Why are election polls often inaccurate? Why is racism wrong? Why are your assumptions often mistaken? The answers to all these questions and to many others have a lot to do with the non-ergodicity of human ensembles. Many scientists agree that ergodicity is one of the most important concepts in statistics. So, what is it?
Suppose you are concerned with determining what the most visited parks in a city are. One idea is to take a momentary snapshot: to see how many people are this moment in park A, how many are in park B and so on. Another idea is to look at one individual (or few of them) and to follow him for a certain period of time, e.g. a year. Then, you observe how often the individual is going to park A, how often he is going to park B and so on.
Thus, you obtain two different results: one statistical analysis over the entire ensemble of people at a certain moment in time, and one statistical analysis for one person over a certain period of time. The first one may not be representative for a longer period of time, while the second one may not be representative for all the people.
The idea is that an ensemble is ergodic if the two types of statistics give the same result. Many ensembles, like the human populations, are not ergodic.
You have a gun which holds six bullets, but only has one in the chamber. You use it to play a game of Russian roulette with a group of 19 other people. Each of you takes one turn in spinning the chamber, holding the gun to your temple and pulling the trigger. If you are successful you win £1m, if not, well, then you die. Whilst this may not be an appealing proposition, your chance of death is relatively low (17%), and potential for becoming a millionaire high (83%). It is also far more attractive than an alternative version of the game where instead of playing with a group, you play on your own. In this instance there are still 20 turns but each time the gun is directed at your head. The odds on the outcome for you in this instance are not so favourable.
“This book is like a magnificent suspension bridge, linking the science of the human brain to the practical craft of applying it in everyday life. I loved it.” – Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy’s Vice Chairman
“So insightful with common sense applications of Complexity and the ability to communicate clearly!!” – Bob Klapetzky.
“A SUPERB book […] by one of the profound thinkers in our field [behavioral economics].” – Michal G. Bartlett
What’s ergodicity, and why it matters?
“The Most Important Property to Understand in Probability, in Life, in Anything.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb on ergodicity.
“I think the most under-rated idea is ergodicity.” – David Perell, author.
Is ergodicity the most important concept in decision-making and behavioral sciences? (Yes.)
Is it relevant for you in your daily life? (Yes.)
Is it possible to explain it so simply that a grandma or a high-schooler can understand it? (Yes.)
Even if they know nothing about maths? (Yes.)
That’s because ergodicity is an important idea with so many practical applications. Sadly, most books describe it in a very technical way, making it inaccessible to most people. In this short book, 6-times author Luca Dellanna describes ergodicity as simply as possible. You will read stories about how not knowing about it destroyed his cousin’s career as a skier, or how misunderstanding it caused additional deaths during the pandemic. You will learn how to spot situations in which ergodicity matters and the three strategies to react appropriately.
This book is shorter than other books by the same author (about 80 pages of content, hence the reduced price).
This page sells the eBook / Kindle version. Around mid-November, the paperback version will become available on Amazon and in selected stores (e.g., most Barnes & Noble).
There will be no discount after launch, and the paperback version will be more expensive than the digital one.
Who is this book for?
This book is for readers interested in growing themselves, their career, or their business, and who want to learn about ergodicity and its practical applications without having to understand its mathematical foundation. No mathematical knowledge is required, only a high-school level understanding of English.
Readers who want to master the theory and mathematical foundation of ergodicity are better off reading a more formal manuscript. This book is not a substitute for it, but a complement.
About the author
Luca Dellanna is the author of 6 books. He is a researcher in complexity science and emergent behaviors, and an operational excellence consultant. He spoke at Nudgestock and regularly teaches risk management in masters.
By purchasing this book, you will receive all of the following:
PDF version
.ePub version (compatible with Apple Books & other eBook readers)
.mobi version (Kindle)
This is a pre-order
I am currently finishing the manuscript. It will go on sale to the larger public on the 8th of November 2020. By placing a pre-order, you will receive the book before everyone else, one week before public availability.
You can trust me. Most of my other books have been released with a pre-order on this website. They all have a 5-star average rating – you can check yourself on gumroad.com/dellannaluca.
