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Theory of involvement
When this writer was first pointing out that selection of any kind which is not random will tend toward higher order, he also pointed out that Wiener missed in another serious regard as well. If one begins with the assumption of pure chaotic randomness—the very condition toward which Wiener assumed we were headed—one finds elements in collision or in other interactions.

By high-probability statistical definition, some of these interactions end immediately and those elements go on toward other interactions; some interactions last a while; some interactions last a long while. Thus, even in such absolute chaos, some interactions or systems are selected for in favor of those which continue for some time. Even such absolute chaos, then, has some tendency to clot up toward order, toward some sort of arrangement of longer-lasting interaction-systems.

(All of this was specified in Win Wenger, Civilizations and Other Living Systems [1972, when Prigogene was winning the Nobel for his rather specialized form of negentropy], and in Win's Toward A General Theory of Systems [1979].)
Among all the different possible longer-lasting interaction systems, those which hit upon replication of themselves from among the elements available in the soup would soon outnumber by selection all other kinds of system and enormously enrich the incidence among which other aspects of selection could be selecting. And so on for all the other various features recognized in the terrestrial instance of bioevolution (and other episodes of evolution including social in its various forms), up to and including Cope's Law of Survival of the Unspecialized, which gives us the kicking-off point for emergence of intelligence.

This, then, may be regarded as the Specific Theory of Involvement—that, even if starting under initially chaotic conditions, more and more of the elements within the Universe tend to become involved in complex systems defined first by their ability to sustain themselves over a variety of conditions (complex homeostasis), then also defined by other survival-supporting characteristics identified in bioevolutionary example. This is negentropy on a pretty large scale.

Beyond that, we see a truly universal tendency of everything to get caught up in more and more complex arrangements, of which this tendency toward complex homeostasis with other survival characteristics is only one example. Even in classical interference-pattern physics (most of whose usefulness to us may still be ahead of us!), starting with the primitive example of intermodulation between two closely-related tones, even the slightest difference in one tone makes huge differences—but in an orderly, predictable way—in the intermodulant product. That creates "space" or "room" or "opportunity" for many iterative instances to develop.

Moving on to the much more general fractal or chaos theory, where even the slightest, undetectable initial difference makes huge differences in outcome but in ways our mathematics are not yet up to predicting—hence the bit about "butterflies in China creating hurricanes in the Yucatan"—often or even usually with many strange attractors:
o Everything in the Universe sooner or later gets caught up in one or more of these complex arrangements, complexly homeostatic systems, and reiterative situations, usually in many of these simultaneously, and at various differing levels.

o Virtually everything around us and in us is caught up in and a member of such complex arrangements, reiterative situations and complexly homeostatic systems. More and more of everything is more and more strangified, responding to more and more differentiated tugs of influence.

o Civilizations undergoing this increasing mix of emotions, agendas and whatever other factors of influence, consider themselves to have "lost their innocence." Our failure to comprehend these changes in turn further complexifies matters for everyone else and for ourselves—and our successful understanding of them also further complexifies matters for everyone else and for ourselves, only we get to appreciate it more.—And to have a better chance of numbering ourselves among the survivors.

o To the extent that we can bring ourselves to understand such reiterative situations, complex arrangements and complexly homeostatic systems, we can better understand and cope with what's going on.
An example of this last is the Win-Win Finder or "Incentive Equilibrium Analysis" system for creatively solving problems, which assumes that most long-lasting problems and those involving substantial numbers of people are complexly homeostatic systems. Identifying and intercepting the feedbacks by means of which such systems maintain their homeostasis allows one to change—solve—those problem situations with little cost in energy, where conventional solution-seeking methods which ignore and try thus to override those feedbacks, are costly and moreover usually fail. The problem keeps bouncing back into place.

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Conclusion
We can now draw a much clearer picture, from the bioevolutionary terrestrial example, of where certain universal descriptive principles are directing the course of events. The scope for action of these principles is comprehensively inclusive. In detail and in general, the considerations thus derived point to very different perspectives from those we grew up with or even those which are mostly held now.

If we can bring ourselves to better understand these principles or mechanisms, a key segment of which is summed up in the descriptions of general systems theory and chaos/fractal theory, we can better understand and cope with what we are facing (and not facing!). One entire CPS process with many applications has already come out of the beginnings of such understanding, but far, far more is there to be found.

Chaos and new higher order are very much descriptive of the phenomenon of creativity itself. Those of us associated with the professional practice of creative method need to comprehend these larger, more universal patterns of the phenomena which we purport professionally to address.


This brief is adapted from notes originally presented at the Extending Program, Creative Problem-Solving Institute, June 24, 1996.

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Comments to
Win Wenger




A resource of The Center for Creativity in the Sciences This science creativity resource comes from The Center for Creativity in the Sciences, a publishing division of Project Renaissance. This brief may be freely copied, in whole, but not in part, including its copyright notice.
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