Reading :: Dialogical Approaches and Tensions in Learning and Development

 Dialogical Approaches and Tensions in Learning and Development: At the Frontiers of the Mind 

Edited by Nathalie Muller Mirza and Marcelo Dos Santos Mamed 

I picked up this book because I’ve been very interested in dialogical approaches lately. This book was helpful for overviewing dialogic thought in education, psychology, and affiliated disciplines. At the same time, I read it on the plane and didn’t take notes — so this review will be brief, more of a pointer toward what I should reread. 

So what should I reread? Especially useful to me was the editors’ introduction, in which they overview different traditions of dialogue, grounding the collection in the tradition of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Mead. I really appreciated the level of detail here as well as the forecasting for the rest of the book.

The rest of the book covers topics such as dialogism in psychology; in the making of social theories; in makerspaces; and in literacy. The only contributor I recognized was Roger Saljo, whose work on units of analysis has been useful to me. In his contribution, “Sign-Making, Inscriptions and Access to Epistemic Practices: Development in a Designed World,” he considers sign-making as a sociocultural activity that we involve across all of our practices. He takes a Vygotskian perspective here, thinking through Vygotsky’s contributions before moving on to more contemporary perspectives.

Overall, I found the book interesting, although a little far from my field in places. Still, I plan to revisit it. If you’re interested in dialogical approaches, certainly pick it up!

Reading :: The Evolution of Agency

The Evolution of Agency

By Michael Tomasello

I have reviewed a couple of other Tomasello books on this blog: The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition and Becoming Human. Tomasello, who is professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke as well as emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has drawn on neo-Vygotskian theory to discuss the evolution of human cognition in those past books. In this one, he tackles a related issue: The evolution of agency.

Agency is a term that is often used in the social sciences and humanities, but not as often defined. In Chapter 1, Tomasello defines it: “Agency is thus not about the many and varied things that organisms do … but rather about how they do them. Individuals acting as agents direct and control their own actions, whatever those actions may be specifically” (p.2). Agentive beings are distinguished “by a special type of behavioral organization [which is] feedback control organization in which the individual directs its behavior toward goals … controlling or even self-regulating the process through informed decision-making and behavioral self-monitoring” (p.2). Indeed, “the concept of agency … represents the dividing line between biological and psychological approaches to behavior” since biology explains some complex processes, while psychology explains others. Tomasello’s goal in this book “is to reconstruct the evolutionary pathway to human psychological agency” (p.9), and he identifies four types of agency in human ancestors:

• “Goal-directed agency in ancient vertebrates”

• “Intentional agency in ancient mammals”

• “Rational agency in ancient great apes”

• “Socially normative agency in ancient human beings” (p.10)

(I mentioned earlier that Tomasello had drawn on neo-Vygotskian thought in his previous books. Vygotsky, of course, was very interested in self-control via psychological mediation, in which the individual learned and applied their culture’s tools. Tomasello doesn’t talk about that directly, but the links are there to be made.)

In Chapter 2, Tomasello provides a feedback control model of agency. He argues that an agent

• Directs or plans actions toward goals, attending to situations

• Controls or executively self-regulates its actions via informed decisions in an unfolding situation (p.11)

Since ancient vertebrates, mammals, etc. are not on offer, Tomasello uses the methods of comparative biology (examining fossils to understand physiology and evolutionary trajectories) to find extant organisms to use as models (p.13). These extant organisms are lizards, squirrels, chimpanzees, and (of course) humans (p.24).

Moving on, he discusses the feedback control mechanism of behavior, which “comprises a hierarchy of systems, each with three central components: (i) a reference value or goal, (ii) a sensing device or perception, and (iii) a device for comparing perception and goal so as to make and execute a behavioral decision” (p.19). He asserts that this really is the only possible model “for generating flexibly intelligent, agentive behavior” (p.19). 

Tomasello also argues that “changes in the agentive organization of action lead to changes in the types of things the agent may experience. … Therefore a further dimension of agency … [is] the experiential niche of the organism” (p.22). 

In Chapter 3, he discusses ancient vertebrates as goal-directed agents. At this level, the organism acts flexibly toward a goal even in novel contexts (p.27). For an agentive organization, the individual’s goals and actions determine their experimental niche, guided by attention (i.e., goal-directed perception) (p.36). Objects are not relevant to that attention, but situations are (p.36). Meanwhile, goals are “perceptually imagined situations” (p.38). And effective actions can play a causal role in the process of evolutionary change (p.41). 

In Chapter 4, he discusses ancient mammals as intentional agents. At this level, “mammals direct their actions toward goals just flexibly but intentionally, as they cognitively stimulate possible action plans toward their goal before actually acting. And they control their behavior not just by making go-no-go decisions but also by making either-or behavioral choices as they evaluate the possible plans’ likely outcomes and control behavioral execution as it unfolds” (p.43). This new mode – “intentional agency” – emerges from “more flexible emotions and motivations that can be overridden as needed” (p.43). Early mammals have three new capabilities:

• New ways to motivate action: more flexible motivations and emotions (p.45)

• Cognitive capabilities for social competition, allowing them to plan and then act (p.46) 

• New ontogenetic pattern, allowing more learning (p.46), including instrumental learning in which they can understand how actions causally affect outcomes (p.47).

Here, we get executive functions and executive decision-making (p.51). 

In Chapter 5, he discusses ancient apes as rational agents. Apes operate logically and reflectively, understanding why things happen; they to some degree understand causality and intentionality (p.67). Due to social competition, apes forage in small bands, producing social organization (p.70). They use cognitive simulations; their causal orientation means they can use tools; their intentional orientation means they engage in intentional communication and social learning (p.71). All of this yields rational agency (p.71). 

