I_Wish_You_Water | Theodore C. Tanner Jr.

April 18, 2025April 18, 2025 TCTJr Complexity_Theory|General Discussion|Human-Performance|I_Wish_You_Water

Riding the Wave: Surfing and The Art of Life

Groks Idea on My Idea: Church Of The Bitchin’ Breakers

It is not tragic to die doing something you love.

~ Mark Foo

Recently, while on a brief holiday somewhere on the east coast of Florida, I was reminded of the sheer magnitude of truth in the world of binary representations. Zero = OFF; one = ON.

The Computing world operates on the world of binary mathematics. We are to thank Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), the co-inventor of Calculus, who published his invention in 1701. However, the actual discovery occurred more than 20 years earlier.

There are many precepts, many sports and many social constructs that operate within the binary world.

Either you make it or you don’t. On/Off, GetHit/Not Hit etc.

Back to my holiday. I had a new surfboard. The air was mid-80s, the water was upper-seventies, and the swell was easy, rolling 3-4 ft (1-1.5 meters) (think chest-shoulder high).

i have surfed this spot for decades. i thought, hey, this will be easy.

Never think a paddle out or for that matter, anything in life is easy.

I leisurely paddled out and was immediately rocked by a constant set of waves. My board slipped out from under me. I casually gathered it back. I kept paddling. When I turned around, I had gone nowhere. I got out and sat there on the sand, dejected and rejected. NOTE: In surfing, it is called the walk of shame.

Here is where the plot thickens.

Riding the Wave: Surfing, Startups, and the Art of Life

Surfing is my ultimate passion, and my second is freediving; as the stakes get higher (think bigger), the world of binary representation starts to get amplified. Even though we have a world of simple ON/OFF [0,1], the consequences are enormous. The following video features Peahi (also known as Jaws), considered one of the premier meccas of tow-in and paddle-in surfing. The video below is a historic day when the professionals paddled into the waves not towing into the waves. In contrast, surfing by jet ski allows the surfer to achieve higher speeds and match the speed of the open ocean swell, thereby reducing the risk of missing the wave.

In the footage below, some of the world’s best big wave surfers opt for paddle only to fully experience the wave and increase the adrenaline rush of “making the drop.” At around 4:00, the video starts showing some situations where the waves are not being caught. The carnage begins.

Of particular interest is Isaac Stant

Out THERE, where the ocean seemingly appears to kiss the sky, a surfer paddles into the swell. The board cuts through the chaos of foam and salt, chasing a wave that’s equal parts promise and peril. It’s a dance, raw, unscripted, and relentless. Oh, and by the way, buttercup, you are no longer the apex predator. Sharks and, in some cases, crocodiles abound, not to mention jellyfish, crabs, and stingrays. Or just slamming into reefs and rocks. Controlled Chaos. Sound familiar? (NOTE: For those mathematically inclined and with respect to the binary system we trend toward high entropy.)

If you’ve ever built a startup or company, it should. Everyone should attempt to start a company based on their passions or constant flow of ideas. Surfing isn’t just a sport; it’s a metaphor for the entrepreneurial grind and, if you squint hard enough, a framework for life itself. Let’s break it down, wave by wave.

I am the Nose (Ha-ah, hah-ah, ha-ah)
I don’t swim
I don’t dance (Ha-ah, hah-ah, ha-ah)
I don’t swim or dance (Biohumanyouloop)
I’m too cool to swim, or dance
I might get my hair wet (Underwater boogie baby, underwater boogie baba!)
(Ha-ah, ha-ah, ha-ah!)

~ Parliment, Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)

The Paddle: Grit Before Glory

Every surfer knows the wave doesn’t come to you; you go to it. Arms burning, lungs screaming, you paddle through the chop, fighting currents that don’t care about YOUR dreams. Start-ups are the same. The early days aren’t sexy; they’re a slog. Instead of paddling through clear blue warm water, you are crawling through glass.

You’re pitching to skeptics, scraping by on fumes, and debugging code at 3 a.m. while the world sleeps. Success isn’t handed out, it’s earned through the unglamorous grind.

