Comments on _The Choice_ by Goldratt, chapter 4

I read and took notes on chapter 4 of _The Choice (Revised Edition)_ by Goldratt.

> CHAPTER 4: Inherent Simplicity

In this chapter Goldratt talks about Newton's perspective on nature/reality. 

> He continues. "What Newton tells us is that the opposite happens; the system converges; common causes appear as we dive down. If we dive deep enough we'll find that there are very few elements at the base—the root causes—which through cause-and-effect connections are governing the whole system. The result of systematically applying the question "why" is not enormous complexity, but rather wonderful simplicity. Newton had the intuition and the conviction to make the leap of faith that convergence happens, not just for the section of nature he examined in depth, but for any section of nature. Reality is built in wonderful simplicity."

> Very observant of you to notice that I substituted the word 'reality' for the word 'nature'." He is apparently pleased. "I'm not talking just about nature, not just about the material world—atoms, electrons, molecules, enzymes. I'm talking about every aspect of reality, including people and whatever they create. The same convergence, the same wonderful simplicity, exists in any aspect of reality. Reality is built in wonderful simplicity."

> I have my doubts. Softly I say, "I know that in the hard sciences Newton's speculation is accepted as the foundation; scientists are looking for the root causes without even asking, 'Are we sure that they exist?' But that is not the case in the social sciences. Show me a psychologist who will agree that reality is simple." To provoke him I add, "Don't you know that people are different, that they have the freedom of choice?"

hmm, I think that the inherent simplicity concept can be applied to Common Preference Finding (CPF). I think to do CPF well the people involved need to think that there's a simple solution to the problem of the existence of conflicting initial preferences. So like if someone thought that finding a CP was complex, they wouldn't put in the effort because they think they'd fail if they tried.

> Look at the system and ask yourself, 'What is the minimum number of points you have to touch in order to impact the whole system?' If the answer is one, then the system has only one degree of freedom. That's the case in system B, where if you impact the bottom circle you impact, through the cause-and-effect arrows, every other circle. If the answer is four, as in the case of system A, then the system has four degrees of freedom. By the way, a system that has four degrees of freedom is many orders of magnitude more complex—harder to control and predict—than a system that has only one degree of freedom.

There are far more degrees of freedom in a person than compared to anything else in the universe.

And since an organization is a collection of persons, it has even more degrees of freedom than just one person.

But an organization can setup policies, a culture, that the people are supposed to follow. This reduces the degrees of freedom. (People can't be expected to 100% follow the policies/culture but a good job can be done of it. People who are found to not follow the policies/culture can be improved via training or fired. So there's a convergence happening with each of these training or firing events.)

Oh and the same logic applies to one person. A person can setup rules for himself. Each rule is designed to avoid a category of unwanted outcomes. Each rule reduces the degrees of freedom.