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009: The Structural Dynamics of Flow
May. 5th, 2021 09:46 pmAmong all of the useful metaphors for thinking about systems and the world we live in, few get as much mileage as flow. It’s a simple concept, easily observed in nature, and essential to life. We can go on living thanks to flows of air, water, and food (energy) into our bodies, and the same is true of any living thing. Many inorganic systems require flows to function as well. My truck needs a flow of gasoline in order to avoid an accumulation of street sweeping tickets. But what exactly is a flow, and can it illuminate less obvious things in unsuspected ways?
In terms of Merriam-Webster, a flow is a continuous stream of something. Anything, really. As long as a bunch of it moves from Point A to Point B, we have a flow. It isn’t the movement itself that constitutes the flow, but the repetition. A single bullet fired from a gun is an event, sure. It travels, yes. But unless it’s followed within a reasonable time frame by quite a few more, it isn’t a flow. If I fire the whole nine yards, that’s a flow, until the belt runs dry, at which point it isn’t. Tough to pinpoint how many rounds and what kind of space between breaks the threshold of “flow”. Maybe it’s when we no longer distinguish between the discrete elements—the individual bullets, or the single drops from the faucet—and perceive it as a unified movement. At any rate, we know one when we see one.
Lots of things flow. To take the three mentioned in terms of the human body to a higher order, weather, rivers, and sunlight provide the basis for the stuff we breathe, drink, and eat. We can come up with more abstract examples, too. Money flows, more or less. So does traffic, Amazon distribution lines, and the waves that bring us radio and TV. Since it’s just a continuous movement, I could say that a musician playing an instrument is a flow, and more abstractly, the musical trends that give rise to new genres. The one I’ll return to most in this essay is water, as in a river, or a network of pipes. It doesn’t always provide the best illustration, but it’s by far the easiest and most familiar.
What does a flow look like in a system? A mind, in particular? The only way for one part in a system to give feedback to another part is by creating a difference between then and now. Which is to say, what flows is information, which Bateson defined as a difference that makes a difference, i.e. gets noticed. When I want my truck to go faster, I press the accelerator noticeably harder, which opens up the flow of fuel, which causes a cascade of notable differences that end in the tires turning a lot faster than before. I confirm the increase by the difference in the speedometer, and the rate at which objects pass by the window. It works the same in a mind. Information is noticed, and a response is given in terms of more information. We are constantly taking in and putting out information, and to another mind, even the conspicuous absence of information can be used as information.
In order to figure out how this metaphor can be useful, I’ll need to define a few more states other than flow. First, assuming something like information flows through me, what am I? Pipe? In fluid dynamics, the term for a discrete (has a beginning and end) volume within a flow is a control volume, and it’s used to do things like measure rates of flow and changes, as well as predict what must have happened elsewhere based on changes within the control volume. That’s almost good enough, but I want it to be able to change the flow in a noticeable way as well as react to changes upstream and downstream. I’ll call it an “agent”: any control volume capable of noticeably changing the flow. A 90-degree bend in a pipe is a change I notice. So is a regulator, etc. When information flows into a mind, that mind transforms it before sending it back out again, so it’s an agent as well. Food flows into my body, and when it comes out the other end it’s a lot less appetizing, so the human body would be an agent in terms of that energy flow. Whether the change is in direction, rate, composition, or anything else, an agent has acted on a flow.
There are also a few different ways for there to be a condition other than a flow. If a flow is movement in and movement out of the control volume, then when there is neither movement in nor out, I’ll call that “lack”. Movement in, but not out, as when water is filling a resevoir but not overflowing it, is an “accumulation”. If there is something present but no movement in nor out, as when water is present in the pipe to the bathroom faucet but the faucet is closed, obstructing all movement, that will be “stasis”. Finally, movement out of a control volume, but not in, is a “drain”.
Sounds pretty boring, but now any agent who spots any kind of flow (or wants to spot one where none exists) has an easy way to determine what’s going on and what is needed, based on a simple yes/no to three questions*: 1) is that thing present? 2) is it moving into the control volume? 3) is it moving out of the control volume? An obvious example: income. Is there money in the local economy? Yes. Do I have it flowing in? No. Do I have it flowing out? Yes. A drain! Soon to be a lack. What’s required to establish a flow? The inflow part. Flows of money are probably the least-imaginative way to use this metaphor, but I start here because it’s easy and any fool can see how it works and why it might be important.