Life’s no different. The good stuff, meaning love and purpose, doesn’t wash up on your shore. You’ve got to paddle out, past the breakers of doubt and distraction. The people who sit on the beach say it is too big to paddle out or get out to catch any waves. It’s impossible to do what you are suggesting to make with your startup, your passion. The framework starts here: Embrace the resistance. It’s not punishment; it’s preparation.

(Aqua boogie baby) Never learned to swim
(underwater boogie baby)
Can’t catch the rhythm of the stroke
(Aqua boogie baby) Why should I hold my breath
(underwater boogie baby)
Feelin’ that I might choke (Ha-ah, ha-ah, ha-ah!)

~ Parliment, Aquaboogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)

The Pop-Up: Timing Is Everything

Catch the wave too early, and it fizzles and dies beneath you. Too late, and it buries you in whitewater. The pop-up; leaping from prone to standing, is a split-second bet on instinct and readiness. Startups live or die by this, too. Launch too soon, and your half-baked idea flops. Wait too long, and the market’s moved on. Timing isn’t luck; it’s the alchemy of preparation meeting opportunity.

Zoom out to life: When do you leap to pop-up? When do you hold and pull into the tub, the glorious place that is akin to a unicorn or exit in a startup or a major life decision? The surfer’s lesson is to trust your gut, but train it first. Study the patterns, waves, winds, weather, market trends, and your rhythms. Then, when the moment aligns, stand up and ride.

Remember: As in most things in life and nature, hesitation kills.

If It All Blows Up and Goes To Hell, Oh The Stories We Can Tell.

~ Jimmy Buffet

The Ride: Balance in Chaos

On the wave, you’re not in control but in conversation with the essence of nature. Lean too far forward, and you nose-dive (called pearling). Too far back, you stall. It’s a tightrope of adjustments, a negotiation with forces more significant than you. Startups feel this daily: pivot or perish, scale or sink. You’re riding a beast of cash flow, customer whims, and competitor moves while pretending you’ve figured it out.

Life’s a wave, too unpredictable, beautiful, and brutal. The framework here is flow, not force. Balance isn’t static; it’s dynamic. Relationships, children, families, the job; You don’t conquer the chaos; you surf it. Fall off? Laugh, paddle back, try again. Cycle, rinse, repeat.

The Wipeout: Failure as Teacher

Even the best surfers eat it sometimes. The wave slams you down, spins you like a sock in a dryer, and you’re left gasping, board leash tugging at your ankle. (NOTE: I’ve personally thought i was dead at least 4 times that i can remember). Here’s the secret: Wipeouts aren’t the end; they’re the curriculum. Every tumble teaches you something about the ocean’s mood or your own limits. Startups crash too -90 % of them, by the stats. The ones that rise again do so because they learn: bad hires sharpen your instincts, busted deals hone your hustle. Most of “talking story” before and after surfing revolves around the insane wipeouts and maybe a good wave or two.

Life’s wipeouts, lost jobs, broken hearts, health setbacks, and trauma sting just as hard. The surfer’s creed applies: Get back on the board. Paddle Back Out and Into the Swell. Failure is not final unless you let it be. The framework demands that resilience scars are just tattoos with better stories. The worst scar that will never heal is the mental one of “i should have done <INSERT THING HERE>” while you are old sitting there in the lazyboy watching the TV of someone who did THE THING.

The Lineup: Community in Solitude

Surfing looks solitary, one rider, one wave, but the lineup tells a different tale. It’s a tribe of misfits, nodding at each other between sets, sharing stoke and unspoken rules. Startups thrive on this too: founders, coders, dreamers huddled in garages or Slack channels, pushing each other forward. No one rides alone, even if it feels that way. There are extreme written and unwritten rules.

Life’s framework leans on this: Find your people. Find YOUR TRIBE. They’re the ones who cheer your wins, fish you out of the riptide, and remind you why you paddled out. Solitude builds strength; community keeps it alive.

