I enjoy your electrical network pe-ke analysis, and I hope you can fully apply it to the OODA loop.

Observe does indeed flow directly into Action — indeed, Decision is a secondary branch that is often not used. The most common example of this is automaticity [1].

Boyd and Richards call the Observe-Act link “implicit guidance & control” and the Decide-Act link explicit control. [2]

I actually re-drew the OODA loop to emphasis the by-pass based on feedback by Dr. Richards [3].

See slide 21 of “Certain to Win” for more on this. [4]

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/09/01/cognition-instruction-in-the-context-of-human-struggle.html
[2] http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/ppt/boyds_ooda_loop.ppt
[3] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/07/20/ooda-loop-as-flowchart-try-2.html
[4] http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/ppt/boyds_ooda_loop.ppt

“Mutual trust is now recognized as essential by every successful practitioner of maneuver concepts from the US Marine Corps to Japanese industrialists to General Electric.” (http://www.belisarius.com/)

It is clear, in one sense, that your picture of the OODA loop is true. However, the decision node is never bypassed as it looks in Boyd’s diagram that you referenced me. The decision node is important because it represents the least amount of potential in the circuit before it is converted to kinetic energy. The orientation node is simply a too complicated circuit, with attributes in series, to substitute for this important role.

What the bypass line shows is the opponent making the decisions and not the 4GW warrior. Once the 4GW warrior is in your loop, the decision that follows comes from you not them. This is very apparent in Boyd's scenario of two airplanes in battle. The enemy sees the 4GW pilot making the same moves as he himself is making. Actually what is happening, only one person is making the decisions, the enemy. The 4GW warrior simply knows what those decisions are, or will be. Hopefully the 4GW is piloting an airplane that can take advantage of the information.

Because an OODA loop represents mostly potential energy, if someone is inside your loop, they are not easy to see. In more ways than not, a true 4GW warrior is hidden. The enemy simply sees the consequences of his actions and not the fact that someone else is performing the same actions, only possibly quicker and more accurate. This goes back to my comments on technologies, which were on Zenpundit posting about the SOTU address.

Yes, and no. Decision is in series after Orientation, but Orientation can feed directly into action too, bypassing decision. [1] [2]

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/07/20/ooda-loop-as-flowchart-try-2.html
[2] http://www.mindsim.com/MindSim/Corporate/OODA.html

Observe, in your drawing, represents the greatest potential. Act represents the smallest amount of potential energy; all the potential energy has been release when you act. Therefore any connection that has one line to Observe and another to act has the same potential or voltage, this would make any such connection a parallel circuit.

I don’t think we are arguing about the OODA strategy here, only about how the drawing was made. To me the connection to the middle of Decision is not clear. It would seem to me that it has to go completely through the decision process. If the line from Orientation were connected to decision on the side close to Observe (in your drawing), this would make it in series, partially, with Orientation. The other problem I have is that it seems that Orientation is connected to Act directly. While it might be that a true believer, in a cause, has a short orientation cycle, I don’t think you can shorten it to Act, bypassing Decision. I believe your drawing shows this bypass.

I suppose it would be an accurate statement to say OODA is the converting of potential energy to kinetic energy.

The folk, kin, and trade would run in a web together, simlar to how the five factors of Orientation run in a web together [1]. I described this in section V of “The Magic Cloud” [2]

Therefore, the web would share aspects of both series and parrellel nets. Interestings, weby back-referential logical networks are often used to build AI systems — which is a coincidence I hadn't thought of until now!

Your comment was wonderful, and I hope this answers your “series” of questions.

[1] http://static.flickr.com/31/65600528_f40e4f3540_o.jpg
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/11/21/globalization-is-water-the-magic-cloud.html

Not all members of “Police, State, Military” would be Kin; but they might all be “Folk.”

Now. “Trade” represents something a bit different. Again, there would be more overlap with Folk than with Kin — except for when Kin follow in the footsteps of their forebears. But it strikes me as pertinent to the discussion that Communist regimes attempted to blend “Trade” with all these other groups to a greater degree than Democracy has.

These conundrums have me wondering if your diagrams, though interesting and revealing, require some revision. I realize you have begun with isolating the old troika ; I'm wondering if the horses have since interbred: leading, of course, to different types of offspring.

And now, just as an afterthought, I'm wondering if that old troika has infiltrated the State, rather than the State infiltrate or subvert the troika. But as I said elsewhere, much depends on whether you consider the “State” to be a separate entity from the “People” or the “Person.”

Or what if you run folk, kin and trade in parallel and run police and military in series? Police would give the person more political pressure and the military would be least resistive to the person. I see in one of your diagrams you run folk kin and trade parallel and police and military also in parellel.

Also, wouldn't the state sometimes move the person and vise a verse? Kind of like Stalin and Mao and so on. So it would be alternating currant instead of direct currant. Things run in cycles so I image the AC circuit as being more common in nature than DC.

I am just wondering if the way (geometry) that the sled is pulled changes the connection between person and state. I mean the outside horses have an x (or y) component to its force. This should change how the flow crosses the gap. If they were pulling in parallel I don't believe there would be another component.

I hope this doesn't set you back too much, I mean I should have asked this in part I.

Likewise, if you wished to complicate the charts (say “The Meaningful Existence of the Self and the State” for example), The State could “define” The Military while also “Creating” the military.

By “trade” I mean the repetitive creation of a work-product and ensuing social relationships, not class.

In cases where the rulesets are still explicit, one could argue that the troika has infiltrated the state. However, by the time that rulesets can become implicit it's much harder to say so, except under conditions of revolutionary strife (stay tuned to Part III!).

I guess technically you could argue that the state is merely a complex process composed of the internations of persons, who are themselves complex processes. But that's a bit too “magical” and “cloudy” for me (or at least this level of analysis)! :-p