{"id":402,"date":"2013-03-13T15:51:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T15:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/~sfrey\/wordpress\/?p=402"},"modified":"2018-07-24T17:07:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T17:07:34","slug":"ouroboros-and-the-failures-of-complex-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/post\/402","title":{"rendered":"Ouroboros and the failures of complex systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a little intense, it should be enough to just watch enough of the initial seconds to satisfy yourself that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ouroboros\">Ouroboros<\/a> exists.  I&#8217;d post a photo, but the photo I saw seemed photoshopped.  That&#8217;s how I found the video.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jIl2DSXUffw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A complex system has failed to integrate the proper information into its decision.  I&#8217;d guess that the cause is a badly designed environment (what looks like a zoo enclosure) presenting an otherwise well-designed snake with exactly the wrong pattern of information.  That said, the mere fact of the Ouroboros myth makes it conceivable that this can happen in the wild.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ouroboros\"  width=\"815\" height=\"832\" ><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/8\/87\/Ouroboros_1.jpg\" width=\"815\" height=\"832\" alt=\"Ouroboros from Wikipedia\" class=\"alignnone\" \/><\/a> Was this a failure of information diffusion in a distributed local-information system?  Or was it a failure of a properly informed top-down system suppressing the right information and amplifying the wrong information?  We don&#8217;t know, we don&#8217;t really have the language to articulate that question in a manner that it can be answered.  In that respect this is not just a failure of a complex system, but a failure of complex systems, the field.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/archives\/154\" title=\"The 'Ant well'\">The &#8220;Ant well&#8221;<\/a> is less ambiguously a failure of a decentralized system.  It happens in the wild, when the head of a column of army ants short circuits.  Millions of ants start marching in circles until too many have died to close the circuit.  And <a href=\"http:\/\/enfascination.com\/wiki\/index.php?title=Weblog:Traffic_system\">here<\/a> is a magically functional decentralized system.  What does decentralized mean here?  Does it mean the same thing in all three examples?  How is it different from bottom-up, feedback, distributed, local, networked, hierarchical, modular, or any other concept?  We&#8217;re still working on that.  At least there&#8217;s more video than vocabulary out there.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a little intense, it should be enough to just watch enough of the initial seconds to satisfy yourself that Ouroboros exists. I&#8217;d post a photo, but the photo I saw seemed photoshopped. That&#8217;s how I found the video. A complex system has failed to integrate the proper information into its decision. I&#8217;d guess &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/post\/402\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ouroboros and the failures of complex systems<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpupg_custom_link":[],"wpupg_custom_link_behaviour":["default"],"wpupg_custom_image":[],"wpupg_custom_image_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enfascination.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}