The theory proposes that all complex adaptive systems (CAS) naturally adapt to a state at the “edge of chaos” which is a transition zone between order(stability) and disorder.
The theory proposes this is the zone where maximal learning/innovation/creativity in social systems occur.
We studied complex adaptive systems in 2019, at the time I changed my LinkedIn tag line to : “learning at the edge of chaos” , still have not changed it since then.
this applies to all systems, from biospheres to food-chains to cells to human evolution.
resiliency is needed for systems to be less fragile against chaotic perturbations, as the most 'complex' (sub) systems are the most impacted by any change without it.
complex systems would fail catastrophically instantly if its resilient sub-systems weren't able to postpone it.
resiliency is the ability to respond to varied input, to face dis-order.
The universe, uncaring, is a dis-orderly increase in entropy. It accumulates, and averages to eventually to act as a sieve, a selective pressure, an edge....a particularly varied input.
Anything that would pressure the system - such as an environment change or competition against itself for a resource constraint - and this selective pressure culls the weakest variations of the system from the pool. Those variations that had the least effective resiliency features, now gone, are quickly replaced, and the system continues to exist.
All complex systems in adversarial conditions must then incentivize resiliency, and the generalized property of being self-reliant; adaptive to variation in input.
This incentive/reward is essentially an iota of agency, a flash of an of objective goal.
intelligence is the ability to reach a goal given varied input states.
The ability to 'learn' is really just how to compile ways to reach a goal, inferring relations between the solutions, then internalizing that inference to later better increase its ability to generalize / respond to varying input.
learning is _only_ possible at the edge of chaos
Which is what makes math so interesting. The constant stream of finding predictable islands in the unpredictable, and then unpredictable islands (hard problems) in the predictable (seemingly simple easily defined systems).
Math is chaos.
I suppose as we get smarter, and our understanding of the world gets more sophisticated, our survival/growth progress becomes more and more a math exercise.
I’m no psychologist but I find the existence of chaos and order in the physical word to be really interesting. It seems like something we would make up as a species, but really there is proof for it in the universe around us.
But sometimes, we shouldn't have action.
As I have gotten older, I have learned that "It Depends" is really a mantra for life.
I know of some folks that are dealing with mental health challenges. They are all dirt poor, on SSI/Medicaid, and terrified of losing these.
As a result, they don't try to get jobs, or advance themselves, socially. They don't take risks. Their therapists tend to encourage this stance.
I can't, with sincerity, say that they are all wrong, but I'll bet some of them are. If they pushed themselves, they could probably break free of their chains. But some of the others, would just break. I am not qualified to know which is which. I do my best to support them, and keep my opinions to myself. One thing I know for sure: I have no idea what other people can take, in their edges. Just because I can do something, doesn't mean that someone else can.
We advance, by pushing into our discomfort zone. There's a saying: "Winners do what they need to do. Losers do what they want to do."
I don't know how to do almost every project I take on. It can be terrifying. I write about that, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
That's why we need UBI, SSI ends up being an indirect UBI anyway but at least with a real UBI system people wouldn't be afraid to try to work during the time periods they were feeling better.
I have seen people in this situation. Sometimes you don't even need to be poor, just in a bad situation where you need help and are getting it. But deeply incentivized (captured might be the right word) by artificial risk structures to avoid any attempts to get out.
I have once been on the edge of chaos for too long and eventually when it flipped over it took years to recover. Possibly even decades. Or possibly a lifetime.
I am one of those people. I tried. It was a bad idea.
I am neurodivergent with mental health issues and started working again in 2022 as a developer after having been on disability for about 15 years. A friend of mine has given me a referral to a place he worked, and I had a mid-level development position at a startup that involved a lot of teaching bootcamp grads how to do stuff - that part of my work especially was a great fit. Then the economy tightened up and I got laid off - and there was just no work to be found.
I had worked exactly 11 days past the trial work grace period (thanks, former employer), so I'm in a weird situation where I'm able to draw benefits for a couple of years but I'll have to reapply for disability in a few months. Had I worked 11 days less, I'd still have benefits like nothing had ever happened - and had I worked into December of that year I'd have nothing at all.
The part no one tells you about any of this is that you are going to be reliant on referrals for work for the rest of your life because the gap in your work history makes you absolutely toxic to any sort of HR department permanently. And if the job market dries up like it has, where you're just another mid-level dev in a sea of thousands, that gap in your work history is going to render you absolutely unemployable. I have no idea what that gap in my work history has to do with my skill as a software engineer (aside from the fact that I have had lots of time to practice), but it makes me radioactive.
My life is currently hinging on whether or not my reapplication goes through. If it doesn't... I really don't know what I'm going to do. Getting a job in my field is clearly not an option anymore, and there isn't much other work I'm really all that able to do.
All I can do to get through my days is to try very hard not to think about that. It's grim and it sucks and I really don't anticipate this ending well for me, but I'm trying to stay hopeful.
Sadly, it is not an unusual story (for me). I have heard similar bureaucratic Catch-22 stories for years.