*In truth, it’s more of a question of the rates of inflow and outflow relative to one another than a strict presence or absence, but treating it as a yes/no makes for a simpler heuristic. Once it’s understood, anyone can add complications as they find useful. It’s easier to complicate something simple than to simplify something complicated.
Redirecting this away from the abstract and back along more practical lines, how do changes in types and rates of flow affect an agent? If I want to avoid being harmed by a flow, I need to be able to stop it (as with turning off the faucet), contain it (as in a reservoir), or keep it moving in a direction and at a rate that I choose. If there is too much flow, I’m flooded. Pipes burst, rivers change direction. Not enough, and the channels are damaged. In the case of a lack they may rust out entirely. Even in the stasis of a few weeks vacation, you’ll return to find your faucet sputter and spit gunk until enough water passes to flush them clean. And that’s the key: controlling the rate. When water runs through pipes in an intended fashion, they work pretty well and remain clear and clean. In rivers, the bed is cut deeper and deeper, stabilizing the course more as time passes.
Since it’s part of a system, if the agent’s volume is filled to capacity and there is no outflow, all flow stops. Not just at the agent, but upstream as well. A wreck blocks the interstate, and the effect stretches far back and continues to do so until the block is removed. But a full stoppage is not required to gum up the works. In the case of a choke point, you might have more lanes of traffic coming in than there are lanes going out, so while the flow isn’t stopped, it’s seriously hampered. Flows run smoothly when the rate in and the rate out are balanced. Otherwise a back pressure will soon bring the inflow down to match the outflow. That’s an important concept for a popular restaurant to understand. If there’s a long line of customers and a single slow cashier, that business will serve far fewer customers than the line would suggest. Opening up the rate at which people leave might not generate much of a line, but it could significantly increase the number of orders filled in a day.
On the flipside, if they hired fifty cashiers, no one would ever wait, but the outflow would exceed the inflow, and maybe there’s something to be said for having a small line in terms of appeal, not to mention reducing the minimum wage salaries spent on cashiers. That incoming pressure just needs to be released judiciously.
Let’s say a local contractor is flush with clients, but he keeps getting more calls because his past clients won’t stop telling their friends about his good work. Would it be better to refer them to a competitor, or simply wait list them until doomsday? Either way he has enough work to last into the foreseeable future. It seems like it either doesn’t matter what he picks, or if anything, he should keep them away from the competition. But according to the principles of flow, he should refer them. Why? Too much in, not enough out. He has maxed out his rate of flow through the conduit he has, which is taking the contracts and completing them. The rate of inflow will never increase (assume hiring another crew is out of the picture because he’s tried that and the extra hassle and diminished quality of workmanship isn’t worth it). He can still keep people flowing through him by opening another conduit, the referral one. Even though he’s flush now, there’s no guarantee that will always be the case, and that channel may end up flowing both ways in the future. Not to mention more people going through him just means more contacts and more future clients. Even if it doesn’t get him any additional money, it’s stimulating to the local building economy, of which he’s a part. Cycling through all that demand might even raise prices and attract more people willing to put in the time to become skilled workers, which would allow him to hire another crew at sustainable wages in the future. At worst, it’s a nice gesture and the competition isn’t immediately relevant since he has a huge wait list.
Another more interesting question occurs to me. Why do writers get writers’ block when composing fiction, but jazz musicians don’t get musicians’ block when jamming? I’ve never seen a guitarist sit at his instrument for hours agonizing over which note to play next. His fingers keep moving. Sometimes what he plays sucks, but he plays it. In other words, he maintains an outflow. The rate of inflow—in this case, creative compositions—is linearly related to the rate of outflow. If you gunk it up, not only are you not producing anything, but you have very few creative ideas coming in. Playing or writing badly at least flushes the rust and lets you move on. The faucet flows better when the tap is open. (The converse would be someone who won’t shut up long enough to learn anything worth talking about).
It’s noteworthy that you can more or less “force” a flow through an agent where none existed by heaping a sufficient inflow on them. Systems like equilibrium. If you get one ceramic coffee cup from your neighbor with the pottery wheel, you might keep it. Three, yeah maybe we can use three cups. Somebody might come to our house some day. A whole pallet-load? Likely you’ll be redistributing them to friends, garbage cans, or if you’re smart, Etsy. Organizations have used this tactic for years against the kids involved in fundraisers. Heap a quota of stuff to sell, and especially if they have to pay for the difference, they’ll move it. Often that means a few generous family members end up with twenty boxes of cookies each (which they in turn redistribute to avoid a diabetic coma).