The Framework Writ Large

So here’s the takeaway, distilled from salt and spray: Life, like surfing, startups, and life, is a rhythm of effort, instinct, and adaptation. Paddle hard, time your moves, ride the chaos, learn from the falls, and lean on your crew. It’s not about mastering the wave, it’s about mastering yourself in its grip.

Next time you’re staring down a monster set, a pitch deck, or a heartbreak in life, channel the inner surfer. The ocean doesn’t care if you’re ready, but it’ll teach you how to be. That’s the beauty of the paddle out and hopefully THE RIDE.

Here are some rules of the ocean and an analogy for your company. i apply these to life.

The Thou Shalts Of The Church Of The Bitchen Breakers

Never Turn Your Back On The Ocean: Sounds Simple doesnt it? You would be surprised. Always walk out of the ocean facing the ocean. Trust me. I have probably close to 100 stitches in various parts to prove it. In life never take anything for granted. At a company that yu are running never assume everything is ok.

Always Paddle Out: At the very least give it a shot. Don’t sit on the sand. You can’t catch waves on the beach. Go try it is better to crash and burn and have a story than just say it cannot be done. The Courage to Create in Life.

There Is Always One: At some point during a session, there will always be the one you catch. Just one. Same in life or a company, there is always one event, happening, occurrence that is totally amazing.

Waves Stop Conversation: This is true,. Hey man sorry your mom died, Oh OUTSIDE! (paddles and takes off). Same with situation in life or a company you are running. Situations happen that immediately cut off chit chat or even serious conversations, overriding everything.

Always Take One In: It doesnt have to be pretty. Could be on your belly. Could be the best wave of the day. Doesnt matter ride one in all the way to the beach and deeply know you have tried your best.

Oh yes, and back to the beginning of this blog. i sucked up my pride got back on my new board, paddled back out and caught some great waves.

Paddle Out, Chase YOUR swell.

Until Then,

#iwishyouwater < – Massive Wedge 2025

Ted ℂ. Tanner Jr. (@tctjr) / X

MUZAK TO Blog By: Opeth ‘Ghost Reveries”. Deep Purple On Steroids. Thanks Dr. Miller.

NOTE: Foo’s oft-repeated quote was: “To get the ultimate thrill, you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price.” Sadly, that is exactly what happened when he died surfing at Mavericks on December 23, 1994. December 23 is my birthday and i was surfing a place a couple miles from it called Montara State Beach on the same swell.

NOTE: Sir Nose is a technology-assisted human who has made it his mission to rid the world of music and the desire to dance. He is the self-proclaimed arch-nemesis of Dr. Funkenstein and his most advanced clone, Star Child. Sir Nose later becomes the leader of his own team of supervillains called The Unfunkables. Obviously, he can’t get the stroke right underwater on the way to Atlantis. He specializes in Propaganda, Brainwashing, and Manipulation to the point of complete consumerism. He appears on Motor Booty Affair by Parliament, where Sir Nose announces he can’t swim and hates water, to which he is immediately thrown into the sea.

NOTE: Special thanks to my comrade at arms in the water, Clay Thad Talley. Here he is doin the Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop .

September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 TCTJr Direct Thoughts|Human-Performance|I_Wish_You_Water|Random_Thoughts

¿Por qué haces apnea? (Why Do You Freedive?) and 9/11

Me Manifesting And Searching (photo by @clay.motus.liquidum)

I need the sea because it teaches me. I don’t know if I learn music or awareness, if it’s a single wave or its vast existence, or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships. The fact is that until I fall asleep, in some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.
~ Pablo Neruda

First i trust everyone is safe. Second today is a day that will live forever in most minds as a day that i call ‘When Belief Systems Run Amuck (WBSRA)”.

To those who lost loves ones on 9.11 my condolences. To those who are permanently scarred may peace eventually see its’ way unto and into you.

It is not random that one of my dear friends “JH” is relocating this very week to Charleston, SC. He was in the North tower on the 87th floor when the “WBSRA” occurred.

He is a great human. We are going to have a blast when he gets here.

Recently more than ever humans around me have been talking more and more about “stuff” they do besides “working” and inevitably as we are discussing these outside work endeavors someone mentions that i freedive.

