On chaos, cause & effect and control

Again nods to Rob at Learn Sigma for getting our juices flowing today with a very thought provoking and power linked piece on the influence of randomness, chaos and luck on, well, everything really. Martin over at Fairsnape had intimated an interest in the same field during a bit of email ping pong a couple of weeks ago too

In particular I was were struck by the message of the book “Fooled by Chance: The hidden role of chance in life and in the markets” . What’s the central sacrilegious message of this book? A lot of our greatest business icons might just be a bit fortunate. Our beloved Dragon’s Den-ers may just be lucky? Surely not, they always get it right, don’t they? But then again Rachel Elnaugh’s luck did desert her a bit a while back. It is difficult to know what lessons we are supposed to be learning. You can pick up any number of “how to” books by business gurus at any airport, but it is difficult to determine sometimes whether to treat them as technical manuals or a lesson on the art of publicity. After all, in many cases the name is the draw. But hold on a moment, how does this celebrity status sit with Jack Welch’s view on iconic leadership, where charisma rules. In his words, staff may have “their face towards the CEO and ass towards the customer”

Anyhow, this stirred something way back in the darkest recesses when I used to read a few odd books. The Celestine Prophecy, for example, which does not so much deal with randomness and chance, but more with the creation of the right type of attitude and circumstances and relying on the belief that this will bring about good things in a sort of fatalistic way. Ultimately it is still a cause and effect doctrine (ish). But more … erm … New Age. But there is a view there that an attempt to control is more effort than what it’s worth and if you trust to luck (ish) things will work themselves out. Apparently Adolf Hitler was also a great believer that most things just sorted themselves out. Time to change the subject

Buddhism works on similar principles of cause and effect, from micro to macro level, Butterfly Effect and all that. However Buddhism’s quite Newtonian when you look at it in a physical context of action and reaction. That’s why I like it and think the Dalai Lama is a top bloke. Not that I’m religious in any way (Capable Blog is a secular site). It’s just that it’s difficult to conceive that the world would be a worse place if the DL was in charge

So let’s make some attempt to pull together these ramblings with the chaos at the top of this blog. While Buddhism is rooted fundamentally in cause and effect, it does not attempt to unravel or predict at a macro level, not because it’s chaotic, but because it’s just too complex. It generally encourages everyone to look after their own little corner and suggests that everything will form an aggregate of harmony from all it’s little bits of goodness. Sort of. Nice isn’t it?