On the 1st of November, you will receive an email with a PDF version of the book, a Kindle file (.mobi), and a file for most other eBook readers (.ePub).
Moreover, you will get added to my mailing list, where I frequently publish essays that do not make it into books.
The Roam version
I will also publish a version of this book as a private Roam Research database.
Roam is a website that shows content in an interconnected way, a bit like Wikipedia. Reading the book this way will allow you to go back and forth content at your pace and following your interests.
Important: reading the Roam version requires a pre-existing Roam subscription, which is not included in this bundle.
If you purchase the Roam version, you will receive the eBook in 3 formats (PDF, Kindle, and ePub) on the 1st of November 2020 and the Roam version (both an editable .json export of the book and a shared uneditable private graph) on the 15th of November 2020.
Patron’s support
Readers purchasing the Ebook + Patreon’s support package will get their name in the ebook acknowledgements as a supporter (and the many thanks of the author).
If your name is not clear from your Gumroad account, I will send you an email to ask you for it.
Some more reviews of Luca’s books
“Luca’s book was so helpful to my work. Opened my eyes up to some more reasons why change is so hard.” – Chris Murman
“A thoughtfully written book in very straightforward language.” – A.L. Peevey
You can find more reviews on the pages of my other books, such as this one.
Ergodicity: Definition, Examples, And Implications, As Simple As Possible
Inter-work and Ethical Vigilance : Two Scenarios for the (Post-)Pandemic Future of Systems Thinking. / Córdoba-Pachón, José-Rodrigo .In: Systems, Vol. 8, No. 4, 36, 04.10.2020.
For several decades, systems thinking has been a defined body of knowledge that has contributed to many areas of science. Its value has, critically, resided in (meta- or post-) paradigmatic and participative use of one or several systems approaches to help stakeholders’ structure and tackle complex problems. With renewed and (post-)pandemic interest in interdisciplinary work, this paper argues that to continue securing a future, system thinking requires a wider understanding of the dynamics and intertwining of knowledge unfolding and ethics in society. Two different but overlapping scenarios for systems thinking are proposed: (a) One based on inter-(disciplinary, para/professional, group) work and (b) another based on ethical vigilance. The first one is not so different from what has been envisaged for systems thinking in the last few years. Nevertheless, and following the ideas of the sociologist Andrew Abbott, this scenario proposes the explicit inclusion of the goal of knowledge rediscovery to promote a sense of solidarity, mutual understanding and compassion. For the second scenario, Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality is used to problematize pandemic events and practices, and to offer possibilities for individual critical thinking and action, also leading us to consider the importance of (self-other) compassion. Features, implications, questions and examples of use are provided for each scenario.
Limited Spaces Remain – Play the Classic Fish Banks Simulation Thursday, October 29th, 2020 | 10am – 1pm EDT
You do not want to miss this fantastic seminar – FREE for System Dynamics Society members, and only $25 for non-members.
Join us for Fish Banks, the classic web-based simulation developed by Dennis Meadows. Jason Jay, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Sustainability Initiative at the MIT Sloan School of Management, will lead participants through this participatory game in which players manage their own fishing companies as they compete with others to achieve a profitable venture. Together, team players will strategize about buying and selling ships, where to fish, and how best to manage fleets without depleting fish stocks. All while in competition with neighboring teams. This seminar is perfect for general audiences who would like an introduction to Systems Thinking through a sustainability lens, but will include a deeper debrief that includes facilitator tips to help potential future game facilitators understand how to tailor and deliver this experience for a variety of audiences.
AbstractThe organisational learning orientation to systems thinking requires managers to think together and share mental models using a variety of related techniques. It is generally recognised that this is no easy matter since the demand for new ways of thinking puts stress on old habits of mind. The purpose of this paper is to show how treating this difficulty as purely a technical problem falls short by overlooking the cognitive dimension of what new events have to happen in the brains of the managers. Cognitive biology gives a starting point to consider the way decision behaviour relates to implicit mental models. The consequences of mental models without feedback and systemic coherence are illustrated by an analysis of faulty thinking in privatisation. A classification of system and feedback types emphasises that, in managing organisations, uni-dimensional systems thinking is not adequate. The requisite multi-dimensional systems thinking requires holistic multi-factor thinking, multi-future thinking combined with causal feedback thinking. A crucial link between practical consulting, applied cognitive science and applied system science is the use of visual facilitation which increasingly makes use of the power of interactive visual representations of mental models behind decisions.
