Johnson begins by revealing how the order that a layman may perceive in an ant colony is not a result of directions from the top down. Instead, the order is from the innate knowledge of the ants who work together to create a complex colony with strategically placed garbage areas and dead ant pits. One cannot understand the complexity of an ant colony by looking at the influence of the queen because the queen does not really have any power as a human queen would. In reality, the queen is simply another part of the system and gives rise to further complexity in an ant colony. From here, Johnson analyzes human civilization specifically with cities during the industrial revolution. Manchester is one such city within which order arose even though there was no direction. To a traveler, Manchester was a city so new and so complex that it could not easily be described by common conventions. It was filled with visual and auditory noise and was difficult to take in. Yet, people could still live there with a structured society because there was order. The divisions between the middle class, the slums, and factories gave rise to the complexity of the city. Johnson implicitly draws a parallel between Manchester and the ant colony by describing how the chain of power really did not have an effect on the layout of the city. Despite the fact that people were in charge in Manchester, there was not any formal urban planning. Yet, a complex city made of simple divisions arose simply because of a natural human tendency to make a system that works. Johnson describes this contradictory nature:
The city seems artfully planned to hide its atrocities, and yet it “has been built less according to a plan” than any city in history. As Steven Marcus puts it, in his of the young Engel’s sojourn in Manchester, “The point to be taken is that this astonishing and outrageous arrangement cannot fully be understood as the result of a plot, or even a deliberate design, although those in whose interests it works also control it. It is indeed too huge and too complex a state of organized affairs ever to have been thought up in advance, to have preexisted as an idea.” (Johnson 198)
The system is specially made to work perfectly for those who make it. Yet, it cannot be planned out by a single expert. Davidson’s idea that the collective is more effective at finding a solution than an expert through crowdsourcing can be applied here. The nature of this organized complexity is that many simple people come together to work in harmony, creating this complex system. The city still follows rules such as certain people having more power and a more important role. However, such roles are derived from the participation of the many people involved. The harmony from the collective is what differentiates organized complexity from disorganized complexity. Johnson describes this distinction using a quote from Claude Shannon:
Much more important than the mere number of variables is the fact that these variables are all interrelated…. These problems, as contrasted with the disorganized situations with which statistics can cope, show the essential feature of organization. We will therefore refer to this group of problems as those of organized complexity. (Johnson 203)
At times, complexity can easily be explained through statistical techniques. Using such techniques, one can easily predict the outcomes of certain situations based on probability. Though organized systems can be just as easily explained, explanations do not rely on a statistical analysis of the random elements of the system. Instead, the simple elements work together to create a coherent, unified system which works the best. In this way, the simple input of the all the individuals in a system creates the most efficient result which is in line with Davidson’s thinking. Johnson and Davidson both describe how the collective is more effective than the expert, though Johnson goes further in describing how these principles can be applied to technology. Using Davidson’s logic that the collective is smarter than the individual and Johnson’s logic that collective can make a system that works for itself, it is derived that the best solution comes from individuals working in harmony.
I enjoyed your comparison of organized systems using statistical analysis. It's completely true that many organized systems can be analyzed statistically and generalizations can be created using probability, and that the "organized complexity" Johnson describes in his essay is more random and unpredictable due to the vast number of minuscule factors. However, one aspect I disagree with you is on their shared stance that a group is more effective than a single expert. While it is clear that Davidson argues for collective learning and widespread crowdsourcing in the classroom through her extensive use of bias, Johnson takes a much more unbiased stance, and rather explains the phenomenon of "organized complexity" and its applicable uses. He primarily uses anecdotes to explain his ideas and never argues for crowdsourcing or anything similar to be applied in anything other than the already existing occurrences, such as the behavior of ants or the logic of an AI.
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