Rules, violations, consciousness and free will
"Thank you for putting this together! This is the first time I have ever considered many of [these] ideas." (Comment on earlier version)
This article is relevant to any dynamic system in which its elements follow rules – whether the system is hard or soft, mechanical or social. It includes a business motivation model using ArchiMate symbols.
The French philosopher Rousseau contrasted the life of the “noble savage†with the state of people in civilized society who are “oppressedâ€. His three main principles were:Â
Rousseau's social contract defines social rules for citizens to follow. This article discusses rules, violations of them, choice, decision making, free will and concludes with remarks on Rousseau's view of the world.
Determinism and predictability
System thinkers define an abstract system in terms of variables and rules that describe and typify how the variable values of a real system change over time. The triad below presents facts as phenomena we can observe, and rules as types we define.
A system’s behavior is deterministic if you can predict the next state of the system, given
Note that being deterministic does not mean being predictable over the long term, because a closed system may be chaotic (in the chaos theory sense), and an open system cannot predict what future inputs will arrive.
An abstract system may not be deterministic; it may include a random function.
A real system may not be deterministic; it might be interrupted and affected by an intervention, such as a cosmic ray.
A real system may be deterministic yet not be predictable, due to chaos theory; meaning that tiny variations in the current state lead to wildly different outcomes in the long term.
Having said that, most discussion of business rules is about rules that govern state changes in deterministic systems, or constrain them.
Rules
Rules can be natural or designed, and physical or logical. Nature's physical rules (like Newton’s laws of motion) are discovered rather than invented. Animals follow psycho-biological rules and social rules. Some social rules are innate; others, like saying “please†and “thank you", are learnt. Business rules are created to govern regular business operations.
Our interest here is in abstract systems describable in terms of variables and rules that describe and typify how the variable values of a real system change over time.
We generalize from facts we observe to rules (if it rains then things will get wet), and create rules to direct behavior (if washing is on the line and it starts to rain, then get the washing in).
Rules as pre and post conditions of state changes
State transition rules define how a system moves from a prior state to a successor state. For example, the rules for UK traffic lights dictate a sequence of state tranitions.
You may specify a rule in a procedural way. IF this condition is true THEN do this action. For example: IF you qualify for the race, follow all the rules, and cross the line first, THEN you will be declared the winner.
Or else you may specify a rule in a declarative way such as: To be declared the winner, you must a) qualify for the race, b) follow all the rules, and c) cross the line first.
The Hoare triple is way declaring rules associated with a discrete event, state change, process or service thus: IF the world is in this prior state, AND this action is completed successfully, THEN the world will be in this next state. (Here "the world" is a system of interest or "bounded context" with a "domain-specific language".)
In this and the next section, I use six examples listed by Ron Ross, some years ago.
“A poor-risk customer must not place a rush orderâ€
IF the customer is not a poor risk AND the order placement process completes successfully THEN the order will be placed.
“An employee’s new salary must be greater than or equal to the employee’s current salary.â€
IF the new salary is greater than the current salary AND the salary update event completes successfully THEN the current salary will equal the new salary.
“A trainee must not send a memo to a manager without permission of his supervisor.â€
IF the trainee has permission from his supervisor AND the memo sending process completes successfully THEN the manager will read the memo.
Attaching state transition rules to event types
The examples below illustrate the many-to-many relationship between entity types and event types. The first example records how one entity is affected by several evens
ENTITY: Marriage
Effect of event: Wedding
Effect of: Divorce
It seems to me more natural to associate state transition rules with the events that trigger them. The next two examples show how one event affects several entities.
EVENT: Wedding
Effect on entity: Marriage
Effect on entity: Person [wife]
Effect on entity: Person [husband]
EVENT: Divorce
Effect on entity: Marriage
Effect on entity: Person [wife]
Effect on entity: Person [husband]
Rules as invariants
Invariants are variables that do not change, forever, or for a defined period of time. Invariants may be global or associated with entities (rather than events)
ENTITY: Circle
ENTITY: Person
Some of Ron’s rules may be cast as invariant states or conditions.
“A group must not include any union members if it includes any non-union members, and vice versa.â€
Invariant: a group contains only members of one kind (union or non-union).
“A truck carrying hazardous material must not be routed through a downtown street.â€
Invariant: a downtown street cannot be entered by a truck carrying hazardous material.
 “A person must be considered a woman, if the person is female and is over 21.â€
Invariant: a female person over 21 is classified as a woman.
An invariant state or condition can be maintained by continuous and physical control, such as when a governor maintains a steady flow of a steam to a steam engine.
An invariant state or condition can be maintained by intermittent and logical control. A software system can act so frequently that an invariant condition is guaranteed; it can look every microsecond for a small deviation from state and restore it immediately. It is harder for a human activity system to do this, but a human can intermittently detect a substantial deviation and do something to correct it or compensate for it.
When a rule is really a policy
When is rule not really a rule? Consider this apparently invariant rule: “All passengers' digital devices must be in airplane mode during a flightâ€. It has the form of a rule, but in practice, no airline guarantees it will be true throughout a flight.
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In context of a human activity system, we may address this by distinguishing the general wish (a policy) from the particular rules it is practical to impose. To implement the policy, we may declare the following event and rules.
Event: Safety announcement (5 minutes before take off due)
Event: Take off
Event: In-flight passenger observation
Event: Passenger persistent refusal to comply with direction.
By specifying the events above we can get near to, if not achieve, the desired invariant state.
A business motivation model
The business motivation model below includes a cascade of directives, which may be exemplified thus.
This business motivation model is a compromise between similar models in TOGAF and OMG standards. In the directive and aim cascades, one higher level element may be elaborated in or realized by several lower level elements. Other Ideas include
Violations
Physical rules can be violated when some force or factor intervenes. What we see as a rule of nature in a given context is violated when circumstances change, or it is overcome by a rule outside the initial scope of interest.
Social or logical rules can be violated when an actor play roles in two or more systems with conflicting rules.
Suppose an actor plays one role as an employee of a business, and another role as a member of a church. Both business and church impose rules on how actors play roles in them. Now suppose the business asks the actor to do something that it is in conflict with rules of the church. The actor has to choose which role has priority, and which rules to follow. In following the rules of one system, the actor has to violate the rules of another.
Even if an actor follows the deterministic rules of their own internal decision-making system, there is no prospect of defining a three-part business-church-decision system that embraces the variables and rules of all three systems.
In modern human society, an actor may belong to many social entities (with more or less commitment to each) and play roles in many different social systems. How does the actor choose what to do when prompted to act? Before considering that, a few remarks on exceptions.
Assumption and exceptions
In physics, the things of interest may follow rules well-nigh 100% of the time. In sociology, a rule followed in 80% of cases might be seen as strong and useful, the other 20% being exceptions to the rule.
An exception is a case in which behavior departs from the simple, normal or usually-required transition from one state to the next. For example, maternal filicide in the week following birth might be allowed as an exception to laws relating to homicide.
Assumptions (testable) are a part of the scientific method that exclude exceptions. E..g., assuming no friction, F = M * A. Or, assuming the customer pays back our loan, our profit will be 999 dollars
Where exceptions cannot be excluded, how can you, the designer of a human activity system, accommodate people departing from the rules of that system? You may design the system to allow and respond to exceptions. You can identify likely exception conditions, and design compensating actions if need be. (And beside allowing and designing for exceptions, social entity thinkers may attend to the management and motivation of human actors.)
Emergence, complexity and consciousness (repeat)
Consciousness may be explained as a side effect of biological evolution.
Emergence occurs in the simplest of systems, even in one with only two elements. For example, forward motion emerges from the interaction between a sail and a wind. After billions of years of evolution, an intelligent animal is now an extremely large and complex system, containing billions of interacting elements. The human brain is said to be most complex organ of all.
If consciousness is the ability to compare memories of the past with perceptions of the current, and envisagngs of the future, and to position the self in all of them, then it seems reasonable to assume consciousness emerges from, and requires, a thinking machine of the extraordinary complexity we see in those few animal species that demonstrate forethought and self-awareness.
Does consciousness imply human decision making is not a deterministic process? Perhaps, but I see no reason to assume that. And how complex systems are built from simpler ones is a topic addressed in cybernetics.
Choice and decision making
Consciously or unconsciously, animals choose how to act with reference to their motivations – meaning the outcomes they value. Somehow, they trade off the costs and benefits of different actions, balancing short and long term views.
Boulding (1956) pointed out that even if the rules of a human actor's decision-making system are deterministic, we have no hope of evaluating the actors internal state well enough to predict their decisions.
Given our exceptional degree of self-awareness, and our ability to make conscious choices, the systems thinker Russell Ackoff differentiated human social entities from other animal social entities, in a 4-way classification of systems that he revised several times over three decades. This is the last version.
Ackoff's classification is debatable. Humankind is not the only animal kind that is demonstrably self-aware. Much human decision making is unconscious. And the decisions made by a society are derived from decisions made by individuals in it.
Following Boulding (1956) and Ackoff (1971), we might position systems in a hierarchy of sciences in which sociology sits over psychology, which sits over biology, and so on. Or better, position systems in an evolutionary time line in which biology precedes psychology, which preded sociology. It seems the rules of an older psycho-biological system guide a human actor in choosing between roles in social systems they belong to.
"Conceptual realism" says our conceptual framework - our understanding of things and the rules they follow - is a map of reality. But our map may be a poor one, and misleading. What if we don't understand the rules, are poor judges of costs and benefits, and find ourselves in a bad place? We humans are especially well equipped to consult others, seeking more insight into the rules, costs and benefits we should consider when making decisions.
Free will
Mental events include, for example, comparing interest rates offered by two banks, and deciding to mow the lawn. Epiphenomenalists say mental events are caused by physical brain events, but have no effect on physical events.
One implication is that mental events follow physical brain events in time (are not coincident with them). Why postulate mental events happen separately from physical brain activity?
Another implication is that a mental event is not followed in time by consequent physical brain events or motor actions. Surely physical brain events are needed to trigger the actions of completing a bank account application form, and mowing the lawn?
The question of free will might be exemplified by asking whether, in a deterministic universe, we are bound to mow the lawn at the moment we do.
To exercise free will, to make a choice, is to evaluate the pros and cons of different options, and do what we think best (balancing short and long term outcomes) for us and our loved ones. If that means weighing the value of mowing the lawn now against the time and effort needed, and other priorities, then there seems to me no conflict between the concept of free will and a deterministic decision-making process.
In other words, I don't say there is no free will in a deterministic universe. I say free will is the ability of humans to use deterministic psycho-biological rules to decide how they respond to events they observe and envisage in social systems, and even to choose which social rules to conform to and which to violate.
Implications for government
The quote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely†is attributed to the 19th century British historian and politician, Lord Acton.
At the center of the philosophy espoused by Rousseau and Marx is the oppression of people by those above them who have power. Rousseau believed that society corrupts humans, and that it's nearly impossible to achieve virtue in a society where those above them, in a power relationship, have defined social rules to keep their advantage.
The democrat's answer? Give every adult the power to elect and remove those in government. The capitalist's answer? Minimize the power given to the government.
The question remains: How to ensure social rule setters act in the best interests of the majority, and don't repress minorities?
Bear in mind that social rules in Rousseau's social contract are only a tiny fraction of the psycho-biological rules we each use to judge what to do, looking to the best interest of ourselves and our loved ones.
The pragmatic empiricist view of legal, economic, education and other social systems is that
Terminology
Entity: a stateful object that may change state, either continuously, or when affected by events
Event: an activity that effects one more entities by movring them from one state to another state.
Rule: a constraint on an event, which constrains and determines the effect(s) of a cause.
Violation: the breaking of a rule.
Exception: a case in which the effects of an event depart from the usually-expected progression from one state to the next.
Compensating event: an action to undo, or compensate for, the unwanted effects of a prior event.
Order: the correlation or conformance of a structure or behavior to a pattern or set of rules.
Obligation: the assignment of an action to a role.
Further reading
If you want to read this article in the context of a book, watch this space. Related articles include:
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