Two really interesting papers, both with examples of ‘systems laws’ and attempts at identifying core unifying principles.
Systems Theory as the Foundation for Understanding Systems Kevin MacG. Adams, Old Dominion University Peggy T. Hester, Old Dominion UniversityFollow Joseph M. Bradley, Old Dominion University Thomas J. Meyers, Old Dominion University Charles B. Keating, Old Dominion UniversityFollow Document Type Article Publication Date 2014
DOI:10.1504/IJSSE.2015.068805Corpus ID: 20201734 Systems theory as a foundation for governance of complex systems Kaitlynn M. Whitney, J. Bradley, +1 author Charles W. Chesterman Published 2015 Engineering, Computer Science Int. J. Syst. Syst. Eng. The broad set of propositions identified in systems literature (circa 1900–2000s) provides an adequate, largely comprehensive subset of the complete set of all systems theory propositions. Discoverers’ induction can then be applied to integrate common ideas among propositions in order to produce a set of generalised laws (axioms). A proposal for a systems theory construct resting on an axiomatic set supported by unified systems theory propositions was presented by Adams et al. (2014). This paper refines the work of Adams et al. using discoverer’s induction and further describes the axioms provided and their role in complex systems. LESS
book at https://undp.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Gtbv7dKtQCGPcvYoWM-Ygw
Interested in system transformation more than shiny new apps?Curious about the direction as well as the speed of innovation?So are we, and we’re holding an innovation community of practice gathering to explore.Register for the Global Track
‘Ministry of Change’ is a week dedicated to connecting our innovation community of practice networks with case studies, interactive workshops, peer learning and reflection sessions – focused especially on systems change and transformation MOC is hosted collaboratively by UNDP’s Regional Innovation Centre for the Asia Pacific and States of Change.
Get on trackFrom ‘Edge’ to ‘Systems Spectrum’ Sessions,you can see the high level below at a glance
Innovation Community of Practice: Systems Spectrum Sessions (a collaboration between States of Change and UNDP)
FacebookTwitterLinkedInMicrosoft (Outlook)TopicInnovation Community of Practice: Systems Spectrum Sessions (a collaboration between States of Change and UNDP)DescriptionWelcome to the “Global Track” of the Ministry of Change Innovation CoP Week!
From Monday, October 5th through Friday, the 9th we have a special set of curated sessions designed to walk across a spectrum of systems change and transition practices. From field practitioner cases, to less obvious ways of approaching complex challenges, we hope you join.
The style is casual- no sage on a stage- but deeply curious as we get serious about unlearning and uncovering new ways of working and generating impact.
Here’s what we have in store for you to select as you wish. Join one or all-
Session 1, October 5 at 3:30pm ICT = Inclusive Systems Innovation: big collaborations and small circles with Kelly Ann McKercher of Beyond Sticky Notes AND Felicty Tan and Reycel Hyacenth Bendaña of wesolve.
Session 2, October 6 at 3:30pm ICT = Navigating Systems Transitions: the view from data labs with Petrarca Karetji, UN Pulse Lab – Jakarta AND Enrico Gaveglia, UNDP Philippines, Pintig Lab
Session 3, October 7 at 3:00pm ICT = Long-termism for policymaking with Ella Saltmarsh, The Long Time Project
Session 4, October 8 at 3:30pm ICT = The Learning Curve:insights from COVID to climate change with Climate KIC AND States of Change
Session 5, October at 3:30pm ICT = A letter to my younger (innovator) self with States of Change AND UNDPTimeYou can choose to attend one or more of the following webinars. Oct 5, 2020 03:30 PM Oct 6, 2020 03:30 PM Oct 7, 2020 03:00 PM Oct 8, 2020 03:30 PM Oct 9, 2020 03:30 PM Time shows in Bangkok
Escapism demands more of me these days. It used to be enough to open Netflix. There’d be some decades-old program with just enough of a nostalgic ember burning for me to huddle around, warming me into gentle numbness. But the world has changed, my mind’s a bit jumpier, and I take my escapes as they come. That means endlessly wandering the internet as I do classwork, waiting for a fateful surprise—waiting for cybernetic serendipity.
