Change

When people say ``the only constant thing is change'', they are making the observation that the world at large is an emergent system in the sense that from any specific time period [in the past] to any specific time period [future relative to the past], the overall system itself demonstrates behaviour that is consistent with one that has moved from one state to another often-times different one, especially so the system is taken as a whole instead of deliberately confining it to any specific localised region.

But that observation doesn't mean that:

1. The rate of change is a constant;
2. Change is always for the better;
3. We must all ``embrace'' change.

At this point after living through the transistor revolution (as opposed to the industrial one about three hundred years ago), the post-modern era people are more comfortable with noting that the rate of change is not a constant. It is hard to continue to accept that old [mis-]interpretation when we observe over the span of 10-year windows the rapid miniaturisation of electronic ``thinking'' hardware through the rapidly increased ability to do more with smaller and smaller hardware---the ubiquity of various ``smart'' devices are a testament to this, and can prove to be enough to convince even the most recalcitrant to acknowledge that the rate of change is not constant.

That second point of how change isn't always for the better is a little harder to get to, since it involves a judgement of value, which by itself is a far trickier concept to objectively describe and obtain a consensus on a universal scale of values. The usual way of doing so [particularly in economics] is to assign a dollar-value to the outcome, using the innate assumption that the dollar-value, as a mass hallucination, as a good enough fungible measure of value for trade, is also as good for determining the value of things outside of the context of trade. Naturally there are flaws in this method, and the type of change that I am referring to [in an emergent system] is the sort that isn't quantifiable, since quantifiable change can then be subjected to the rigours of differential and integral calculus to further analyse and work with them. No, the type of change I am referring to is usually of the social kind, the kind that involves trends in behaviours within the emergent system that is society. Is being a more liberal-minded society [as compared to before] ``better'' than one that is less so? Is a return to a theocratic mode of government ``better'' than one that is based on the oh-so-very-obviously-flawed version of democracy? None of these questions have acceptable answers, for the simple reason that any acceptable answer will eventually need to be decomposed into a series of judgement calls on what values are prized and what aren't within the particular society.

There are, however, some useful rules of thumb (or heuristics) to guide us. Generally any change that leads to increased individual agency can be considered as being better, since more knowledge (a side effect of our information-dense societies of today) often leads to more tendencies towards doing things using one's own way instead of following the proverbial herd. Any change that reduces harm to others is usually considered as being better as well, under the slightly tweaked utilitarian principle (instead of maximising overall utility, we are talking about minimising overall dis-utility---these two statements are not mutually exclusive to each other). Any change that can provide a pathway to those who do not wish to exercise their free will too much for whatever reason can also be considered better, since a purpose can then be ascribed to these individuals to avoid a situation where they may be swayed by a more destructive [to the system, or society in this case] power. The heuristics are not necessarily consistent with each other, hence the need for the judgement of value to be applied before the change can be considered ``better''.

That change is inevitable and therefore we must all ``embrace'' it is a two-part puzzle that needs unravelling. ``Change is inevitable'' can be considered an axiom in this context, an assumption of the behaviour of the emergent system that cannot be proven/disproven to be true. The idea of ``embracing'' change itself is a nuanced statement---in most contexts of lay-use of natural language, we would interpret ``embracing change'' as adopting wholesale the change that is happening/has happened, possibly adapting any old processes/assumptions that were used before to incorporate the changed elements. Reality is often more subtle than that, and conveying the entire nuanced character of pronouncements of various aspects of society with a compact/concise statement is truly an art-form on its own. Change should never be allowed to be taken in wholesale, because change itself requires a judgement of value to determine what parts of it are relevant, and of the relevant parts how can it affect the existing assumptions and processes, with the important distinction that the existing assumptions and processes have a proven track record (good or bad) as compared to the change.

What I mean is that it is back to the old ``exploit versus explore'' debate all over again. An existing assumption/process before the change in question has a history of its effects and associated adjustments. Based on the understanding of the system then, a certain amount of adaption in line with ``optimisation'' has been applied and has been shown to be working (the contrary concept of existing assumptions/processes before the change have been proven to be not working despite efforts of adaptation/optimisation holds as well). The change is new territory, not necessarily proven within the [localised] context of the emergent system. Maybe it is a better fit, or maybe it isn't---we don't have a good enough predictive system to ``prove'' the outcome without any doubt. Then it becomes a judgement of value call with a dose of risk assessment as well. To ``exploit'' is to declare a conservative risk appetite, and prefer the known over the unknown; to ``explore'' is to declare a higher risk appetite, and prefer trying out the unknown over the known in the hopes of achieving the possibly larger potential of the unknown.

But ``exploit versus explore'' issues aside, there is also a time element with respect to embracing a change that is often not taken into consideration. Over time, an existing assumption/process within the emergent system will require increasing effort to maintain, especially if the said change to them in question gets increasingly mainstream relative to the old practices. Here, the judgement of value is in play still: whether the greater value of retaining the older assumptions/processes is worth the effort in keeping them less tainted by the changes that are going mainstream. There are people who are willing to figuratively ``die on the hill they are on'' for their beliefs, and this is a representation of that. There are also those who are willing to ``reform'' their beliefs through carefully deconstructing their original assumptions/processes to isolate what is truly fundamental and cannot be discarded (judgement of value) and what is frou-frou that can be changed. That latter group requires much more thinking involved, and are often agents of change within their localised context. Their level of determined heresy is determined by how radical their excision of the frills go, and there isn't a pattern to describe what level of enthusiasm leads to a greater chance of success.

Ultimately though, any change as applied to an emergent system provides it with energy to move on to another state, and the resistance to change can be seen as an [increasing] expenditure of energy to maintain a previous state. It may be possible to hold off change for quite a while, but without enough long-term support, that holding off will still be overcome by the sheer amount of energy that change provides.

Can a change be ``undone''? Not in the literal sense of returning to a previously observed state, since each state of the emergent system is a product of the entire history of all its previous states. It's like the complex logarithm spiral---there is a component that can be ``undone'' to what seems to be a previous state, but due to the passage of time and the generation of histories, the ``actual'' position of the state is nowhere near the previous state; at some level, the ``undoing'' nature is really more illusionary than real.

The only constant thing may be change, but it doesn't mean that our treatment of it has to remain constant. A large part of how we deal with it boils down to exercising a judgement of value together with an application of risk assessment. In both cases, it requires thinking.

Maybe the reason why humans are the undisputed rulers of Earth is because we have vastly improved on our ability to out-think all other creatures on this planet. And as long as we can keep on thinking, we can keep on surviving and thriving, which makes all that anti-intellectual movements all the more terrifying to think about.

Till the next update.