In Chapter 6, we get to ancient humans as socially normative agents. Here, we get joint agency in collaboration, such as coordinating during a hunt to produce a collaborative benefit. This joint agency means that they develop interdependence – something that involves choosing partners based on competence and collaborative motivation (p.93). Such humans had to 

• Form a joint goal (p.95) by forming joint agency, pursuing a joint goal, and using joint attention and cooperative communication (p.96)

• Coordinate roles by learning each others’ roles (p.97) and using their collaborative motivations to make inferences (p.99).

• Collaboratively self-regulate the collaboration via partner control (making the partner behave better, p.99). That is, they became normative: through protests, the joint agency regulates itself (p.100). 

Tomasello asserts that when we talk about feeling responsibility, deserving something, excusing our behavior, apologizing for behavior, or feeling guilt, we are discussing “shared normative standards by which ‘we’ evaluate and self-regulate ‘your’ and ‘my’ actions as coequal partners” (p.104). He adds that great apes don’t do these things because they have not evolved to cooperate in joint agency.

He adds that this behavior began in paired collaborations, then scaled up to larger social groups about 150,000 years ago, eventually yielding different cultural groups oriented to scaled-up collective intentionality (p.105). Groups fractionate at about 150 (he name-checks Dunbar’s number here, p.105), yielding tribal societies (p.106). We get in-groups and out-groups (p.108), with homophily as the psychological basis of human culture (p.109) and a new basis of cultural common ground that allows collaboration among those who don’t previously know each other (p.110). This cultural common ground is “recursive mind-reading” in that in-group members conform to conventional practices (p.110). We get specialized division of labor tied to commonly understood special rights and responsibilities (p.111).

In Chapter 7, Tomasello presents several conclusions:

1. “The ‘backbone’ of behavioral agency is feedback control organization.” (p.122)

2. “The ecological challenges leading to the evolution of behavioral agency all involve one or another form of unpredictability in the environment.” (p.123)  

3. “Despite the plethora of specific behavioral and psychological adaptations across species, only a few basic types of psychological Bauplans exist for the agentive organization of behavior.” (p.124; see the summary table, p.127)

4. “The evolutionary emergence of new forms of behavioral organization involves both ‘hierarchical modularity’ and ‘trickle-down selection’” (p.128)

5. “Changes in the agentive organization of a species’ behavior and psychology lead to changes in the types of experience it is capable of having (its experiential niche)” (p.130)

6. “The decision-making agent is necessary, and it is not a homunculus, at least not in a bad way” (p.132)

Quite a book! It’s based on an extraordinarily broad base of knowledge, and it covers a broad sweep of time and behavior. I’m neither an evolutionary biologist nor a psychologist, so I’m not confident in my ability to evaluate it, but it does read compellingly and pull a complex discussion into a clearly related framework. For me, it also provides another angle for thinking about the social and cultural psychology that I do know, particularly Vygotskian and activity theory approaches. If you’re interested in agency in any form, definitely pick up this book.

Reading :: The Essence of Winning and Losing

The Essence of Winning and Losing
By John Boyd

This is another in my series reviewing the briefings of John Boyd.

The Essence of Winning and Losing
This briefing is comparatively short (just four slides), but dense. It's also consequential in that it contains a diagram of the fully articulated OODA loop.

Since the presentation is so short, I feel as if I am cheating by presenting the entire text of Slide 2 below:

• Without our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, and previous experiences, we do not possess an implicit repertoire of psychophysical skills shaped by environments and changes that have been previously experienced.
• Without analyses and synthesis across a variety of domains or across a variety of competing/independent channels of information, we cannot evolve new repertoires to deal with unfamiliar phenomena or unforeseen change.
• Without a many-sided, implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection (across these many different domains or channels of information), we cannot even do analysis and synthesis.
• Without OODA loops, we can neither sense, hence observe, thereby collect a variety of information for the above processes, nor decide as well as implement actions in accord with these processes.

Or put another way:

Without OODA loops embracing all of the above and without the ability to get inside other OODA loops (or other environments), we will find it impossible to comprehend, shape, adapt to and in turn be shaped by an unfolding evolving reality that is uncertain, everchanging, and unpredictable (Slide 1, his emphasis)

Just a quick unpacking. Boyd is summarizing the contents of the other briefings here, strongly arguing that we must draw on what we have to build up a repertoire of skills to understand our environment; analyze and synthesize to develop new repertoires; cross-reference across domains; and set up loops to allow us to interact with the environment and improve based on those interactions. Without that work, we can't cope with change and unpredictability.

He offers the full diagram of the OODA loop to help us better understand it (Slide 3). This diagram includes a distended Orientation module with subcomponents (recall that Orientation is the Schwerpunkt of the OODA loop) and it includes multiple arrows indicating feedback loops across the system. That is, the OODA loop represents a process rather than a stepwise sequence, as he makes clear on the next slide:

By pulling all this together, we can see that the key statements, OODA loop sketch, and related insights represent an evolving, open-ended, far-from-equilibrium process of self-organization, emergence, and natural selection. (Slide 4)

 That's it—short and sweet.

Reading :: Organic Design for Command and Control

Organic Design for Command and Control
By John Boyd

This is another post in my series on John Boyd's briefings.

Organic Design for Command and Control
To put this slide deck in the context of Boyd's other briefings, here's the scheme he outlined on Slide 30 of The Strategic Game of ? and ?:

• “Organic Design for Command and Control” (C&C) emphasizes interaction.

• “Patterns of Conflict” (POC) emphasize isolation.

