COMPLEXITY AND  HUMAN ACTIONS

I’m about to go on a car journey. Can I be absolutely certain (which means I will stake my whole life on it!) that I know in exact detail everything that will happen on that journey? No I can't; but I might have some idea of the possibilities:

• I might have an accident

• I might have a tyre puncture

• It could rain (in the UK), snow (in Norway),  or get very hot (in Spain).

• I could run out of fuel before finding a petrol station

• I could get very hungry and thirsty before the end of the journey

• I could get lost

- or whatever.

Now I can do my best to avoid such possibilities. I can drive carefully, I can avoid objects in the road, I can look at the weather forecast, etc.; but I can’t control someone else’s bad driving, avoid an unseen sharp object in the road, or guarantee absolutely accurate weather forecasting.

What I can do, however, is to ‘Be Prepared’. For example, I can:

• Take a first aid kit, have a mobile phone and get some knowledge of  what to do in an emergency.

• Have a properly inflated spare wheel and a jack.

• Fit windscreen wipers, carry snow chains and have air conditioning.

-and so on.

What I try to do, when doing things like these, is to match the complex uncertainties of the journey with a wide variety of tools to deal with the uncertainties.

My use of that word ‘variety’ is deliberate because it leads us to a vital piece of academic theory: Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety - - - >