Simple rules generate complex structures but never guarantee system self-maintenance

Evidence

For a system with an environment varying at random, the orientation around relatively simple rules – and, in social communication, acceptable rules – leads to the construction of increasingly complex structures. Simplicity and chance are relatively modest preconditions for the construction of complexity. For this reason these preconditions of existence do not contain any guarantee whatever that the system will maintain itself, let alone be capable of self-regulating. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 727

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Ishiguro thesis and to complexity-from-simple-rules ideas in other systems theory the reader may hold (e.g., Ashby, Holland). — connects to: A clone will never be identical because the code cannot master its own process — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 347; All formal systems face internal limitations that cannot be escaped — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 323; Micro-foundational safety does not guarantee systemic safety — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 131 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does this say complexity built on simple rules is inherently fragile, which would bear on why Darlington Hall’s moral code collapses?