Laureate sheds light on complexity

"The Internet is described by some people as the Gutenberg printing press on steroids," noted Mr Roger Camrass, the distinguished British researcher from the Stanford Research Institute in California.

It was a light-hearted way of introducing an often very serious debate on The Networked Society featuring an eminent futurologist, Mr Alvin Toffler, and an even more eminent Nobel laureate physicist, Mr Ilya Prigogine.

Perhaps the moderator, Mr Camrass, realised the packed audience at the keynote session of the European Union's first annual Information Society and Technology conference in Vienna would need something more manageable than a straight plunge into the ways in which Mr Prigogine's famed theories on complexity and chaos in the physical world could be transferred to the social order - the networked world emerging as computers and the Internet become ubiquitous.

At an utterly simplistic level, the work of the now elderly and frail Mr Prigogine, who is based at a research institute at the University of Texas and carries the weight of 48 honourable doctorates and 60 scientific awards, suggests that physical objects - be they molecules, amoebas, hawthorn bushes or human resource managers - are not governed by a small set of physical laws but instead exist in the midst of a mesh of complex relationships with other objects.

In addition, Mr Prigogine believes that larger systems have greater complexity and thus, greater unpredictability and instability. That instability leads to "bifurcations" - the formation of new structures and new systems.

Transferred to the realm of the human social world by people such as Mr Toffler, the American author of the 1970 international bestseller Future Shock, complexity theory means we should abandon the old hierarchical model of bosses and middle managers and instead institute a flattened management model, a "networked" approach where individuals are given greater responsibility, dissent is welcomed, and services are personalised rather than one-size-fits-all. Allowing for bifurcations - new ways of thinking, creating and working - will allow society, and corporate working environments, to thrive in the computer age.

Mr Camrass said that, just as in the Renaissance, when the field of logic became "the framework in which modern science, arts and philosophy emerged", complexity theory seemed to be a potential tool which could serve "as a possible underpinning of our information society". Thus, he offered the contrast between the Internet, considered by many to be one of humankind's socially-significant breakthrough technologies, and the Gutenberg printing press, which held that role at the dawn of the Renaissance.

The large lecture hall, full to overflowing, was silent as Mr Prigogine, speaking faintly, described his view of the world. "At the beginning of this century, we felt that with a few equations we could dominate and understand the world," he said. "Obviously the world is much richer."

While everyone else on the panel, which included Mr Francois Colling of the European Court of Auditors, Belgian healthcare expert Mr Jan Peers and French Conseiller d'Etat Ms Michele Genderau-Massaloux, saw the information age as a startlingly new development, Mr Prigogine insisted it was nothing new. "We already have one century to judge the effect of the technical revolution," he said.

One eminent jury who considered that question recently, he said, was a large gathering of Nobel winners who, at the last meeting of the Nobel committee, voted on whether the information age "was the start of the dignity of man or of apocalypse. Dignity won by a small margin," he said with a smile.

Nonetheless Mr Prigogine noted the complexities of complexity - new, complex, information-age, social structures could continue to lock out those who already have little. Important questions needed to be asked, he said: Who will benefit and who will be the victims? What will be the effect on individual creativity? Will there be greater harmony between humanity and the natural world?

"We have to direct the information revolution in a way that will answer these questions positively," he said.

In agreement, Mr Toffler said: "We are essentially soldiers in a revolution and that revolution is not just technological. It's integrated with changes in the family, culture, organisational structures, etc. You can't take society out of technology and you can't take technology out of society."

A challenge for businesses and government would be to recognise that "we are moving toward an economy in which capital is increasingly intangible because it's based on knowledge".

In contrast to many critics, he believes new technologies are "adding more diversity to the system" rather than creating one giant, mass market for mass products where "one size misfits all". He pointed to the demand for customised products and "particle markets", adding that the proliferation of technology in America was leading to "heterogeneous markets, families, media".

The introduction of the first mainframe computers back in the 1950s had led thinkers to believe that "computers were going to help us manage all this complexity," he said, but now, he realised they just added to it.

Overall, boundaries were dissolving between home and work, family and work, public and private, he said. Therefore, new social institutions needed to be invented. "We know that highly centralised, hierarchical institutions won't work."

Echoing these ideas, Mr Camrass noted: "The old supply chain, the old production models, are entirely obsolete."

In a challenge to the conference's sponsors, Mr Colling called for the European Union itself to embrace the ideas of complexity, rather than continue to force layers of bureaucracy on member states and in particular, researchers who apply for funding for scientific projects.

"We need to break down hierarchical structures and increase networks," he said, arguing for a more dispersed, Internet-like form of management. "We should increase decision centres and network nodes."

Sitting quietly while the panel wrestled with ideas his theories had spawned, Mr Prigogine was, at the debate's conclusion, given the final say. In contrast to the early years of the century, he said, "we see a different universe, and we have to situate ourselves in that universe". A quiet optimist, he offered a future full of potential: "The possible is richer than the actual." One can assume he probably voted for dignity rather than apocalypse.