Basically, no one wants to acknowledge that people with mental health issues even exist (unless it's a family member, then "That's different...").
They get totally shafted. Criminals tend to get treated better.
What would such a winner "win" though, if as soon as you get to do anything you want that means you lose?
Second, it’s interesting that the takeaway from the saying is that we can never do what we want.
> Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath. Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something difficult? Or have you already leaned in too far and need to back off a little? Act accordingly. As the situation progresses, keep checking in with yourself.
So the difference seems to be the notion that "a little discomfort is okay". You still need to place your tolerable discomfort cut-off point somewhere, right before it feels overwhelming.
I kind of agree with the general content of the post, but find it somewhat simplistic with a focus on oneself. I see conversation more like a dance, a delicate balance where you should be aware of your own feelings, but also other people's. Some people feel comfortable over-sharing with someone they barely met, which can create quite intense discomfort. My understanding is that this tends to be more likely in people who struggle setting boundaries in their relationships. I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance.
Yeah, this is useless because it relies on the assumption that people’s level of comfort/discomfort is a rational thing that’s consistent among different people. It treats that complex barely-understood neurological system like it’s a barometer outside your window.
I’ve been dealing with an anxiety disorder for much of my life (and it’s not rare!), and I’ve explicitly had to learn NOT to trust my gut. My gut can randomly tell me I’m in mortal danger as I’m shopping for groceries or answering an email. I’m not listening to that thing.
Indeed the 'conversation is like a dance' feels like a more correct expression of reality.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-developmen...
“It represents tasks beyond the learner’s current abilities but is attainable with the help and guidance of the more knowledgeable other (MKO). The ZPD is the range of tasks a person can’t complete independently but can accomplish with support.”
Vygotsky‘s ZPD is a useful 1-dimensional tool (literally a number line) for learning I find (to oversimplify) Csiksgentmihalyi‘z to be a better 2-D tool for conceptualizing performance in a task.
While both are pretty foundational concepts in motivational psychology it follows one can expand to create one’s own n-dimensional personal heuristics incorporating emotional and social factors.
[1] https://centerforstartservices.org/blog/2024/04/what-flow
“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
Inversely, the "burden" to respond, whether gravitas is implied or not, can be socially-exhausting to some, and not even conjured by others.
People with low self-esteem or self-worth / depressed / self-described "burdensome" people often assume the pity they may solicit costs the other party part of their own emotional well-being - they've burdened them further with expectations of a response or acknowledgement.
Soooo many sites have AI read voice overs, and while I understand why, it's a nice touch to listen to a real human with natural prosody.
I think that applies to life experiences too. I personally consider myself someone for whom rollercoasters are too intense, but I still try a thrill ride every few years (if the opportunity presents) to ensure I'm not limiting myself by what was true a decade or two ago. I try foods I know I won't like sometimes, because tastes change.
I'm not comfortable with heights and generally avoid them, but I'm still planning to do a hot air balloon ride soon because I want to challenge myself.
I'm currently writing a book on the "edge of human thought" (more from a point of view of inventions over the course of humankind's history) – here's a newsletter signup page, in case you want to stay up to date:
(Posting this is also in the edge area for me... ;))
Keep up the great thinking and writing! :-)
Seems like my habit is making things hard and do them carefully.
* the Edge-zone/s (yes, plural) are many, per-aspect. One can be pretty ok with one aspect and at-same-time-and-place totally not-ok with another aspect
* being in edge zone is kind-a learning.. training.. ("if it hurts, do it more often") the more often there, further the edge border will move (Extending the comfort zone). Of course depending where it started ; loading a twisted ankle as-usual-before-twisting isn't safe
* as saying goes: there's no cannot, there is do not want ; and there's no have to, only want to. But YMMV
The body has a homeostatic balance physically and psychologically. Pushing yourself out that balance (the comfort zone) induces and adaptation (growth). When you push yourself into the edge, as he defines it, you enter the hormetic zone, the area of the dose response where there is benefit (be it from physical or psychological stressors or medicines). Going too far causes unbeneficial and possibly irreparable damage.
They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content.
In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone.
And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care.
The proper underlying concept is risk management.
**
If you follow the advices of these kind of articles, you typically see an initial success, followed by occasional bigger successes, followed by occasional crashes, followed by unrecoverable crashes.
What is happening is that the underlying problem that you are trying to optimize initially benefits from expanding your comfort zone. People usually are too "safe" to begin with. That's called prudence, it's a good thing that has been hardwire by evolution.
But then when you work to push your frontier zone, you work in a zone where pulling and pushing lever have maximum sensitivity, it's good and allow you to make some quick progress. You learn the good moves which rock is slippery to your foot or not, but slipping is not to important because you are still working inside the underlying safe operating zone.
But now you are getting used to learning with immediate feedback. And if you make this the thing you optimize for, you will slowly drift toward the more danger and less reward zone.
You master pushing and pulling the levers in front of you but as you already know how they work, you don't learn anything new. So you push them more and more because you get bored, and then you get some exciting new phenomenon, the car can drift when you go over 90 in the turn of the speed limit 50 zone. So you're happy you've got something new to master. You master it, and now you drift anywhere you go Tokyo drift style.
But you never learned that the adherence of the car depends on whether it has rained the previous day because the oil and dust in the asphalt get lifted and redeposited on the road. So you are surprised when your car spin around.
You got in an accident but made it OK, but now you've got to do some door dashing to finance the new car. So you are more tired, and more pressed by time and drive accordingly. So what does little Timmy in the back learn ?
**
Proper risk management is looking for the levers you can push, expanding them in a safe and boring way. It's concept like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier in portfolio management instead of YOLOing. It's the concept of bankroll management, and management of variance, aggression window style, in things like poker.
But the game of life is not an individual one but a collective one. And people playing an aggressive style are forcing you to play a more loose game. And even more worse than a loose game is a positive expectation game turned negative expectation game because of that. Because the game is not zero sum, in poker there is the rake, but in life many situations are win win, but can be turned lose lose by greediness.
The rise is slow and the fall is fast and catastrophic, see the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure in complex systems that result by taking a myopic approach to optimizing your life.
However my personal experience is that it mostly doesn't work out like that. Real human interactions with others and with things is so complex that it can't reliably be modeled that way. In reality it is more a combination of gut feeling and rational overthought and afterthought, in a never ending feedback loop.
I like how https://www.youtube.com/@TechIngredients approach complex problems and risks in a safe way.
Human interaction normal operating mode shouldn't be with one pushing and pulling your buttons to make you react. That's quite the definition of emotional manipulation, and not the basis of sane relations.
If you are operating on the edge on purpose, you are probably creating a toxic workplace for those around you.
Aren't such articles only meant as food for thought? I find it difficult to imagine anyone actually driving their lives on it. Is that even possible for any kind of media, let alone such short articles?
The advice given by the current article is just after the "followed by occasional crashes" state of the state graph : The author has already noticed that the "edge" is context dependent and still recommends winging it (he also mention previous personal problems with substance abuse so we are definitely in the "here be dragons" territory).
The author seems to be in the wreck everyone around you and then repair it business.
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There are various culture on the internet, notably pushed by influencers and other self proclaimed gurus, that often push it further that reasonable, often amplified by filter bubbles and echo chamber that algorithm like to recommend.
It's typically called Bro-Science in the fitness domain. This empirical science has the benefit of the wisdom of the crowd.
Typically in running or fitness, one follow a training program to make some gains. But the danger is often over-training, or bad posture resulting in an injury. Learning unguided is often the cause of injury.
Typically what happens is your mental model you are basing your training program on is missing some important levers : For example you didn't consider some cumulative nutrient deficiency or adaptation that occur when not respecting cycles by having rest weeks. But you push yourself because you don't see a reason why you shouldn't push yourself and then the injury occur.
**
Real science here would recommend taking a step back, and look for the missing lever instead of random pushing the levers in front of you.
You should be humble and start with the hypothesis that there is some additional unknown risk you aren't aware of. Reasonable progress isn't made working on the frontier trying to push it forward, but rather by exploring more diversity while staying comfortably in the comfort zone in order to be able to handle the occasional rough patches that natural variance will throw at you.
The science behind if you want to learn more is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration-exploitation_dilem... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit (Thomson sampling and no regret sampling). It typically consist of building an inner representation of the world (aka a world model) and acting on it conservatively. You may also look into martingale stopping time if you are inclined in probability theory.
If you're lifting weights, the "burn" you feel after doing 20 reps of a light weight might be way higher in intensity than a little twinge in your shoulder; but the "burn" might be something you push through, while the twinge is something you just stop your workout for that day -- and if it happens again, may mean you take it easy on your shoulder for a week or two. That's because you know the "cost" of pushing through the burn is negligible and the benefit part of your whole plan; the "cost" of pushing through the shoulder twinge might be a month or two of no working out, possibly no more weightlifting ever if it's bad enough.
In most situations I have a policy of eating at least a bit of whatever's put in front of me. It's good to train myself to put politeness over squeamishness, and in any case I've often found new foods that I've liked that way. I've never eaten tarantula or grasshopper, but if someone offered me one I'd try it, even though it sounds disgusting.
However, I no longer eat sea cucumbers if my wife cooks them, even though I have only a mild distaste to them: I've already eaten them hundreds of times, I know I can eat them, I'm pretty sure they're never going to get any easier to eat, and she doesn't mind, as it leaves more for her. Forcing myself to eat them doesn't really have that much benefit.
As a "social introvert", I've learned at conferences to just go back to my room and take a nap if I'm tired. I can just power through the day without a rest, but the interactions aren't really worth it -- much better to take a break and come back fresh and ready to engage.
I could go on and on -- the key thing is to recognize what the actual cost or benefit of "pushing" is.
Re not talking to a potential powder keg, if you're interested the opinion of one ancient guy a lot of people look to for advice:
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." -Jesus
