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" We are infected by our own misunderstanding of how our own minds work. "
Kevin Kelly
Work
Misunderstanding
Minds
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" The most interesting thing about change in the environment is that for the most part the environment isn't changing. "
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" A brain is a society of very small, simple modules that cannot be said to be thinking, that are not smart in themselves. But when you have a network of them together, out of that arises a kind of smartness. "
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" Organisms by their design are not made to adapt too far. "
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" But in fact, when you try to model that on a computer you find that because of the very structure of matter and of the chemical bonds that are the basis of every organism, evolution is not random at all. It will tend to follow certain paths. "
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You
" Each organism's environment, for the most part, consists of other organisms. "
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Environment
Other
Most
" It's more along the lines of raising a child: we train the system to a certain range of behaviors that we find most useful. But then we let it go, because we don't want to have to be babysitting it the whole time. "
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Want
Train
Time
" This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here. "
Kevin Kelly
Learning
Future
Society
" Much of outcomes research is a systematic attempt to exploit what is known and make it better. "
Kevin Kelly
Much
Research
Outcomes
" Basins of attraction, of self organization, show up as well in our complex social environment, in human organizations. Here again, while we cannot predict the result of any given input, we can say that it will likely fall within one of several areas. "
Kevin Kelly
Self
Fall
Environment
" It's generally much easier to kill an organization than to change it substantially. "
Kevin Kelly
Easier
Change
Much
" Complexity that works is built up out of modules that work perfectly, layered one over the other. "
Kevin Kelly
Work
Other
Up
" The way to build a complex system that works is to build it from very simple systems that work. "
Kevin Kelly
Work
Build
Simple
" The nature of an innovation is that it will arise at a fringe where it can afford to become prevalent enough to establish its usefulness without being overwhelmed by the inertia of the orthodox system. "
Kevin Kelly
Overwhelmed
Nature
Innovation
" The way that organizations and organisms anticipate the future is by taking signals from the past, most the time. "
Kevin Kelly
Way
Future
Most
" One of the functions of an organization, of any organism, is to anticipate the future, so that those relationships can persist over time. "
Kevin Kelly
Time
Future
Organization
" The great advance of personal computers was not the computing power per se but the fact that it brought it right to your face, that you had control over it, that were confronted with it and could steer it. "
Kevin Kelly
Power
Face
Control
" All imaginable futures are not equally possible. "
Kevin Kelly
Possible
Imaginable
Equally
" Managers tend to treat organizations as if they are infinitely plastic. They hire and fire, merge, downsize, terminate programs, add capacities. But there are limits to the shifts that organizations can absorb. "
Kevin Kelly
Treat
Plastic
Limits
" Each system is trying to anticipate change in the environment. "
Kevin Kelly
Trying
Change
Environment
" The system continually has to make this choice: it can either continue to exploit a known process and make it more productive, or it can explore a new process at the cost of being less efficient. "
Kevin Kelly
More
Choice
Explore
" When a system is in turbulence, the turbulence is not just out there in the environment, but is a part of the organization or organism that you are looking at. "
Kevin Kelly
Environment
Looking
You
" Changing things from the top down works when things are stable. "
Kevin Kelly
Down
Changing
Top
" An organization's intelligence is distributed to the point of being ubiquitous. "
Kevin Kelly
Intelligence
Point
Organization
" But in a turbulent environment the change is so widespread that it just routes around any kind of central authority. So it is best to manage the bottom-up change rather than try to institute it from the top down. "
Kevin Kelly
Best
Authority
Environment
" An organization's reason for being, like that of any organism, is to help the parts that are in relationship to each other, to be able to deal with change in the environment. "
Kevin Kelly
Change
Relationship
Organization
" Species go extinct because there are historical contraints built into a given body or a given design. "
Kevin Kelly
Go
Body
Because
" The organization and the environment are in concert. "
Kevin Kelly
Environment
Organization
Concert
" And they discovered something very interesting: when it comes to walking, most of the ant's thinking and decision-making is not in its brain at all. It's distributed. It's in its legs. "
Kevin Kelly
Walking
Thinking
Interesting
" Managing bottom-up change is its own art. "
Kevin Kelly
Managing
Art
Bottom-Up
" Everything that we are making, we are making more and more complex. "
Kevin Kelly
Complex
More
Making