One thing leads to an unexpected other
[ by Charles Cameron — complex situations, unexpected consequences, analysts’ need for semi-random knowledges ]
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Suppose you’re a Japanese journalist given a news report to write about a tourist who may have contracted an obscure disease on a visit to Zaire. The job seems straightforward enough, you expect your Japanese readers to be sympathetic to the plight of your Japanese tourist subject, you don’t exactly expect your readers to include one Shoko Asahara, guru of Aum Shinrikyo…
But he’s there in the penumbra, reading… as this report from the Center for Counterproliferation Research of the NDU testifies:
In 1992, Aum sent a team of 40 people to Zaire to acquire Ebola. Led by Asahara himself, the team included doctors and nurses. During an outbreak of Ebola in Zaire, a Japanese tourist visiting that country may have contracted the hemorrhagic fever. This report, which received considerable publicity in Japan, apparently inspired Asahara to mount the expedition to Zaire in October 1992. Ostensibly, this trip was intended as a humanitarian mission, called the “African Salvation Tour.” It is not known if Aum actually obtained Ebola cultures. A Japanese magazine quoted a former member of the group, “We were cultivating Ebola, but it needed to be studied more. It can’t be used practically yet.”
One things leads to an unexpected other.
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Here’s a positive example, one that I heard on the radio yesterday, and nothing to do with terrorism — except perhaps at the cellular level:
You know, the Scottish surgeon George Beatson was walking through the highlands in England, and he heard some shepherds saying, oh, you know, when we remove the ovaries of cows and goats, the pattern — or the breasts of these animals changes; the pattern of milk production changes.
So, Beatson began to wonder, well, what is the — this was a time when no one knew about estrogen. So, Beatson began to wonder, what is the connection between ovaries and breasts? And he said, well, if ovaries are connected to breasts, then maybe they’re connected to breast cancer.
And he took out the ovaries of three or four women with breast cancer and had these spontaneous, had these, not spontaneous, but amazing remissions. And it was — this is the basis for tamoxifen, the drug that actually blocks estrogen, and thereby affects breast cancer.
I mean, who would have thought that walking through and talking to a shepherd in Scotland would affect a billion-dollar drug, which is very, very powerful against breast cancer today?
One thing leads to an unexpected other. Listen.
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Back to terror — and what jihadists notice, think about and discuss:
They follow the news.
If the stock-market takes a dive, the folks on the forums know about it — and crow about it. Because, as bin Laden said, AQ’s policy is one of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy, Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.” Inspire magazine calls it “the strategy of a thousand cuts” and claims the “aim is to bleed the enemy to death”. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross‘ book, Bin Laden’s Legacy, is abundantly clear on that point.
So yes, they follow the news. So they know about the riots in the UK.
There was an interesting short flurry of tweets on Twitter a couple of days ago, when Will McCants, who monitors such things and runs the Jihadica blog, noted: “Lots of pictures of #londonriots being posted to Ansar jihadi forum” and followed up by quoting a couple of forum comments: “God is burning the ground beneath the feet of the Crusaders” and “We are witnessing this aggressor nation quaking inside and out….collapsing and suffering defeat by the permission of God”.
Jason Burke of the Guardian picked up on McCants’ post and noted, “so now Islamic militants exploiting #londonriots” – and Aaron Zelin of Jihadology chimed in with the tweet I quoted at the top of this post.
The conversation continued for a bit, but it’s Aaron’s comment that I want to focus on, because it makes explicit the kind of seamless weave of knowledge that I’ve been thinking about lately — which makes cross-disciplinary awareness both so necessary and so feasible at this time. Let’s call it Zelin’s law:
every event and issue will be exploited by every group and ideology on the net.
Here’s my corollary: one thing leads to an unexpected other.
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So what?
So we need a supersaturated solution of knowledges where decisions are made.
