Alexander Koptyakov
Applied Love
Writer: Now I understand why half of the children's room in our house is littered with toys, and give the children a new one every time! Their natural intelligence requires new data to develop!
Engineer: By the way, at some point in time, they abandoned attempts to create at once a complete artificial intelligence, that is, a machine indistinguishable from a human. They followed the path of partial artificial intelligence – speech recognition, text recognition, text translation, pattern recognition, and so on. And they have advanced quite far at the moment. At the same time, a technological leap is not quantitative, but qualitative. Who prevented before hanging every entrance and every piece of road with cameras? Yes, only before a hundred cameras meant a hundred monitors for a person in a control room, but now, videos from a thousand cameras are processed automatically, and only the one with useful information is displayed on the monitor.
Consultant: Or without a person at all! Exceeded the speed limit? Receive a fine by email!
Engineer: Yes, the examples are endless. The main thing that needs to be understood here, returning to technological evolution, is that every time with a new technological revolution there was a leap not only in technology, but also in the economic structure, in the thinking of people. Each time, one economy was replaced by a new, more efficient one and displaced the previous one. Well, have we made some progress in understanding how the World really works?
Consultant: Perfectly. And I am even able to explain it to my wife tonight with the example of a washing machine! By the way, I was here recently in a sports store. So: at the checkout, you no longer need to bring things one by one to read the barcode. You just throw an armful of sportswear into a plastic box, and the full list and the total amount to be paid are displayed on the screen. Apparently, a chip with detailed information is already sewn into each thing. So we are one step away from the moment when the washing machine starts sorting linen, synthetics and cotton by itself!
Writer: How scary to live… I suggest we stop for today. See you again, my friends!
08 Evolution
Consultant: I read a little about the human nervous system. It turns out that the signal travels at a speed of less than one hundred meters per second. It turns out that a digital signal travels through optical cables at the speed of light from one side of the country to another faster than a nerve impulse from one side of the head to the other!
Engineer: I'll tell you more. You probably guess that nerve cells do not connect to each other like wires that are twisted at the ends? Each nerve cell has one axon – a process through which an electrical signal goes from the cell, and many dendrites – processes through which the signal comes to the cell.
Writer: Dendro is a tree from Greek.
Engineer: So, dendrites branch, and the place where the axon connects to the dendrite is called the synapse. In this case, the signal is transmitted chemically. An electrical discharge comes, the axon releases a chemical substance – a neurotransmitter, this substance acts on the dendrite and after that it generates its own electrical signal, which is transmitted to the receiving nerve cell. Electricity-chemistry-electricity. This, by the way, is used in pharmacology: drugs, painkillers and also poisons. One chemical compound activates nerve impulses, like neurotransmitters, another compound, hitting the right place, can suppress signal transmission.
Writer: What is the difference between white neurons and gray ones?
Engineer: Are you asking about white and gray matter in the brain? The gray matter is just the bodies of nerve cells, and the white matter is the connections between them: dendrites and axons. The nerve cell itself is like a separate computer, not, even like a separate industrial controller.
Consultant: What is the fundamental difference between a computer and an industrial controller? Is the controller more reliable?
Engineer: Not only. Industrial controllers were created to control technological processes. And to some extent, their architecture repeated the way the human nervous system was arranged, at the level of understanding of the middle of the twentieth century, of course, at the time when controllers were created.
Sensors (S), as senses, transmit information about temperature, pressure, differential pressure, level in the tank and so on (depending on the sensor) through afferent connections to the “brain” – a programmable logic controller. These signals are read, processed and calculated, then, at the end of the program cycle, commands are sent to the actuators (A) by efferent connections. Then the loop repeats over and over:
1. inputs;
2. signal processing and calculations;
3. outputs.
Consultant: It turns out that the controller can interact and control processes in the external environment?
Engineer: Within the available sensors and actuators, yes. If there is a self-diagnosis, then it can control the internal parameters as well. But if we are talking about a person, then the general regulation is carried out not only by the nervous, but also by the immune and endocrine systems. At the same time, the nervous one is the fastest.
Consultant: The importance of communication speed is understandable. Especially if you take a multinational company as a large organism. If the signal about hot or cold from my fingers would come only after a few minutes to the brain, then I would have lost my hand long ago before I could pull it down! It's the same in a large company. In general, it seems to me that only now, with the advent of fast Internet, mobile devices and cloud data storage, it has become possible for humanity to exist as a single organism.
