The Principle of Resilient Systems

Thought

Reflecting on the resilience in complex systems.

Note

Resilient systems are not just robust; they adapt and evolve.

Analysis

Thinking about resilience in systems—whether biological, ecological, technological, or social—leads to the realization that resilience is more than the ability to return to a prior state after a disturbance; it includes the capacity for adaptation and evolution. This perspective shifts the common understanding from a statically robust system to a dynamically adaptive one.

The general understanding of resilient systems is often limited to their robustness—the ability to resist change and maintain function in the face of external pressures. However, a genuinely resilient system also possesses characteristics such as redundancy, diversity, modularity, and the ability to reorganize itself, which can necessitate evolution beyond its initial conditions.

Drawing from the field of ecology, systems such as forests can be seen as resilient not only because they can withstand certain disturbances like fires or pests but also because they can adapt these events into their growth and development processes, leading to new ecological states that may be more robust than the previous ones.

A similar argument can be applied to economic or technological systems. In the face of a crisis like a market crash or a cyber-attack, the resilience of the system is determined not only by its capacity to resist damage but also by its ability to adapt and evolve its structures and functions to better cope with future challenges.

This dynamism aligns with Arthur Koestler's concept of bisociation by introducing the interaction between different planes of experience. In the context of resilience, it's the plane of stability interacting with the plane of change—and the emergent plane where a system learns and evolves, creating a richer tapestry of resilience.

Books

• "The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong" by Judith Rodin
• "Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World" by Brian Walker & David Salt
• "Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought" by Andrew W. Lo
• "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Papers

• "Resilience and stability of ecological systems" by C.S. Holling
• "Operationalizing the concept of resilience: Tuft's example as a forerunner" by F. Westley et al.