• “Destruction and Creation” (D&C) is balanced between interaction and isolation. 

 With that in mind, let's delve into Organic Design. The briefing recounts then-recent failures in military exercises and conflicts and notes that the US military's solutions have tended to involve larger, more centralized command and control (C&C). Yet, Boyd argues, "I think there is a different way—a way that emphasizes the implicit nature of human beings. In this sense, the following discussion will uncover what we mean by both implicit nature and organic design" (Slide 2). This way, he says, involves insight and vision; focus and direction; adaptability; and security (Slide 3):

• Why insight and vision?
Without insight and vision there can be no orientation to deal with both present and future.
• Why focus and direction?
Without focus and direction, implied or explicit, there can be neither harmony of effort nor initiative for vigorous effort.
• Why adaptability?
Adaptability implies variety and rapidity. Without variety and rapidity one can neither be unpredictable nor cope with changing and unforeseen circumstances.
• Why security?
Without security one becomes predictable, hence one loses the benefits of the above. (Slide 4, his emphasis)

Based on our prior readings, we can see that he is indeed emphasizing interaction here—how an entity can interact internally, with allies, and with the environment.  Per usual, Boyd undertakes a quick historical survey to set up his argument (Slides 5-7), then concludes:

• Variety/rapidity without harmony/initiative lead to confusion, disorder and ultimately to chaos.

on the other hand

• Harmony/initiative without variety/rapidity lead to (rigid) uniformity, predictability and ultimately to non-adaptability. (Slide 9)

Thus our goal in this briefing is to "uncover those interactions that foster harmony and initiative—yet do not destroy variety and rapidity" (Slide 9). Boyd lists a large number of activities and linkages on the next slide, categorized into positive and negative aspects (Slide 10), then crystallizes this insight:

Interactions, as shown, represent a many-sided implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection. (Slide 11, his emphasis)

He argues that this insight hinges on orientation, which he defines in this way:

Orientation, seen as a result, represents images, views, or impressions of the world shaped by genetic heritage, cultural tradition, previous experiences, and unfolding circumstances.  (Slide 13, his emphasis)

Orientation, he continues, is the Schwerpunkt or center of gravity: since it shapes how we interact with the environment, it shapes the rest of the OODA loop in present interactions, and that loop itself shapes future actions. Thus our orientations must match "the activity of the world" while we deny our adversaries the same opportunity (Slide 16).

One consequence of this insight, he says, is that we should "Expose individuals, with different skills and abilities, against a variety of situations—whereby each individual can observe and orient himself simultaneously to the others and to the variety of changing situations." The consequence, he believes, is that "In such an environment, a harmony, or focus and direction, in operations is created by the bonds of implicit communications and trust that evolve as a consequence of the similar mental images or impressions each individual creates and commits to memory by repeatedly sharing the same variety of experiences in the same ways" (Slide 18). I think he's saying that these individuals are being exposed to these situations along with their teams. The teams share each experience and their collective reactions to these experiences, and in doing so, develop a consensual, implicit understanding of each experience. They synchronize their orientation implicitly rather than explicitly (a big theme in Patterns of Conflict as well). The payoff, he says, is

A command and control system, whose secret lies in what’s unstated or not communicated to one another (in an explicit sense)—in order to exploit lower-level initiative yet realize higher-level intent, thereby diminish friction and compress time, hence gain both quickness and security. (Slide 18)

That is, if a team had had to inductively and consensually build up orientations to a variety of situations, they develop implicit assumptions that allow them to quickly act with initiative. This makes sense to me as far as it goes—but such a team may build up implicit assumptions that can then be exploited. Boyd does not discuss this question, probably because the greater danger is that of a centralized (and more easily exploited) C&C that squelches lower-level initiative. Boyd says:

Now, let us assume, for whatever reason or combination of circumstances, that we design a command and control system that hinders interaction with external environment. This implies a focus inward, rather than outward. (Slide 20)

 Such a system is potentially disastrous:

He who can generate many non-cooperative centers of gravity magnifies friction. Why? Many non-cooperative centers of gravity within a system restrict interaction and adaptability of system with its surroundings, thereby leading to a focus inward (i.e., within itself), which in turn generates confusion and disorder, which impedes vigorous or directed activity, hence, by definition, magnifies friction or entropy. (Slide 20)

Such a system encourages adherents to look inward rather than outward, and the result is disintegration. "Without implicit bonds or connections, we magnify friction, produce paralysis, and get system collapse" (Slide 21). So "The key idea is to emphasize implicit over explicit in order to gain a favorable mismatch in friction and time (i.e, ours lower than any adversary) for superiority in shaping and adapting to circumstances" (Slide 22).

Side note here: I've been drawing connections between Ilyenkov and Boyd in my commentary on previous briefings. One thing that they have in common is that they recognize that activities (I'll play fast and loose here in drawing a rough equivalence between an activity and an OODA loop) may contradict each other, but they disintegrate because of internal contradictions. But I think they part ways here in that Ilyenkov is chiefly interested in those internal contradictions and sees external ones as nudging them rather than playing a central role. Boyd is saying that without continual interaction with the environment, the system will collapse—that is, the system's internal contradictions/instabilities can be addressed only through interactions with the environment.

Let's apply this question analogically back to activity theory: rather than seeing interactions among activities as destabilizing, we can see them as potentially stabilizing and actually necessary for maintaining internal stability. This gives us a different view of third-generation activity theory (3GAT), which expanded AT to address networks of activity systems: perhaps it is only with this next turn that we can account for the dynamic stability of individual activities? The idea intrigues me, partly because (as I never tire of telling my students) I see every stable activity as a remarkable achievement!

