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Justin Coven, Ph.D.

Complexity,  IT, Generations, and Prejudice

By Justin Coven, Ph.D.

Surprise! Information Technology (IT) is just getting started in the transformation of human society. As a community we have already experienced the dramatic impact of computers on the technology available to us and how we interact via social media. In the next five to fifteen years we will be experiencing much more dramatic changes as automated vehicles, kitchens, gardens and other systems are commercialized.  But the impact will reach much farther than just these changes and will start impacting our thought processes.  Many of our existing reasoning processes such as leadership and law were built around the limits of human reasoning hundreds of years ago. With computers those limits disappear.

With the disappearance of those limits our associated conceptual models will experience dramatic changes. In my book “Leadership Improvement: The IT Maturity Method” I discuss in depth how leadership evolves via the usage of IT. That text also includes a section that covers how the commercialization of automated vehicles, kitchens, gardens, legal, and other systems will impact society. In this article I discuss how our understanding of Information Technology will start changing our thought processes for the better to help resolve common societal ills.

Conflict appears in many diverse situations. Upon reflection and analysis, via  the relatively new sciences of computation (Computer Science/IT), it can be determined that much of the conflict arises because of the complexity of the world. Computational understanding can be used to deal with complexity in order to resolve significant amounts of conflict. Frustrations due to complexity are rampant in the political and business world, as well as in everyday interactions.

As a simple example to understand how complexity causes problems, lets look at the number of ancestors you have.

Generations

On average, over the last few thousand years, how long is there between human generations? 

If we assume twenty or twenty-five years then there would be 4-5 generations after 100 years.  Note that while many individuals in this time period started having children young, say between 13 to 25 years old, there are many who continued, or started, to have children at older ages.  To err on the side of underestimation, we will assume 4 generations for 100 years, which would imply 8 generations for 200 years and 10 generations for 250 years. 

As everyone has exactly 2 parents, this means that after 4 generations (or 100 years) there are 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 ancestors.  

Going another 4 generations back for a total of 8 generations (or 200 years ago) there would be 16 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2  = 256 ancestors.  Going 10 generations back, or 250 years ago, there would be 256 x 2 x 2 = 1024 ancestors (or approximately 1000 ancestors). 

Each of these 1000 ancestors would themselves have 1000 ancestors going back another 250 years, for a total of 500 years before the present.  This is 1000 x 1000  or 1 million ancestors.   If you go back another 250 years (or a total of 750 years ago) you would have 1000 x 1 million or 1 billion ancestors. Going back to  1000 years ago you would have one trillion ancestors (1000 x 1 billion).  Every 250 years, the number of your ancestors multiplies be 1000.

But there weren’t one trillion people alive 1000 years ago.  Best estimates are that there were 310-400 million people alive around the year 1000 C.E.  So where did all of the ancestors go.  It is natural for distant cousins to intermarry and breed.  As you go back further generations, there are many intermarriages and the same ancestor would appear in your family tree many times. 

If you divide the 1 trillion ancestors you have 1000 years ago by the 400 million people alive at the time, then on average each one of those 400 million people would appear in your family tree 2,500 times.   Of course some would appear many more times than others.  There are likely many who would never appear in your family tree due to geographical barriers (e.g. between the Americas, Oceania and the old world).

What happens if we go back to Roman times two thousand years ago?  Then you would have 1 trillion x 1 trillion  or 1 septillion ancestors.  Which written out the long way is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  Best estimates are that there we 200 million people alive at that time or written the long way 200,000,000.  This would mean that on average, each person alive 2,000 years ago would be in your family tree approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 / 200,000,000 = 5,000,000,000,000,000 (or five quadrillion) times. 

As all geographical boundaries in the Eastern hemisphere were breached during Roman times there was undoubtedly interbreeding between all of the groups in that hemisphere. It is hard to imagine that each individual alive 2000 years ago (that has living descendants) is not in your family tree at least thousands of times.

Prejudice

Why is understanding this complexity important? First, it is natural for people to simplify things in order to make reasoning about them manageable. Unfortunately people often take these simplifications as reality, when they are far from it.

Second, simplification in the area of ancestor calculation often causes conflict and abuse.  Prejudice is an example. It is preposterous to imagine that any individual of European descent does not have both African and Oriental ancestors many thousands or millions of times over. Africans were unquestionably a part of the European gene pool in Roman times. The Mongolians likewise became a part of the European gene pool eight hundred or so years ago.

Another example is of prejudices of heritage.  Monarchies are the obvious example. It is fantasy to imagine that both paupers and kings from a thousand years ago are not all your ancestors. It is a travesty to follow just one family tree line to understand where we all came from. We are all a product of all of the peoples of ancient times.

Third, simplification infests almost all human thinking including much science. This is not to say simplification is bad. It is not, it is an incredibly useful tool. It is the confusing of our simplifications with reality that causes issues.

As an example of the utility of simplifications, look to physics. We typically use the simpler Newtonian physics to solve most problems. In other situations we need the greater accuracy of Relativistic physics. However, it is fantasy to think either is reality. Both are just based on the data we have gathered so far in conjunction with the computational models we have been able to put together so far. There are many situations where we have data that is either outside of our current computational models or where our computational models do not integrate effectively with each other.  Computational models are naught but utilitarian tools and simplifications.

Note that a list of ancestors names, although exceedingly complex just a a few thousand years ago, is an incredible simplification of all of the information related to the full lives and interconnections between peoples going back to that time.

What happens to complexity when we go back 100,000 or 200,000 years to when scientists have identified a genetic Eve. The number of ancestors balloons up to a one followed by 1200 zeros. DNA supposedly can only hold 10 billion bits of information. That is a one followed by just 10 zeros. Almost all of the information about ancestors is undoubtedly dropped over that long of a period of time.

Even if we used all of the atoms or quarks in the known Universe we would not be able to create an ancestor tree going back 100,000 years. Best estimates are there are 10 to the 70th or 80th number of quarks in the Universe. This is an insignificant number with respect to the 10 to 1200th number of an ancestor tree going back 100,000 years.

While scientist have significant evidence that going back through a maternal chain, all humans can be traced back to one woman about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, this in no way says that all of the individuals alive back then are not also our ancestors. As you can see from the above discussion, each one of them is our ancestor an unimaginable number of times over. A genetic Eve only implies that there is at least one male up each one of the uncountable number of chains to the other individuals alive then. We cannot count the number of chains, for there are not enough quarks to do so.

While survival of the fittest likely had a part to play going back all of those generations to genetic Eve, there are likely other factors. Some individuals are genetically more predisposed to having girls than boys. Even if this preference were infinitesimally small, over so many generations it would have far more than sufficient effect to completely account for a genetic Eve. Although, no claim is being made that it did have that effect. 

As the understanding of computational sciences becomes even more pervasive, prejudices like those described above will become a thing of the past.

Taming Complexity

Dr. Coven is CEO and Founder of IT Maturity, Inc. The IT Maturity Method uses IT to both tame complexity within businesses and to mature businesses. The IT Maturity Method is made up of Business Enhancement, Technology Advancement, Vendor Integration, and Leadership Improvement. More information on the IT Maturity Method can be found at theitmm.com.

Email: Justin.Coven@jcoven.com, URL: http://jcoven.com
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