Johns hopkins innovation factory entrepreneur development program #4

Session #4: The Big Picture

Presented by

Glenn Alpert

Entrepreneur Development Seminar


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EJzrIKtKok


Thresholds

1. Creation of the universe

2. Creation of the first stars

3. Creation of chemically complex entities inside dying stars

4. Creation of our earth and solar system

5. Creation and evolution of life

6. Creation of our own species

7. Emergence of agriculture / agricultural societies

8. The modern revolution

Systems have become increasingly complex

New levels of complexity and emergent properties are being created

A “company” is a complex system Credit: Big History Project


Structural Framework

Credit: Big History Project

A structural framework for increasing complexity:

• Properties of complex things: consist of diverse components bound into

larger structures

• Those structures are patterned in very precise ways

• Structures that bring together diverse components display distinctive

emergent properties and features

• Emergent properties and features are not present in the components from

which they are constructed, but only when those components are

combined in specific ways


Questions of Melinda


• Questions of Melinda – famous Buddhist literature

• Melinda was a ruler of central Asia in 2nd century BCE, sometime after

Alexander the great established city-states influenced by Greek culture

• Melinda debates Nagasena, a Buddhist sage, on the idea of the self

• Buddhism claims the self doesn’t really exist and is illusory

• Melinda makes the claim that the self is real

• Analogy of the chariot: The chariot emerges as a property when you

assemble its components in a certain way, similar to the self


Chariot Analogy


Nagasena: How did you come to this meeting?

Melinda: In a chariot.

Nagasena: Please explain to me what chariot is. Is the pole the chariot?

No

Is the axle the chariot?

No

Is the chariot the wheels, the framework, the yoke, or the reigns?

No

is this chariot outside the combination of pole, axle, wheels, framework,

yoke, reigns, all of the other parts, etc.?

No

Then ask as I may, I can discover no chariot at all, just a mere sound is

this chariot.


What is Innovation?


• One can study properties of oxygen and hydrogen, but not be able to

predict properties of water by the way they are arranged. Arrange them

differently and you can study the properties of water.

• Emergent properties may only appear only in a particular arrangement.

• When assembled into a larger structure, new things appear.

• There are “group” properties which individuals do not have on their own.

• Complex things are more fragile than simpler things.


What is Innovation?


Emile Durkheim – The “Father of Sociology”

“Whenever any elements combine, and by the fact of their combination,

produce new phenomena, it is plain that these phenomena are not given

in the elements, but in the totality formed by their union”.

The living cell contains nothing but mineral particles, just as society contains

nothing but individuals; it is obviously impossible for the phenomena

characteristic of life to exist in the atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and

nitrogen.

Is a company any different?


Properties of Complexity


Properties:

• Complex entities have to be stable to a certain extent.

• Stability is never absolute, everything eventually breaks down.

• To maintain complex things, energy flows are needed to bind simple

things into more complex structures.

• To survive, we have to be good at detecting complex things in our

environment. Our brains are “complexity detectors”.

• Over 13 billion years, the upward ceiling for complexity is only increasing.




• If it takes energy to create and maintain complex things, then it takes

more energy to create more complex things.

• Complexity levels are measured by energy flows.

• Estimate complexity by the amount of energy that flows through a system.

• Living organisms are more complex than stars.

• Human societies are among the most complex things we know of.

• More complex things are rarer and more fragile than simpler things.




• Order – the most unlikely arrangement, requires energy.

• In the absence of work, order disappears.

• The universe ought to be getting simpler, but its becoming more complex.

• Gravity attracts energy and matter into smaller spaces.

• As complex things appear, they create conditions for more complex things.

• Complexity can build and accumulate over long periods of time.


What is Innovation?


What is Innovation?


What is Innovation?


What is Innovation?


What is Innovation?


Natural Selection?

Does a natural selection process occur in the business world?

Is Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” of market forces really just natural

selection at work (self interest + competition)?


Collective Learning


• Human history is about collective learning and becoming more complex.

• As individuals, we are not that much smarter than chimps, but we’re more

networked, and we have millennia of accumulated knowledge.

• Collective learning is what makes us different than other species and is

our strongest asset. USE COLLECTIVE LEARNING to help you succeed.

• We adapt faster than any other organism on earth through learning.

• Symbolic language allows us to share and learn information more rapidly.

• Information is stored in the collective memory of the whole, especially now

with the internet. INFORMATION IS CUMULATIVE.


Your Mission

• Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring together

components to create emergent properties.

• Will you be successful? Natural selection will be the judge.

• If these emergent properties are differentiated enough and valuable to

others, you may have created a foundation for evolutionary “fitness”

for your company.

• Companies that adapt better to the environment have a better chance of

surviving. By following the steps in the previous presentations, doing extra

research, and not rushing to launch your product right away, you are in

theory, increasing the “fitness” of your company and its potential success.

Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Johns hopkins innovation factory entrepreneur development program #4