1 The Nature of Success Class Seventeen REVIEW!!!! Midterm Exam 1.    55 multiple choice questions 2.    Testing your fund of knowledge 3.    Mainly from lectures, readings that are directly relevant 4.    An ‘A’ means an ‘A’ 5.    Understand the concepts November 6 3 The Nature of Success Class One Introduction and Course Overview 4 Reality is Amorphous Draw a line around the system boundary Indicate the most important challenges the system must face Indicate how the system interacts to face these challenges What it means to draw that boundary line You have defined the domain of success/failure that you want to understand. You have identified the entities inside the boundary that are needed to achieve success (through their interactions). Thus, you have defined your system. You have identified the entities outside the boundary that will pose the challenges/opportunities that must be managed by the system for the achievement of success. You understand that it is the information that comes in from the outside entities and is processed by the inside entities – according to an established set of rules – that defines the functioning of the system. The systems use of this established set of rules is based on the system’s working model of reality. Core Ideas Once a system’s purpose/aims and boundaries are known, then we have to understand the system’s structure and function. A system’s structure describes the entities contained by the system and the particular way they are organized. A system’s function describes how the entities interact with each other and how these interactions form the emergent properties of the system. Emergent properties: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Remarkably, a great variety of different systems have similar structural and functional characteristics. Understanding these commonalities will make our work much easier. Once we get all this we will see that Complex Systems – no matter how complex – usually follow a small number of simple rules. If we can understand the rules of the Complex System containing a domain of success we care about, then we understand the rules that lead to the domain of success we care about. 6 7 The Nature of Success Class Two System Observations 8 The Nature of Success Class Three What is a System? Our Basic System Model Pattern of Emergent Behavior Observed Regularities Behavior of System Elements Positive Feedback Negative Feedback Responding to Ever-Changing Environment Key Points re Systems System Boundaries: what’s in and what’s out System components: what are the entities that comprise the inside of the system? System interactions: what governs the behavior about how the systems entities interact with each other? System purpose: What is the system ‘trying’ to accomplish? What does success and failure mean related to this definition of purpose? System information pr.

1. 1
The Nature of Success
Class Seventeen
REVIEW!!!!
Midterm Exam
1. 55 multiple choice questions
2. Testing your fund of knowledge
3. Mainly from lectures, readings that are directly relevant
4. An ‘A’ means an ‘A’
5. Understand the concepts
November 6
3
The Nature of Success
Class One
Introduction and Course Overview

2. 4
Reality is Amorphous
Draw a line around the system boundary
Indicate the most important challenges the system must face

3. Indicate how the system interacts to face these challenges
What it means to draw that boundary line
You have defined the domain of success/failure that you want to
understand.
You have identified the entities inside the boundary that are
needed to achieve success (through their interactions). Thus,
you have defined your system.
You have identified the entities outside the boundary that will
pose the challenges/opportunities that must be managed by the
system for the achievement of success.
You understand that it is the information that comes in from the
outside entities and is processed by the inside entities –
according to an established set of rules – that defines the
functioning of the system.
The systems use of this established set of rules is based on the
system’s working model of reality.
Core Ideas
Once a system’s purpose/aims and boundaries are known, then
we have to understand the system’s structure and function.
A system’s structure describes the entities contained by the
system and the particular way they are organized.
A system’s function describes how the entities interact with
each other and how these interactions form the emergent
properties of the system.
Emergent properties: The whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.
Remarkably, a great variety of different systems have similar

4. structural and functional characteristics.
Understanding these commonalities will make our work much
easier.
Once we get all this we will see that Complex Systems – no
matter how complex – usually follow a small number of simple
rules.
If we can understand the rules of the Complex System
containing a domain of success we care about, then we
understand the rules that lead to the domain of success we care
about.
6
7
The Nature of Success
Class Two
System Observations
8
The Nature of Success

5. Class Three
What is a System?
Our Basic System Model
Pattern of Emergent
Behavior
Observed Regularities
Behavior of System Elements
Positive
Feedback
Negative
Feedback
Responding to Ever-Changing
Environment
Key Points re Systems

