[The Trouble with ‘Measurement’]

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Hyperfixed – Folklore (Kyle’s Version)Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Hyperfixed – Folklore (Kyle’s Version) Transcript and Discussion

[Post and comments (including from me) here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cameron-tonkinwise-80a5987_i-saw-this-diagram-in-my-feed-while-thinking-activity-7310815781389275137-4zdw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACuq-oBecVFDW6PCf3lkoG-peMeuLBeoho

I included the full main text here as I couldn’t work out where to cut it and it’s not long – responses please at the link and to Cameron]

I saw this diagram in my feed while thinking about Brian Marick’s recent Oddly Influenced podcast – https://lnkd.in/gSAHBmvP – about the way in which Winston Royce unwittingly misdirected his argument by the way he diagrammed what was then taken to be the ‘waterfall’ development process. I hassled Brian on Mastodon by saying that the problem is not diagrams, but diagramming without the expert help of an information designer. When non-designers, or non-expert or overly ‘modernist’ designers, diagram – in ways better than Bruno Latour https://lnkd.in/g3xNbTQB – they tend to fetishize symmetry. This ‘theory of change’ diagram made me wonder how many ‘theories’ have aspects that are a bit gratuitous but included to ensure the symmetry of the resulting diagram. Perhaps not every one of the three points in each of the three segments had to have two opposing dynamics? Perhaps one of the segments should actually only have one or two points in it, or five? To what extent has the diagram designed the theory rather than than diagram being designed to illustrate the theory?It made me wonder if anyone has ever seen a good ethnographic account of researchers developing diagrams of their research without using (expert) designers? I feel like there should have been something in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge or STS world?Do also let me know if you see a well-designed conceptual diagram that looked like it was on the way to symmetry but then is conspicuously not symmetrical given the actual concepts being diagrammed.

Post | LinkedIn

[Toby Lowe mentioned this to me today and I notice that Tony Korycki is covering the same topic in the ‘warmup’ session at the SCiO open day on Monday:

One week to go! Only a couple of spaces left for the SCiO – Systems and Complexity in Organisation Open Meeting – Manchester, UK | 31 March 2025

so this seemed a good time for some core links]

https://www.systemspractice.org/resources/critical-social-learning-systems-inquiry-case-study-and-some-learning
Critical Social Learning Systems: an inquiry, case study and some learning
September 2022
Tony Korycki

https://thebrentc.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-hawkesbury-model-critical-social.html
Sunday, January 22, 2017
The Hawkesbury model: critical social learning systems
At Hawkesburg College in Australia, Bawden et al. explored rural issues experientially while studying these theoretically, in parallel. This is an example of praxis, and developed the critical social learning tradition (CSLS). They “synthesised many systems-related ideas”, demonstrating a multi-perspective approach (Blackmore, 2010, p. 35).
Key characteristics of the Hawkesbury tradition;
“Essentially”, a systemic approach (Bawden, 2009, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 39).
(see also “deeper structural causes”, Woodhill, 2002, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 58).
An explicit epistemology; valuing different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing
An ethical dimension, based on a critical focus (cf. critical theory)
Systemic praxis; systemic being
(Blackmore, 2010, p. 36).
[and] “wholeness” and “complex messiness”; holistic “systemic well-being” (Blackmore, 2010, p. 97); including “wholeness through ‘tensions of difference'” (Blackmore, 2010, p. 41).
[and] “self-referential”; a learning process that appreciates itself (as well as the matter at hand); the “systemic development of systemic development” ((Bawden, 1999, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 43, 40).
[and] “meaning as an emergent property”; from the interactions of different ways of knowing / processes of learning (Bawden, 1999, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 44-)
[and] emphasis on social or collective learning (Bawden, 2009, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 89).
[and] self-transformation (of our worldviews, our “epistemes” aka Foucalt) (cf. Bawden, 2009, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 95-); self-critical ability (Bawden, 2009, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 93).
development of “systemic competencies” (Bawden, 1999, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 91);