Clay T. Talley Rappelling Underwater (photo Tanner Peterson @depthwishfreediving)

It goes something like this:

Human: Ted freedives.

Everyone: ( looking at me like i have obtained the classified UAP documents from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)…)

Me: Yup.

Human: Wow really?

Me: (thinking… No i just lie about stuff like that…) Why Yes i do.

Me and @clay.motus.liquidum (photo courtesy of @depthwishfreediving)

Human: Have you seen “Deepest Breath” On Netflix?

Me: While i do not watch hardly any TV i did view it and yes it was amazing. The people in that video are the best of the best in the world and i have met one or two of them and have been coached and critiqued by some of them. i’m no where in their league.

Human: So really is it one breath? There must be some trick? How long can you hold your breath? How deep do you go?

Me: Yes, No, about 4:00+ minutes and i have broken 100ft . None of it really matters as the folks who are great, i pale in comparison, but it is a starting point. It is also not a contest with others. While there are competitions the only competitor is you and the water.

Me coming up from looking at the sand somewhere (photo courtesy of @depthwishfreediving)

Human: What is it like?

Me: It is truth. If there is a truth to life it is closer to living with the exception at least for me, what i find in surfing. Although the two are very different, the results, from to time, are the same. Complete un-adulterated FLOW STATE. The free fall is very close to getting a full tube ride. It is all enveloping it is not like meditating as some people think it is, although, there is a somnambulistic component to the free fall.

Clay Talley and Jacob Talley the day Jacob was certified (photo courtesy of @depthwishfreediving)

Human: What is freefall?

Me: That is after you get down to about 14 meters which is around 45 feet that is 3 atmospheres of pressure you start getting pulled down the elevator shaft as i call it. You can feel the water rushing by you and the sounds rushing, depending on if your hooked to a line or just letting your hand brush the dive line. Then as you go deeper it gets more enveloping.

Me: See your Mammalian Dive Reflect kicks in, your MDR, the master switch as it were. The sensors are still in our face. This is why it feels so nice to splash water on your face or take a shower. All those negative ions getting you balanced into BlueMind. There is much we have forgotten as a race. There is an excellent book called BlueMind i highly recommend.

Me, Thomas Tanner (@itstomfoolery) and My Nephew, Ty Tanner (@tytanner_) the day they got certified

(photo courtesy of @depthwishfreediving)

Human: Yea but how can you hold your breath that long?

Me: Practice. Actually it all happened in one weekend at Performance Freediving Institute (PFI). Me and my waterman commrade Clay Talley went down on a Friday and took a class after we read a book called “One Breath” and got turned onto a song called “Waves” by Bahamas. We have been training with weights in the pool for about 15 years for surfing then this freediving wonderland rabbit hole came along. We could easily get you to over a 2:30 breath hold in one day. Nothing prepared us for what was to come.

Human: I don’t see how that is possible.

Me: Well, i suppose with an attitude like that nothing is possible, but at least we gave it the benefit of the doubt and when we got certified. It was really intense due to several factors that i would have to explain later. However by far my certification was in one of the top experiences of my life and about as close to a religious experience as one could get.

My Son Thomas Tanner getting certified with Tanner Peterson Lower Left (photo courtesy of @tctjr)

Then then THE question:

Human: Why do you do it?

Me: Do what? Freedive?

Human: Yes.

This, Oh Dear Reader is where we start getting to the essence of the blog. Hope Y’all are still tuned-in to the channel.

To every sailor the gods have given a comrade
While one sleeps the other keeps watch on the bridge
When one doubts the other gives him his faith
When one falls the other discovers the oasis of ice for both of them
When my comrade loses faith I laugh confidently
When my comrade sleeps I keep watch for him
When my comrade falls I fight on for the both of us
Because to every sailor the gods have given a comrade
~ Blood Axis

Me: Well it is complicated. One of my best friends died freediving. He was one of the few people who really knew me and and happened to be the best coding computer scientist i have ever met, as well as an expert Waterman.

