John Boyd presentation

Excerpts

The theme that weaves its way through this Discourse on Winning and Losing is not so much contained within... makes up its very essence

increasingly abstract discussion surfaces a process of reaching across many perspectives, pulling each and every one apart (analyses), all the while intuitively looking for those parts of the disassembled perspectives which naturally interconnect with one another to form a higher order, more general elaboration (synthesis) of what is taking place. As a result, the process not only creates the Discourse but it also represents the key to evolve the tactics, strategies, goals, unifying themes, etc., that permit us to actively shape and adapt to the unfolding world we are a part of, live in, and feed upon.

we can evolve a conceptual spiral for comprehending, shaping, and adapting to that world.

self-correcting process of observation

self-correcting process of observation, design and test;

Examples From Science

Exactness/predictability

Inexactness/unpredictability via gravitational influence of three bodies

discontinuity

Incompleteness/undecidability in mathematics & logic

Examples From Engineering

Looking at the past via the contributions these people have provided the world: What can we say about our efforts for now and for the future?

not only do the statements representing a theoretical system for explaining some aspect of reality explain that reality inadequately or incompletely but, like it or not, these statements spill out beyond any one system and do so in unpredictable ways

Any coherent intellectual or physical systems we evolve to represent or deal with large portions of reality will at best represent or deal with that reality incompletely or imperfectly.

People using theories or systems evolved from a variety of information will find it increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible to interact with and comprehend phenomena or systems that move increasingly beyond and away from that variety

but what does all this have to do with our ability to thrive

What is the driving mechanism that keeps the process alive and ongoing; or put another way, what phenomena sustain or nourish the whole enterprise?

The presence and production of mismatches are what sustain and nourish the enterprise of science, engineering, and technology, hence keep it alive and ongoing--otherwise there would be no basis for it to continue

without the intuitive interplay of analyses and synthesis, we have no basic process for generating novelty, no basic process for addressing mismatches between our mental images/impressions and the reality it is supposed to represent, and no basic process for reshaping our orientation toward that reality as it undergoes change.

What bearing does all this have on Winning and Losing?

novelty is produced continuously, if somewhat erratically or haphazardly. Now, in order to thrive and grow in such a world, we must match our thinking and doing, hence our orientation, with that emerging novelty. Yet, any orientation constrained by experiences before that novelty emerges (as well as by the Grand Message discussed earlier) introduces mismatches that confuse or disorient us. However, the analytical/synthetic process, previously described, permits us to address these mismatches so that we can rematch thereby reorient our thinking and action with that novelty

With so much effort over such a long period by so many people to comprehend, shape, and adapt to a world that we depend upon for vitality and growth, why does such a world, although richer and more robust, continue to remain uncertain, ever-changing, and unpredictable?

the various theories, systems, processes, etc. that we employ to make sense of that world contain features that generate mismatches that, in turn, keep such a world uncertain, ever-changing, and unpredictable.

These Features Include

• Uncertainty associated with the unconfinement, undecidability, and incompleteness theorems of mathematics and logic;
• Numerical imprecision associated with using the rational and irrational numbers in the calculation and measurement processes;
• Quantum uncertainty associated with Planck's Constant and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle;
• Entropy increase associated with the Second Law of Thermodynamics;
• Irregular or erratic behavior associated with far-from-equilibrium, open, nonlinear processes or systems with feedback;
• Incomprehensibility associated with the inability to completely screen, filter, or otherwise consider spaghetti-like influences from a plethora of ever-changing, erratic, or unknown outside events;
• Mutations associated with environmental pressure, replication errors, or unknown influences in molecular and evolutionary biology;
• Ambiguity associated with natural languages as they are used and interact with one another; and
• Novelty generated by the thinking and actions of unique individuals and their many-sided interactions with each other.

There is no way out, unless we can eliminate the features just cited.

The conceptual spiral also represents: A Paradigm for Survival and Growth

Chet Richards notes

Boyd is best known for his work on war, but he had always intended that Patterns of Conflict apply to all forms of conflict

In his next two presentations, Organic Design for Command and Control and Strategic Game of ? and ?, he investigated the nature of orientation, leadership, and strategy

He became fascinated by similarities between his blitzkrieg culture and the Toyota Production System, and this led to consultation on the early drafts of what became my book, Certain to Win (2004).

With Conceptual Spiral, he cut himself loose from war--science, technology, and engineering were now his framework. From my notes of telephone conversations, he started building the charts that compose Conceptual Spiral in mid-1990.

Where he left off

In a sense, Boyd returned to where he left off in 1976 with “Destruction and Creation.” That paper says nothing about war but talks about the general problem of survival on our own terms in a competitive world. He insisted that we must always strive to increase our capacity for independent action because, otherwise, constraints on our activities could limit our options and decrease our ability to survive in a way we find desirable. In order to increase our capacity for independent action, we need a set of concepts that describes how the world works, and we use this set of concepts as a mental model for decision-making

at some point, our ability to continue using our old system of concepts degrades to the point where we will need to change our model to allow us to better predict the effects of our actions

Where do we get our new system of concepts? Boyd suggested a “dialectic engine”

One way to do this is to analyze concepts into constituent parts

The constituents do not have to come from the same “domain”--area of knowledge--that we are working in

Eventually someone will have an “aha!” moment by combining various bits of understanding in a novel and elegant way that allows a new synthesis, a new understanding, a new system of concepts for representing reality

Boyd’s approach, rather than trying to establish some thesis by marshaling anecdotes, data, quotes, and arguments to support it, produces a product built from the elements he has collected. These products could be considered as the -A models, as in F-15A and F-16A, of the solutions he creates. He does not claim that they are the ultimate answers--that would violate the conclusion of “Destruction and Creation”--and he keeps insisting that it’s the method not the product that’s important, but he would argue and he did argue that his new conceptions were better than what came before him.

In Conceptual Spiral, Boyd returns to this theme but draws on his years of experience with the study of conflict

He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives. (24) Conceptual Spiral completes the task of answering what this means.

In the grand scheme of things

Why did Boyd write Conceptual Spiral?

Frans Osinga (2005) did not have a high opinion of Conceptual Spiral, suggesting that it is merely an affirmation of “Destruction and Creation”

Boyd claims that when you put these two soporific statements together, something magical happens: By exploiting the theme contained within this passage and by examining the practice of science/engineering and the pursuit of technology, we can

"evolve a conceptual spiral for comprehending, shaping, and adapting to that world." (p. 5) Voila: The Meaning of Life!

The meaning of life?

Conceptual Spiral ends with “insight, imagination, and initiative” as the prerequisites for survival and growth. With his nearly contemporaneous revision to chart 144 of Patterns, however, Boyd suggests that “vitality and growth” demand IOHAI: insight, orientation, harmony, agility, and initiative. He was using both concepts as late as 1992, so it’s not that one replaced the other. Are these two equivalent? Or is Boyd making things more complex than they need to be? Or something else?

(more tk)