[Book Review] A Crude Look At The Whole by John H. Miller

A Crude Look At The Whole by John H. Miller

Who is the author?

John H. Miller holds a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Finance from the University of Colorado. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan in 1988. Since then, he has joined the Santa Fe Institute as a doctorial fellow and is currently Professor of Economies and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.

His research fields are as follows, and we can see that his research fields are very broad.

Agent-based Modeling, AI/Machine Learning, Behavior, Biology, Economics, Evolution, Finance, Psychology, Risk & Uncertainty, Social Science, Strategy/Decision Making, Complex Adaptive Social Systems (Source: Santa Fe Institute website)

Why did the author write this book?

As an economist, his main research field is focused on the study of economic mechanisms or finding and studying economic patterns based on the theory of complex systems. In fact, we all know that the economy is only a small fraction (or a significant part) of how the whole world works. Thus, the authors explain that there are mechanisms in common between the various domains and scales, from the smallest cells of the world to organic organisms and large ecosystems. In other words, this book was written to explain the various mechanisms for understanding the economy and the world as an economist through various phenomena that can be found around us and in nature.

The purpose of this book mentioned earlier and the direction of implications that readers can obtain are implicitly provided by the author's comments in the epilogue below.

“Complexity pervades the problems we face in society. The major problems facing humanity, such as climate change, financial collapse, ecosystem survival, terrorism, epidemics, and social revolutions, are based on complex systems.”

“Ideas from the world of complexity are beginning to change the way we think and act about the world.”

“The diverse strands of ideas, theories and observations explored here will come together to create new and important tapestries that give us vivid views of the world we live in and novel ways to achieve our goals.”

What are the key points of this book?

As mentioned earlier, this book introduces various laws for understanding and viewing the world through the strands of complexity we can observe around us.

As an individual theory, this book explains various topics such as feedback systems, molecular intelligence, collective intelligence, mutual influence on networks, changes in efficiency according to unit scale changes, critical points, etc. with examples of phenomena occurring in real nature or society. . And after explaining the mechanism through observation, the author presents implications to enable us to look at various fields such as social, political, and economic through these lenses, which I think is the key point of this book. That said, the authors do not comment on the implications of events that are actually taking place today. These interpretations and insights are the sole responsibility of the reader.

To give an example of a particular case, single-celled animals such as amoebas act by intelligence on chemical reactions. Also, a single honeybee, a multicellular organism, acts with hormonal and neuronal-based intelligence. Furthermore, it is reasonable to interpret a bee tissue as a single, gigantic single organism (superorganism) in which individual bees act as a single cell. These observations allow us to find connections between individual humans, tribes, cities, nations, and human civilizations.

What are the implications or impacts for Foresight?

Complex system theory occupies a very important area in foresight. Therefore, I think that the various detailed topics and insights on the theory of complex systems that this book provides will be of great help to futurists.

First, the ability to observe objects and phenomena in detail, derive insights from them, and apply these insights to various objects is a basic skill that a futurist must possess. Specifically, in the foresight project, a logical connection is important in order to closely observe (or scan) the forecasting target and the surrounding environment and to aggregate them to derive reliable insights. We can also apply these insights to other subjects, which in turn can generate robust future scenario hypotheses.

Second, the book covers 12 different subtopics of complexity theory, each of which can be a good knowledge base for futurists who want to dive deeper into complexity theory. Since actual complexity theory has been established relatively recently, this area of ​​theory has a lot of room for further development. Therefore, I think that not only scholars who study complexity theory intensively, but also futurists who are relatively close to the field and have many opportunities to observe various phenomena can contribute to the development of the complexity theory system. For this reason, this book can serve as a 'primary of knowledge' for futurists who wish to get closer to the theory of complexity.