https://www.academia.edu/36917658/An_introduction_to_Critical_Social_Learning_Systems
An introduction to Critical Social Learning Systems
Ras Albert Williams
This briefing paper is written for the attention of Ambassador Edward Lambert, who is the senior advisor to the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Hon Dr Roosevelt Skerrit (Dominica, G. (2016). Ambassador Lambert is Dominica’s non-resident ambassador to the Holy See (Dominica News Online. 2015). He also sits on the Climate Resilience Execution Agency of Dominica’s (CREAD) transitional committee launched on March 12th, 2018 to oversee the reconstruction efforts (Dominica, G. 2018). My aim in this work, is to introduce the concept of Critical Social Learning Systems to you Ambassador Lambert as a tool the organisation may utilize to assist the country to ‘build back better’ and to share the principles of managing systemic change through action, interaction and systemic inquiry, and how these can improve the capabilities of all concerned. And perhaps more importantly, write these principles into the underlying meta-narrative of the country’s crusade to build back more resiliently.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299419360_Transforming_systems_The_Hawkesbury_initiatives_in_systemic_development
Transforming systems: The Hawkesbury initiatives in systemic development
January 2016South African Review of Sociology 47(1):99-116
DOI:10.1080/21528586.2015.1131192
Richard Bawden, Western Sydney University
Over a period of little more than 15 years, starting in the late 1970s, a small group of academics in the School of Agriculture at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College in Richmond, Australia developed and sustained a unique participative systemic experiential approach to rural development. Their approach came to identify the significance of the transformation of prevailing worldviews as the pre-requisite for transforming systems in the material and social worlds. From this perspective, participative research directed at social development was recognised essentially as a social critical and systemic learning process that represented the transformation of shared experiences (both real and imagined) into collective knowledge to inform responsible, consensual action. In this article, the writer, who was the designated leader of the group through that period, discusses the context, genesis, structure and potential significance of its multi-functional and multi-modal systemic learning approach to transformative development which is systemically inclusive of people and the rest of nature alike.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226053417_Messy_Issues_Worldviews_and_Systemic_Competencies
Messy Issues, Worldviews and Systemic Competencies
January 2010
DOI:10.1007/978-1-84996-133-2_6
In book: Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice (pp.89-101)
Richard Bawden, Western Sydney University
This chapter continues the story of the tradition of systemic praxis that emerged from Hawkesbury Agricultural College in Australia from the late 1970s. While critical social learning systems (CSLS) best describes this ongoing tradition at this present time of writing (2009), the concept of a critical learning system did not appear explicitly in the Hawkesbury literature until the mid nineties (Bawden, 1994). The seeds of this powerful notion however can be traced right back to the seminal papers describing the logic and organisation of the foundations of the initiatives in systems education at that institution (Bawden et al., 1984; Macadam and Bawden, 1985). Details of developments of the Hawkesbury initiatives over subsequent years appear in Bawden (2005) in which an extensive list of references to other publications that trace and describe intermediate developmental stages of the Hawkesbury endeavours, can also be found. While the word ‘social’ is not explicitly included in descriptions of the nature and development of critical learning systems in this endeavour, a strong emphasis on social or collective learning has been an essential feature of the initiative from the outset.

[As a result of two rather messy Syscoi pieces on Kurt Lewin, here:
The myth of Kurt Lewin and the rhetoric of collective memory in social psychology textbooks – Billing (2015)

The myth of Kurt Lewin and the rhetoric of collective memory in social psychology textbooks – Billing (2015)

and here:

Is there an actual source for the Kurt Lewin quote “You cannot understand a system until you try to change it”?

Is there an actual source for the Kurt Lewin quote “You cannot understand a system until you try to change it”?
…I was contacted by someone interested in Lewin and this topic to enquire about him, his influence, and how his legacy is now perceived. Lewin is quite a towering figure for me but these two (somewhat) misattributions do stand out, along with many misunderstandings and another (sort of ) misattribution of ‘unfreeze – change – refreeze’, covered by m’colleague @David Ing here:

From Unfreezing-Refreezing, to Systems Changes Learning by David Ing – online

I did my best to answer the query, but also got ChatGPT ‘deep research’ to do an overview and survey, based largely on the two first pieces above and other things I fed it. It’s ‘not bad’, so I thought I would share it below]

Kurt Lewin is often remembered through a handful of well-worn aphorisms, among them: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” and “You cannot understand a system until you try to change it.” These phrases have taken on lives of their own, appearing in psychology, management, systems thinking, and organisational development. But their origins and uses reveal a more complex, nuanced—and often misunderstood—figure.

