p.1 To flourish and grow in a many-sided uncertain and ever changing world that surrounds us, suggests
that we have to make intuitive within ourselves those many practices we need to meet the exigencies of that world.
The contents that comprise this 'Discourse' unfold observations and ideas that contribute towards achieving or thwarting such
an aim or purpose. John Boyd, A Discourse, p.1
p.84 These insights implied to him [Boyd] that 'We need to create mental images,
views, or impressions, hence patterns that match with activity of world.' And they gain a strategic character when
Boyd advances the idea that 'We need to deny adversary the possibility of uncovering or discerning patterns that match
our activity, or other aspects of reality in the world.'
p.84 To discern what is going on we must interact in a variety of ways with our environment.
We must be able to examine the world from a number of perspectives so that we can generate mental
images or impressions that correspond to that world. [Boyd, The Strategic Game of ? & ? ]
p.105 Novelty is produced continuously, if somewhat erratically or haphazardly. In order to thrive
and grow in such a world we must match our thinking and doing, hence our orientation, with that emerging novelty.
Yet, any orientation constrained by experiences before that novelty emerges introduces mismatches that confuse and
disorient us. However, the analytical/synthetic process permits us to address these mismatches so that we can rematch thereby
reorient our thinking and action with that novelty.
p.115 Robert Jervis noted that within non-linear complex systems:
- It is impossible to do merely one thing;
- Results cannot be predicted from the separate actions;
- Strategies depend on the strategies of others;
- Behavior changes the environment.
Echoing Perrow, he notes that connections, interactions and interdependencies are the all-important and
problematic features of complex systems.
p.176 Boyd offers ideas for affecting the opponent's capability to adapt, arguing that any physical
movement, as well as the hiding of movements, should relate directly to the cognitive effect one wants to achieve within the
OODA process of the opponent
p.194 [Boyd] has developed the argument that orientation is the center of gravity for command and
control, the key factor - and variable - that enables or hinders generating harmony and initiative so that
one can or cannot exploit variety/rapidity.
p.230 Observation is the task that detects events within an individual's, or group's, environment.
It is the method by which people identify change, or lack of change, in the world around them... it is a primary source of
new information in the behavioral process. Note, however, he stresses, 'how orientation shapes observation, shapes
decision, shapes action, and in turn is shaped by the feedback and other phenomena coming into our sensing or observing window'.
Without the context of Orientation, most Observations would be meaningless.
p.230-231 To that end we must effectively and efficiently orient ourselves: that is, we must quickly
and accurately develop mental images, or schema, to help comprehend and cope with the vast array of threatening and non-threatening
events we face. This image construction, or orientation, is nothing more than the process of destruction (analysis)
and creation (synthesis) he discussed in his briefings. It is how we evolve.
p.232 The OODA loop model as presented by Boyd therefore represents his view on the process
of individual and organizational adaptation in general... it shows that where the aim is 'to survive and prosper'
in a non-linear world dominated by change, novelty and uncertainty, adaptation is the important overarching theme in Boyd's
strategic theory.
p.237 So, the view that the rapid OODA loop idea captures Boyd's work is valid
only if one confines oneself to the tactical level, but it leaves unaddressed the fact that Boyd also dealt with
the other levels of war... the strategic aim, he asserts in 'Patterns', is 'to diminish adversary's capacity to adapt
while improving our capacity to adapt as an organic whole, so that our adversary cannot cope while we can cope with events/efforts
as they unfold'.
p.239 Therefore one could perhaps better describe A Discourse not as a general
theory of war but as a general theory of the strategic behavior of complex adaptive systems in adversarial conditions.
[JLJ - perhaps applicable to a machine playing a game...]
