Ha! That one confused me. Did he mean too much coupling between our systems (knowledge, financial, etc) effectively producing monoculture suceptible to disease... Or just too much hanky-panky :).
Strogatz is mostly known for his research in dynamical systems, where coupling leads to chaotic behaviour. (Strong) coupling also terribly annoys particle physicists when they want to describe the strong nuclear force and generally makes life bad.
He was certainly referring to the first kind, a huge increase in interdependence leading to more chaotic/unpredictable and possibly more vulnerable systems, be they financial, economical, ecological or just semiconduct…orial?
which I'm pretty sure was previously submitted here to HN. There is a lot of food for thought in the full responses of the persons who respond to the Edge questions each year.
For example, one of the responses is just plain puzzling in the blogspam tl;dr version, but thought-provoking in the full version:
"Steven Strogatz
"Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell University; Author, The Joy of x
"Too Much Coupling
"In every realm where we exist as a collective —in society, in the global economy, on the Internet —we are blithely increasing the coupling between us, with no idea what that might entail.
"'Coupling' refers to the ability of one part of a complex system to influence another. If I put a hundred metronomes on the floor and set them ticking, they'll each do their own thing, swinging at their own rhythm. In this condition, they're not yet coupled. Because the floor is rigid, the metronomes can't feel each other's vibrations, at least not enough to make a difference. But now place them all on a movable platform like the seat of a child's swing. The metronomes will start to feel each other's jiggling. The swing will start to sway, imperceptibly at first, but enough to disturb each metronome and alter its rhythm. Eventually the whole system will synchronize, with all the metronomes ticking in unison. By allowing the metronomes to impose themselves on each other through the vibrations they impart to the movable platform, we have coupled the system and changed its dynamics radically.
"In all sorts of complex systems, this is the general trend: increasing the coupling between the parts seems harmless enough at first. But then, abruptly, when the coupling crosses a critical value, everything changes. The exact nature of the altered state isn't easy to foretell. It depends on the system's details. But it's always something qualitatively different from what came before. Sometimes desirable, sometimes deadly.
"I worry that we're playing the coupling game with ourselves, collectively. With our cell phones and GPS trackers and social media, with globalization, with the coming Internet of things, we're becoming more tightly connected than ever. Of course, maybe that's good. Greater coupling means faster and easier communication and sharing. We can often do more together than apart.
"But the math suggests that increasing coupling is a siren's song. Too much makes a complex system brittle. In economics and business, the wisdom of the crowd works only if the individuals within it are independent, or nearly so. Loosely coupled crowds are the only wise ones.
"The human brain is the most exquisitely coupled system we know of, but the coupling between different brain areas has been honed by evolution to allow for the subtleties of attention, memory, perception, and consciousness. Too much coupling produces pathological synchrony: the rhythmic convulsions and loss of consciousness associated with epileptic seizures.
"Propagating malware, worldwide pandemics, flash crashes—all symptoms of too much coupling. Unfortunately it's hard to predict how much coupling is too much. We only know that we want more, and that more is better… until it isn't."
Thanks for posting that. I wasn't aware that it was pulled from a longer source. I did check if this link had been submitted, but wasn't aware of the original source.
I do think the "blogspam" offers concise summaries of the responses, which adds value for me. The fact that I can use that to go deeper into mini essays on edge will dominate my morning's reading.
Edit: Not quite blogspam because it is a useful summary that is not available on the original site. It would added more value with links to the answers.
What I find interesting is that almost all respondents name worries that are in or related to their own profession or field of study. Note that the original question was "What should we be worried about?" So now I am worried that nobody can see past the edges of their own little world anymore.
“We should worry that so much of our science and technology still uses just five main models of probability—even though there are more probability models than there are real numbers.” –Bart Kosko, information scientist
17 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 45.3 ms ] threadEverybody hates coupling. Also, stupidity.
