We do not like to change but...

One of the oldest books held sacred in the world is the I Ching (易經) usually translated as "The Book of Changes". It is a Chinese book whose origin is lost in the mists of time. Both a philosophical foundation and an object of divination, this obscure book remains very clear on one thing: The one thing that will never change is that everything is always changing.

Nature. Universe. Life. Everything proves us this final and without appeal sentence. It is therefore simply not possible to stop the transformation, to go back. Those who promise to stop the economic transformation, to build walls to stop change, to repatriate lost jobs, "to make us great again" are deluding themselves.

Not only is it an illusion to think that it is possible to stop the change, but even if it were possible, it would be temporary because another change would follow immediately.

The Chinese have understood this for thousands of years: stability is not the normal state of a system, it is an exception.

Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, proposes a way to better apprehend change, the Wuwei (無爲), or "non-action" which is not passivity but the fact of acting in conformity with the "original cosmic order", the movement of nature.

Lao Tzu made Wuwei an ideal political principle of government and several Chinese emperors made it their national motto until the end of imperial China in 1911. Even today, this motto can be found on the desks of many Chinese entrepreneurs.

Since change is inevitable, how can we act without acting to better welcome the change?

Critical self-organization

To know how to act, it would be useful to know when and to what extent Change will occur. How do you find out?

According to the laws of thermodynamics, all phenomena in the universe would have only one tendency: to bring the system to a complete state of thermal and molecular disorder. And if matter and energy spontaneously organize themselves into organized systems, it would only be to create even more disorder.

The degree of disorder of a system is called entropy, and the occurrence of these temporarily stable, but complex systems is called the "emergence principle". 

The astrophysicist Eric Chaisson has calculated that for the same weight, humans are 10,000 times more efficient than the sun in dissipating energy.

The very emergence of the human being would thus respect the tendency of the Universe to move towards entropy. It is a notion that we find in thermodynamics, astrophysics, mathematics, ecology, and especially in information theory (and therefore in economics).

In 1987, Per Bak, a researcher in fundamental physics and specialist in phase transitions, published an article presenting a new concept called "self-organized criticality". This previous research had led him to study how an organization emerges from disorder. At the time, he studied the flow of sand to form heaps and proposed a mathematical model. His model was later called the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfield sand pile in his book "How Nature Works".

Bak applies his model to financial markets to demonstrate that, as in nature, complex and well-structured systems emerge spontaneously from chaos and that sudden changes can be anticipated. In this theory, complex systems governed by interactions between heterogeneous individuals spontaneously converge towards attractive critical states, from which they can abruptly branch off from one phase (e.g. euphoria) to another (e.g. panic).

A critical state can be identified when we see a past trend repeating itself more regularly. Individuals begin to mimic their respective behaviors through mechanisms they have in common in the system; for instance, in the economy, it would be the debt. This type of behavior can lead to speculative bubbles that eventually burst. However, although it is possible to identify the presence of a critical state, it is more difficult to predict when the phase transition, "the change", will take place. 

However, as for Lao Tzu, for Bak stability is only a temporary state that requires a set of particular, rare, convergent conditions. The situation that precedes the changeover is described as "critical" because change is inexorable but the moment at which it will occur is unpredictable.

The only certainty is that change will occur.

Does this mean that nothing can be anticipated, so that "non-action" is the only way?

Predicting Tsunamis

In the Japanese archives, there are traces of a devastating Tsunami that the elders called "orphan tsunami" because it was not preceded by an earthquake. It took place on December 23, 1700.

We know today that this tsunami was preceded by one of the strongest earthquakes on the American West Coast. But the Japanese in the 17th century did not feel it. The Amerindian populations, however, felt it and it caused a huge tsunami that ravaged villages and killed hundreds of people long before the first Europeans settled in this Far West.

The 1700 earthquake and tsunami were caused by the sliding of the small Juan de Fuca tectonic plate under the North American plate. This small plate is pushed by the immense Pacific Ocean plate and creates the Cascadia Rift, which begins in northern California and ends in northern British Columbia in Canada.

This "subduction zone" now threatens all cities on the northwest coast, including the major cities of Seattle and Vancouver. But the threat is not the earthquake itself, but the huge wave it could generate the tsunami.

Tsunamis occur in three phases: initiation, propagation, and breakout. While the last two phases are relatively simple to calculate, it is the triggering phase that poses a problem for mathematicians. Once the water column is formed, predicting where the tsunami will destroy everything in its path is relatively simple. But in the best case, people have less than 12 hours to find shelter.

As with the Bak sands piles, it is the timing of the phase transition that is difficult to determine. To calculate where and when a tsunami will occur, it would be necessary to be able to describe the deformation of the seabed and to deduce the initial deformation of the water surface. But representing the geometry of the seabed and the dynamics of the earthquake is practically impossible today.

All that coastal populations can do is to keep in mind that this risk exists and that we must be able to "live with it".

This means planning evacuation and rescue solutions, so let's act!

But it wouldn't be realistic to empty Seattle and Vancouver of its inhabitants, simply because the risk of Tsunami exists, so Let's not act!

To act without acting is to foresee and adapt.

Individualism, collaboration, and adaptation

The change is not an exceptional condition. It is stability that is!

What is "normal" is diversity, differences, the plurality of interests and opinions, individuality. In this sense, the advent of the sharing economy responds to this desire for individuality. 

To be free from the anguish of change, one simply has to accept it and open one's horizons to seek new ways of working and living, even if they are more marginal.

We should not cling unnecessarily to recipes from the past, not seek routine, but rather love or even desire change, adapt, and seize every change in our environment as an opportunity to do better.

In his book "Homo Deus", Yuval Harari demonstrates that what has made humankind stronger than any other species is our ability to regularly reinvent our models of cooperation and collaboration.

The best way to survive change is to rely on each other, constantly reinventing our ways of cooperating.

In short, be yourself without being individualistic, plan without anguish, and collaborate with others by bringing to the group what makes you unique.

Covid, Economical depression, Climate change... Whatever you believe is the greatest threat you will have to deal with, we will be able to overcome all the changes that await us if we adapt and cooperate.