Back to the briefing. Boyd argues that we should avoid building up explicit internal arrangements, instead making sure "that leaders and subordinates alike are given opportunity to continuously interact with external world, and with each other" so that they can generate a consensual implicit orientation. Doing so should reduce friction and time; thus allow them to exploit variety while maintaining harmony/initiative; thus get inside adversaries OODA loops; thus magnify the adversary's friction; thus "Deny adversary the opportunity to cope with events/efforts as they unfold" (Slide 23).

Operating within the OODA loop means operating in the C&C loop, he says (Slide 26). But, Boyd asks, how can we get effective command and control (Slide 27)? He reviews some historical snapshots (Slides 28-29). Based on these, he concludes that

• Command must give direction in terms of what is to be done in a clear unambiguous way. In this sense, command must interact with system to shape the character or nature of that system in order to realize what is to be done;

whereas

• Control must provide assessment of what is being done also in a clear unambiguous way. In this sense, control must not interact nor interfere with system but must ascertain (not shape) the character/nature of what is being done. (Slide 31; see also Atkinson and Moffat)

Boyd notes that this arrangement sounds more like leadership and monitoring than what we have traditionally termed command and control (Slide 32). He acknowledges that in this light, a better title for the presentation would be "Appreciation and leadership" (Slide 36). And with that and a slide for definitions, the presentation is over.

What can we take from this briefing? As I discussed last time in my review of Strategic Game, I was concerned that the OODA loop relied on an underdefined set of assumptions about each stage. Out of an infinite set of possibilities, how does one select ways to select, process, and act on information, particularly in ways that are fast enough to get inside an adversary's OODA loop? In most activities, I argued, we develop paradigms, methodologies, methods, and techniques that work often enough to get through the day. These become routine and invisible enough that we forget they represent decisions, and thus we have trouble thinking outside of them. Who is tasked with making those decisions? Who is tasked with evaluating and rethinking them?

In a complex, high-stakes activity—for instance, warfare—we tend to assign those tasks to high-ranking people who have gathered a wealth of experience. Yet (a) drawing on a wealth of experience often entails fighting the last battle rather than rethinking the problem based on the facts on the ground; and (b) pushing decisions up the chain means that decisions can be excruciatingly slow to make.

Yet Boyd's alternative poses problems as well, particularly in a volunteer army—the people on whose expertise you rely may not be involved in the team long enough to develop sufficiently consensual implicit orientation. It's hard to trust someone to know what you mean when they just joined up. Similarly, we might expect drift in implicit knowledge across units unless there's a way to continually and systematically synch implicit expectations across units. Perhaps this is what Boyd is trying to address with "clear and unambiguous assessment," but he isn't clear on how broadly scoped the assessment is.

So, as with the previous briefing, I am not clear about the scale at which Boyd proposes to apply the advice. I don't know that it can easily scale, and Boyd has not elaborated enough on mechanisms that would allow it to do so.

But if we apply the advice to activity theory, we do come up with some intriguing collisions. I mentioned one of these earlier in the review: that perhaps activities can be stabilized only through interactions with other activities. Another might be the question of implicit vs explicit rules and division of labor, applied to different kinds of objects.

Again, if you're interested in strategy or if you're just interested in an eclectic take on interactionism, check this briefing out. It's only a total of 40 slides, so it's a quick read.

Reading :: The Strategic Game of ? and ?

The Strategic Game of ? and ?
By John Boyd

This is the third review in a series going over briefings by John Boyd.

The Strategic Game of ? and ?
Boyd gets playful in this slide deck, teasing us. What could the question marks represent? I can only imagine how much this stratagem lightened what have been described as "grueling" briefing sessions presented on an overhead projector.

But I digress. After teasing the question marks (Slide 1), Boyd opens with the question: what is strategy (Slide 2). He describes the approach as

• Make a general survey
• Condense to essential elements
• Place in strategic perspective
• Implementation (Slide 4)

Why this approach? He uses a illustration that has since become famous. First, he asks us to imagine we are in different situations: skiing on a slope; riding on a motorboat; riding a bicycle; looking at a child's toy tank (Slide 6). Now, he says, imagine that we retain only pieces from each situation: the skis, the outboard motor, the bicycle handles, the tank treads (Slide 7). Put these together and what do you get? "Snowmobile" (Slide 9).

Boyd wants us to apply this kind of analytic-synthetic thinking to strategy:

We will use this scheme of pulling things apart (analysis) and putting them back together (synthesis) in new combinations to find how apparently unrelated ideas and actions can be related to one another. (Slide 10). 

So he begins with a general survey of disciplines that address complexity. He begins by arguing that human nature leads us to "Survive, survive on own terms, or improve our capacity for independent action," and since that often means competing for limited resources, it requires that we "Diminish adversary’s capacity for independent action, or deny him the opportunity to survive on his terms, or make it impossible for him to survive at all" (Slide 14).

To think through this issue, he first surveys, drawing snippets from contemporary newspaper articles and books on complexity as well as fables and classics on military strategy.

Next, he condenses, concluding that these all point to our need to interact with our environment: "Interaction permits vitality and growth while isolation leads to decay and disintegration" (Slide 29, my emphasis).