He was certainly referring to the first kind, a huge increase in interdependence leading to more chaotic/unpredictable and possibly more vulnerable systems, be they financial, economical, ecological or just semiconduct…orial?
http://www.edge.org/responses/q2013
which I'm pretty sure was previously submitted here to HN. There is a lot of food for thought in the full responses of the persons who respond to the Edge questions each year.
For example, one of the responses is just plain puzzling in the blogspam tl;dr version, but thought-provoking in the full version:
"Steven Strogatz
"Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell University; Author, The Joy of x
"Too Much Coupling
"In every realm where we exist as a collective —in society, in the global economy, on the Internet —we are blithely increasing the coupling between us, with no idea what that might entail.
"'Coupling' refers to the ability of one part of a complex system to influence another. If I put a hundred metronomes on the floor and set them ticking, they'll each do their own thing, swinging at their own rhythm. In this condition, they're not yet coupled. Because the floor is rigid, the metronomes can't feel each other's vibrations, at least not enough to make a difference. But now place them all on a movable platform like the seat of a child's swing. The metronomes will start to feel each other's jiggling. The swing will start to sway, imperceptibly at first, but enough to disturb each metronome and alter its rhythm. Eventually the whole system will synchronize, with all the metronomes ticking in unison. By allowing the metronomes to impose themselves on each other through the vibrations they impart to the movable platform, we have coupled the system and changed its dynamics radically.
"In all sorts of complex systems, this is the general trend: increasing the coupling between the parts seems harmless enough at first. But then, abruptly, when the coupling crosses a critical value, everything changes. The exact nature of the altered state isn't easy to foretell. It depends on the system's details. But it's always something qualitatively different from what came before. Sometimes desirable, sometimes deadly.
"I worry that we're playing the coupling game with ourselves, collectively. With our cell phones and GPS trackers and social media, with globalization, with the coming Internet of things, we're becoming more tightly connected than ever. Of course, maybe that's good. Greater coupling means faster and easier communication and sharing. We can often do more together than apart.
"But the math suggests that increasing coupling is a siren's song. Too much makes a complex system brittle. In economics and business, the wisdom of the crowd works only if the individuals within it are independent, or nearly so. Loosely coupled crowds are the only wise ones.
"The human brain is the most exquisitely coupled system we know of, but the coupling between different brain areas has been honed by evolution to allow for the subtleties of attention, memory, perception, and consciousness. Too much coupling produces pathological synchrony: the rhythmic convulsions and loss of consciousness associated with epileptic seizures.
"Propagating malware, worldwide pandemics, flash crashes—all symptoms of too much coupling. Unfortunately it's hard to predict how much coupling is too much. We only know that we want more, and that more is better… until it isn't."
I do think the "blogspam" offers concise summaries of the responses, which adds value for me. The fact that I can use that to go deeper into mini essays on edge will dominate my morning's reading.
"Put the headphones on.
Set the dial to 89.5.
It'll take a coupla-three seconds."
"...Oh My God! ...Oh. My. God!!"
"There it is."
"...Do you have any idea what we're hearing?"
`Life In the Divide'
- mid-90's Seattle/Bellevue C89.5FM `lectroBox' sound spot
Edit: Not quite blogspam because it is a useful summary that is not available on the original site. It would added more value with links to the answers.
82. That we worry too much. –Gary Klein, scientist at MacroCognition
89. That we worry too much. –Donald D. Hoffman, cognitive scientist
92. That we worry too much. –Brian Knutson, associate professor of psychology
95. That we worry too much, but about fictional violence. –Jonathan Gottschall, English professor
116. That we worry too much. –Virginia Heffernan, Yahoo News correspondent
128. That we worry too much. –James J. O’Donnell, classical scholar
129. That we worry too much. –Robert Provine, neuroscientist
146. That we worry too much, and “package our worries” in a deleterious fashion. –Mary Catherine Bateson, professor emerita
51. That we will worry too much. –Joseph LeDoux, neuroscientist
Not sure about the other cognitive-/neuro-scientists, but I know LeDoux spent considerable time on the amygdala.
Which five models is he referring to?
Not very smart.