Determinism in a Complex World

摘要

Most people like predictability in most things. We have grown up in an age when systems and products have been designed to act in a particular fashion when certain inputs or environments are encountered, and we have grown to expect that behavior in most things.We call that deterministic behavior. If A happens, then B results. When we flip the light switch, the light either turns on or off, depending on what the prior state of the light was before we flipped the switch. When we put something in the refrigerator, we expect it to be maintained at a preset cool temperature. We expect that when we press on the accelerator of our car, it will speed up. That predictability makes us comfortable. A myriad of rule sets and standards have been developed over the years for practically all things to ensure that they act the way they are intended to act with nearly perfect reliability. Testing has been designed to put things into extremes of circumstances to ensure that they do in fact do what is expected all the time.