6. System Boundaries: what’s in and what’s out
System components: what are the entities that comprise the
inside of the system?
System interactions: what governs the behavior about how the
systems entities interact with each other?
System purpose: What is the system ‘trying’ to accomplish?
What does success and failure mean related to this definition of
purpose?
System information processing: How does the system use
information to accomplish its purpose?
System dynamics: How does the system change over time and
why?
Regarding success: Always start by ‘planting your flag’.
Responding to Ever-Changing Environment
Adaptation concerns how a system maintains continuity over
time (survives) within the environment in which it is situated
To be successful (in surviving) a system needs to adjust to
changing circumstances and –especially - to changing
competitive landscape.
As we will see, the way the system takes in information from
the environment, transmits it across the system, and responds to
it, will be critical.
Success requires adaptation but is often more than survival. In a
way it means growing in the environment in a way that is
desired.

7. Behavior of System Elements
What are the entities that comprise the system?
How are they organized related to each other?
What is the structure of the system?
What is the structure of a Complex Adaptive System?
System Boundaries
What’s in/What’s out
Sometimes the answer is not so clear (because systems are
embedded within each other/hierarchically organized)
Knowing the correct boundary many require knowing the
correct question (and visa versa)
Observed Regularities
How we observe the behavior of entities within the system
How do they interact. What patterns/regularities do we observe?
Are entities behaving randomly or interacting in a way that
would not be expected by chance.
Once regularities are observed: What do they mean?
Important: The behavior of an entity may appear completely
random, until the system is brought into the picture.
Pattern of Emergent Behavior
With our observations of regularities/patterns of entities, we can

8. ask what does it mean for the system?
What is the system trying to accomplish? What is its purpose?
Such questions cannot be answered only at the level of
individual entities.
How does this work for the bird flock, the ant colony, the slime
mold, the Hanoi traffic community?
What are these systems trying to accomplish within their
defined environment?
System Regulation
Systems use information to increase or decrease activity across
the system
This is called regulation and is based on feedback to members
of the system who respond according to predefined rules.
Positive feedback concerns response to information (feedback)
that increases activity. It leads to system change.
Negative feedback concerns response to information (feedback)
that decreases activity. It leads to system stability.
This regulation best defined within causal loops of activity.
17
The Nature of Success
Class Four
Failure!!
18

9. Challenger System
Challenger System

10. Pattern of Emergent
Behavior
Observed Regularities
Behavior of System Elements
Positive
Feedback
Negative
Feedback
Responding to Ever-Changing
Environment
How Complex Systems Fail
Richard I. Cook, MD Cognitive technologies Laboratory
University of Chicago
Complex systems are intrinsically hazardous systems.
Complex Systems are heavily and successfully defended against
failure.

11. 3) Catastrophe requires multiple failures – single point failures
are not enough.
4) Complex systems contain changing mixtures of failures latent
within them.
5)
The Virtue of Failure
Risk is embedded in human (and non human) existence. Efforts
to eliminate risk (even if possible) limit possibilities to achieve
success
Most important – perhaps – is these efforts limit possibilities to
learn.
There is an important risk/reward tradeoff we must all grapple
with:
Too much focus on gaining reward through taking risks creates
instability and even the possibility of extinction
To much focus on avoiding risk limits opportunity for reward
and for learning (about own capabilities and about what the
environment can offer).
Saxe Interview
22
The Nature of Success
Class Five

12. The Individual within the System
First Principles
A system needs to survive and succeed in its environment
Environments pose multiple possible sources of challenge at any
one time, and changing sources of challenge over the life of the
system.
The specific challenge a system will be exposed to at a given
time – and over time – is often unpredictable.
Therefore – to survive and succeed - systems need to contain a
great variety of ways of addressing the challenges they might
encounter.
This is the foundation of diversity
It is also the foundation of the individual
Start with an Open Field
Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten

13. At center: High chance of harm,
but high chance of reward
At periphery: Low chance of harm
but low chance of reward
In between: Moderate chance of harm,
and moderate chance of reward
Nesters
Explorers
Communicators
An Ordinary Day
Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten

14. A High Reward Day
Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten
A High Reward Day

15. Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten
An Ordinary Day
Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you

16. from being eaten
A High Risk Day
Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten

17. A High Risk Day
Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten

18. What’s the point??
A system’s capacity to succeed is based on diversity
Explorers have less fear and more need for reward
Nesters have more fear and are more sensitive to signals of
threat. More focused on security of system.
Communicators pick up and transmit signals and assist with
reward and security.
Versions of this are found in all human groups (families,
organizations, societies)
Human Diversity
Multiple intelligences
Temperament/Personality
Sex
Gender
Race
Culture
Religion
Geography
Class

19. 33
The Nature of Success
Class Six
How Systems Use Information
Basic Definitions
Information:
A change in a physical process (e.g. sensation) received by a
Knowledge System that the Knowledge System uses to reduce
uncertainty about its environment (external and internal).
Examples:
A change in the patterns of photons received by a birds’ retina
that indicates the presence of an obstacle (a tree) 25 feet ahead.
A change in water pressure received by the scales of 100
sardines indicating the location and speed of an approaching
object (a shark) and causing the 100 sardines to move in a
specific pattern.
A change in revenue of a technology company received by 100
investors who believe such change is important enough to
withdraw a proportion of their investment in the company,
leading to a reduction in stock price of the technology company.
A change in the pattern of photons received by your retina that
indicates the presence of a cigar in a wall.
Uncertainty:
The state of a Knowledge System regarding the possibilities
contained in its environment. The function (and definition) of
information enables a knowledge system to reduce these
possibilities.
Entropy:

20. The number of possible configurations accessible to a physical
system. Information is NegEntropy (i.e. it reduces uncertainty).
Basic Definitions
Knowledge System:
A collection of interacting entities (a system) that is configured
(structured) in such a way that information can be used to
reduce uncertainty about the systems’ environment. The specific
configuration, and pattern of interactions, of the system form a
working model of the systems’ environment.
Examples:
How the birds’ brain (i.e. knowledge system) uses the change in
the patterns of photons (i.e. information) received by a birds’
retina to determine the presence of an obstacle (a tree) 25 feet
ahead.
How the school of sardines (i.e. knowledge system) uses a
change in water pressure felt by the scales of 100 sardines (i.e.
information) to determine the location and speed of an
approaching object (a shark).
How a community of investors (i.e. knowledge system) uses a
change in investment patterns of 100 investors (i.e. information)
to reduce the price of the technology stock.
How a human’s brain (i.e. knowledge system) uses a change in
the pattern of photons (i.e. information) received by a human’s
retina to determine the presence of a cigar in a wall.
Important: Knowledge Systems can be seen at multiple scales
The bird’s brain vs. the flock of birds
The brain of a sardine vs. the sardine school
The investors brain vs. the community of investors
Your brain vs. the classroom of students

21. Basic Definitions
Learning:
How a Knowledge System updates the way it is configured –
based on new information – to change the way it can reduce
uncertainty about its environment. This leads to the system
possessing an adjusted working model of its environment.
Examples:
How a birds’ brain produces a greater shift in the direction of
the bird when it receives a similar pattern of information, after
the bird grazes the tree with its wing.
How a school of sardines produces greater ability to avoid
predators when a gene mutation that leads to greater sensitivity
to changes in water pressure, spreads through the population.
How a community of investors begin to use information on the
investment behavior of more than 100 investors, after losing a
lot of money based on their disinvestment in the technology
stock.
How your brain now sees a cigar in every wall (presented to it
in a lecture by Dr. Saxe).
Important: A change in a working model is not necessarily an
improvement in a working model (but over many trials over a
long period of time, change usually means improvement).
Basic Definitions
Memory:
How a Knowledge System stores adjustments to its
configurations in the form of updated working models of its
environment, such that these updates can be used to process new
information.