So our analysts need to be speckled specialists — experts with a sufficiently wide and random assortment of additional odd knowledges to be able to frame and reframe and reframe, to shake off any group frame and suggest half a dozen plausible alternatives, to doubt each one of them in turn, to turn to the right people who are themselves specialists in those other framings, to ask, to listen, to hear…
So we also need a supersaturated solution of ignorances — admitted, and inquiring.
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Here’s Herbert E Meyer on the non-bureaucratic qualities of first-rate analysts:
In normal circumstances people like this would never be willing to take government jobs. Moreover, any agency that hired them would soon be driven nuts by their energy, their drive, their seemingly off-the-wall ideas, their sometimes bizarre work habits, even their tempers.
Sometimes bizarre, eh? “Embrace the maverick,” Deputy Director for Intelligence Jami Miscik advised.
And by extension, embrace the unexpected — learn to expect it.
Is there a literature of the unexpected? Read it! And I don’t just mean read Nicholas Nassim Taleb‘s Black Swan — I mean, keep tabs on the undertows, read the opposition, read the factional fights within the opposition, read the underclass and upperclass, the radical and the pacific and the merely eccentric and the totally off the wall. Know that some people believe there is a reptile in Queen Elizabeth II‘s head — and I don’t mean people who hold some variant on Paul MacLean‘s triune brain theory! Read the ancients as well as the moderns.
Note especially the places where two fields or perspectives or framings overlap — they’re the places where experts can most easily see that each others’ approaches have value. Cultivate binocular vision — and I mean, vision.
And do all this with a fair amount of randomness, with curiosity.
I happen to study religion, for instance, and splatter myself with other things — epidemiology, for instance, and complexity, and lit crit, and medieval music and plenty more besides — just enough to give a vaguely Jackson Pollock look to my interest in religion.
And Aum Shinrikyo’s attempt to gather samples of the Ebola virus isn’t an epidemiology story, isn’t a new religious movements story — it’s at the intersection, it’s both.
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How many fields of knowledge can you gossip in for a minute or three? That’s a question with profound implications in terms of networked interactions and collective understanding.
How many languages can you frame your questions in?
August 13th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Charles, This is an excellent post!
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"How many fields of knowledge can you gossip in for a minute or three?"
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You’re right about the implications. Just yesterday, after re-reading an ancient book on the history of Hebrew law, I found a couple of nuggets that helped me immensely.
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Many thanks for sharing!
August 13th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
I haven’t commented here in some time. This is an excellent post & the quote, "How many fields of knowledge can you gossip in for a minute or three?", is a very good one.
Regards,
TDL
August 13th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
Bureaucracies cannot abide mavericks and remain bureaucracies.
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I will also chime in and say "Great post"!
August 13th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
How long does it take for a virus to form? It depends on the environment you Observe, the advantage you seek in the Orientation of the ignorance, and the velocity between Decision and Action.
August 14th, 2011 at 12:31 am
Great book on this topic of cross disciplinary creativity "The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson.
Johansson describes Intersectional ideas; “are those resulting from combining concepts from multiple fields – areas of specialization gained through education and experience – as compared to those created traditionally by combing concepts within a field – noted as directional ideas. Success in intersectional idea generation is dependent upon breaking down barriers of association that would more than likely indicate a “non relationship” or at best limited context between or among fields. … where different cultures, domains, and disciplines stream together toward a single point. They connect, allowing for established concepts to clash and combine, ultimately forming a multitude of new ground breaking ideas. This place, where the different fields meet, is what I call the Intersection. And the explosion of remarkable innovation that you find there is what I call the Medici Effect… (Stemming from the) remarkable burst of creativity in fifteenth-century Italy.”
August 14th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Charles almost forgot to add…Great post!!!
August 14th, 2011 at 1:42 am
This is a subject reappearing often over the years at ZenPundit and elsewhere. Ahem. [http://dreaming5gw.com/5gw_lexicon/c/consilience.php] Too often the discussion stops at merely recognizing the potential & the actual confluence of ideas, fields of study, diverse ideologies, and so forth, and the technology which allows this confluence more easily than ever before and indeed more quickly. The discussion stops at pointing out, again and again, in ever so many ways, how consilience appears to occur, that is, how diverse knowledge, awareness, discussion, and all other matters touching on the new infosphere (so to speak) are enabling habits of thinking, cross-pollination. What is so often left out: The operationalization of this, the acting-upon of cross-pollination, and in general the ways this consilience appears concretely, its manifestation.