Writer: You know, in my body there are no cells dying of hunger, but in the world it is not at all like that!
Engineer: By the way, did you know that nerve cells always eat first? They constantly need an influx of glucose from the blood for vigorous activity, and they practically are not able to store it or generate it. Therefore, brain cells “eat” all the time. But if the level of glucose in the blood rises by more than 0.1 percent, then the pancreas begins to secrete insulin, and then all other cells in the body can receive glucose. Without insulin, glucose can only be absorbed by nerve cells.
Consultant: I have always said that organizational management is "nerve-racking" and should be well paid! :)
Engineer: Please do not apply the diagram that I drew on the board head-on to organizational development, because it is outdated. There is no intelligence, that is, adaptation based on the use of experience. In the body, of course, there is not one nerve cell, but billions of cells that form all kinds of network configurations, but even if you draw a diagram of one nerve cell, then I prefer the way our physiologist Petr Anokhin, Pavlov's student. He described it like this:
Consultant: Admit it – did you draw the star yourself?
Engineer: The star – yes, it is mine :) It's just easier to draw five connections. It turns out that before the nerve cell emits a signal further along the efferent axon, one triggering afferentation, that is, the incoming signal, is not enough. A synthesis of triggering afferentation, situational afferentation (“what else is there, what is the context?”), memory (“were there similar situations in the past, how did they end?”) and dominant motivation (this is when there is a strong desire to satisfy a certain need, and anything can serve as a "trigger").
Writer: Well, that is, the signal can "enter" and "not exit"? Loop somewhere. Or vice versa – to accumulate, and then break out on a far-fetched occasion?
Consultant: Gentlemen! Yes, this is a cycle of experience in Gestalt philosophy! Just do not confuse it with the life cycle of organization by Ichak Adizes. Gestalt cycle for a specific situation, which, of course, are also different and can last from a few seconds to many years.
Writer: I don't know anything about Gestalt, but this curve reminds me of a conventional fight in Iaido – the art of using the Japanese sword that I practice. And there can be one fight – a whole life lived. Judge for yourself, I will briefly describe the very first combination. Although it is the first on the list, it can be practiced for years and by its execution the teacher will always see the level of the trainee. So, the first combination is “Ippon me Mae”: “The fencer meets the enemy. Both are sitting. The enemy prepares to attack. The fencer quickly draws his sword, slits the enemy's throat and finishes him with a downward slash. Shaking the blood off the blade, the fencer sheathes the sword and stands up with dignity."
Consultant: This is tin! Did you know that our Orthodox writer is a cold-blooded killer?
Writer: Come on. It's just training. Nobody really cuts anyone, just shadow fighting. Although the training sword, Iaito, is a complete replica of a real Japanese sword, in weight and size, even the stingray skin on the handle, only the blade is made of a non-magnetic non-sharpening alloy. And in one combination (kata – in Japanese) there are so many small nuances: angles, turns, centimeters. The position of the eyes is important. In general, you can watch a video on the Internet, or, according to your inner feelings, it is very similar to what you drew on the blackboard. That being said, there is one option for doing the kata correctly, and a million options for making a mistake.
Engineer: As the same Pyotr Anokhin said, there are an infinite number of combinations of neuron connections, and organization is the rejection of unnecessary degrees of freedom in the current situation!
Consultant: Yes, the more personal freedom everyone has, the less general organization everyone has… I thought, looking once again at the definition of “love” on the whiteboard… How is it that at first there was no life; then the first living cell appeared; and now, after billions of years, we have what we have – the World full of diversity?
Engineer: There are two main theories where the first living cell could have originated – at the bottom of the ocean or in hot mud baths, as in Kamchatka. The second option is closer to me, since it is important not only the presence of a chemical broth, but also ultraviolet light, which could not reach the bottom of the ocean. In addition, it still remains a mystery how the cell membrane was formed, and the size of the pores in the clay is appropriate in size, and the clay walls could become the cradle for the first living cell.
Writer: Incredible!
Engineer:Very likely.
Writer: I'm talking about something else. The Bible at the very beginning says: "And the Lord God created man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." And also – Lazarus, who was resurrected by Christ, never laughed after his resurrection. He laughed only once when he saw that a man in the market was stealing an earthen pot. Lazar said: "Clay steals clay"!