### The story of two famous quotes

The aphorism “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” was indeed used by Lewin in the 1940s. However, as Arthur Bedeian (2016) has shown, Lewin did not coin it. He first cited it as a saying of “a businessman” in a 1943 lecture, and only later adopted it more freely. The saying itself predates him by decades, appearing in German educational theory in the 19th century (Friedrich W. Dörpfeld, 1873) and in a 1920s General Electric advertisement (Daily Nebraskan, Nov. 1920).

Despite this, the quote resonated with Lewin’s deep belief that theory and practice must inform each other. His field theory, action research, and work on group dynamics were all premised on the idea that theoretical insight must be practically tested, and that real-world problems are sources of scientific innovation.

The second quote, “You cannot understand a system until you try to change it,” is even more ambiguous. No direct source ties it to Lewin, and it appears to have circulated informally before surfacing in a 1996 volume of *Problems of Theoretical Psychology*. There, it is attributed to Lewin by Charles Tolman (p. 31), but without citation. Henderikus J. Stam also quotes it in the same volume, suggesting it reflects Lewin’s ethos. Variants have been attributed to others: Edgar Schein, Russell Ackoff, Urie Bronfenbrenner. Yet its popularity points to how powerfully Lewin’s legacy shapes systems thinking.

### Lewin’s broader intellectual legacy

Far more than just a source of slogans, Lewin was a foundational thinker whose ideas helped shape social psychology, organisational behaviour, and educational practice. His intellectual contributions include:

• **Field theory**: Human behaviour is understood as a function of the total psychological field (or “life space”) in which the person exists. This is often summarised by his formula: *B = f(P, E)*—behaviour is a function of the person and their environment.

• **The life space**: The psychological environment, including both objective and perceived elements, that surrounds an individual. It includes needs, goals, memories, and social pressures—all existing as dynamic vectors.

• **Force field analysis**: A model for understanding change processes, particularly in organisations. Lewin identified driving forces and restraining forces that either push change forward or hold it back. Change requires unfreezing the status quo, moving to a new state, and then refreezing to stabilise the new conditions.

• **Gatekeeping**: Introduced in Lewin’s 1943 study on food habits, this concept describes how decisions (originally about what food reached the family table) are made through “gates” controlled by individuals—gatekeepers—who filter options. This was later extended to mass communication (e.g. David White, 1950) to describe how editors select what becomes news.

• **Aufforderungscharakter (demand quality)**: Lewin’s concept refers to the inherent affordance or invitation that an object or situation presents to an individual. A chair invites sitting; a staircase, climbing. He emphasised that these were not mere subjective projections but features of the environment dynamically perceived.

• **Action research**: A method developed by Lewin for social experimentation that involves iterative cycles of planning, action, and reflection, typically in collaboration with practitioners. The aim is to solve real-world problems while simultaneously contributing to theory.

• **T-groups (Training groups)**: Lewin’s workshops on group behaviour evolved into the first T-groups, where participants explore interpersonal relations in real time. These later influenced encounter groups and much of the organisational development field. Though Lewin died in 1947, his colleagues—Lippitt, Bradford, Benne—developed the National Training Laboratories (NTL) approach based on this foundation.

### Gestalt roots and holistic psychology

Lewin was heavily influenced by Gestalt psychology, which emphasised that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Rather than treating behaviour as the result of isolated stimuli and responses, Lewin viewed it as arising from a dynamic field of tensions and forces. This led to his insistence that psychological events must be understood in their total context.

His influence extended into psychotherapy via Gestalt therapy, developed by Fritz and Laura Perls, who integrated Lewin’s field theory and emphasis on the “here and now”. Lewin’s concepts of life space, tension systems, and dynamic fields became key underpinnings of later therapeutic approaches.

### Myth, memory, and distortion

Over time, much of Lewin’s work has been oversimplified. His three-stage change model—unfreeze, change, refreeze—is frequently cited in management literature. Yet Bridgman, Cummings, and Brown (2016) have shown that this triad was never presented by Lewin in such a formulaic way. It was a post hoc abstraction by later authors such as Schein and French & Bell, and arguably a distortion. Lewin saw change as iterative and context-dependent, not a linear mechanical process.

Similarly, slogans like “there is nothing so practical as a good theory” and “try to change it to understand it” have become mantras, cited without context or interrogation. Michael Billig (2015) has argued that social psychology textbooks often present Lewin in mythic terms, using such quotes to legitimise a particular vision of applied science, while ignoring Lewin’s own critical and philosophical concerns.

