johns hopkins innovation factory entrepreneur development program #4
TRANSCRIPT
Session #4: The Big Picture
Presented by
Glenn Alpert
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Thresholds
1. Creation of the universe
2. Creation of the first stars
3. Creation of chemically complex entities inside dying stars
4. Creation of our earth and solar system
5. Creation and evolution of life
6. Creation of our own species
7. Emergence of agriculture / agricultural societies
8. The modern revolution
Systems have become increasingly complex
New levels of complexity and emergent properties are being created
A “company” is a complex system Credit: Big History Project
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Structural Framework
Credit: Big History Project
A structural framework for increasing complexity:
• Properties of complex things: consist of diverse components bound into
larger structures
• Those structures are patterned in very precise ways
• Structures that bring together diverse components display distinctive
emergent properties and features
• Emergent properties and features are not present in the components from
which they are constructed, but only when those components are
combined in specific ways
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Questions of Melinda
Credit: Big History Project
• Questions of Melinda – famous Buddhist literature
• Melinda was a ruler of central Asia in 2nd century BCE, sometime after
Alexander the great established city-states influenced by Greek culture
• Melinda debates Nagasena, a Buddhist sage, on the idea of the self
• Buddhism claims the self doesn’t really exist and is illusory
• Melinda makes the claim that the self is real
• Analogy of the chariot: The chariot emerges as a property when you
assemble its components in a certain way, similar to the self
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Chariot Analogy
Credit: Big History Project
Nagasena: How did you come to this meeting?
Melinda: In a chariot.
Nagasena: Please explain to me what chariot is. Is the pole the chariot?
No
Is the axle the chariot?
No
Is the chariot the wheels, the framework, the yoke, or the reigns?
No
is this chariot outside the combination of pole, axle, wheels, framework,
yoke, reigns, all of the other parts, etc.?
No
Then ask as I may, I can discover no chariot at all, just a mere sound is
this chariot.
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Credit: Big History Project
• One can study properties of oxygen and hydrogen, but not be able to
predict properties of water by the way they are arranged. Arrange them
differently and you can study the properties of water.
• Emergent properties may only appear only in a particular arrangement.
• When assembled into a larger structure, new things appear.
• There are “group” properties which individuals do not have on their own.
• Complex things are more fragile than simpler things.
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Credit: Big History Project
Emile Durkheim – The “Father of Sociology”
“Whenever any elements combine, and by the fact of their combination,
produce new phenomena, it is plain that these phenomena are not given
in the elements, but in the totality formed by their union”.
The living cell contains nothing but mineral particles, just as society contains
nothing but individuals; it is obviously impossible for the phenomena
characteristic of life to exist in the atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and
nitrogen.
Is a company any different?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Properties of Complexity
Credit: Big History Project
Properties:
• Complex entities have to be stable to a certain extent.
• Stability is never absolute, everything eventually breaks down.
• To maintain complex things, energy flows are needed to bind simple
things into more complex structures.
• To survive, we have to be good at detecting complex things in our
environment. Our brains are “complexity detectors”.
• Over 13 billion years, the upward ceiling for complexity is only increasing.
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Properties of Complexity
Credit: Big History Project
• If it takes energy to create and maintain complex things, then it takes
more energy to create more complex things.
• Complexity levels are measured by energy flows.
• Estimate complexity by the amount of energy that flows through a system.
• Living organisms are more complex than stars.
• Human societies are among the most complex things we know of.
• More complex things are rarer and more fragile than simpler things.
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Properties of Complexity
Credit: Big History Project
• Order – the most unlikely arrangement, requires energy.
• In the absence of work, order disappears.
• The universe ought to be getting simpler, but its becoming more complex.
• Gravity attracts energy and matter into smaller spaces.
• As complex things appear, they create conditions for more complex things.
• Complexity can build and accumulate over long periods of time.
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
What is Innovation?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Natural Selection?
Does a natural selection process occur in the business world?
Is Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” of market forces really just natural
selection at work (self interest + competition)?
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Collective Learning
Credit: Big History Project
• Human history is about collective learning and becoming more complex.
• As individuals, we are not that much smarter than chimps, but we’re more
networked, and we have millennia of accumulated knowledge.
• Collective learning is what makes us different than other species and is
our strongest asset. USE COLLECTIVE LEARNING to help you succeed.
• We adapt faster than any other organism on earth through learning.
• Symbolic language allows us to share and learn information more rapidly.
• Information is stored in the collective memory of the whole, especially now
with the internet. INFORMATION IS CUMULATIVE.
Entrepreneur Development Seminar
Your Mission
• Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring together
components to create emergent properties.
• Will you be successful? Natural selection will be the judge.
• If these emergent properties are differentiated enough and valuable to
others, you may have created a foundation for evolutionary “fitness”
for your company.
• Companies that adapt better to the environment have a better chance of
surviving. By following the steps in the previous presentations, doing extra
research, and not rushing to launch your product right away, you are in
theory, increasing the “fitness” of your company and its potential success.