And now we can place these in strategic perspective, for the bold terms are what lay under the question marks:

The strategic game is one of interaction and isolation
A game in which we must be able to diminish adversary’s ability to communicate or interact with his environment while sustaining or improving ours. (Slide 33)

He discusses three aspects: Moral, Mental, and Physical (Slide 34). In terms of isolation:

• Physical isolation
occurs when we fail to gain support in the form of matter-energy information from others outside ourselves.
• Mental isolation
occurs when we fail to discern, perceive, or make sense out of what’s going on around ourselves.
• Moral isolation
occurs when we fail to abide by codes of conduct or standards of behavior in a manner deemed acceptable or essential by others outside ourselves. (Slide 36)

Whereas interaction entails the opposite (Slide 37). How do we exploit these ideas?  Synthesizing Gödel, Heisenberg, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he argues that

One cannot determine the character or nature of a system within itself. Moreover, attempts to do so lead to confusion and disorder. (Slide 41)

And he adds the lesson from his previous studies of aerial attack:

The ability to shift or transition from one maneuver to another more rapidly than an adversary enables one to win in air-to-air combat. (Slide 42)

His proposed synthesis is that

The ability to operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than an adversary enables one to fold adversary back inside himself so that he can neither appreciate nor keep-up with what’s going on. He will become disoriented or confused

... leading to disorientation, disruption, overloading, and collapse (in that order) (Slide 44).

He argues that to do this effectively, we (recall that he's speaking to military officers) must gather from other disciplines and activities in order to surface new repertoires that can fold our adversaries inside themselves while avoiding the same fate for ourselves (Slide 45). That is, by interacting more broadly, and by developing broader repertoires, we can avoid becoming isolated and we can induce isolation in adversaries.

Next, he applies this insight back to the physical, mental, and moral aspects discussed earlier.

• Physically, he argues, we should isolate adversaries by cutting off external and internal communications. Externally, we can do this through diplomatic and psychological means; internally, we can penetrate systems unpredictably.
• Mentally, he says, we can "isolate our adversaries by presenting them with ambiguous, deceptive, or novel situations" and by getting inside their OODA loops in terms of rhythm and tempo.
• Morally, he says, we can induce adversaries to violate their own codes of conduct or those of their allies. Notice that this is the same key advice Saul Alinsky gives in Rules for Radicals. (Slide 47)

The expected results of isolation: "Disintegration and collapse, unless adversaries change their behavior patterns to conform to what is deemed acceptable by others outside themselves" (Slide 48).

He also applies the scheme to interaction, essentially getting the flip side of the above (Slides 49-50). 

Interestingly, in terms of application, he focuses on the moral argument. And again, he sounds like Alinsky, arguing that we must "Preserve or build-up our moral authority while compromising that of our adversaries’" (Slide 54; he adds details in Slides 55-57). Let's be more accurate: On attack, he sounds like Alinsky. If I recall correctly, Alinsky did not expend effort in defense. Whereas Alinsky dedicated his book to the first radical—Lucifer—Boyd ends his slide deck with definitions of evil and corruption and the clear dictum to avoid them (Slide 59).

So there's the summary. Now some thoughts.

First, I wondered in my review of Patterns of Conflict to what degree we could see Boyd's viewpoint as dialectical. That question continues here, although Boyd is certainly not describing dialectical materialism. Interaction is still central, and one induces contradictions (in activity theory's terminology) by cutting off the adversary's interaction. 

Second, one issue I had with the OODA loop is that it leaves too much underdefined. Specifically: Yes, one must Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. But to do any of these at any sort of tempo, one must restrict the flow of information. As I tell my students in my field methods class, we can potentially Observe far more than we can track or analyze, and we can similarly spend a lot of time Orienting toward any observation if we haven't selected a method that restricts our choices. To march through the process, we inevitably have to (a) restrict information at each step in order to process it, (b) store that information in a "lossy"/encoded format; and (c) rely on theoretical and methodological assumptions to make up the difference. 

For example, suppose that I'm walking through my neighborhood. 

• I can potentially Observe many things: temperature, brightness, the state of clouds in the sky, the animals on the street, the length of the grass, the number of pebbles in the asphalt... but I can't actually Observe them all, even if I took a year to walk a block. 
• Similarly, if I were to Orient to one observation, I would likely do it through some cultural tool—for instance, counting the number of potholes (which requires criteria: what counts as a pothole?). 
• Based on the above, I must Decide what to do. Again, this will be hard to do unless I have some ready-made decision possibilities at hand (such as calling 311 to report the pothole or drawing figures around it).
• Finally, I must Act, which involves additional skills and decisions.

Boyd glancingly refers to this problem in this slide deck, mentioning that we must draw "repertoires" from other fields (Slide 45). But where in the loop do we make decisions about how we select, encode, analyze, and so forth? A metaloop is needed, preferably one that (a) adjusts periodically, even without warning signs, and (b) integrates new repertoires with the existing ones. This problem is either ignored or largely left to the readers. 

Perhaps that issue stems from the fact that in a fighter jet's cockpit, OODA's inspiration, the fighter has access to a comparatively restricted set of information and a comparatively limited number of decisions. The strategic level seems more complex to me.

One way to chip away at this issue would be to put it in dialogue with Boisot, who examines information in terms of codification, abstraction, and diffusion—and how, if you make these three dimensions the axes of a cube, a social learning cycle tends to result in an S-curve. One might similarly detect a periodic inflation and deflation of information throughout a specific OODA loop. 

In any case, this is what I like about reading these briefings: Boyd's ideas are eclectic, but smart enough that they pose problems that I end up addressing by reaching across other readings. I hope you are enjoying reading these reviews as much as I enjoy writing them, dear reader.

Reading :: Patterns of Conflict

Patterns of Conflict
By John Boyd

This is the second review in a series, going over briefings by John Boyd.

Patterns of Conflict
(For my own eyesight, I'll use the PDF of the PPT rather than the scans of the original briefings here.)

