Sublime

As the System grows in size and complexity, it gradually but inevitably outgrows its component specifications. Parts (whether human or electronic) begin to fail. The important point is: ANY LARGE SYSTEM IS GOING TO BE OPERATING MOST OF THE TIME IN FAILURE MODE What the System is supposed to be doing when everything is working well is really beside

System failure is the failure of a system to achieve a goal—e.g., communicate a message, maintain a structural load, or maintain operation. It is inevitable that elements within a system will fail. It is not inevitable, however, that the system as a whole fails. Redundancy is the surest method of preventing system failure.

There is good failure and bad failure. The former is failure that enables a system to learn, becoming more resilient, more adept. The latter is exhibited within a non-learning system. Are these non-learning systems due to their fundamentally out-of-control characteristics, systems whose complexity has grown beyond our comprehension and capability?

Chaos is characterized by two essential properties: The first is sensitive dependence on initial conditions, and the second is endogenous motion, meaning that, even though there are no external shocks, the system never settles down to rest. That said, the word chaos can be misleading, because chaos

So there are patterned, regular and rule-bound systems; these rule-bound workings can come to generate various unintended effects; and unpredictable events disrupt and abruptly transform what appear to be rule-bound and enduring patterns. This is a view which emphasizes networks of people, of systems, of societies as fundamentally historical, and

chaotic behavior changes and becomes more turbulent as the number of degrees of freedom increases.