The Nature of Adaptation

There aren't any free lunches in complex adaptive systems.

Adaptation is a key aspect of all complex adaptive systems—it's in the name, after all. They take inputs from the environment, autonomously make decisions, and then shape their behavior accordingly.

It's best thought of as a process first and foremost. Adaptation is also a state in which the system has temporarily found a niche for itself in which it can survive and prosper. You say that something is adapted to an environment because it has gone through (and continues to go through) that process of adaptation.

There is a strong natural desire to resist adaptation. We want to remain static and stable, indifferent to the world that swirls around us. In some cases, that is both possible and positive. Out in the natural world, for example, organisms only adapt when they have to—otherwise they'll stay roughly the same. It's only when selective pressures present themselves that the evolutionary process kicks in.

In the human world, this is the equivalent to a large, monopolistic business simply gliding along on its dominant position. It makes sense, as they have very little incentive to do anything beyond the bare minimum.

But most organisms, and most people, don't have that luxury. If they behave as if they inhabit a monopolistic position, they'll get swept away by selective pressures. There's no escaping the fact that adaptation is, in most cases, the wise move.

Habitat vs Environment

This brings us to an important distinction, between an environment and a habitat:

1. An environment is your physical surroundings. This is a neutral concept, as it's possible to exist within a hostile habitat just as it's possible to exist within a neutral or positive habitat.

2. A habitat is an environment you're adapted to. It is a subset of the environment concept, in which an organism's traits match the problems its surroundings well enough that it can reproduce and survive.

A fish's environment always contains water, but its habitat is more specific—saltwater, freshwater, coastal, swamp, etc. Every organism has some kind of habitat where it fills a niche, which is discovered through an adaptive process. This is true even for generalist creatures like human beings.

When you struggle to solve problems, it's often because you're operating outside of your habitat. As hard as this may be to accept, you cannot force an environment to accommodate you—you're better off flowing into a different context.

It's worth asking yourself, over and over again, am I in my habitat or am I just surviving in an environment? If you're just surviving in an environment, you're only making things difficult for yourself. Find your habitat, and the solutions will follow.

Trade-Offs

What's even more important to realize about adaptation is the fact that there are always trade-offs. There's no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to adaptive problem solving:

• Gills keep you alive underwater, but will kill you on land.

• Wings are great for flying, but terrible for grasping.

• Speed is great for catching prey, but requires copious energy.

There is no such thing as an organism that is optimally adapted to all environments, nor is it possible to simultaneously improve all aspects of an organism's fitness. The future is uncertain and there are limited resources available for every creature on the planet. Compromises must be made.

Problem solving in complex environments will always present dilemmas. If there weren't dilemmas, the solutions would be clear. It's the difference between tic-tac-toe and chess: there are simple, optimal strategies for tic-tac-toe, but there are too many variables and dilemmas for that to ever be the case for chess.

The idea of limited resources includes time, especially in fast-moving environments like the internet. Opportunities may only be available for a short period of time, which means you're better off throwing something out into the world rather than waiting for a solution that covers all bases. If you've spent any time in the world of early-stage businesses, this is often called a minimum viable product (MVP).

As it turns out, nature has been churning out MVPs since the beginning. The process of adaptation does not pump out optimal solutions. It's more accurate to say that it generates "good enough" solutions that get the "job" of survival and reproduction done—nothing more, nothing less. That's the attitude you need to solve problems well in the world you find yourself in today.

Dilemmas Rule Everything Around Me

Adaptation is at the core of the problem solving game, but it's only the beginning of the solution process. The rest of this book outlines some of the most fundamental dilemmas a decision-maker faces in unpredictable, complex environments.

You'll also notice many of them share similarities. This is simply a reinforcement of the recurring idea from ecology that everything is connected to everything else. When you can see through the lens of one dilemma, it often gives you the tools to deal with others.

Dilemmas also overlap in many cases, or represent the same problems cloaked in different guises. When you have a multidimensional perspective on the nature of your problems, it often provides the edge you need to come out ahead.

John Boyd, while delivering his famous lecture series A Discourse on Winning and Losing, liked to use a metaphor about how different people look at a pyramid to explain why it's important to utilize multiple perspectives. He'd start by giving the example of a group of people who had only ever seen pyramids from a single angle:

You only had the opportunity to see pyramids from the side. Only from the side. You'd go through life thinking pyramids are triangles. Now let's say we got another group, different from our group here, and they only got to see pyramids from the top. They'd think there were rectangles with intersecting diagonals. A square. So now let's say this group then interacts with the other group, and they start talking about pyramids, and say, "These guys are goddamn idiots." And it's you he's talking about and he thinks you're an idiot. But you're both talking about the same thing from what? A different point of view. You're both correct, partially. But from a different point of view.

The same can be said about complex problems in general, as well as the dilemmas that follow. No single perspective is complete or will give you "the answer," but if you can synthesize multiple viewpoints you can come up with unique and powerful solutions.