That’s a phrase I encountered halfway down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I was ostensibly there for some class-related research, but of course the inner mind knows better—Internet, take me away. Seeing the phrase cybernetic serendipity, then, was a bit like seeing your deepest subconscious desire printed on a billboard over the freeway. Wikipedia had gifted me a blue hyperlink that promised the exact thing I didn’t know I was looking for. The phrase “cybernetic serendipity” is not vivid; it’s got enough syllables to refer to just about anything (except our present moment—whatever cybernetic serendipity is, this is not it). Perfect—I closed all my other tabs and clicked through.
In today’s post, I am looking at ideas of the famous Algerian-French philosopher, Jacques Derrida. Derrida is often described as a post-structuralist philosopher. His most famous idea is deconstruction. Deconstruction is often associated with analyzing literary works. The basic notion of deconstruction can be loosely explained as when a text is produced, the author dies, and the reader is born. A text is presented as a coherent whole with a basic idea in the center. The language in the text is all about the idea in the center. The assumption is that the central idea has a fixed meaning. The point of deconstruction is then to disturb this coherent whole, and challenge the hierarchy of the coherent whole. The intent of deconstruction is discovery; the discovery of what is hidden behind the elaborate plot to stage the central idea. It is an attempt to subvert the dominant theme.
Bernardo A. Bastien-Olvera & Frances C. Moore Nature Sustainability (2020)
Climate change is damaging ecosystems throughout the world with serious implications for human well-being. Quantifying the benefits of reducing emissions requires understanding these costs, but the unique and non-market nature of many goods provided by natural systems makes them difficult to value. Detailed representation of ecological damages in models used to calculate the costs of greenhouse gas emissions has been largely lacking. Here, we have expanded a cost–benefit integrated assessment model to include natural capital as a form of wealth. This brings benefits to people through non-use existence value and as an input into the production of ecosystem services and market goods. In our model, using central estimates for all parameters, optimal emissions reach zero by the year 2050, limiting warming to 1.5 °C by the year 2100. We used Monte Carlo analysis to examine the influence of several key uncertain…
Systems Thinking Can Help Spark and Sustain Change
EDUCATION DOMAIN BLOG
September 28, 2020
Authors: Katherine Prince
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Transitioning education systems to be competency-based represents a massive shift from established ways of doing things. It involves shifting practice, reorienting outcomes, and building understanding and shared vision among educators, learners, families, community members, and other stakeholders. Teachers have to facilitate and assess learning differently. Students have to take more ownership of their learning journeys. Families have to develop new lenses for understanding children’s development. Community members have to shift their expectations of what learning looks like, where it happens, and what supports the school’s need.
Even though competency-based education has gained significant traction over the past several years and has been getting a boost through some responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the path forward with any transformation of its magnitude is rarely linear. For the approach to spread and put down roots, many people and organizations need to become champions and take action. Even after successful growth, on the ground can be lost, as what happened in Maine.
The movement to spread competency-based education represents a form of systems change. Any systems change requires committing to doing something differently and then sustaining that effort over time, even after the initial swell of enthusiasm has waned. Transforming systems in this way is hard, long-haul work. However, the path can be eased by using aspects of systems thinking to shed new light on how education systems are operating today, where change efforts are intersecting with long-established patterns of behavior and systemic structures, what assumptions the people involved bring to the work, and the gaps between desired and actual outcomes.
Systems thinking is a set of theories, tools, language, and mindsets that can help people grapple with the complex and interconnected world around us and make visible our perceptions of how it works. It can help us deepen our understanding of what stands between our aspirational visions and us and articulate what it might take to bring those visions to life.