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I look forward to the time where we can finally put aside the OMG moment—which occurs whenever posts of the above nature once again point out the possibility and actuality of consilience in the cognitive sphere—put aside pointing this out, as a given, and then move on to the real-world consequences.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:07 am
Hey Zen, The Air Force bureaucracy survived John Boyd…just sayin…
August 14th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
The problem is trying to make a living doing it this way. John Boyd consciously chose to have no material goods and to let his family starve so he could pursue a very speckled approach to knowledge and to winning bureaucratic struggles to put that knowledge to work. Few have his strength of character — or fanaticism, if you want to put a negative cast on it, which I do not. The problem for organizations is how do you cultivate this type of person and thinking? How do you find it, maintain access to it, allow it free play, occasionally discipline it or focus it when you really do need specific answers and policy recommendations today, now? How do you discern the genuine generalist and connection-maker from the the nutty random aggregator? The problem is bridging the barrier between reading and thinking and learning on one side, and action by means of lawfully constituted authority employing lethal force on the other.
August 14th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Hi Scott,
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Boyd survived the USAF to retire, it did not abide him. A PhD dissertation by an officer out to "be somebody" was just written and highlighted at Wings Over Iraq that attacked Boyd viciously. The USAF brass still has neither forgotten nor forgiven Boyd for being more right and wanting to build planes that could win wars rather than contracts.
August 14th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Lex,
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Without sounding presumptuous, I’ve been working on this problem for the last five years—and I have a partial solution in my book. While Boyd was fanatical, I sense that he knew his path was unique. The same man who railed at the less enlightened, also had the presence of mind to recognize the potential of organizational harmony—and flatter, more dispersed organizations. Having spent the last five years tinkering with possible solutions, I can say with confidence my outline now makes sense…wrote just about all day yesterday…but as we previously discussed, Boyd left behind a scaffold of ideas, if implemented could create and sustain the type environment you describe…my hope is that I can adequately capture and be convincing.
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Zen, My point was the AF remained a bureaucracy and is even worse today, in spite of all Boyd contributed.
August 14th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Gotcha. I will send you a copy when I get home, it is venomous. Evidently a lot of USAF ppl still harbor ill will
August 14th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Here’s the dissertation.
August 14th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
" John Boyd consciously chose to have no material goods and to let his family starve" Boyd let his family starve? So you are saying he had no second player? That is funny.
August 15th, 2011 at 1:24 am
Let’s make it infinitely recursive, yet networked:
Every event and issue will be exploited by every event and issue on the net.
August 15th, 2011 at 4:23 am
Boyd’s intenetionally chosen poverty, and its impact on his family, is explained in detail in Coram’s bio. "Starve" is a shorthand. I don’t know what a "second player" is, or why it is funny.
August 15th, 2011 at 4:24 am
Scott, I eagerly await whatever you are writing.
August 15th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Or: Humans exploit their environment. Instinctively.
August 15th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
So, the guy who wrote the dissertation (thanks for sharing, Charles) conveniently left out the USMC Commandant’s words about the role maneuver in Gulf War I. Some parts are credible—like Boyd’s tendency towards self-aggrandizement (which is pretty clear in some of the videos).
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He does mention that Boyd would shout down people who disagreed…but I couldn’t determine what the source was….does anyone know if this is true? I know Boyd was a tall drink of water, and I wouldn’t be surprised…it is ironic that the guy highly critical of doctrine/dogma, could be dogmatic…
August 15th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Lex:
Sounds very like a secular version of the monastic ideal, which I believe is also found in many artists (garret = hermitage, roughly).
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FWIW, the best serious description of secular monasticism I know of is that of the Castalian Order (interesting: with celibacy) in Hesse‘s Magister Ludi — although Dune and Canticle for Leibowitz both have interesting monastic orders.