Me wondering what the Puppies are Thinking. (photo courtesy @clay.motus.luquidum)

Human: Oh i had no idea i am so sorry.

Me: Oh please no need for condolences. i’ll never get over it but that is a different issue. That said to answer your question i got into it because i wanted to understand how one of the smartest most fit watermen i have ever met came to his demise doing what he loved. i had to know or at least try to understand what Steven was searching for given i knew him so well.

It’s not tragic to die doing something you love.
~ Mark Foo

Me: See i kinda blew it off years ago when he kept talking about freediving and how incredible it was and in fact the last thing he said to me was he was really happy. That is really all i cared about to be honest. However it still nagged at me about there was a facet of “The Water” i hadn’t addressed.

So through a very seemingly random occurrence which to me wasn’t random at all i ran across the book “One Breath” which was a story of the death of one of the greatest freedivers of all time. So we (me and my commrade Clay Talley) finally got around to getting down so to speak and since then it has been a continual Alice in Wonderland – Down The Rabbit Hole. Besides the fact that you burn about 800-1000 calories an hour freediving it only teaches you more about yourself. It is indeed a fractal situation – the more complex – the more complex – the more simple – the more simple.

Me ascending and hanging out in Bonaire with Carlos Coste

(photo courtesy of @carloscoste1 of @blueclassroom and @freediveeexplorations)

Ted, Its all in Your Mind, Get me? Understand What I am saying?!
~ Cole Heitt

Me: Its really a super performant sport. All of the people that i have met have been physicists, composers, lawyers, bankers, technical folks and many have walked away from those careers in full pursuit of freediving. Everyone is very open, welcoming and focused. There is little to no overhead with some of the crap that you get with other sports endeavors, it is very binary. As an aside i personally want to dive with Sperm Whales.

Human: Yes but what about your friend?

Me: Well if i could have a discussion with him first i would punch him for being stupid then i would hug him, tell him i love him and say lets go for a freedive and this time i’ll be up and you be down.

Clay Talley Searching For Clay T. Talley

Me: Feel free to come down and get in the pool or we can take you down and get certified.

Human: Really?

Me: Of course and you can’t blame me for what will happen afterward.

To everyone that has ever asked me this is why i freedive. I needed to understand why and it has turned into a mirror for me.

On September 11, 2005, Steven Swenson took his last breath. However i know he was happy in fact the happiest i have ever heard him.

Recently his favorite musician past away, Jimmy Buffett. Steven’s favorite song was Son of A Son of A Sailor. He also liked “That is What Living Is to Me” and “One Particular Harbor”. I would like to think they are sharing sailing stories with each other with wind in their hair and water in their shoes.

Do me a favor if you knew him go listen to any of those songs and if you didn’t know him go listen and raise a glass to the ocean. i would also greatly appreciate it.

Mickey Talley @mich.888 Pushing Past Her Own Thoughts (photo courtesy @clay.motus.liquidum)

So there you have it folks.

Until Then,

#iwishyouwater <- Me and Present Crew Getting After it @iwishyouwater

@tctjr

Music To Blog By: The version of “Little Wing/ Third Stone: From The Sun off SRV archives and some Jimmy Buffett. The Tuck and Patti version of Castles Made of Sand / Little Wing is amazing as well.

Note: With Much Love to Roma, Lief and Gage.

Computing The Human Condition – Project Noumena (Part 1)

“I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think any conscious entity can ever hope to do.” ~ HAL 9000

“If you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and then make a change.” ~ MJ.

First and foremost with this blog i trust everyone is safe. The world is in an interesting place, space, and time both physically and dare i say collectively – mentally.

Introduction

This past week we celebrated Earth Day. i believe i heard it was the 50th year of Earth Day. While I applaud the efforts and longevity for a day we should have Earth Day every day. Further just “thoughting” about or tweeting about Earth Day – while it may wake up your posterior lobe of the pituitary gland and secret some oxytocin – creating the warm fuzzies for you it really doesn’t create an action for furthering Earth Day. (much like typing /giphy YAY! In Slack).

