{"id":1101,"date":"2011-11-05T11:15:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T11:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2011-11-05T11:15:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T11:15:14","slug":"systemory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=1101","title":{"rendered":"Systemory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>How do we remember the vast amount of information\u00a0that we seem to be capable of?<\/p>\n

Our brains are comprised of billions of cells most of which are actually inactive and just there to support the active brain cells – the neurons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Suppose that the active brain cell part\u00a0is 50% and our brain has a volume of about 1.2 litres or 1,200 cu.cm or 1,200,000 cu.mm. We know from looking down a microscope that each\u00a0neuron is about\u00a020\/1,000 mm x 20\/1,000 mm \u00a0x 20\/1,000 mm\u00a0which gives a volume of 8\/1,000,000 cu.mm or\u00a0125,000 neurons for every cu.mm. The population of a medium sized town in a\u00a0grain of salt!\u00a0 This is a concept we can just about grasp.\u00a0And with these two facts we estimate that there are in the order of 140,000,000,000 neurons in a human\u00a0brain –\u00a0140 billion – about 20 times the population of the whole World. Wow!<\/p>\n

But even that huge number is less than the size of the memory on the hard disc of the computer I am writing this blog on – which has 200 gigabytes which is 1,600 gigabits which is 1,600 billion bits. Ten times as\u00a0many memory cells\u00a0as there are neurons in a human brain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But<\/strong> our brains are not just for storing data – they do all the data processing too – it is an integrated processor-and-memory design\u00a0completely unlike the separate processor-or-memory design of a digital computer.\u00a0 Each of our brains is remarkable in its capability, adaptability, and agility – its ability to cope with change – its ability to learn and to change its behaviour while still working.\u00a0 So how does our biological memory work?<\/p>\n

Well not like a digital computer where the\u00a0zeros and ones,\u00a0the binary digits\u00a0(bits) are stored in regular structure\u00a0of memory cells – a static structural memory\u00a0– a data prison.\u00a0 Our biological memory works\u00a0in a completely different way – it is a\u00a0temporal memory – it is time dependent. Our memories\u00a0are not \u201crecalled\u201d like getting a book out of an indexed slot on a numbered in a massive library; are memories\u00a0are replayed like a recording or\u00a0rebuilt from a recipe. Time is the critical factor and\u00a0this concept of temporal memory\u00a0is a feature of all systems.<\/p>\n

And that is not all – the temporal memory is not a library\u00a0of video tapes –\u00a0it is the simultaneous collective action of many parts of the system that create the illusion of the temporal memory – we have a parallel-distributed-temporal-memory. More like a video hologram. And it means we cannot point to\u00a0the \u201cmemory\u201d part of our brains –\u00a0it is distributed throughout the system – and this means that the connections between the parts are as critical a part of the design and the parts themselves.\u00a0It is a\u00a0tricky concept to grasp and none<\/strong>\u00a0of the\u00a0billions of digital computers that co-inhabit this planet operate this way. They are feeble and fragile in comparison. An inferior design.<\/p>\n

The terms distributed-temporal or systemic-memory\u00a0are a bit cumbersome though so we need a new label – let us call it a systemory<\/strong>.\u00a0 The properties of a systemory<\/em> are remarkable – for example it still works when a bit of the systemory<\/em> is removed. \u00a0When a bit of your brain is removed you don\u2019t \u201cforget\u201d a bit of your name or lose the left ear on the mental picture of your friends face – as would happen with a computer.\u00a0 A systemory<\/em>\u00a0is resilient to damage which is a necessary design-for-survival. It also\u00a0implies that we can build our systemory<\/em>\u00a0with imperfect parts and incomplete connections. In a digital computer this would not work:\u00a0the localised-static\u00a0or silo-memory has to be perfect because if a single bit gets flipped or a single wire gets fractured it can render the whole computer inoperative useless junk.<\/p>\n