Consultant: What a twist! But further – even more interesting! At first there were unicellular, then multicellular appeared, then many-many-cellular… At the same time, multicellular, that is, more complexly organized entities, are more effective. Because if this were not so, then the primordial broth would still gurgle on Earth. It turns out that there is some unknown force that all the time increases the organization of living matter! And if you imagine the first step of development, when the first multicellular creature appeared – a two-celled entity, then inside it two living entities-cells began to interact with each other, as a single whole with themselves! That is, if we take love as a property similar to temperature, then the total “temperature of love” on Earth has increased!
Engineer: I seem to begin to understand where you are going…
Consultant: Exactly! You gave the definition of love, and I propose a whole law based on it! The difference in love in the world is always greater than zero! dL> 0, where L is the total love on Earth, which is constantly growing! If this were not so, then the world, as we see it now, would not exist.
It is clear that many forces are at work at the same time. And if an airplane is flying in the sky, this does not mean that the law of universal gravitation has ceased to work. And if you mentally climb to the moon and, again mentally, observe the Earth throughout the entire time from the moment of the birth of life to the current moment, then it will simply phenomenologically be obvious that life does not survive, but, once it is born, it spreads and grows, it is divided in itself and is organized again at a higher level. And at each cycle, at each iteration, at each earthly inhalation and at each earthly exhalation – the total love increases! Writer, could you please remind us of the Law of Love, which Jesus Christ formulated to replace the Ten Commandments? …
Writer: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
Consultant: Now, if I now take the definition of “love” from the Engineer and paraphrase these two commandments, it will turn out: “The first commandment: do not forget that you are a living whole part of a living One Whole. The second, similar to it: when interacting with your neighbor, do not forget that you are two living whole parts of a common living One Whole.”
Engineer: What about evolution?
Consultant: So this is evolution! Love, once manifested, increases over time. And if humans forget about it, evolution will correct humans! You said – "laws are not invented, but discovered." Here's another law for you. The Law of Love. We have just rediscovered it two thousand years after the birth of Christ!
Engineer: This needs to be considered…
Consultant: I agree. I'm shocked myself!
Writer: See you again, my friends!
09 Development
Engineer: It turns out strange somehow. After all, entropy has not been canceled. With the passage of time, energy should dissipate, orderliness should decrease. And you seem to logically show that the organization on Earth is constantly growing. Some kind of perpetual motion machine…
Consultant: Why is it a perpetual motion machine? The sun is shining, here's a constant flow of energy. Ultimately, according to some scientists, the Universe expands and cools down, so life is fed from this.
Writer: And when the Universe stops expanding, stops, and then generally starts to shrink?
Consultant: Then not only our law will have to be revised! :) By the way, if the Universe is infinite from us in any direction, then you and I are in its very center! But seriously, returning to entropy, in my practice of organizational development I stopped using the word “build”, but I try to use the word “grow”. “Grow the team,” “grow the process,” and so on. Everything, as our Writer likes – respect for words. It turns out slower, but more durable. For example, if you start building a house and plant a tree next to it. In a few months, you can raise several floors up, and the tree will grow hardly a few centimeters. But abandon everything, leave it, and come back in five years. What will you see? It is very likely that you will see the dilapidated skeleton of an unfinished building and next to it – an adult strong tree!
Engineer: Well, it also depends on the soil…
Consultant: Sure. But initially it all depends on whether you plant a stone or a seed. With people, this is clearly visible: put one in the position, and he is like a stone: while you push, he rolls, if you stop touching, he lies where he was put. On the contrary – forget about the other person, you will return after a while, and there everything has blossomed, the fruits are ripe, and he still requires a bigger pot from you, because growth is slowing down!
Engineer: Do you know why plants grow upward?
Writer: Are they reaching for warmth, for the Sun?
Engineer: Not. Even if the seed is placed so deep that there is the same temperature around it, it will still stretch upward with its stem and downward with its roots. It turns out that plants have special cells that “sense” gravity! Accordingly, the plant begins to grow towards the opposite center of the Earth. They even did experiments in space in zero gravity – they unrolled the pots with plants: they grew in the center, against the centrifugal force.
Writer: Amazing!
Consultant: And the living plants themselves do not seem amazing to you? Take an acorn for example and plant it in the ground. In a hundred years there will be a huge oak tree. Yes, just by weight you can compare for a start – an acorn and an oak! But the acorn didn’t have a few trucks with wood with him. It just got into the soil and started growing, taking everything from the environment. And after all, from the very beginning, a plan was laid in it to develop not into a pine, not into a birch, but into an oak! The very word "development" is also interesting. First there is “envelopment” (from “envelope”), and then development. Oh, and I forgot to tell you the story about the violin!