As such, i decided to embark on a multipart blog that i have been “thinking” about what i call an Ecological Computing System. Then the more i thought about it why stop at Ecology? We are able to model and connect essentially anything, we now have models for the brain that while are coarse-grained can account for gross behaviors, we have tons of data on buying habits and advertisement data and everything is highly mobile and distributed. Machine learning which can optimize, classify and predict with extremely high dimensionality is no longer an academic exercise.

Thus, i suppose taking it one step further from ecology and what would differentiate it from other efforts is that <IT> would actually attempt to provide a compute framework that would compute The Human Condition. I am going to call this effort Project Noumena. Kant the eminent thinker of 18th century Germany defined Noumena as a thing as it is in itself, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes and proposed that the experience was a product of the mind.

My impetus for this are manifold:

i love the air, water, trees, and animals,

i am an active water person,

i want my children’s children’s children to know the wonder of staring at the azure skies, azure oceans and purple mountains,

Maybe technology will assist us in saving us from The Human Condition.

Timing

i have waited probably 15+ years to write about this ideation of such a system mainly due to the technological considerations were nowhere near where they needed to be and to be extremely transparent no one seemed to really think it was an issue until recently. The pandemic seems to have been a global wakeup call that in fact, Humanity is fragile. There are shortages of resources in the most advanced societies. Further due to the recent awareness that the pollution levels appear (reported) to be subsiding as a function in the reduction of humans’ daily involvement within the environment. To that point over the past two years, there appears to be an uptake of awareness in how plastics are destroying our oceans. This has a coupling effect that with the pandemic and other environmental concerns there could potentially be a food shortage due to these highly nonlinear effects. This uptake in awareness has mainly been due to the usage of technology of mobile computing and social media which in and of itself probably couldn’t have existed without plastics and massive natural resource consumption. So i trust the irony is not lost there.

From a technical perspective, Open source and Open Source Systems have become the way that software is developed. For those that have not read The Cathedral and The Bazaar and In The Beginning Was The Command Line i urge you to do so it will change your perspective.

We are no longer hampered by the concept of scale in computing. We can also create a system that behaves at scale with only but a few human resources. You can do a lot with few humans now which has been the promise of computing.

Distributed computing methods are now coming to fruition. We no longer think in terms of a monolithic operating system or in place machine learning. Edge computing and fiber networks are accelerating this at an astonishing rate. Transactions now dictate trust. While we will revisit this during the design chapters of the blog I’ll go out on a limb here and say these three features are cogent to distributed system processing (and possibly the future of computing at scale).

Incentive models
Consensus models
Protocol models

We will definitely be going into the deeper psychological, mathematical, and technical aspects of these items.

Some additional points of interest and on timing. Microsoft recently released press about a Planetary Computer and announced the position of Chief Ecology Officer. While i do not consider Project Nuomena to be of the same system type there could be similarities on the ecological aspects which just like in open source creates a more resilient base to work.

The top market cap companies are all information theoretic-based corporations. Humans that know the science, technology, mathematics and liberal arts are key to their success. All of these companies are woven and interwoven into the very fabric of our physical and psychological lives.

Thus it is with the confluence of these items i believe the time is now to embark on this design journey. We must address the Environment, Societal factors and the model of governance.

A mentor once told me one time in a land far away: “Timing is everything as long as you can execute.” Ergo Timing and Execution Is Everything.

Goals

It is my goal that i can create a design and hopefully, an implementation that is utilizing computational means to truly assist in building models and sampling the world where we can adhere to goals in making small but meaningful changes that can be used within what i am calling the 3R’s: recycle, redact, reuse. Further, i hope with the proper incentive models in place that are dynamic it has a mentality positive feedback effect. Just as in complexity theory a small change – a butterfly wings – can create hurricanes – in this case positive effect.

Here is my overall plan. i’m not big on the process or gant charts. I’ll be putting all of this in a README.md as well. I may ensconce the feature sets etc into a trello or some other tracking mechanism to keep me focused – WebSphere feel free to make recommendations in the comments section:

Action Items:

Create Comparative Models

Create Coarse-Grained Attributes

Identify underlying technical attributes

Attempt to coalesce into an architecture

Start writing code for the above.

