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:
In today’s post, I am looking at the idea of “authenticity” in relation to existentialism. I am inspired by the ideas of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and De Beauvoir. The title of this post may be misleading. From an existentialist standpoint, to talk about an authentic person is contradicting the very ideas it stands for. An existentialist believes that existence precedes essence. This means that our essence is not pregiven. Our meaning is something that we create. It is an ongoing construction. I do admit that I find the idea of an authentic cybernetician quite fascinating. I am exploring the idea of “authenticity” in existentialism with relation to cybernetics. As Varga and Guignon note:
The most familiar conception of “authenticity” comes to us mainly from Heidegger’sBeing and Timeof 1927. The word we translate as ‘authenticity’ is actually a neologism invented by Heidegger, the wordEigentlichkeit, which…
October 17 (the third Monday of the month, dodging Thanksgiving) is the 104th meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration is at https://reifying-systems-thinking.eventbrite.ca .
Reifying Systems Thinking towards Changes
In 2012, at the 56th Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Systems Sciences, an aspiration of “Rethinking Systems Thinking” was proposed. In 2019, the rise in interest in “systems change” led to the formation of the Systems Changes Learning Circle, centered in Toronto, Canada. Now 4 years into a 10-year journey, research publications and presentations are being released.
In 2022, the Systems Changes Learning approach features three concepts: (i) rhythmic shifts; (ii) texture (leading to contexture); and (iii) propensity. Practices developed are depicted as hub of “knowing from within” appreciated through a cycle of learning along four spoke. Theory-building through multiparadigm inquiry includes philosophies of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine and ecological anthropology.
There is an overlooked similarity between three classic accounts of the conditions of object experience from three distinct disciplines. (1) Sociology: the “inversion” that accompanies discovery in the natural sciences, as local causes of effects are reattributed to an observed object. (2) Psychology: the “externalization” that accompanies mastery of a visual–tactile sensory substitution interface, as tactile sensations of the proximal interface are transformed into vision-like experience of a distal object. (3) Biology: the “projection” that brings forth an animal’s Umwelt, as impressions on its body’s sensory surfaces are reconfigured into perception of an external object. This similarity between the effects of scientific practice and interface-use on the one hand, and of sensorimotor interaction on the other, becomes intelligible once we accept that skillful engagement with instruments and interfaces constitutes a socio-material augmentation of our basic perceptual capacity. This enactive interpretation stands in contrast to anti-realism about science associated with constructivist interpretations of these three phenomena, which are motivated by viewing them as the internal mental construction of the experienced object. Instead, it favors a participatory realism: the sensorimotor basis of perceptual experience loops not only through our body, but also through the external world. This allows us to conceive of object experience in relational terms, i.e., as one or more subjects directly engaging with the world. Consequently, we can appreciate scientific observation in its full complexity: it is a socio-materially augmented process of becoming acquainted with the observed object that—like tool-use and perceiving more generally—is irreducibly self, other-, and world-involving. View Full-Text
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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