Flows consist of something—be it water, information, or cookies. Often those things just don’t keep. They need to move at a certain rate, or else they spoil. This is the accumulation problem. With all but the most durable moving things, a flow is preferable to accumulation. The latter is only really useful with things that last, and the future flow of which is extremely unreliable. The fact
that very few objects meet both criteria doesn’t stop people from piling up what would better serve
passing through. Sometimes folks just don’t want to spread the love around, no matter how much is coming in (*cough*toiletpaperinapandemic). Luckily, agents can be removed from a system if they begin to act more like a septic tank than a conduit.
And remember that not all flows are desirable. Garbage in equals garbage out, and if it doesn’t go out, garbage in equals a landfill.
In short, the metaphor of flow can be used to assess any continuous stream of anything (or lack thereof). Once I know what the state is and what I want it to be, I can adjust the inflows and outflows to achieve a more optimal result. Let’s look at an example—Randy is learning to code through online resources with the goal of eventually getting a stupid-large salary as a developer.
In the course of learning, Randy asks himself, what, if anything, is flowing here? Information, in particular, knowledge of coding. How much, and how fast? Randy looks at the rate and frequency at which he studies new modules. Do I have a capacity to store the medium that’s flowing? Do I even want to store it, and if so, how much of it? In this case, yes, he can store information that he learns in his memory, and needs to. A certain amount can be expected to be forgotten the first few times it’s encountered. The inflow, which would the the amount of learning and studying modules that he does, should not be so little that he easily recalls everything, and not so great that he forgets most of it or becomes lost. Now how much leaves, and how fast? In this case, the outflow would be time spent practicing the coding skills he learns. All learning and no practice won’t be optimal. Neither will learning something very simple and practicing it for months even after it’s down pat. The rate of new learning and practice needs to be balanced so that he is neither overwhelmed or stagnant in his progress. In this case, his outflows, practice programs he writes, could potentially end up being part of a portfolio to gain employment. Too much both in and out—practicing 10+ hours a day every day—might overwhelm the system and lead to a leak, if not a burst pipe, which in this case means his mental health.
This is not a static determination. The flows will need to be occasionally reassessed and tweaked. There is always a time component to a flow, and its treatment needs to change accordingly over time.
Of course, it’s never as simple as Point A to Point B. McMillan CEO Lawrence Lacroix does a much better job than I could explaining what his industrial piping firm does and why people pay the big bucks to have it done: “We consult concerning the obstacles, challenges, and insecurities that come up against the simple act of delivering an element from one place to another. To name a few: attrition, gravity, mischief, calamity, incompetence. Also, erosion, contraction, expansion, buffoonery.” But that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
In terms of Merriam-Webster, a flow is a continuous stream of something. Anything, really. As long as a bunch of it moves from Point A to Point B, we have a flow. It isn’t the movement itself that constitutes the flow, but the repetition. A single bullet fired from a gun is an event, sure. It travels, yes. But unless it’s followed within a reasonable time frame by quite a few more, it isn’t a flow. If I fire the whole nine yards, that’s a flow, until the belt runs dry, at which point it isn’t. Tough to pinpoint how many rounds and what kind of space between breaks the threshold of “flow”. Maybe it’s when we no longer distinguish between the discrete elements—the individual bullets, or the single drops from the faucet—and perceive it as a unified movement. At any rate, we know one when we see one.
Lots of things flow. To take the three mentioned in terms of the human body to a higher order, weather, rivers, and sunlight provide the basis for the stuff we breathe, drink, and eat. We can come up with more abstract examples, too. Money flows, more or less. So does traffic, Amazon distribution lines, and the waves that bring us radio and TV. Since it’s just a continuous movement, I could say that a musician playing an instrument is a flow, and more abstractly, the musical trends that give rise to new genres. The one I’ll return to most in this essay is water, as in a river, or a network of pipes. It doesn’t always provide the best illustration, but it’s by far the easiest and most familiar.
What does a flow look like in a system? A mind, in particular? The only way for one part in a system to give feedback to another part is by creating a difference between then and now. Which is to say, what flows is information, which Bateson defined as a difference that makes a difference, i.e. gets noticed. When I want my truck to go faster, I press the accelerator noticeably harder, which opens up the flow of fuel, which causes a cascade of notable differences that end in the tires turning a lot faster than before. I confirm the increase by the difference in the speedometer, and the rate at which objects pass by the window. It works the same in a mind. Information is noticed, and a response is given in terms of more information. We are constantly taking in and putting out information, and to another mind, even the conspicuous absence of information can be used as information.