Preamble

Humanity has come to expect growth as a material extension of human behavior. We equate growth with progress. In fact, we use the term exponential growth as it is indefinitely positive. In most cases for a fixed time interval, this means a doubling of the relevant system variable or variables. We speak of growth as a function of gross national production. In most cases, exponential growth is treacherous where there are no known or perceived limits. It appears that humanity has only recently become aware that we do not have infinite resources. Psychologically there is a clash between the exponential growth and the psychological or physical limit. The only significance is the relevant (usually local) limit. How does it affect me, us, and them? This can be seen throughput most game theory practices – dominant choice. The pattern of growth is not the surprise it is the collision of the awareness of the limit to the ever-increasing growth function is the surprise.

One must stop and ask:

Q: Are progress (and capacity) and the ever-increasing function a positive and how does it relate to 2nd law of thermodynamics aka Entropy? Must it always expand?

We are starting to see that our world can exert dormant forces that within our life can greatly affect our well being. When we approach the actual or perceived limit the forces which are usually negative begin to gain strength.

So given these aspects of why i’ll turn now to start the discussion. If we do not understand history we cannot predict the future by inventing it or in most cases re-inventing it as it where.

I want to start off the history by referencing several books that i have been reading and re-reading on subjects of modeling the world, complexity, and models for collapse throughout this multipart blog. We will be addressing issues concerning complex dynamics as are manifested with respect to attributes model types, economics, equality, and mental concerns.

These core references are located at the end of the blog under references. They are all hot-linked. Please go scroll and check them out. i’ll still be here. i’ll wait.

Checked them out? i know a long list.

As you can see the core is rather extensive due to the nature of the subject matter. The top three books are the main ones that have been the prime movers and guides of my thinking. These three books i will refer to as The Core Trilogy:

World Dynamics

The Collapse of Complex Societies

Six Sources of Collapse

As i mentioned i have been deeply thinking about all aspects of this system for quite some time. I will be mentioning several other texts and references along the continuum of creation of this design.

We will start by referencing the first book: World Dynamics by J.W. Forrestor. World Dynamics came out of several meetings of the Rome Club a 75 person invite-only club founded by the President of Fiat. The club set forth the following attributes for a dynamic model that would attempt to predict the future of the world:

Population Growth

Capital Investment

Geographical Space

Natural Resources

Pollution

Food Production

The output of this design was codified in a computer program called World3. It has been running since the 1970s what was then termed a golden age of society in many cases. All of these variables have been growing at an exponential rate. Here we see the model with the various attributes in action. There have been several criticisms of the models and also analysis which i will go into in further blogs. However, in some cases, the variants have been eerily accurate. The following plot is an output of the World3 model:

Issues Raised By World3 and World Dynamics

The issues raised by World3 and within the book World Dynamics are the following:

There is a strong undercurrent that technology might not be the savior of humankind

Industrialism (including medicine and public health) may be a more disturbing force than the population.

We may face extreme psychological stress and pressures from a four-pronged dilemma via suppression of the modern industrial world.

We may be living in a “golden age” despite a widely acknowledged feeling of malaise.

Exhtortions and programs directed at population control may be self-defeating. Population control, if it works, would yield excesses thereby allowing further procreation.

Pollution and Population seem to oscillate whereas the high standard of living increases the production of food and material goods which outrun the population. Agriculture as it hits a space limit and as natural resources reach a pollution limit then the quality of life falls in equalizing population.

There may be no realistic hope of underdeveloped countries reaching the same standard and quality of life as developed countries. However, with the decline in developed countries, the underdeveloped countries may be equalized by that decline.

A society with a high level of industrialization may be unsustainable.

From a long term 100 years hence it may be unwise for underdeveloped countries to seek the same levels of industrialization. The present underdeveloped nations may be in better conditions for surviving the forthcoming pressures. These underdeveloped countries would suffer far less in a world collapse.