Boyd sets a modest set of goals for this presentation:

Mission
• To make manifest the nature of moral-mental-physical
conflict
• To discern a pattern for successful operations
• To help generalize tactics and strategy
• To find a basis for grand strategy
Intent
• To unveil the character of conflict, survival, and conquest (Slide 2)

Boyd begins by recalling his key insight in air-to-air combat: that the aircraft with faster transient qualities (able to gain and lose energy more quickly) will have an advantage (Slide 4). He generalizes from this point: the

Idea of fast transients suggests that, in order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries—or, better yet, get inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle or loop.

Why? Such activity will make us appear ambiguous (unpredictable) thereby generate confusion and disorder among our adversaries—since our adversaries will be unable to generate mental images or pictures that agree with the menacing as well as faster transient rhythm or patterns they are competing against.  (Slide 5, his emphasis)

Let's link this idea with the previous presentation. If an adversary indeed learns and innovates by observing and reacting to mismatches between our expectations and what actually happens, then operating at a faster tempo allows us to get ahead of that conceptual spiral, providing inconsistent feedback that causes the adversary to make wrong or inconclusive hypotheses. More colloquially, Boyd proposes jamming the conceptual spiral. If the conceptual spiral works by systematically addressing contradictions, Boyd argues, we can introduce spurious contradictions that lead the adversary away from systemic learning. We should "Simultaneously compress own time and stretch-out adversary time to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to change" (Slide 7, his emphasis) and we can do that, he says, by (a) generating a rapidly changing environment and (b) inhibiting the adversary's ability to adapt to that environment (Slide 7).

Boyd draws an analogy to evolution (Slides 10-12), arguing that "variety/rapidity/harmony/initiative (and their interaction) seem to be key qualities that permit one to shape and adapt to an everchanging environment"—and that, similarly, cooperative groups must harmonize their efforts (Slide 12, his emphasis).  He reinterprets classic strategic advice and cases from Sun Tzu, Alexander, Hannibal, and others within this thesis (Slides 13-40). He emphasizes the asymmetries and strategems of these paragons in contrast to the top-down approaches of Napoleon, Clausewitz, and Jomani, who "did not appreciate importance of loose, irregular tactical arrangements and activities to mask or distort own presence and intentions as well as confuse and disorder adversary operations" (Slide 46). Clausewitz in particular "did not see that many non-cooperative, or conflicting, centers of gravity paralyze adversary by denying him the opportunity to operate in a directed fashion, hence they impede vigorous activity and magnify friction" (Slide 42, his emphasis).

Boyd argues that 19th-century technology and infrastructure reinforced this trend: "Huge armies, and massed firepower and other vast needs supported through a narrow fixed logistics network, together with tactical assaults by large stereotyped formations, suppressed ambiguity, deception, and mobility hence surprise of any operation" (Slide 48, his emphasis).

Interestingly, Boyd then turns to social conflict, citing Marx:

Without going into explicit detail we find (according to many investigators, including Karl Marx): that the interaction of competition, technology, specialization (division of labor), concentration of production in large scale enterprises, and the taking and plowing back of profits into this interaction produce opposing tendencies and periodic crises that leave in their wake more and more workers competing for jobs in fewer and fewer, but larger, firms that increasingly emphasize (percentage-wise) the use of more machines and less labor. (Slide 50)

He characterizes the Marxian message:

According to Marx/Engels and their followers, the only way out is via revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat (workers) to smash the capitalistic system and replace it with one that does not exploit and oppress masses for the benefit of a ruling elite or class. (Slide 51)

The necessary conditions of success here are (a) a crisis, since "Crises represent height of confusion/disorder due to many opposing tendencies (centers of gravity) that magnify friction, hence paralyze efforts by authorities to dominate such surges of turmoil"; and (b) a vanguard, since "Vanguards represent disciplined moral/mental/physical bodies focused to shape and guide masses as well as participate in action to exploit and expand confusion/disorder of crises that shake adversary’s will to respond in a directed way." These are "the golden keys that permit us to penetrate to the core of insurrection/revolution and, as we shall see later, modern guerrilla warfare" (Slide 51).

Such efforts represent ways "to destroy a society from within" (Slide 52). But he also is interested in how to exploit conditions to destroy a society from without (Slide 52), and for that purpose, he examines the case of infiltration in World War I, comparing and contrasting with Lawrence's guerilla tactics in the same war. "Both stress clouded/distorted signatures, mobility and cohesion of small units as basis to insert an amorphous yet focused effort into or thru adversary weaknesses" (Slide 65).

Between WWI and WWII, some major advances happened. Critically, and most interesting to me at this point, "Lenin, and after him Stalin, exploited the idea of crises and vanguards—that arise out of Marxian contradictions within capitalism—to lay-out Soviet revolutionary strategy," resulting in "A scheme that emphasizes moral/psychological factors as basis to destroy a regime from within" (Slide 66). At the same time, the Nazis developed Blitzkrieg and Mao developed guerilla warfare.

