Panarchy: a term first introduced to refer to non-hierarchical governance, later incorporated by systems theorists to describe non-hierarchical organizing principles.
Gunderson and Holling adapted the term to describe the dynamics in a theory of evolutionary ecology called "Resilience Theory".
According to resilience theory, there are four phases in ecological evolution, and ecological resilience is maintained by the healthy cycling through the four phases.
The four phases are:
*Г-phase of growth where species and cultures grow and diversify to exploit new opportunities and develop entirely new ecological ways of being.
•Κ-phase of conservation, where climax species are tightly connected and organized, and ecologies and cultures stabilize into mature, often hierarchically nested systems, where there is little or no room for innovation or growth.
•Ω-phase of release (the “backside” of the mobius strip) where mature systems destabilize and collapse, and become increasingly discontinuous and chaotic which opens the field for
* аlpha-phase of reorganization in completely new ways, which creates a new field of conditions and possibilities for the next growth phase
Panarchy in the realm of collective human action.
The three domains of collective human action map onto the panarchy cycle as follows:
Economies are K-strategies
Technologies are Г- strategies
Alpha Strategies are the Openings of Geo-Social Spaces
Note: Panarchy is fractal, and operates at all scales. Therefore one can find panarchy cycles embedded inside each of the domains.
Cultures have a certain "shape of human action" which demonstrates self-organized criticality according to the relative scale of strategies employed for maintaining internal congruence and external coherence.
The Ω (omega) phase is what is external to human action, the effects and agency of the larger planetary ecology. When culture endures an omega phase, it descends into a "basin" in a fitness landscape. Whether this results in creative or terminal destruction depends upon the ability of geo-social space to recover (creating new human narratives: see "demos")
When the three domains of human action are "optimized" or "flowing freely" the culture is resilient to Omega-phase events. There is an interesting question of how to design for anti-fragility to Omega-phase events.
Implications for game ~b
It may be the case that the reputation system is an alternate K-strategy and that game ~b narratives represent the opening of geo-social space (alpha strategy). If the reputation system is coupled with the game ~b social openings, then these openings (more and more ways to identify with game ~b) will hence naturally scale the reputation system, propelled by the ability for technology to support both openings and scaling. However, too much emphasis on reputation system (K-strategies) will drive the self-organization of human action toward critical instability in the same way that the monetary system has operated. Therefore precaution must be taken to assure that the relative scale of K-strategies and Alpha- strategies are continuously coupled in order for the culture to self-regulate around criticality.
It may be the case that the recent trajectory of human action only requires focus on the Alpha-phase of the panarchy cycle. It may be the case that a conventional monetary system is an effective and perhaps even optimum system of K-strategies; and that what is required is more emphasis and awareness on the role of geo-social space (more understanding of Alpha-strategy) which includes the ability of other cultures to create novel ways of being, (novel compositions of human action, geo-social, economic, technological).
It may be the case that what is wanting in the realm of human action is the way to design for anti-fragility to Omega-phase events.
Panarchy: a term first introduced to refer to non-hierarchical governance, later incorporated by systems theorists to describe non-hierarchical organizing principles.
Gunderson and Holling adapted the term to describe the dynamics in a theory of evolutionary ecology called "Resilience Theory".
According to resilience theory, there are four phases in ecological evolution, and ecological resilience is maintained by the healthy cycling through the four phases.
The four phases are:
Panarchy in the realm of collective human action.
The three domains of collective human action map onto the panarchy cycle as follows:
Note: Panarchy is fractal, and operates at all scales. Therefore one can find panarchy cycles embedded inside each of the domains.
Cultures have a certain "shape of human action" which demonstrates self-organized criticality according to the relative scale of strategies employed for maintaining internal congruence and external coherence.
The Ω (omega) phase is what is external to human action, the effects and agency of the larger planetary ecology. When culture endures an omega phase, it descends into a "basin" in a fitness landscape. Whether this results in creative or terminal destruction depends upon the ability of geo-social space to recover (creating new human narratives: see "demos")
When the three domains of human action are "optimized" or "flowing freely" the culture is resilient to Omega-phase events.
There is an interesting question of how to design for anti-fragility to Omega-phase events.
Implications for game ~b