22. Expertise:
The capacity of a Knowledge System to form, update, store, and
access working models of its environment such that these
working models can provide the means to effectively use
information to reduce uncertainty of the environment.
Success always involves the application of expertise in this way
(for any area of success you may care about).
What is Information?
Information reduces uncertainty by reducing the number of
possibilities.
Think of the last time you received ‘news’ about anything. The
moment just after you received the news, the number of
possibilities was far less than just before.
At its foundation: Information is transmitted in bits. Bits are- in
essence- answers to yes/no questions.
All information is reducible to answers to yes/no questions.
This is how computers work and it is probably how the brain
works.
In this way, everything is reducible to games of Twenty
Questions.
Think of that game as a process of reducing uncertainty (about
anything).
Two related questions when we consider the use of information
by any system:
How does the system itself use information?
How does an observer of the system determine how the system
is using information?

23. Risk/Reward
Tradeoff
Focus on reward, gets you things of value
(often related to survival)
Focus on risk, keeps you
from being eaten
When the data does not fit your model
Q1
Q4
Q3
Q2

24. Memory: Two Forms
Contemporary Memory: Stored and accessible configurations
within a Knowledge System that were obtained via learning
processes from the direct experience of members of the system
Historic Memory: Stored and accessible configurations within a
Knowledge System that were obtained via learning processes
that predate the lifespan of current members of the system
Genomic
Cultural
41
The Nature of Success
Class Eight
How Systems Change
Core Ideas
Complex Systems change in specific ways
This change is based on risk/reward information received and
guided by the systems’ working model of its environment

25. The process of change in complex systems tend to follow
patterns of non-linear dynamics
Changes in such systems - towards both success and failure -
follow patterns of non-linear dynamics
Understanding how a system succeeds or fails requires
knowledge of these non-linear dynamic patterns
Important to distinguish two types of change:
Changes in system behavior – based on information received –
according to the systems working model (i.e. its characteristic
behavior)
Changes to the working model itself (i.e. learning)
Linear Dynamics
time
amount
Non-linear Dynamics
time
amount
Phase Transition
Non-linear Dynamics
time
amount
Phase Transition
T 1
T 3

26. T 2
T 5
T 4
When food is finished
time
amount
Phase
Transition
T6
T8
T7
T5
Systems Oscillate
time
amount
Growth Phase
Transition
Decline Phase
Transition
Feedback for Dynamic Systems
Pattern of Emergent
Behavior
Observed Regularities

27. Behavior of System Elements
Positive
Feedback
Negative
Feedback
Responding to Ever-Changing
Environment
Growth phase
(amplification/
‘Up’ Regulation)
Decline phase
(dampening/
‘Down’ Regulation)
Decline Dynamics
time
Population
1. Type 2 Mice
enter the
Open field

28. 2. Some Type 1 Mice
Starve, less
reproduction
3. Type 1 Mouse
Pop declines
at critical point
4. Type 1 Mouse
pop at lower,
but stable level
3. Type 1 Mouse
Discover new chirp
4. Type 1 Mouse
pop manages threat
50
The Nature of Success
Class Six
What is an Expert?
A New Basic Definition
Success:
Success is problem-solving and requires the application of
appropriate expertise to find and achieve solutions to the given
problem.
A Problem: A meaningful challenge to a system from its
environment
Problem-solving: The process of reducing the number of

29. possible solutions to the problem to the one(s) that will address
the challenge (achieve the solution)
Finding the solution: The Knowledge Systems’ ability to
effectively reduce the possibilities (i.e. reduce uncertainty)
Achieving the solution: The Knowledge Systems’ ability to
execute interventions to the environment that results in
sufficient diminution of the challenge.
Some Problems
The Mice:
How to know the location and valiance of food and predators
such that we can maintain the size of our population over time?
You (re a Quiz):
How to know what Saxe is talking about such that his questions
make any sense to me and I can put down the correct answer?
The Candy Bar Company:
How to set the right price for our Candy Bar that maximizes our
profits?
A Dance Company:
How to launch our next show that maintains our artistic
integrity and sells enough tickets so that we can pay our bills?
A Football Team:
How to win todays game, even though our Quarterback is
injured and we have not defeated our opponents in the last 2
seasons?
Solving These Problems Require:

30. A Knowledge System that defines the problem accurately
A Knowledge System that attends to the right information from
the environment related to the problem definition
A Knowledge System that understands how to use the right
information to reduce possibilities
A Knowledge System equipped to enact interventions that are
effective for addressing the problem
A Knowledge System that is able to detect the impact of its
interventions and to use this information to update its relevant
working model
Was the problem defined accurately?
Was the right information used to reduce possibilities?
Were possibilities reduced sufficient to arrive at the right
solution?
Was the intervention executed according to the determined
solution?
Is there anything else that was missed?
A Knowledge System that is able to store the updates to its
working model for a more effective intervention towards the
problem, the next time the problem is encountered.
And that is Expertise
Leave right after class
Don’t stop to talk with friends
Don’t stop to go to the bathroom
Get to class on time, 90%
Working Model: If I start walking right when class ends and I
don’t stop to talk with friends on the way, and I don’t go to the
bathroom on my way, I will get to my next class on time.

31. Success Definition: Get to your next class on time, more than
90%
Working Models, Reducing Uncertainty, and Causal Diagrams
Funds for Star
Choice of Star
Interpretation of role
Choice of costume
100K Revenue
Success Definition: Gain $100,000 in revenue for the $100,000
spent
Working Model: We need to spend at least ¾ of the budget on
the actress who will star in this show because a strong
performance and will lead to good reviews and good ‘word of
mouth’ buzz. This, more than anything else, will drive ticket
sales: our main source of revenue. Additionally, the actress and
director must make sure that the role is interpreted in a
compelling way for our likely audience and –
given the nature of this role – the right costume will be very
important.
Working Models, Reducing Uncertainty, and
Causal Diagrams
Producer
Business Manager
Casting Director
Director
Costume Designer

32. Marketing Director
Ushers
Lights
Sound
Star
Cashiers
Pool of Possible Ticket Holders
Other Theaters
Pool of Actors
Pool of Employees
Investors
Theater Company System
The Expert
Accountant
Spouse
Best
Friend
Advisor
Boss
Partner1
Partner4
Partner3
Partner2
The Expert
Present
Future
Past

33. Building Expertise
Member Training
System Historic
Knowledge
Applying Expertise
Anticipating Expertise
Present
Future
Past
Deliberate Practice
Automatic Practice
Automatic Practice
Deliberate Practice
Deliberate Practice
60
Once the expert working model is set, its automatic. That is why
expertise can look (and feel) so easy
Deliberate practice is targeted at new possibilities, where the
expert is unfamiliar. This serves to expand the Knowledge
Systems capacity to find solutions to a very wide range of
problems
Experts challenge their working models, throughout their lives,
this is why they become experts
Experts avoid the usual bias to interpret information and
prepare for what may come from within their working models
Deliberate Practice

34. 61
The Nature of Success
Class Ten
Where does expertise come from?
Core Ideas
A Knowledge System expresses expertise through the quality of
its working models of its environment.
A working model expresses a domain of ‘knowledge’ and the
domain of knowledge is useful for a specific purpose: to solve a
specific problem
Success is problem-solving and requires the application of
appropriate expertise to find and achieve solutions to the given
problem.
Where does a Knowledge Systems’ knowledge (working
models) come from?
What is knowledge?
Knowledge is a defined process for using information
This defined process specifies a set of rules for how relevant
information should be used to solve a specific problem (i.e.
knowledge is algorithmic)
Its value to a Knowledge System is based on its capacity to
solve specific problems related to challenges to the system from
its environment

35. Knowledge gains in value over time through improvements,
based on experience with versions of the problem that needs to
be solved
Knowledge improved over generations can be extremely
valuable, given the amount of experience that has gone into its
refinement.
Knowledge can be biological (genes) or organizational/cultural
(memes).
The Test of Time
Most forms of knowledge (biological and
organizational/cultural) have been abandoned because the
specific knowledge did not impart sufficient value for solving
problems. Knowledge that is now ‘here’ has ‘passed’ the test-
of-time.
This does not mean that all such forms of knowledge are good
and that none should be abandoned. Its simply to say that we
need to have a lot of humility in abandoning knowledge
transmitted across generations (due to the vastly limited
perspective of all individuals).
This is one reason that the art-of-life is subtle, complex, and
difficult.
Two common mistakes in understanding the causes of success