The next two slides are on Soviet revolutionary strategy. He names the major tasks as

• "Employ agitation and propaganda in order to exploit opposing tendencies, internal tensions, etc. Object is to bring about a crises, to make revolution ripe as well as convince masses that there is a way-out."
• "Concentrate “the main forces of the revolution at the enemy’s most vulnerable spot at the decisive moment, when the revolution has already become ripe, when the offensive is going full steam ahead, when insurrection is knocking at the door, and when bringing the reserves up to the vanguard is the decisive condition of success.”" (Slide 67)
• "Select “the moment for the decisive blow, the moment for starting the insurrection, so timed as to coincide with the moment when the crisis has reached its climax, when the vanguard is prepared to fight to the end, the reserves are prepared to support the vanguard, and maximum consternation reigns in the ranks of the enemy.”"
• "Pursue “the course adopted, no matter what difficulties and complications are encountered on the road towards the goal. This is necessary in order that the vanguard not lose sight of the main goal of the struggle and the masses not stray from the road while marching towards that goal and striving to rally around the vanguard.”"
• "Maneuver “the reserves with a view to effecting a proper retreat when the enemy is strong … when, with the given relation of forces, retreat becomes the only way to escape a blow against the vanguard and retain the vanguard’s reserves. The object of this strategy is to gain time, to disrupt the enemy, and to accumulate forces in order later to assume the offensive.”" (Slide 68)

That is, the Soviets based their revolutionary strategy on the exacerbation of contradictions in the targeted society. The strategy was based on the determinist view that societies would eventually be ripe for communist revolution, but it also relied on dialectic and thus provided some basis for Boyd's work.

Similarly, Boyd examines Blitzkrieg, concluding that it "generates many non-cooperative centers of gravity, as well as undermines or seizes those that adversary depends upon, in order to impede vigorous activity and magnify friction, thereby paralyze adversary by denying him the opportunity to operate in a directed way" (Slide 71). An army operating under Blitzkrieg keeps up the pace by interlocking OODA loops at different levels, ensuring that low-level commanders had latitude to act within their own OODA loops as long as they synchronized with OODA loops higher up the chain. "Each level from simple to complex (platoon to theater) has their own observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle that increases as we try to control more levels and details of command at the higher levels. Put simply, as the number of events we must consider increase, the longer it takes to observe-orient-decide-act" (Slide 72). This scheme only works if officers have a common outlook (Slide 74) in which the what is agreed upon, but the how is left to the officer's discretion (Slide 76). In this scheme, the Schwerpunkt (center of gravity; focus of main effort) was realized via implicit communication, diminishing friction and reducing time (Slide 79).

Boyd reviews the essentials of guerilla warfare next, then argues that modern guerilla warfare is a synthesis of more traditional guerilla warfare, Soviet strategy, and Blitzkrieg.

Insurrection/revolution becomes ripe when many perceive an illegitimate inequality—that is, when the people see themselves as being exploited and oppressed for the undeserved enrichment and betterment of an elite few. This means that the guerrillas not only need an illegitimate inequality but they also need support of the people; otherwise, insurrection/revolution is impossible. (Slide 94)

Common themes of this type of guerilla warfare are familiar to those who have read 4GW literature:

• Avoid battles—instead penetrate adversary to subvert, disrupt, or seize those connections, centers, and activities that provide cohesion (e.g., psychological/moral bonds, communications, lines of communication, command and supply centers …)
• Exploit ambiguity, deception, superior mobility, and sudden violence to generate initial surprise and shock followed by surprise and shock again, again, again …
• Roll-up/wipe-out the isolated units or remnants created by the subversion, surprise, shock, disruption, and seizure. 

And the intent:

• Exploit subversion, surprise, shock, disruption, and seizure to generate confusion, disorder, panic, etc., thereby shatter cohesion, paralyze effort, and bring about adversary collapse.  (Slide 98)

 Boyd briefly discusses how to disrupt this sort of conflict by noting that it is "Difficult to sustain fast-tempo and maintain cohesion of blitz effort when forced to repeatedly and rapidly shift concentration of strength against weakness" (Slide 104), then discusses specific cases of counter-Blitz and counter-guerilla campaigns.

Boyd then discusses different sorts of conflicts, including moral conflict, with some discussion of how to counteract it by increasing harmony, adaptability, and initiative (Slide 124). Based on a synthesis, Boyd then argues that the goal of conflict must be to

Diminish adversary’s freedom-of-action while improving our freedom-of-action, so that our adversary cannot cope—while we can cope—with events/efforts as they unfold. 

That goal can be reached with this action:

Observe-orient-decide-act more inconspicuously, more quickly, and with more irregularity as basis to keep or gain initiative as well as shape and shift main effort: to repeatedly and unexpectedly penetrate vulnerabilities and weaknesses exposed by that effort or other effort(s) that tie-up, divert, or drain-away adversary attention (and strength) elsewhere. (Slide 128)

Grand tactics then become:

• Operate inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision-action loops, or get inside his mind-time-space, to create a tangle of threatening and/or non-threatening events/efforts as well as repeatedly generate mismatches between those events/efforts adversary observes, or anticipates, and those he must react to, to survive;

thereby

• Enmesh adversary in an amorphous, menacing, and unpredictable world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos … and/or fold adversary back inside himself;

thereby

• Maneuver adversary beyond his moral-mental-physical capacity to adapt or endure so that he can neither divine our intentions nor focus his efforts to cope with the unfolding strategic design or related decisive strokes as they penetrate, splinter, isolate or envelop, and overwhelm him.  (Slide 131)

And strategy becomes:

Penetrate adversary’s moral-mental-physical being to dissolve his moral fiber, disorient his mental images, disrupt his operations, and overload his system—as well as subvert, shatter, seize, or otherwise subdue those moral-mental-physical bastions, connections, or activities that he depends upon—in order to destroy internal harmony, produce paralysis, and collapse adversary’s will to resist. (Slide 133)

At the same time, a nation must essentially apply the same principles constructively, strengthening unity, harmony, and moral fiber as well as attracting potential adversaries as allies (Slide 140).

The rest is historical cases and wrap-up. Later in the series, we'll see how Boyd elaborates the OODA loop as well as his ideas about winning and losing.