Another design-for-survival property of a systemory<\/em> is that it still works even when it is being changed – it is continuously adaptable and updateable.\u00a0 Not so a computer – to change the operating system\u00a0the computer has to be stopped, the old program overwritten by the new one, then the new one started. In fact computers are designed to prevent programs modifying themselves – because it a sure recipe for\u00a0a critical\u00a0system failure – the dreaded blue screen!<\/p>\n

So if we map our systemory<\/strong> concept across from\u00a0person to\u00a0population and we replace neurons with people then we get an inkling of how a society can have a collective memory,\u00a0a collective intelligence, a collective consciousness even – a social systemory<\/em>.\u00a0We\u00a0might call that property the culture. \u00a0We can also see that the relationships that link the people are as critical as the people themselves and that both can be imperfect yet we\u00a0get stable and reliable\u00a0behaviour. We can also see that\u00a0influencing\u00a0the relationships\u00a0between people has as much effect on the system behaviour as how the people themselves perform – because the\u00a0properties of the systemory<\/em> are emergent. Culture is an output not an input.<\/p>\n

So in the World – the development of global communication systems means that all 7 billion people in\u00a0the global social systemor<\/em>y\u00a0can, in principle, connect to each other and\u00a0can collectively learn and change faster and faster as the technology\u00a0to connect more widely and more quickly develops. The rate of culture change is no longer governed by physical constraints\u00a0such as geographic location, orand temporal constraints such as how long a letter takes to be delivered.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most challenging implication is that a\u00a0systemory<\/em> does not have a \u201cpoint of control\u201d – there is no librarian who acts as a gatekeeper\u00a0to the\u00a0data bank, no\u00a0guard on\u00a0the data prison.\u00a0 The concept of \u201ccontrol\u201d in a systemory<\/em> is different – it is global not local – and it is\u00a0influence not control. \u00a0The rapid development\u00a0of mobile communication technology and social networking\u00a0gives ample evidence – we would now rather communicate with a familar on the other side of the world than with a stranger\u00a0standing next to us in the lunch queue. We have become tweeting and texting daemons.\u00a0\u00a0Our emotional relationships are more important than our geographical ones.\u00a0And if enough people can connect to each other they can act in a collective,\u00a0coordinated, adaptive\u00a0and agile way that no command-and-control system can either command or\u00a0control. The recent events in the Middle East are ample evidence of the emergent effectiveness of a social systemory<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our insight\u00a0exposes a weakness of a social<\/em>\u00a0systemory<\/em> – it is possible to adversely affect the whole\u00a0by introducing a behavioural toxin that\u00a0acts\u00a0at the social connection\u00a0level –\u00a0on the relationships between people. The behavioural toxin\u00a0needs only to have a weak and apparently harmless\u00a0effect but\u00a0when disseminated\u00a0globally the cumulative effect creates cultural\u00a0dysfunction.\u00a0 It is rather like the effect of alcohol and other recreational chemical substances on the brain – it\u00a0cause a temporary systemory<\/em> dysfunction\u00a0– but one that in\u00a0an over-stressed psychological\u00a0system paradoxically\u00a0results in pleasure; or rather stress release. Hence the self-reinforcing nature of the addiction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Effective leaders are intuitively\u00a0aware that just their behaviour can be a tonic or a toxin\u00a0for the whole system: organisations\u00a0are the the same\u00a0emotional\u00a0boat as their\u00a0leader.<\/p>\n

Effective\u00a0leaders use their behaviour to\u00a0steer the\u00a0systemory<\/strong> of the organisation along a path of improvement and their behaviour\u00a0is\u00a0the output\u00a0of their personal\u00a0systemory<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Leaders have to be the change that\u00a0they want their\u00a0organisations to\u00a0achieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do we remember the vast amount of information\u00a0that we seem to be capable of? Our brains are comprised of billions of cells most of which are actually inactive and just there to support the active brain cells – the neurons. Suppose that the active brain cell part\u00a0is 50% and our brain has a volume … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Systemory”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,43],"tags":[59,155,156,169,189,269,272],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","category-resilient","category-why","tag-behaviour","tag-leadership","tag-learning","tag-memory","tag-organisation","tag-system","tag-systemory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}