Bejan's Constructal Law
Description
". Bejan’s “Constructal Law” is an empirically derived dead ringer for the Gurdjieffian Law of Three. In this specific case first force (the active force) is the current moving through the flow system. Second force (“holy denying” or the force of constriction or resistance) is the medium through which the current flows: the earth that the tree root or river bed must force its way through, the physical structure that will contain the passengers rushing to their airline gates. Third force (“holy the reconciling”) is the Constructal Law itself, that dictates “in all cases, maximize ease of access.” My suggestion is that when we transcribe this to the political realm, it yields us our most effective functional definition of “the common good.” The common good is, effectively, third force. It is both fluid and firm, an algorithm for ensuring the most skillful situational mix of first and second force. And in the end, the resultant—the new arising— is a democratic biosystem which, like a tree, is always shifting and morphing, but alive and reaching higher, fed by all that has sustained it, and by all that calls it forth."
(https://cynthiabourgeault.org/2021/08/18/the-common-good-from-an-evolutionary-perspective/)
Commentary
Cynthia Bourgeault:
"In this regard, once again we have much to learn from the scientists and engineers. In describing how the “constructal law” (a.k.a., The Law of Three) works to support intelligent design emerging from within the system itself, Adrian Bejan lays out some fundamental engineering design principles, the most basic of which are that: 1) hierarchy develops naturally in a flow system because using the right combination of components of various sizes is the most efficient way to move the currents; and 2) the optimal combination is that “the time needed to move fast and long should be roughly equal to the time needed to move slow and short.” In other words, an efficient flow system will feature main arteries which carry a high-volume traffic over long distances equally balanced by a network of capillaries which ensure the distribution of the current to all parts of the system. When the proportion is correct—as it was in Atlanta’s award-winning Hartsfield-Jackson airport—the traffic will flow smoothly and spaciously, even under peak usage.
Note that this is not artificial constraint enforced by a series of external regulations. Passengers are not ticketed and fined if they choose to bypass the highspeed railway (“fast and long”) and walk the entire way to their gates (“small and slow.”) But since the intelligence is built right into the design itself, most passengers will freely find their way to the optimal combination.
Reflecting further on this principle, Bejan comments on the dynamic feedback loop between the part and the whole which drives this inner self-regulatory intelligence: “As each component of the flow system evolves to flow more easily, it is also part of a larger system whose shape and structure are also evolving to strike the right balance among all its components to enhance the flow.”
“To put this in human terms,” he concludes, “we could say that the constructal law finds the nexus between individual self-interest and collective action.” (Design in Nature, 178.)
Constraint is not an enemy; it is the necessary driveshaft of evolution. And freedom, as we head into the new structure of consciousness, does not mean the removal of all constraint, but the strategic use of constraint in service of the whole. The balance between “individual self-interest and collective action” remains unsolvable within the mental structure of consciousness because we are still thinking from the part to the whole. But as the capacity grows in us to think from the whole to the part (an evolutionary capacity now being force-fed in the human species through the double constraint of a worldwide pandemic and runaway climate change), I believe we will increasingly come to see that true freedom is experienced in harmonious flow, not in metastatic self-optimization."
— (https://cynthiabourgeault.org/2021/09/05/constraint-and-the-common-good/)