In order to figure out how this metaphor can be useful, I’ll need to define a few more states other than flow. First, assuming something like information flows through me, what am I? Pipe? In fluid dynamics, the term for a discrete (has a beginning and end) volume within a flow is a control volume, and it’s used to do things like measure rates of flow and changes, as well as predict what must have happened elsewhere based on changes within the control volume. That’s almost good enough, but I want it to be able to change the flow in a noticeable way as well as react to changes upstream and downstream. I’ll call it an “agent”: any control volume capable of noticeably changing the flow. A 90-degree bend in a pipe is a change I notice. So is a regulator, etc. When information flows into a mind, that mind transforms it before sending it back out again, so it’s an agent as well. Food flows into my body, and when it comes out the other end it’s a lot less appetizing, so the human body would be an agent in terms of that energy flow. Whether the change is in direction, rate, composition, or anything else, an agent has acted on a flow.
There are also a few different ways for there to be a condition other than a flow. If a flow is movement in and movement out of the control volume, then when there is neither movement in nor out, I’ll call that “lack”. Movement in, but not out, as when water is filling a resevoir but not overflowing it, is an “accumulation”. If there is something present but no movement in nor out, as when water is present in the pipe to the bathroom faucet but the faucet is closed, obstructing all movement, that will be “stasis”. Finally, movement out of a control volume, but not in, is a “drain”.
Sounds pretty boring, but now any agent who spots any kind of flow (or wants to spot one where none exists) has an easy way to determine what’s going on and what is needed, based on a simple yes/no to three questions*: 1) is that thing present? 2) is it moving into the control volume? 3) is it moving out of the control volume? An obvious example: income. Is there money in the local economy? Yes. Do I have it flowing in? No. Do I have it flowing out? Yes. A drain! Soon to be a lack. What’s required to establish a flow? The inflow part. Flows of money are probably the least-imaginative way to use this metaphor, but I start here because it’s easy and any fool can see how it works and why it might be important.
*In truth, it’s more of a question of the rates of inflow and outflow relative to one another than a strict presence or absence, but treating it as a yes/no makes for a simpler heuristic. Once it’s understood, anyone can add complications as they find useful. It’s easier to complicate something simple than to simplify something complicated.
Redirecting this away from the abstract and back along more practical lines, how do changes in types and rates of flow affect an agent? If I want to avoid being harmed by a flow, I need to be able to stop it (as with turning off the faucet), contain it (as in a reservoir), or keep it moving in a direction and at a rate that I choose. If there is too much flow, I’m flooded. Pipes burst, rivers change direction. Not enough, and the channels are damaged. In the case of a lack they may rust out entirely. Even in the stasis of a few weeks vacation, you’ll return to find your faucet sputter and spit gunk until enough water passes to flush them clean. And that’s the key: controlling the rate. When water runs through pipes in an intended fashion, they work pretty well and remain clear and clean. In rivers, the bed is cut deeper and deeper, stabilizing the course more as time passes.
Since it’s part of a system, if the agent’s volume is filled to capacity and there is no outflow, all flow stops. Not just at the agent, but upstream as well. A wreck blocks the interstate, and the effect stretches far back and continues to do so until the block is removed. But a full stoppage is not required to gum up the works. In the case of a choke point, you might have more lanes of traffic coming in than there are lanes going out, so while the flow isn’t stopped, it’s seriously hampered. Flows run smoothly when the rate in and the rate out are balanced. Otherwise a back pressure will soon bring the inflow down to match the outflow. That’s an important concept for a popular restaurant to understand. If there’s a long line of customers and a single slow cashier, that business will serve far fewer customers than the line would suggest. Opening up the rate at which people leave might not generate much of a line, but it could significantly increase the number of orders filled in a day.
On the flipside, if they hired fifty cashiers, no one would ever wait, but the outflow would exceed the inflow, and maybe there’s something to be said for having a small line in terms of appeal, not to mention reducing the minimum wage salaries spent on cashiers. That incoming pressure just needs to be released judiciously.
Let’s say a local contractor is flush with clients, but he keeps getting more calls because his past clients won’t stop telling their friends about his good work. Would it be better to refer them to a competitor, or simply wait list them until doomsday? Either way he has enough work to last into the foreseeable future. It seems like it either doesn’t matter what he picks, or if anything, he should keep them away from the competition. But according to the principles of flow, he should refer them. Why? Too much in, not enough out. He has maxed out his rate of flow through the conduit he has, which is taking the contracts and completing them. The rate of inflow will never increase (assume hiring another crew is out of the picture because he’s tried that and the extra hassle and diminished quality of workmanship isn’t worth it). He can still keep people flowing through him by opening another conduit, the referral one. Even though he’s flush now, there’s no guarantee that will always be the case, and that channel may end up flowing both ways in the future. Not to mention more people going through him just means more contacts and more future clients. Even if it doesn’t get him any additional money, it’s stimulating to the local building economy, of which he’s a part. Cycling through all that demand might even raise prices and attract more people willing to put in the time to become skilled workers, which would allow him to hire another crew at sustainable wages in the future. At worst, it’s a nice gesture and the competition isn’t immediately relevant since he has a huge wait list.
