A Framework for Advanced Machine Thinking

A complex world asks for a new level of thinking

We are living in a complex world, phasing real and complex problems. Our parents’ struggle was to get from one place to another, sickness, and other natural threats and disasters.

Most of our generation’s problems are self-inflicted and are the result of yesterday’s solutions or ambiguity. We are wrestling with self-made and complex problems like pollution, child pornography, nuclear threats, traffic systems, collapsing economies, pandemics, and terrorism.

Einstein understood part of this challenge when he wrote: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

If that is the case, we need to become smarter in the way we think, look at complex phenomena, and solve difficult problems. Machine Thinking is one of the most powerful tools in this regard and once mastered, can serve us well in this endeavor of higher thinking.

Advanced Machine / Systems Thinking

Advanced Machine Thinking or Systems Thinking as it is also known has been around for many years, but it is most probably, the most undervalued tool available to solves today’s complex problems.

If you think about it, all things around us are machines and part(s) of bigger machines.

A machine or system can be described as a physical, conceptual or virtual, capsule embedded within a set of stable relationships, steered by a controlling mechanism, that can traverse time and space, transforming inputs into unique outputs or value, serving a larger machine.

Perspectives and Modes of Inquiry

The following machine and knowledge hierarchy will help you to better frame and understand, machines, systems, and complex problems. It will also give you a new way to think, solve problems and a deeper appreciation of complex phenomena.

1. Information of the Structure and Parts

Information is the first level of inquiry of Machine Thinking. It is about breaking a machine down to its lowest level and come to know all the different parts of the machine. It is to analyze, name, and know each part of the machine. It is to know how and where the parts fit into the machine and to understand the hierarchy of importance of each part. Knowing the structure and the parts is a reductive process that provides an explanation in terms of ever smaller entities.

2. Insight into the Process

The second level of inquiry is to gain insight into the flow of inputs and outputs, (flow elements), through the machine. It is to see what flow elements, come into the machine, how they are transformed, altered, blended, separated, and what are produced (products and by-products) as a result and final output of the machine. Part of this level of thinking is to understand the interphases and protocols between the different parts.

To fully appreciate the beauty of Machine Thinking, and this level of inquiry we must understand the nature and type of flow elements. Flow elements (machine inputs and outputs), at its highest level, can be broken down into the following five types: 

Energy and Matter

Lower order machine inputs and outputs are Energy and Matter. Following Einstein’s E = MC2, Energy (E) and Matter (M) are really the same thing, but it will be handy to think of them as having separate characteristics for the purpose of this exercise. In a world or universe, without any form of life, energy and matter are most probably the only types of machine inputs and outputs you will find.

Information

The moment you introduce life into the scope of analysis, you find a new middle order flow element: Information. Information in this context means the ability of living things, to signal to one another. An example of this can be a wildflower that attracts bees, by means of a unique color or aroma. Another example might be the ability for insects and animals to call and signal one another. In the end, it is the life forms with the more sophisticated signaling mechanisms, that will out-breed and outlive all others, in true Darwinian fashion.

Money

Higher order flow elements come into play if you add mankind into the machine equation. The first flow element that is unique to man, is the concept of Money, a medium of value exchange. You can argue that money is just another form of energy, but it has such a unique characteristic in the way we think about it, and the machine that we have built around it.

People

The second higher order flow element is man himself, or People as we will tag it going forward in this argument. People have such unique characteristics in machine environments. Their own complexity, fickleness, and unpredictability are not always fully understood or appreciated in the design of people machines. Think for a moment of people in machines like the Roman army, prisons, a ride at Disney, the TSA processing people through an airport or a factory workforce.

I am sure you would be able to identify more, higher order (and possibly lower order) flow elements, but you get the idea, and for simplicity sake, I will stop here.

3. Understanding

The next level of inquiry is to understand the value, lifespan, and purpose of a machine. It is hard to think of something as a machine, if you cannot work out what the purpose of it is. It is the purpose of a machine, that links it to the larger machine which it serves. It is the raison d'etre and without it, a machine is or has become absolute.

There are machines or machines that are, or has become self-serving, an end in themselves, and parasitic in nature. We call it cancer and it should be treated accordingly.

If you understand the purpose of a machines or submachines (subsystems), you gain deeper understanding and appreciation for the concert of machines that makes up the everything around us. Everything from the smallest molecule or a microchip to the stars in the great night expanse.

4. Machine Wisdom and Situational Awareness

Machine wisdom and true situational awareness is the highest level of Machine knowledge. It is the ability to see, understand and appreciate the governing mechanism(s), that regulate(s) the inputs and outputs, and steer the Machine, within a set of parameters, to produce value and to fulfill its purpose and promise to the larger Machine. It is the ability to see and synthesize the gestalt of the machine and use it to gain deep strategic insight.

Understanding what controls the air-conditioning unit of your home might be easy, once you think about it for a minute or so, but you have to think very carefully and deep to comprehend the governing mechanisms of complex Machine like the economy, human behavior, the Internet, a stock exchange or weather patterns.

The real challenge in this regard is the fact that:

• things are not always what they seem to be, 
• cause and effect are separated by time and distance, 
• emotion (fear and desire) plays a much more significant role in people-related Machine
• there can be multiple controlling effects that are competing and dynamic in nature
• intuition plays a much more important role in this level of thinking

What steers a large corporation? Is it the shareholders, the board, a charismatic CEO, government regulations, customer demand or the culture of the company? All of these mechanisms have an influence on the direction, but Drucker argued that culture has a dominant influence on the destiny of any company. If that is true, what drives culture?

Ray Dalio, CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the most successful hedge funds in the world, knows like most other people the, parts, inputs and outputs and purpose of a modern economy. The difference is that he and his team has master a deep understanding of the dynamic levers and mechanisms that drive and steer the US and world economy through its peaks and troughs.

In the words of Kipling, “yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it”, if you can start to think at this level and gain full machine wisdom, and awareness in one or more of the complex machines that surround us.

About the origin of this article

This article was inspired by Dr. Johan Strumpfer as he explained Systems Thinking to us 30 years ago. Most of the ideas shared here had its origin from a paper written by Strumpfer called: Modes of Inquiry - Acquiring knowledge about complex phenomena. The original paper identifies only Matter, Energy and Information as system inputs and outputs.

About Dr. Johan Strümpfer

Johan Strümpfer is director of Systems Practice, a consulting firm. He is also a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town (UCT), where he teaches strategy and a systems approach on the EMBA program.

Other Sources

Russell L. Ackoff: On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events, with Frederick Edmund Emery, Aldine-Atherton: Chicago, 1972.

Jamshid Gharajedaghi: Toward a systems theory of organization. Intersystems Publications, 1985.

Geoffrey Vickers: Human Systems Are Different. Paul Chapman. ISBN 0063182629, 1983. 

Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” is a famous quotation attributed to the late business management guru Peter Drucker, and made famous by Mark Fields, President at Ford.

Rudyard Kipling: "If—" is a poem by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling, written in 1895 and first published in Rewards and Fairies.

Ray Dalio: How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0, 2013