Fuzzy Human – Fuzzy Model

The human mind is amazing at identifying structures of complex situations. However, our experiences train us poorly for estimating the dynamic consequences of said complexities. Our mind is also not very accurate at estimating ad hoc parts of the complexities and the variational outcomes.

One of the problems with models is well it is just a model The subject-observer reference could shift and the context shifts thereof. This dynamic aspect needs to be built into the models.

Also while we would like to think that our mental model is accurate it is really quite fuzzy and even irrational in most cases. Also attempting to generalize everything into a singular model parameter is exceedingly difficult. It is very difficult to transfer one industry model onto another.

In general parameterization of most of these systems is based on some perceptual model we have rationally or irrationally invented.

When these models were created there was the consideration of modeling social mechanics of good-evil, greed – altruism, fears, goals, habits, prejudice, homeostasis, and other so-called human characteristics. We are now at a level of science where we can actually model the synaptic impulse and other aspects that come with these perceptions and emotions.

There is a common cross-cutting construct in most complex models within this text that consists of and mainly concerned with the concept of feedback and how the non-linear relationships of these modeled systems feedback into one another. System-wide thinking permeates the text itself. On a related note from the 1940’s of which Dr Norbert Weiner and others such as Claude Shannon worked on ballistic tracking systems and coupled feedback both in a cybernetic and information-theoretic fashion of which he attributed the concept of feedback as one of the most fundamental operations in information theory. This led to the extremely famous Weiner Estimation Filters. Also, side note: Dr Weiner was a self-styled pacifist proving you can hold two very opposing views in the same instance whilst being successful at executing both ideals.

Given that basic function of feedback, lets look at the principle structures. Essentially the model states there will be levels and rates. Rates are flows that cause levels to change. Levels can accumulate the net level. Either addition or subtraction to that level. The various system levels can in aggregate describe the system state at any given time $(t)$ . Levels existing in all subsystems of existence. These subsystems as you will see include but are not limited to financial, psychological, biological, and economic. The reason that i say not limited to because i also believe there are some yet to be identified subsystems at the quantum level. The differential or rate of flow is controlled by one or more systems. All systems that have some Spatio-temporal manifestation can be represented by using the two variables levels and rates. Thus with respect to the spatial or temporal variables, we can have a dynamic model.

The below picture is the model that grew out of interest from the initial meetings of the Club of Rome. The inaugural meeting which was the impetus for the model was held in Bern, Switzerland on June 29, 1970. Each of the levels presents a variable in the previously mentioned major structures. System levels appear as right triangles. Each level is increased or decreased by the respective flow. As previously mentioned on feedback any closed path through the diagram is a feedback loop. Some of the closed loops given certain information-theoretic attributes be positive feedback loops that generate growth and others that seek equilibrium will be negative feedback loops. If you notice something about the diagram it essentially is a birth and death loop. The population loop if you will. For the benefit of modeling, there are really only two major variables that affect the population. Birth Rate (BR) and Death Rate (DR). They represent the total aggregate rate at which the population is being increased or decreased. The system has coefficients that can initialize them to normal rates. For example, in 1970 BRN is taken as 0.0885 (88.5 per thousand) which is then multiplied by population to determine BR. DRN by the same measure is the outflow or reduction. In 1970 it was 9.5% or 0.095. The difference is the net and called normal rates. The normale rates correspond to a physical normal world. When there are normal levels of food, material standard of living, crowding, and pollution. The influencers are then multipliers that increase or decrease the normal rates.

As a caveat, there have been some detractors of this model. To be sure it is very coarse-grained however while i haven’t seen the latest runs or outputs it is my understanding as i said the current outputs are close. The criticisms come in the shape of “Well its just modeling everything as a $y=x*e^{{rt}}$ . I will be using this concept and map if you will as the basis for Noumena. The concepts and values as i evolve the system will vary greatly from the World3 model but i believe starting with a minimum viable product is essential here as i said humans are not very good at predicting all of the various outcomes in high dimensional space. We can asses situations very quickly but probably outcomes no so much. Next up we will be delving into the loops deeper and getting loopier.