Some systems thinking’s key tenets appear below.
A system’s behavior is shaped by its structure. People often try to change how a system behaves by altering its individual parts, or by finding initial inroads and reaching for low-hanging fruit. But a system’s structure – the way its components are organized and interact – determines its behavior, shaping both what we see happening day-to-day and what is possible long term. Structural change is necessary to sustain systems change. For example, even with a strong district-wide implementation of competency-based education, it is very hard to sustain the approach when state accountability systems remain focused on measures that are tied to seat time and reflect narrow views of success.
Systems are interdependent, with circular cause and effect. Everything in a system is connected to everything else. Feedback loops – where one thing affects another, which affects another, often in non-obvious ways – keep systems running without the constant care and tending of every element. When we want to make a change, it is all too easy to isolate a few elements of a system and to decide that shifting them will bring about the desired outcomes. Systems thinking provide tools for selecting which variables are most relevant to the intended change and then making their interconnections visible. When we can see how an education system is operating today, we can identify effective ways of moving toward what we want for its future.
Systems achieve the results they are designed to achieve. Education changemakers used to talk a lot about how broken our education systems were. More recently, more people have been voicing the reality that they are not broken. Instead, our education systems are producing the results that they were designed to achieve. Often, those results are not what people say we want from education or are not the things that we want the most. Education systems produce those outcomes because of how those systems have been organized over the years. For example, imagine that a school decided to eliminate recess so that students could spend more time on academics and then found that students were struggling to focus. While the school would not have intended for students to have trouble attending to their work, that outcome would be a result of the way the school had chosen to structure its system. Approaching change with a systems mindset can help us see what is driving the results that we are trying to change.
The consequences of actions are not always immediate. When we get excited about making change, we tend to want to see its effects right away. But delays often exists in systems, whether in how quickly information travels or in how long it takes for the effects of a change to occur. Delays are especially prevalent in education systems, where understanding the effect of today’s approaches on learners can take years. This dynamic means that the positive outcomes of an effective change effort or the negative consequences of an ineffective one are often delayed. For example, when a school implements a new curriculum, no one knows exactly how long it might take to determine whether that curriculum is having the intended effects. When possible, shortening delays can help changemakers acquire more timely information to guide our actions.
Mental models underpin systems. Mental models are the values and beliefs that influence how people understand and act in the world. They come from our experiences. Our mental models influence the decisions that we make and therefore influence how the systems in which we participate are organized. Conversely, systems shape our experiences and therefore also our mental models. We need mental models to help us make sense of the world; otherwise, there would be too much to process at the moment. But if we get stuck in those frames, assuming that things have to be or look a certain way, we can limit our perception of what is possible and can unwittingly perpetuate the very systems approaches that we are trying to change.
Systems thinking are a complex and sophisticated field, with many tools and processes available to help people understand and change how systems are operating. To help simplify the process of applying this way of thinking to education, KnowledgeWorks’ Looking Beneath the Surface: The Education Changemaker’s Guide to Systems Thinking introduces education stakeholders and changemakers to the field’s theories, language, mindsets, and tools. It introduces the core concepts of systems thinking and offers practice questions and exercises. Its four lessons focus on identifying the systems behavior that stakeholders wish to change, visualizing the structure of current system behavior, identifying possible actions and their depth of impact, and evaluating the effects of various interventions and events.
The tools and processes described in KnowledgeWorks’ systems change guidebook can help groups pursuing competency-based education and other forms of systems change:
Identify novel, non-obvious solutions
Share power and build leadership capacity
Anticipate possible unintended consequences of well-meaning efforts and
Reframe problems related to change efforts.
In using them, education stakeholders can engage in new ways of thinking and collaborating, exposing what is often unseen and articulating what usually goes unsaid. That engagement can in turn lead to new ways of being and acting. Those shifts in people’s interactions, perspectives, and pursuits can help groups begin, nurture, and sustain the movement toward competency-based education.
Blog Contributer: Katherine Prince, KnowledgeWorks @katprince
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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