Leendert P. Mos, in the same *Problems of Theoretical Psychology* volume (1996), adds his own gloss: “Good theory is practical (Kurt Lewin), but practical theory enables change!” He also revisits Lewin’s concept of “demand quality” in that chapter. Mos’s essay illustrates how Lewin’s ideas are sometimes updated or extended in contemporary theoretical discourse.

### Forgotten ideas with current relevance

Many of Lewin’s most powerful concepts—demand quality, gatekeeping, the tension system, quasi-stationary equilibrium—are underused today. His holistic, contextual approach has been overtaken in some quarters by behaviourism, cognitive psychology, or modular models of mind. Yet his insights remain highly relevant:

• In a time of complexity and interdependence, Lewin’s field theory offers a way to think about systems as dynamic, interpenetrating fields.
• His demand quality anticipates ecological psychology and has implications for human-centred design.
• Gatekeeping remains vital for understanding media, institutional filters, and decision bottlenecks.
• His iterative, participatory action research approach is increasingly vital for real-world inquiry in education, health, and organisational change.

### Implications

What can we learn from this? The story of Lewin’s quotes and concepts is a parable about the dangers of simplification and the power of myth. Quotes attributed to him are not necessarily his, and the ones he did use may not mean what we now assume. Yet the persistence of these ideas reflects our need for practical wisdom that links theory and action.

Lewin remains a model of what it means to be a scholar-practitioner: rigorous, engaged, creative, and always testing theory in the field. To understand him properly, we must do what he did—look at the whole field, challenge received wisdom, and not be afraid to interfere with the system in order to learn how it works.

### References

• Billig, M. (2015). The myth of Kurt Lewin and the rhetoric of collective memory in social psychology textbooks. *Theory & Psychology*, 25(6), 703–718.
• Bedeian, A. G. (2016). A note on the aphorism “There is nothing as practical as a good theory.” *Journal of Management History*, 22(2), 236–242.
• Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & Brown, K. G. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. *Human Relations*, 69(1), 33–60.
• Stam, H. J. (1996). Theorizing health and illness: Problems with the problematizing of psychology. In C. W. Tolman et al. (Eds.), *Problems of Theoretical Psychology*. Captus Press.
• Mos, L. P. (1996). Psychology and the logic of the sacred. In C. W. Tolman et al. (Eds.), *Problems of Theoretical Psychology*. Captus Press.
• Tolman, C. W. (Ed.). (1996). *Problems of Theoretical Psychology*. Captus Press.
• Daily Nebraskan (1920). Advertisement by General Electric Company.
• Dörpfeld, F. W. (1873). *Grundlinien einer Theorie des Lehrplans*.
• White, D. M. (1950). The “Gatekeeper”: A case study in the selection of news. *Journalism Quarterly*, 27, 383–390.

via Ivo Velitchkov

Tracing its Roots in Systems Thinking, Neurodivergence, and Marxist Theory

Rebecca Todd, hanne de jaegher,  and  Ezequiel Di Paolo

Feb 11, 2025

What is Participatory Sensemaking and Why Should We Care?Tracing its Roots in Systems Thinking, Neurodivergence, and Marxist TheoryREBECCA TODD, HANNE DE JAEGHER, AND EZEQUIEL DI PAOLOFEB 11, 2025

What is Participatory Sensemaking and Why Should We Care?

Life is starting to look a lot less like an outcome of chemistry and physics, and more like a computational process

David C Krakauer is the president and William H Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. He works on the evolution of intelligence and stupidity on Earth. Whereas the first is admired but rare, the second is feared but common. He is the founder of the InterPlanetary Project at SFI and the publisher/editor-in-chief of the SFI Press.

Chris Kempes is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute, working at the intersection of physics, biology, and the earth sciences.

Problem-solving matter

Life is starting to look a lot less like an outcome of chemistry and physics, and more like a computational processPhoto by mauribo/GettyDavid C Krakaueris the president and William H Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. He works on the evolution of intelligence and stupidity on Earth. Whereas the first is admired but rare, the second is feared but common. He is the founder of the InterPlanetary Project at SFI and the publisher/editor-in-chief of the SFI Press.Chris Kempesis a professor at the Santa Fe Institute, working at the intersection of physics, biology, and the earth sciences.