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Monasticism [Catholic, Buddhist] wld make an interesting study in political science, eremetics likewise for the indivdual / libertarian.
August 15th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
"it is ironic that the guy highly critical of doctrine/dogma, could be dogmatic"
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Maybe outside the scope of this thread, but I want to point out that a certain branch of skeptics have done this for millennia.
August 15th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Curtis:
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The thread is titled "one thing leads to an unexpected other" — so your comment would appear to be within its scope : )
August 15th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Aha! I will consider that carte blanche!
August 15th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
CGW,
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From what I’ve been told, some of Boyd’s acolytes resist criticism of Boyd’s ideas/logic, without realizing that that critics are doing what Boyd did. What I continue to admire about Boyd are the intellectual "snowmobiles" he created—can’t do that with dogma…dammit!:))
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That said, I remain highly skeptical of the "science" angle of Boyd’s work, but that does not take away from his contributions…in fact, my skepticism has driven me to read stuff I would have never considered (Polanyi and tons of neuroscience stuff).
August 15th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
JSS,
I generally use the division Montaigne used. Philosophers can be broken into three general groups: the dogmatists, the skeptics who were "anti-dogmatists" and thought we can never know anything (and were dogmatic about that!), and the Pyrrhonian skeptics who suspended judgment. The Pyrrhonians—or is it Pyrrhonists?—found value in the search, never quite settling, although for the sake of this search they can "settle" temporarily on a position which they have no great desire to defend: devil’s advocate, for the sake of extending and enriching the search via debate and conversation and even, one supposes, one’s own internal dialogue.
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And to bring this subject back ’round to the focus of the thread, my guess is that dogmatists and the anti-dogmatist skeptics will have the most trouble w/ consilience etc., at least in comparison w/ the Pyrrhonian approach. I imagine dogmatists to leap at confirming knowledge coming from diverse fields—a kind of confirmation bias in action, in support of dogma—and the anti-dogmatists to use seemingly conflicting knowledge to "prove" nothing can be known—it’s all just one mess of facts or mere opinion; but Pyrrhonians will enjoy the jaunting here & there across a spectrum.
August 15th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
CGW,
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You frame that nicely, and I’m sure Charles will appreciate our return to the focus of the thread:))
August 15th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Pyrrhonians would presumably include Buddhist followers of Madhyamika, at least as understood by Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, see her The Power of an Open Question.
August 15th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Charles,
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The publisher of the Open Question book also has an excellent little book called The Power of Limits, Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art & Architecture. I have used this book in my study of fractals and patterns. On the same topic, an old text called The Curves of Life is also good.
August 15th, 2011 at 10:06 pm
Charles,
Interesting description on the book @ Amazon: "The process of inquiry protects us from our tendency to reach static conclusions. Instead, we can respond to uncertainty and change with inquisitiveness and a sense of wonder.”
August 15th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
CGW, the monastic ideal is similar to the life Boyd lived, but perhaps it is more like the warrior monks of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaler.
August 15th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Lex:
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Yes indeed on the warrior monks — btw, I was the one who posted the "monastic analogy" comment — zen-trained samurai might fit in here, too.
August 16th, 2011 at 2:02 am
Lex,
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Indeed.
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Imagine the power of a group of folks with half of Boyd’s determination and curiosity. Boyd typified what Gregory Berns described in his book, Iconoclast….except that Boyd never perfected the social aspect. I read most of the dissertation above (of which some seemed part a specious hit-job, but some rang true)—it seems Boyd did not react well when giving his POC briefing and had someone from the audience dissented—and he seemed to like to brag…hubris, even from the guy who changed my life.
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Perhaps we should be reminded that monks subscribe to dogma of a kind…the type of free thinking snowmobile examples Boyd extolled was tamped down, but more importantly is all too rare. I’ve shared this before, but William Stafford’s poem A Ritual to Read to Each Other always comes to mind…the darkness around us is, indeed, is deep….