ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Introduction Traditional financial models assume markets are efficient, linear, and predictable. But real markets behave as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) - networks of interacting agents that self-organize, adapt, and generate emergent patterns. Using synthetically-generated data to mimic the price of a financial asset, this article examines eight key properties that distinguish CAS from traditional equilibrium models.  1. Path Dependence Markets exhibit path dependence: different sequences of events lead to different outcomes, even from identical starting conditions. History matters because early events can "lock in" trajectories that constrain future possibilities.   The visualization shows five simulated price paths starting from the same point. Despite identical initial conditions, different sequences of regime shifts and shocks cause the paths to diverge dramatically. By day 500, outcomes range from 40% losses to 150% gains - demonstrating that the order and timing of e...

  The image above plots the Global Economic Policy Index from 1997 to Mar 2025. The Index is compiled by https://www.policyuncertainty.com/about.html an econmic research institute. Its methodology can be obtained from its website.  We can clearly see that the ups and downs are getting increasingly extreme. You can see it when you compare the height of the peaks registered during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 2008 US Sub-Prime Mortage Melt-Down, the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic, and the recent MAGA Madness.  The reason for greater and greater bouts of Uncertainty volatily is that as countries of the word become more and more interconnected through technology and trade, the world economy becomes a SuperOrganism with a life of its own- a.ka. A Complex Adaptive System (CAS). The properties of a CAS are feedback loops, adaptation and co-evolution, emergent behaviour, decentralization and distributed control etc. The full list of properties is given below.  Another r...

  WHY IS AN LLM ABLE TO GENERATE OUTPUT THAT SEEMS TO BE MORE THAN JUST PREDICTING THE NEXT WORD?  (LLMs as Complex Adaptive Systems with properties of Emergence). If an LLM (Large Language Model) is all about predicting the next word via a probabilistic function, (as explained in all AI textbooks) how is it able to generate such creative, seemingly intelligent answers to our questions? My hypothesis is that LLMs are Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) such as those found in Nature, the Physical Sciences, and Human Society. (weather, insect colonies, economies and financial markets, flocks of birds and shoals of fish as Superorganisms, stampedes, viruses, city traffic flows, fluid dynamics, all manner of networks with feedback loops).  One of the attributes of a CAS is that it exhibits the phenomenon of Emergence.  Emergence is when something complex and unexpected arises from the interactions of its individual components (Agents). Emergence happens when (1) there are int...

ATTENTION! INTELLECTUALS You can take a Personality Test and get the result like I did below. Just click on the links. My Personality Test Result INTJ - "Mastermind". Introverted intellectual with a preference for finding certainty. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 2.1% of total population. Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI) This wonderful image above, from Richard Seel of New Paradigm Organization Consulting http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk gives a clear insight into the nature of Emergence. Emergence is a property that occurs in most Complex Systems, from stock markets, to Cities, Ant Colonies, Chemical Reactions, Hurricanes and even to Computer generated Cellular Automata. Kevin Mihata describes Emergence as " the process by which patterns or global-level structures arise from interactive local-level processes. This "structure" or "pattern" cannot be understood or predicted from the behavior or prop...