Daved van Stralen, MD, FAAP; Sean D. McKay, Element Rescue, LLC; Thomas A. Mercer, RAdm, USN (Retired) 

Abstract: 

The manuscript delves into the challenge of establishing order in chaotic, hazardous environments, emphasizing the interplay between human actions and dissipating energy. Identifying which actions resolve or worsen disruptions is complicated, often dependent on timing and context. 

The inadequacy in recognizing the capabilities of organized human actions to restore order is highlighted. Oscillatory phenomena, with temporal components, are discussed, distinguishing noise from stochastic waves. The environment, inherently unstable, undergoes self-organization through local feedback loops, a process often unnoticed due to memory deficits and linguistic challenges. 

The temporal dimension is undervalued in response plans for unstable environments, overshadowed by Euclidean space’s three dimensions—environmental self-organization’s impact, driven by nonlinear feedback loops, challenges predictability. The philosophical exploration of time questions its objectivity and introduces Einstein’s theories, emphasizing the limitations of absolute time in nonlinear contexts. 

In high-risk organizations, time as a dimension influences responses to environmental changes. Autocorrelation generates red noise, necessitating timely responses. The integration of time and context influences perception, cognition, and environmental communication. 

The discourse advocates a more comprehensive understanding of human responses by distinguishing mechanistic causation from adaptive traits over time. Criticisms of high-reliability organizations lacking temporal consideration hinder comprehension. Incorporating time as a distinct dimension is proposed to enhance understanding of complex environments.

[FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE BELOW]

Conclusion: 

Time has a dimension. There is something more that corrupts understanding of HRO than a pragmatic versus normative stance or a gap between theory and practice. While it is easy to blame movies and television, something more fundamental is present: the incorporation of time as a distinct dimension into a relativity space. 

What the criticisms of operators have in common is a frame of reference that has no time dimension. It is not hard to add the dimension of time. We list that in this article and will develop it in subsequent articles. Reviewing the differences in environment, fear-stress-amygdala, and cognition, we find the fallacy of conforming HRO into Newtonian science and Euclidean space. 

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