Religion
Calm down, dear, it's only chaos
Published 10 April 2008
The rules of chaos theory state that individuals can make or break society
The chaos at Heathrow's Terminal Five says a great deal about modern life. Within no time we had what the airport authorities themselves described as a meltdown.
"Meltdown", I believe, is increasingly going to be our lot in times to come. We are becoming ever more dependent on fiendishly sophisticated technology. Just what did we do before computers, microwaves and mobile phones? The problem comes when they break down, as machines inevitably do. Simple technology is simple to fix. But sophisticated technology, from a rail network to a flu vaccine, is not easy to patch up. When things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way, as they did at T5.
But that is not the end of the story. New technology is connected, linked up and networked. So, a breakdown in one system has a knock-on effect, unsettling some other system, perhaps even causing it to collapse as well. The potential for feedback - for things to multiply rapidly and dangerously - is enormous.
If you combine complexity with networks, you get uncertainty. When there are so many complex interactions going on at the same time, it becomes much harder to predict exactly what will trigger which effect. Just think how many competing companies, regulatory bodies, health and safety institutions, ministries and passenger groups make up the entire Great British railway network. They have different interests, competing plans, differing remedies. A minor hiccup at one point sometimes has a multiplying effect on the whole network. Result: everyone suffers.
When a problem happens we know about it instantly, in detail. Thanks to mobile phones, email and 24-hour news media, we are constantly in the know. We are primed to react, and thus set off new chains of reaction. The more we complain about a problem, the more we try to fix things, and the more likely we are to usher in the meltdown. So the sense of lurching from crisis to crisis is built into our modern way of life.
Complexity, networks, instant feedback: these are ideal conditions for chaos - not for the chaos endured by commuters, but for the theory of chaos. What this tells us is that small, apparently insignificant, changes can trigger big upheavals. A computer breakdown, a virus, a sub-prime mortgage, can set off a chain reaction that can bring the whole world to its knees.
This type of chaotic behaviour is most visible in the stock markets. A network of computers links them all into a single, global market. Investments, capital transfers and share dealings all happen in the blink of an eye by electronic signal. Ups and downs trigger reactions. Market sentiment can quickly multiply small changes and turn them into grave economic crisis. We seem to live constantly on the edge of chaos.
So, is there anything we can actually do? I think there is a moral here for us all. By nature, complex systems are not passive, but adaptive. Species adapt to changes in the environment; markets respond to changing circumstances; the human brain constantly organises and reorganises its billions of neural connections to learn from experiences. In this way, a complex nation such as Britain can respond actively to transform chaotic life to its advantage. But that depends on us as individuals. The rules of chaos theory state that individuals can make or break society. They tell us that the accumulating and rapidly multiplying effects of our minor activities, such as driving the children to school, or greedy manipulation of the market, or panicking at every computer glitch, could have devastating effects all round.
My advice to all those who want to avoid the next meltdown? Calm down, dear. Stop being selfish. Do not move with the herd. Relax and simplify your life.
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