Is life a complex computational process? | Aeon Essays

BI 203 David Krakauer: How To Think Like a Complexity Scientist

BI 203 David Krakauer: How To Think Like a Complexity Scientist | Brain Inspired

[I expect to be there]

From Mike Jones on LinkedIn

One week to go!
Only a couple of spaces left for the SCiO – Systems and Complexity in Organisation Open Meeting – Manchester | 31st March 2025

Join us for a full day of practical insights, systems thinking in action, and challenging ideas from experienced practitioners.

Programme includes:
✔️ Introduction to Critical Social Learning Systems – Tony Korycki
✔️ Fundamentals of Systems Thinking – Matt Lloyd PLY
✔️ Psychological Safety as a Systemic Construct – Joan O’Donnell PhD
✔️ Multi-Methodology Approaches in Systems Thinking – Patrick Hoverstadt & Simon MacCormac
✔️ To CLD or Not, That is the Question – Peter Lacey

📍 Manchester Business School (Room 3.049)
Booth St West
Manchester
M15 6PB

🗓️ Monday 31st March | First speaker at 09:30–17:00

This is for you if you work with complexity, lead change, or apply systems thinking in your practice.

Full programme

https://www.systemspractice.org/events/scio-uk-face-face-open-meeting-manchester-march

🎟️ Final few spaces – registration link

Shared by David Ing, who draws attention to their founding website: https://web.archive.org/web/20011106081202/http://www.plexusinstitute.org/services/index.cfm?sub=2

Links below for their appeal to preserve the archives, LinkedIn group, and to sign up to stay updated.

Plexus Institute’s Journey Ends, But Navigating Complexity Never Ends For more than two decades, Plexus Institute has been a leading advocate for the application of complexity science to organizational and social challenges. Our archives contain a wealth of materials—including research, case studies, recorded dialogues, and thought leadership—that have played a pivotal role in shaping the field of applied complexity. However, as a completely volunteer-led organization, Plexus Institute is no longer in a position to sustain ongoing operations or effectively maintain and share this important body of work. As a result, Plexus Institute will discontinue all direct communications, programs, and organizational activities as of April 1, 2025. A Call for Partnership: Preserving the Plexus Archives With this transition, we are seeking a partner to help preserve and manage the Plexus archives, ensuring their continued accessibility and impact. These materials represent decades of applied complexity research and practice, and we believe their value can extend far beyond Plexus Institute. We are looking for an organization, institute, or initiative that aligns with Plexus’ mission and can serve as a steward for these archives, curating, sharing, and making them available to complexity practitioners, researchers, and leaders. If you or your organization are interested in exploring potential models of stewardship, curation, and engagement, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this collaboration. What This Means for the Plexus Community As of April 1, 2025, Plexus Institute will:Discontinue all direct mailings, newsletters, and email updates.Cease all formal programs and initiatives.Maintain limited access to archives on the current Plexus website for as long as possible How to Stay Connected Join the Plexus Institute 2025 LinkedIn Group – This group serves as a community-driven space for those who have engaged with Plexus Institute over the years—practitioners, researchers, leaders, and changemakers—and who want to continue to explore complexity science, emergent change, and systemic transformation.  What’s Next After Plexus? Stay Updated Your participation and support have been integral to the evolving patterns of Plexus Institute’s journey. As we reach this inflection point, we invite those interested in stewarding the future of the Plexus archives to contact Denise Easton. Just as complex systems adapt and transform, the ideas and practices of applied complexity will continue to emerge, evolve, and influence the future.

Our Enduring Mission Fostering the health of organizations, communities, individuals and our natural environment by helping people recognize, understand and use concepts emerging from the science of complexity.”

via Ivo Velitchkov

Visiting speaker Thomas Varley Research Scientist, University of Vermont

In person and online

Talks at the Network Science Institute | Thomas Varley

I learn from Sandra Janoff – appropriately – of the sad death of Marv Weisbord, aged 93.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sandra-janoff-65bb59_facilitation-futuresearch-futuresearchnetwork-activity-7309580745893687296-Dv32

Memoriam from Sandra Janoff:

Weisbord

Official obituary (which is good on OD) and remembrances:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/marvin-weisbord-obituary?id=57948817

I never met Weisbord, but his thinking has been important to me – one of the original ‘energies’ in organisational development, very influential on and having worked with Peter Block and of course Sandra. Evidently Marv passed away as he lived his life – peacefully. He had retired and moved to a retirement community, where he continued to collaborate – this time on music.

