Publikationen
Lapp, Christian (2007): Basic Concepts of Understanding Catastrophes. International Center for Climate and Society, University of Hawaii, USA, working paper.
Introduction
Following the ideas about a definition of catastrophes as radical regime changes in systems proposed by Ossimitz and Lapp (2006a) and the general approach to understanding the philosophical foundation of space and time by Schwarz (1992) we try to study the term “catastrophe” and to investigate the aporias connected with it. It is understood to be crucial to discuss the dilemmas and/or aporias connected with catastrophes for every academic approach and especially when it comes to modeling disasters either in models of disasters themselves or as sub models of models concerning other topics (like the ISIS-model on society and economics (Grossmann, Magaard, Marsh)).
Approaching a definition of “catastrophes”
In this approach we should start with the general, everyday concept of catastrophes. Whenever discussing the term with people either from the academic field or outside, you usually get to the point, where every individual has their own “private” definition: Some see a certain degree of damage in lives or goods as criterion, some think that human beings have to be affected in some way, others would consider a huge eruption of an volcano on e.g. Mars as a catastrophe as well, just because it seems to be extraordinary. On the other hand, events that would be disastrous, when they would happen on earth, but are routine on e.g. the sun, are not considered as catastrophe.
Following that, we come to a first, and highly unsatisfying, individual-based definition:
1. Whenever a person calls something a catastrophe, it is one (at least for that individual).
Some quantitative approaches have been taken, like by the UNO, that defines a hunger catastrophe when the amount of people that died from starvation exceeds a certain number (UNO), but these approaches do not seem to be helpful in understanding the nature of catastrophes, as there are no objective criteria for determining the number, though they might be very useful in practical terms, when it comes to coordinating help etc.
Ossimitz and Lapp (2006a) give a comprehensive overview of the existing definition attempts and come up with a proposal that uses the mathematical catastrophe theory (Thom) and the concept of bifurcations as it is used within the theory of self organization (Prigogine and Stengers, 1986). Ossimitz and Lapp define a catastrophe as system’s behavior that changes the basic rules of the system itself. Therefore a catastrophe is contradictory to the system or to the system’s set of rules.
When using the concept of bifurcation to define catastrophes, you get away from the individual approach and become able to use the objective criteria that exist for bifurcations in order to assess some system’s behavior as catastrophe.
2. Catastrophes are bifurcations. Behavior that does not satisfy the objective criteria for a bifurcation cannot be seen as a catastrophe.
At this stage it is still unclear, whether the opposite might be true as well: Is every bifurcation a catastrophe? If so, we could drop either term or use them synonymously.
The everyday concept of catastrophes has a negative connotation, understanding disasters as “something bad happening”, whereas the term bifurcation does not have this meaning; e.g. falling in love on first site is a bifurcation in terms of emotions but would not be recognized as catastrophe. [radical innovations could also fall into this definition]
For our approach of finding objective criteria for a definition we have to be careful with this, not to fall back to the initial state of only individual perception, which seems to be inherent in this distinction between good and bad things happening. For example leaves falling off a tree in autumn, is a disastrous behavior (a) on the level of the leaves and (b) on a short-term time-scale for the tree, as it looses its ability of photosynthesis, but is (c) crucial for the long-term survival of the tree. This also leads to the problem of different scales or levels between regular and disastrous behavior, which will be discussed later (Ossimitz and Lapp, 2006a).
Here we cannot only try to find objective criteria for assessing behavior as positive or negative, but we can also try to prove, that this distinction cannot be made upon objective criteria and is solely subjective. If we can prove, that we cannot objectively prove a distinction in positive and negative bifurcations, this distinction has to be dropped.
It is obvious that there is no general framework that would let us know what is positive and negative or good and bad, as this is one of the basic questions that mankind faces. But for certain cases we can define a framework that lets us distinct. Whenever we define (ideally) quantitative scales then we can define that an increase along that scale is negative while a decrease is positive or vice versa. For example could be the scale “number of people dying from car accidents in one year”. If an event, which fulfills the criteria of bifurcations, leads to an increase on this scale, we can call it a “negative bifurcation” or catastrophe.
3. If we are able to indicate a framework, in which we can assess bifurcations as positive or negative by objective criteria, then we can call negative bifurcations as catastrophes within this framework.
Aporias and Dilemmas associated with catastrophes and models
The terms “catastrophe” and “regular behavior” can only be understood with respect to each other. A catastrophe is outside the scope of regular behavior – be it as a bifurcation as stated here or as an extreme event as stated by other authors; and regular behavior is every behavior that is not catastrophic.
Aporia 1: Regular behavior and catastrophes are contradictory towards each other and are negatively defined upon each other. There is no catastrophe possibly thinkable without regular behavior and regular behavior does only make sense, when there is behavior out of the regular at least possible. [Draw a distinction. Spencer-Brown]
When it comes to modeling catastrophes, we have to deal with two dilemmas.