36. The Expert
Accountant
Spouse
Best
Friend
Advisor
Boss
Partner1
Partner4
Partner3
Partner2
Narrow Spatial Frame
Present
Future
Past
Knowledge over past generations
Knowledge over
present lifespan
Narrow Time Frame

37. Knowledge passed
to future generations
Knowledge: Two Forms
Contemporary Knowledge: Stored and accessible configurations
within a Knowledge System that were obtained via learning
processes from the direct experience of members of the system
Historic Knowledge: Stored and accessible configurations
within a Knowledge System that were obtained via learning
processes that predate the lifespan of current members of the
system
Genomic
Cultural/Organizational
69
The Nature of Success
Class 11
Changing the game: Innovation

38. Core Ideas
Given a perpetually changing environmental landscape, the
capacity for a biological system or social/organizational system
to succeed is based on the system’s capacity to generate and use
new knowledge to face challenge.
This is the innovation process. We will call such new
knowledge needed by the system to face challenges: ‘ideas’
Ultimately, all ideas have a physical form and this physical
form is transmitted as ideas across systems
Ideas that contains survival value and value for a system
achieving its purpose is more likely to spread broadly (and
rapidly) across the system: and even jump between similar
systems.
Some systems are better than others for spreading ideas. This is
a question about the system infrastructure for innovation.
What is innovation?
A change to the rules!!!!
Present
Future
Past

39. Building Expertise
Member Training
System Historic
Knowledge
Applying Expertise
Anticipating Expertise
Why change the rules??
A Systems Perspective on Innovation
What is the idea?
What is the system that will use the idea?
What system challenge does the idea address?
How does idea relate to system survival and/or system purpose?
How much does system survival and/or system purpose depend
on the spread of the idea?
How will the system spread the idea?
How equipped is the system to spread the idea?
How dangerous is the idea?
Type 1 Mouse
Running Head: Individual Assignment III
University of the Cumberlands

40. Individual Assignment III
September 9th, 2017
Student’s Name
Abstract
An abstract is a single paragraph, without indentation, that
summarizes the key points of the manuscript in 150 to 250
words. For simpler papers in this class, a shorter abstract is
fine. The purpose of the abstract is to provide the reader with a
brief overview of the paper.
Individual Assignment III
This is where the body of your paper begins. The major
components of your paper (abstract, body, references, etc.) each
begin on a new page. These components begin with centered
headings at the top of the first page
Font should e New Times Roman ( 12 pts, and space between
sentences should be doubled.
You simply can paste your text in this document and format it
as the destination.
References
Ajournalarticle, R. H., Spud, P. T., & Psychologist, R. M.
(2016). Title of journal article goes here. Journal of Research in
Personality, 22, 236-252. doi:10.1016/0032-026X.56.6.895*
B’Onlinesourcesareconfusing, S. O. (2010). Search for answers
at apastyle.org and include issue numbers after volume numbers
when there is no DOI. Journal of Articles Without Digital
Object Identifiers, 127 (3), 816-826.
Cmagazinearticle, B. E. (2009, July). Note the last names on
this page: Each source type has to be formatted in a different
way. [Special issue]. Prose Magazine, 126 (5), 96-134.
Dbookreference, S. M., Orman, T. P., & Carey, R. (1967).
Google scholar’s “cite” feature is

41. University of the Cumberlands
School of Computer and Information Sciences
Class: ISOL536-Security Architecture and Design.
Instructor: Dr. Ahmed Ben Ayed.
Assignment: Week 6 Individual Assignment.
Length: Minimum of 600 words.
Total points: 45 points.
Using the University Digital Library or the Google scholar
website, locate a peer reviewed
article about privacy. Write a critical evaluation of the article;
make sure to include three to five
key points that you thought were important. All of the key
points should be written in your own
words, and the article must be properly cited using APA-style.
Your work should include at least
two references.

42. Nb: Attached you will find an APA template to be used for your
assignment. Any different
format will not be accepted.