Page 36 - Deep Learning

The Need to Override Experience 19

This objection inverts the true relation between the turbulent material and
social systems in which we live and the clockwork systems studied in classical
natural science. It is the latter that are hard to find outside the laboratory, not
the former. Most of the classical showcase systems, from pendulums to electri-
cal circuits, share with clocks an element of artificiality; they are constructed
rather than found. Systems that fit the clockwork mind-set have to be invented,
built in special rooms called laboratories and studied under deliberately con-
trived conditions. Even then they can only be observed with the help of scien-
tific instruments, themselves artifacts. As many laboratory scientists discover
during their doctoral apprenticeship, to make a material system conform to
the expectations of the clockwork view can be a challenge. In spite of multiple
experimental controls – actions taken to reduce the number of relevant vari-
ables and the influence of externalities – confounding variables, randomness,
impure samples or even the trembles produced by a nearby subway train can
ruin an experimental setup and make the system under study fail to conform
to the rules of the clockwork game.
In contrast, the turbulent character of complex systems is and always
was ready at hand: the life history of a flower is visible in the garden, the
unpredictability of the weather is proverbial, the irreversibility of volcanic
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action is obvious to anyone who has heard of Pompeii and Herculaneum
and cascading causation is not news to victims of severe floods: one small
breach in the dam and your village is gone. Human beings suffered forest
fires long before they suffered pendulums. In everyday experience, com-
plex, turbulent and unpredictable systems are pervasive and clockwork
systems are rare.
Was this also the case in early hunter-gatherer society, the context in which
human beings evolved? consider three hypothetical vignettes. Imagine a
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hunter-gatherer band that lives in a valley where a particular prey constitutes a
significant proportion of their diet. A newly arrived predator is likely to upset
the predator-prey relations in the valley, possibly causing a drastic contrac-
tion of the prey population. Such effects can occur quickly, certainly within
the lifetime of the band’s members. Prior experience might not be very useful
in reacting to a perturbation of this sort. How should the band respond? Past
experience might suggest a gradual and smooth variation in abundance of prey
from year to year. Projecting this experience onto the unprecedented situation
caused by the new predator might lead to the unproductive decision of sitting
out what the band’s members expect to be a temporary dip in prey availability,
chew roots and wait for better times. A more constructive response might be
to develop techniques for hunting a different prey, or even to pack up and leave