Some of his pieces which were most important to me were covered here:

Seasonal thoughts from the toolshed

And here’s a lovely video with Sandra:

Sandra Janoff, Marv Weisbord, and roots into the history of human relations

A lovely 2020 interview with Dr Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge:

And his own retrospective piece, ‘my life on the learning curve’
https://blog.bestpracticeinstitute.org/my-life-on-the-learning-curve-by-marv-weisbord/

His latter musical career:
https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/102-year-old-releases-album-with-writing-partner-88/

Tribute wall:
https://www.chadwickmckinney.com/obituaries/Marvin-Weisbord/#!/TributeWall

And photos:
https://www.chadwickmckinney.com/obituaries/marvin-weisbord/#!/PhotosVideos/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/69652d03-7f5c-4ed3-b787-67fd145ec236

May his memories be a blessing.

[Just kind of ‘got’ this, finally – it’s all laid out pretty clearly – interesting!]

What is Structural Memetics? And Why Does it Matter? | It’s About Empathy – Connection Ties Us Together

AuthorsMichael Levin

Version: 1

Created: February 07, 2025

Last edited: February 07, 2025Expand 

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Views: 3059 | Downloads: 1066

Abstract

How best to explain the properties and capabilities of embodied minds? The conventional paradigm holds that living beings are to be understood as the sculpted products of genetics and environment, which determine form and function of the brain as the unique seat of intelligence. Some provision is made for emergence and complexity, as additional “facts that hold” about networks, circuits, and other components of life. Here, I present a sketch of a framework and research roadmap that differs from this view in key aspects. First, the evolutionary conservation of mechanisms and functionality indicate fundamental symmetries between the self-construction of bodies and of minds, revealing a much broader view of diverse intelligence across the agential material of life beyond neural substrates. Second, surprising competencies (not just complexity or unpredictability) in systems that have not had a history of selection for those abilities suggest an additional input into patterns of body and mind that motivates a research program on a latent space of patterns ingressing into the physical world. Emphasizing the principles of continuity and pragmatism, and using morphogenesis as a tractable model system in which to develop these ideas, I explore the implications of the following ideas: (A) Evolution favors living forms that exploit powerful truths of mathematics and computation as affordances, which contribute as causes of morphological and behavioral features. (B) Cognitive patterns are an evolutionary pivot of the collective intelligence of cells; given this symmetry between neuroscience and developmental biology, I propose that the relationship between mind and brain is the same as the relationship between mathematical patterns and the morphogenetic outcomes they guide. (C) Many mathematicians, and a non-mysterian approach to science in general, suggest that these patterns are not random facts to be merely cataloged as “emergence” when found, but rather can be systematically discovered within a structured, ordered (non-physical) space. Therefore, I hypothesize that: (1) instances of embodied cognition likewise ingress from a Platonic space, which contains not only low-agency patterns like facts about triangles and prime numbers, but also higher agency ones such as kinds of minds; (2) we take seriously for developmental, synthetic, and behavioral biology the kinds of non-physicalist ideas that are already a staple of Platonist mathematics; (3) what evolution (and bioengineering, and possibly AI) produces are pointers into that Platonic space – physical interfaces that enable the ingression of specific patterns of body and mind. This provides a new perspective on the organicist/mechanist debate by explaining why traditional computationalist views of life and mind are insufficient, while at the same time erasing artificial distinctions between life and machine, since both are in-formed by diverse patterns from the latent space. I sketch a research program, already begun, of using the tools of the fields of synthetic morphology and diverse intelligence to map out key regions of the Platonic space. Understanding the mapping between the architecture of physical embodiments and the patterns to which they point has massive implications for evolutionary biology, regenerative medicine, AI, and the ethics of synthbiosis with the forthcoming immense diversity of morally important beings.

Ingressing Minds: Causal Patterns Beyond Genetics and Environment in Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments

PsyArXiv Preprints | Ingressing Minds: Causal Patterns Beyond Genetics and Environment in Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments

June Holley on LinkedIn:

What have most system strategies been missing? An understanding of Networks of Networks and System Shifting Networks! This slide deck from my recent talk starts to integrate systems and network approaches to transformation. https://lnkd.in/e7mhJxVz

All creative commons so feel free to slice and dice for your needs.

If you want access to the video this link takes you to the Socialroots blog. https://lnkd.in/eT4V6Cfa

We are having a second session on March 27th where several Networks of Networks will share their experience. https://lnkd.in/eT4V6Cfa

(8) Post | LinkedIn