Another more interesting question occurs to me. Why do writers get writers’ block when composing fiction, but jazz musicians don’t get musicians’ block when jamming? I’ve never seen a guitarist sit at his instrument for hours agonizing over which note to play next. His fingers keep moving. Sometimes what he plays sucks, but he plays it. In other words, he maintains an outflow. The rate of inflow—in this case, creative compositions—is linearly related to the rate of outflow. If you gunk it up, not only are you not producing anything, but you have very few creative ideas coming in. Playing or writing badly at least flushes the rust and lets you move on. The faucet flows better when the tap is open. (The converse would be someone who won’t shut up long enough to learn anything worth talking about).
It’s noteworthy that you can more or less “force” a flow through an agent where none existed by heaping a sufficient inflow on them. Systems like equilibrium. If you get one ceramic coffee cup from your neighbor with the pottery wheel, you might keep it. Three, yeah maybe we can use three cups. Somebody might come to our house some day. A whole pallet-load? Likely you’ll be redistributing them to friends, garbage cans, or if you’re smart, Etsy. Organizations have used this tactic for years against the kids involved in fundraisers. Heap a quota of stuff to sell, and especially if they have to pay for the difference, they’ll move it. Often that means a few generous family members end up with twenty boxes of cookies each (which they in turn redistribute to avoid a diabetic coma).
Flows consist of something—be it water, information, or cookies. Often those things just don’t keep. They need to move at a certain rate, or else they spoil. This is the accumulation problem. With all but the most durable moving things, a flow is preferable to accumulation. The latter is only really useful with things that last, and the future flow of which is extremely unreliable. The fact
that very few objects meet both criteria doesn’t stop people from piling up what would better serve
passing through. Sometimes folks just don’t want to spread the love around, no matter how much is coming in (*cough*toiletpaperinapandemic). Luckily, agents can be removed from a system if they begin to act more like a septic tank than a conduit.
And remember that not all flows are desirable. Garbage in equals garbage out, and if it doesn’t go out, garbage in equals a landfill.
In short, the metaphor of flow can be used to assess any continuous stream of anything (or lack thereof). Once I know what the state is and what I want it to be, I can adjust the inflows and outflows to achieve a more optimal result. Let’s look at an example—Randy is learning to code through online resources with the goal of eventually getting a stupid-large salary as a developer.
In the course of learning, Randy asks himself, what, if anything, is flowing here? Information, in particular, knowledge of coding. How much, and how fast? Randy looks at the rate and frequency at which he studies new modules. Do I have a capacity to store the medium that’s flowing? Do I even want to store it, and if so, how much of it? In this case, yes, he can store information that he learns in his memory, and needs to. A certain amount can be expected to be forgotten the first few times it’s encountered. The inflow, which would the the amount of learning and studying modules that he does, should not be so little that he easily recalls everything, and not so great that he forgets most of it or becomes lost. Now how much leaves, and how fast? In this case, the outflow would be time spent practicing the coding skills he learns. All learning and no practice won’t be optimal. Neither will learning something very simple and practicing it for months even after it’s down pat. The rate of new learning and practice needs to be balanced so that he is neither overwhelmed or stagnant in his progress. In this case, his outflows, practice programs he writes, could potentially end up being part of a portfolio to gain employment. Too much both in and out—practicing 10+ hours a day every day—might overwhelm the system and lead to a leak, if not a burst pipe, which in this case means his mental health.
This is not a static determination. The flows will need to be occasionally reassessed and tweaked. There is always a time component to a flow, and its treatment needs to change accordingly over time.
Of course, it’s never as simple as Point A to Point B. McMillan CEO Lawrence Lacroix does a much better job than I could explaining what his industrial piping firm does and why people pay the big bucks to have it done: “We consult concerning the obstacles, challenges, and insecurities that come up against the simple act of delivering an element from one place to another. To name a few: attrition, gravity, mischief, calamity, incompetence. Also, erosion, contraction, expansion, buffoonery.” But that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
