{"id":627,"date":"2004-06-26T11:15:13","date_gmt":"2004-06-26T15:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/metasj\/2004\/06\/26\/failure-modes\/"},"modified":"2004-06-26T11:15:13","modified_gmt":"2004-06-26T15:15:13","slug":"failure-modes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2004\/06\/26\/failure-modes\/","title":{"rendered":"failure modes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’d like to spare a few words to address failure modes in nature, life, and society. Occasions when great potential vanishes, powerful forces cancel eachother out, or metastable situations shift suddenly, with speed and force. Suggest a few of your own…<\/p>\n

\nIt’s interesting to note the difference between a ‘positive’ dramatic shift, and a philosophical ‘failure mode’ — from the perspective of a cool-headed system of dynamic equations, they are mirror images of one another; run time backwards and you get the other kind of shift. On the other hand, in all but the most fundamental natural shifts, these two look very different… flash-freezing of a waterfall, or the spontaneous creation of order — the conversion of a mass of identical slime mold cells into a large, functional, three-dimensional sporophyte over the course of hours — feels very different to me than an avalanche, the cataclysmic collapse of land above a fault line, or the eruption of a volcano.<\/p>\n

\nBut not all failure modes are bad; they are merely modes which produce the “failure” of an equilibrium, despite — perhaps too quickly for — normal equilibrium forces that would counteract such change.<\/p>\n