The first follows from what has been said above and comprises of:
Lemma 1.1: Catastrophes break the rules, are unexpectable and out of the scope of regular behavior.
Lemma 1.2: Models operate with contradiction free rules. Results can be understood as expected outcome of the rules. [The role of chaotic models has to be clarified here.]
Leading to:
Dilemma 1: Catastrophes cannot be modeled as they do not follow the rules; and a modeled catastrophe is not a catastrophe anymore, but has changed into a portion of regular behavior.
The second dilemma deals with the problem that catastrophes operate in other levels or scales of space and time than regular behavior does and these levels cannot be reduced one on the other or on a common third one.
Lemma 2.1: Catastrophes follow rules that are on another scale of space and time [and maybe more] than the regular behavior is.
Lemma 2.2: Models operate on one scale for each dimension, which is common for every portion of the model.
Dilemma 2: Regular behavior and catastrophes cannot be reduced to common scales and therefore cannot both exist in one and the same model. The model can be either on the level of regular behavior, neglecting the specific features of catastrophes or vice versa. (In the latter additionally Dilemma 1 would apply.)
Causality, time, delays and the role of catastrophes
As Schwarz (1992) explains, every approach to understanding time leads to certain aporias, be it either as a continuous row of points or as a row of discrete time spans. Commonly used is the understanding as continuum as well in science as in everyday life. The same can be said about our perception of space. Both lead into the paradoxes of Zenon as they neglect movement.
Another big question is the one about causality, which was long time understood as strong causality but is yet weakened by stochastics, especially in quantum physics. Nevertheless, once you understand time and space as continua, causality has to be understood as causality between close neighbors, which is transmitted via short-range effects; the concept of long-range effects without intermediates has generally been dropped (Schwarz, 1992).
Associated with this is an inherent delay between cause and effect, which is one of the basic concepts in the theory of relativity on the one hand and has been widely studied in systems science as a cause for periodicities and chaos on the other hand but is not limited to these fields.
If we have an established cause-effect relationship, then the rule is that if the cause happens, the effect will take place – with some delay.
In these circumstances a catastrophe can be understood as breaking this established causal relationship by intervening during the delay and thus not letting the effect take place although the cause had happened.
Take sowing and harvesting as the established causal relation with a (significant) delay between cause and effect. Then the catastrophe would be that although sowing has taken place, there is no harvest (see Ossimitz and Lapp, 2006b, for other systems principles associated with seed and harvest). In this sense catastrophes break the rule that causality is stable over time.
This leads to the formulation of an extended concept of causality:
If cause A happens then effect B will take place after the delay Δt, unless something unexpected happens during that time span.
Assessing catastrophes with this idea, we come to the following: We can understand the catastrophic bifurcation as the cause for the damages that are going to take effect – after a certain delay. Especially for “creeping” catastrophes [schleichende K.] this delay can be extremely long. The causal bifurcation for climate change could be seen at the time when mankind decided to fulfill its energy demand with fossil resources, but the effects have yet not happened fully.
So, if regular causalities can be broken by catastrophes, catastrophic causalities can also be broken by (on that level) catastrophes. A creeping catastrophe can therefore be avoided by applying a “counter-catastrophe”.
A high-wire performer for example is in fact constantly falling, but as long as he breaks every causal relation between leaning towards one side and effectively falling down by a counter-catastrophe – which is to start falling towards the other side – he keeps upon the wire. So the equilibrist is actually ways off the equilibrium upon the wire; the only equilibrium in this case is, that he is falling all the time, but - or better said - because of that stays upon.
References
Grossmann, Magaard, Marsh: (to be added)
Lapp, C. (2006): Die Selbstorganisation komplexer Systeme unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Aporie-Konzepts. Dissertation. University Klagenfurt
Lapp, C. and G. Ossimitz (2006): Die Grenzen technischen Katastrophenschutzes. Wissenschaft & Umwelt INTERDISZIPLINÄR 10
Ossimitz, G. and C. Lapp (2006a): Katastrophen – Systemisch betrachtet. Wissenschaft & Umwelt INTERDISZIPLINÄR 10
Ossimitz, G. and C. Lapp (2006b): Das Metanoia-Prinzip. Hildesheim: Franzbecker
Prigogine, I., Stengers, I. (1986): Dialog mit der Natur. Neue Wege naturwissenschaftlichen Denkens. Büchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt a. M.
Schwarz, G. (1990): Konfliktmanagement. Wiesbaden: Gabler
Schwarz, G. (1992): Raum und Zeit als naturphilosophisches Problem. Wien: WUV
Thom: (to be added)
UNO: (to be added)