Reading :: Conceptual Spiral

Conceptual Spiral
By John Boyd

This review is the first in a series of reviews of John Boyd's briefings on strategic theory, collectively known as A Discourse on Winning and Losing. For background on Boyd, see my review of Osinga's Science, Strategy, and War — but also see this recent article for more on how Boyd has been received in strategic studies (skeptically).

Long story short, critics seem to have two critiques of Boyd.

First, he had a critical limitation: he was an autodidact who read broadly. Autodidacticism isn't necessarily a problem, and can often lead to innovative synthetic thinking. But without the underlying rigor of a discipline, it sometimes amounts to trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle by grabbing pieces from different boxes.

Second, the key insight that people associate with Boyd—the OODA loop—grew out of a tactical insight (from Boyd's days as a fighter pilot), but Boyd attempted to apply it as a strategic insight. The OODA loop posits that entities (from single-celled creatures to nations) all cycle through phases in which they observe the environment; orient to those observations based on their genetic and cultural heritage, previous experiences, new information, analysis and synthesis; decide their next action; and act on it. A simplistic application of the OODA loop treats it as a stepwise cycle (I'm reminded of programming loops in C). A more complex application recognizes multiple feedback loops across each step. Boyd draws from an eclectic variety of sources to establish the OODA loop, including Bateson and Maturana, but also contemporary popular books.

So the briefings have some limitations. These limitations are compounded by the fact that Boyd primarily left behind just the briefings—essentially slideshows—rather than longer form texts. These slideshows were revised over the course of years, and it's unclear whether Boyd really regarded them as finished. Consequently, the briefings are a bit like reading Bakhtin's fragmentary notes in Speech Genres: are they finished thoughts? To what extent are we inserting our own assumptions into them? However, you can find Boyd delivering the briefings on YouTube, and his oral comments may clarify some of these questions. I confess that I have not watched more than a few minutes of them.

Still, let's see what we can glean from them. We'll start with the first one, Conceptual Spiral.

Conceptual Spiral
In the first briefing in this series, Boyd discusses the "conceptual spiral," in which he proposes "To make evident how science, engineering, and technology influence our ability to interact and cope with an unfolding reality that we are a part of, live in, and feed upon." Conceptual spirals are often talked about within the dialectical tradition (e.g., Vygotsky, Ilyenkov, Engestrom); Boyd seems to fit into this tradition as well. As he says early in the slide deck:

 For the interested, a careful examination will reveal that the increasingly abstract discussion surfaces a process of reaching across many perspectives, pulling each and every one apart (analyses), all the while intuitively looking for those parts of the disassembled perspectives which naturally interconnect with one another to form a higher order, more general elaboration (synthesis) of what is taking place. As a result, the process not only creates the Discourse but it also represents the key to evolve the tactics, strategies, goals, unifying themes, etc., that permit us to actively shape and adapt to the unfolding world we are a part of, live in, and feed upon. (Slide 4)

(And yes, that is a partial quote from even more text on a single slide.)

He adds in the next slide that "by examining the practice of science/engineering and the pursuit of technology, we can evolve a conceptual spiral for comprehending, shaping, and adapting to that world" (Slide 5).

Boyd goes on to discuss science, engineering, and technology in terms of the conceptual spiral. Based on historical examples, he concludes:

People using theories or systems evolved from a variety of information will find it increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible to interact with and comprehend phenomena or systems that move increasingly beyond and away from that variety—that is, they will become more and more isolated from that which they are trying to observe or deal with—unless they exploit the new variety to modify their theories/systems or create new theories/systems. (Slide 14)

And he asks: "what does all this have to do with our ability to thrive and grow in such a world that is seemingly orderly and predictable yet disorderly and unpredictable?" (Slide 17) He answers by positing that "Science, engineering, and technology produce change via novelty" (Slide 20, his emphasis). Novelty emerges from "an analytical/synthetic feedback loop for comprehending, shaping, and adapting to that world" (Slide 21). More specifically, novelty emerges from mismatches between our expectations and our feedback (Slide 23). That is, we learn and innovate when we see discrepancies between what we think should happen and what actually happens. (One paradigmatic example: we might expect heavier weights to fall more rapidly than lighter ones; when this turned out not to be true, Galileo had to develop a theory to explain that fact.) Boyd argues:

Without the interplay of analyses and synthesis, we have no basis for the practice of science/engineering and the pursuit of technology — because novelty, mismatches, and reorientation as the life blood ingredients that naturally arise out of such practice and pursuit can no longer do so. (Slide 25)

What does this have to do with winning and losing? Boyd explains that novelty is produced continually through our own innovations, through nature, through thinking and doing, and it is "produced continuously, if somewhat erratically or haphazardly." Thriving in such a world means continuously orienting to such novelties. But orientation is typically constrained by previous experiences, and thus "introduces mismatches that confuse or disorient us." We must engage in the analytic/synthetic process to "we can rematch [and] thereby reorient our thinking and action with that
novelty" (Slide 28).

Part of the previous experiences is systematic theory: "the various theories, systems, processes, etc. that we employ to make sense of that world contain features that generate mismatches that, in turn, keep such a world uncertain, ever-changing, and unpredictable" (Slide 31). (Activity theorists will note that these mismatches are roughly analogous to contradictions, which introduce problems but are also engines of change.) Boyd counsels that we should embrace the conceptual spiral, recognizing its positive results: insight, imagination, and initiative (Slide 34). In fact, we can't survive without the conceptual spiral; it is "A Paradigm for Survival and Growth" (Slide 37).

This presentation lays the foundation for the later discussion of the OODA loop. But it also defines the broader theme of interaction (dialectic?) that Boyd discusses throughout—as we'll see later in this series.