The Yunus Centre at Griffith University exists to accelerate transitions to regenerative and distributive futures through systems innovation
Oct 25
The role and power of re-patterning in systems change
7 everyday patterns to shift systems towards equity
Many recent discussions about civic innovation and systems change have focused on big structural changes that need to take place if we are to grow more equitable outcomes. Along with our friends at TSI / Auckland Co-Design Lab we suspected that we also needed to explore what could happen underneath those structures at the level of more fundamental and ‘everyday’ values, mindsets, behaviours and interactions.
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. – Holmes
Imagine that you have a coin in your hand, and you are throwing it up in the air. How would you assign probabilities for the outcome? Generally, we are taught that a coin flip has a 50% chance of tails and 50% chance of heads, assuming that we are using a fair coin. The reasoning is that there are only two possible outcomes (heads, tails). Therefore, the probability of either one happening is 50%.
I have written about Bayesian epistemology before. If we evaluate the coin flip example, there is more going on here than meets the eye. The basis of all this is – from whose perspective? In Bayesian epistemology, probability is not a feature of the phenomenon such as the coin flip. The coin is not aware of…
Struggling with change: The fragile resilience of collectives
Frank Schweitzer, Christian Zingg, Giona Casiraghi Collectives form non-equilibrium social structures characterised by a volatile dynamics. Individuals join or leave. Social relations change quickly. Therefore, differently from engineered or ecological systems, a resilient reference state cannot be defined. We propose a novel resilience measure combining two dimensions: robustness and adaptivity. We demonstrate how they can be quantified using data from a software developer collective. Our analysis reveals a resilience life cycle, i.e., stages of increasing resilience are followed by stages of decreasing resilience. We explain the reasons for these observed dynamics and provide a formal model to reproduce them. The resilience life cycle allows distinguishing between short-term resilience, given by a sequence of resilient states, and long-term resilience, which requires collectives to survive through different cycles.
We are excited to invite you to the Bateson Anniversaries October Conversation on Cybernetics. We would like to share the following essay with you before our session, taken from Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind—THE CYBERNETICS OF “SELF”: A THEORY OF ALCOHOLISM.
Gregory Bateson said:“I think that cybernetics is the biggest bite out of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that mankind has taken in the last 2000 years. But most of such bites out of the apple have proved to be rather indigestible — usually for cybernetic reasons…
There is also latent in cybernetics the means of achieving a new and perhaps more human outlook, a means of changing our philosophy of control and a means of seeing our own follies in wider perspective.”(From Versailles to Cybernetics)We look forward to digesting our own follies together.
Please register below to receive the link:BATESON ANNIVERSARIES CONVERSATION ON CYBERNETICSWarmly,Leslie, Nora and Göran Hosted by Nora Bateson, International Bateson Institute, & Bateson Idea Group
The Warm Data Community, International Bateson Institute & Bateson Idea Group are mycelial networks of individuals devoted to continuing the Bateson legacy of transcontextual inquiry. Our form is liquid and in coalescence. Financial gifts would greatly support the advancement of this work.
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In Gratitude & Vitality
Bateson Anniversaries October Conversation: CyberneticsDate & TimeOct 25, 2022 05:00 PM in LondonMeeting Registration
ECAS Systems MapThe Systems Mapping process was facilitated by Scott Spann (Innate Strategies) and involved over 80 public and private partners in 2012. The map documents the array of systems’ components within Hawaii’s early childhood system. The map spotlights potential levers of change that would have the greatest impact for improving the lives our youngest children.Click the map above to see an enlarged, PDF version of the map. You can learn more about the process followed during the mapping process by reading and watching the videos on the post “Building Shared Understanding Through System Mapping.”
Join us for a lively discussion of the distinction that has been a defining feature of the American Society for Cybernetics since at least 1974.
Abstract
This is an interactive panel discussion that asks the questions: Has the distinction between 1st and 2nd order cybernetics run its course, now sufficiently embedded in our cybernetic practice and thought to move on? That is, is the practice of cybernetics self-aware, explicitly embedding responsibility (and, at least implicitly, ethical considerations) when doing whatever we do? Even if not yet sufficient, should we nudge ourselves in new directions anyway? What’s next?
Participants:
Tom Scholte, University of British Columbia Claudia Westermann, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Howard Silverman, Willamette University Mark Johnson, University of Manchester (Im)Moderator: Larry Richards, Indiana University East
Here is a link to the new Ready-ing paper published in the journal of Systems Reseach and Behavioral Science. If it does not open the paper is pasted below.
Heiko Specking, Mervi Porevuo, Goran Janson, Motaz Attalla, Eeva Hellstrom, Steve Freedman, Mihela Hladin and Tim Gasperak are collaborating authors.
Funding information: There are no sponsors or grants for this work.
Abstract
Complexity of living systems is characterized by multicontextual, constant responsive change. This creates continuation of some patterns and discontinuation of others. While change is predictably constant, it is unpredictable in direction and often occurs at second and nth orders of systemic relationality. So what makes a living system ready to change? This is a theory of change that changes a theory of change. Before the change there is a coalescence of factors and experiences that produce a undeterminable ready-ing instead of action. What if, instead thinking of a theory of change being produced from an identified preferred goal or outcome, the focus instead was placed on the way in which a system becomes ready for undetermined change? Can unforeseen ready-ness be nourished? While linear managing or controlling of the direction of change may appear desirable, tending to how the system becomes ready allows for pathways of possibility previously unimagined.
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General SemanticsAlfred KorzybskiLakeville, Conn., International Non-Aristotelian Library Pub. Co.; Distributed by Institute of General Semantics (1935)
Just before starting a trip to Spain, I received an invitation from Ryan C. Armstrong at the Universitat de Barcelona Business School to give some lectures. The students in the bachelor’s programme in international business had a short mention of systems thinking in the first lecture of the operationa management class. With that brief entry, this lecture was an opportunity to introduce a broader view of the traditions of systems thinking, in addition to the practices, theories, and methods under development by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in Toronto.
The following is the text of the Ralph Stacey Memorial Lecture which I gave at Hertfordshire Business School on Weds 5th October 2022. It accompanies the video which you will find in the post below.
The response to the lecture was give by Patricia Shaw, who co-founded the Doctor of Management programme with Ralph and the late Doug Griffin.
In today’s post, I am writing about the wonderful Bayesian E. T. Jaynes’ idea of “Mind Projection Fallacy” (MPF) with respect to Systems Thinking. He explained MPF as asserting one’s own private thoughts and sensations as realities existing externally in nature. Jaynes noted – One asserts that the creations of his own imagination are real properties of Nature, and thus in effect projects his own thoughts out onto Nature.
Jaynes used the English language to delve into this further. In Logic, we say that If A is B, then B is A. However, when we apply this in our language, we will have issues. He used the old adage of “knowledge is power” as an example. If we then say “power is knowledge”, then we have said something that is fantastically absurd. The trouble here is with the verb “is”. As Jaynes pointed out:
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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