Engineer: Exactly! I completely forgot to remind you. Something about violin, project management and information technology.
Consultant: Since we started talking today about “building a house” and “planting a tree”, then about “raising a son” we also need to say a few words. I started playing the violin for a reason. I will say more, after I started, now I never say “never”! Because before that I was sure that I could do almost everything in my life, but playing music or singing is not my topic, and all that remains is to look with respect from the bottom up at the musicians who can do what is beyond my control. However, at the age of two, we took our son to violin lessons. It turned out that there is a school founded by a Japanese, Shinichi Suzuki, in which children begin to teach music and play various musical instruments from early childhood.
Writer: How is it possible? You can make a small violin, I admit it. But how to teach kids the music when they don't know the letters yet? At two years old, you said you started?
Consultant: This is one of the foundations of the method. Suzuki once asked a question – “How do small children start talking at the age when they don't know letters and words yet? Can the same be applied to violin playing? " It turned out – it can. First, you learn to play melodies, and then, when they are already “under your skin,” you are shown the notes. The same as with the letter literacy: first, children recognize the taste of an apple, and then they are shown a picture and said – “This is the letter A – Apple!”. But this is not the most important thing that I wanted to tell. And it’s not even that a parent must be involved in the class so that a triangle is formed: teacher-student-parent, and so that the child has an example and a musical environment in front of his eyes. I wanted to tell you about the Agile approach
Engineer: Is it when all stages are not planned long and carefully before implementation, as in the classical approach to project management, but they quickly create a simple viable product, immediately show it to the customer, receive feedback, and so, in cycles of several weeks, improve functionality? Many digital product development teams do this today.
Consultant: Listen to the story, it will be interesting. Once I came to a regular seminar of the curator of our violin teacher from London. We were just starting to study, and we just went to see how other children played. And after the concert there was a separate conversation with the parents. And so this slender English grandmother with a violin, who had studied with the founder himself, began a story. It turned out that since she travels a lot and everywhere with a violin, she meets a lot of people who, in their childhood, also began to learn to play the violin in a classical music school. Conversations start, people tell their stories. And in most stories, after years of difficult practice, the violin was put aside. People remember this with sadness and regret.
Engineer: Many are learning, but only a few become virtuosos. This is logical.
Consultant: In fact of the matter. You take the child, set him a big, difficult-to-achieve goal, to which you have to go for many years. With a high probability, at some point, he will leave the distance, drop his hands and become unhappy, since the goal has not been achieved.
Writer: Or, on the contrary, he will become happy if he abandons what his parents forcibly imposed on him.
Consultant: All the same – torment before that. And in the Suzuki method it is different. I experienced it myself when I decided to study by myself. My teacher and I started to learn how to play one simple melody “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the violin. After a couple of weeks I could already play it on one string, after another couple of weeks – completely, with my fingers pressing the strings. This is an incredible experience! A month ago, you were an ordinary person, and now you are standing with a violin in your hands and playing a simple but beautiful melody! I was happy!
Writer: You have been studying for almost a year now, is there any further progress?
Consultant: Now I'm playing the twelfth melody from the first book. At the same time, the study of musical notation has just begun to approach. But it is not important. It is important that I become happy from the very beginning, from the very first tune. With each new melody learned, the skill grows, and the happiness grows! From the very beginning, the goal was not to embrace the immensity, but to achieve a small, crooked, but whole and lively result. Now each round of development is a new round of happiness! Now it seems to me that I will play the violin for the rest of my life.
Engineer: Well, cool! Agile approach in all its glory! Do you know that Life itself works according to "agile"? A human baby's heart begins to beat in the third week after conception! And after three months the baby is like a real human, only the size of a ripe apple. Further – only growth and development.
Consultant: In this case, the classic approach to project management can be compared to the creation of a “Frankenstein monster”! :) First, a whole body is assembled from parts of different corpses, and then they try to revive it. Again the same question – "grow or build?" In this case, there is a place for both the first and the second. About the monster – I said this for contrast. If you are building a house, then it is wiser to do it step by step, like a hundred other houses were built before. Another thing is that life began to change rapidly, the situation tomorrow is not similar to the situation yesterday, the old proven approaches cease to be effective. You have to move in small steps in order to correct in time and not make a big mistake. Maybe that's why the agile approach is becoming more and more popular?