On Our Own Terms: Systems change through Lived Experience Leadership. Morgan & Co. https://morganandco.au/project/on-our-own-terms/
Category Archives: Discussion
A view or perspective on the world
Systems Practice as a Practice of the Middle Voice
Systems Practice as a Practice of the Middle Voice. Philippe Vandenbroeck. https://philippevandenbroeck.medium.com/systems-practice-as-a-practice-of-the-middle-voice-f89d81509e1e
Conceptual understanding is a myth – by Greg Ashman
Conceptual understanding is a myth – by Greg Ashman
Icon, Likeness, Likely Story, Likelihood, Probability • 2
Re: Peirce List • Phyllis Chiasson
I’m still a bit fuzzy on how Aristotle’s account relates to Peirce’s usage, though I’m pretty sure Peirce must have taken Aristotle’s usage into account, but it does seem that Aristotle drew some sort of distinction here, using a term “tekmerion” which gets translated as “index” to make the following remark later on in that chapter.
We must either classify signs in this way, and regard their middle term as an index [τεκµηριον] (for the name ‘index’ is given to that which causes us to know, and the middle term is especially of this nature), or describe the arguments drawn from the extremes as ‘signs’, and that which is drawn from the middle as an ‘index’. For the conclusion which is reached through the first figure is most generally accepted and most true. (Aristotle, Prior Analytics, 2.27.70b1–6).
Reference
- Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Resource
- Theme One Program • User Guide • Appendix A
cc: Academia.edu • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Mathstodon
cc: Research Gate • Structural Modeling • Systems Science • Syscoi
The Last Redoubt of Complexity Theory – Downham (2026)
As launched on LinkedIn:
🔥 THE LAST REDOUBT OF COMPLEXITY THEORY is now live.
道 · 愛 · 革命 — The Way · Revolutionary Energy · Transformation of Things
📖 Full paper (HTML) → https://lnkd.in/eEQy_cKu
(6) Post | LinkedIn
Links to
https://markdownham88-crypto.github.io/the-last-redoubt-redux
[I have no way of evaluating this right now – it may be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius!]
Icon, Likeness, Likely Story, Likelihood, Probability • 1
Re: Peirce List • Benjamin Udell • Michael Shapiro
Here’s a likely locus classicus for “icon” in its logical sense —
A probability (εικος) is not the same as a sign (σηµειον). The former is a generally accepted premiss; for that which people know to happen or not to happen, or to be or not to be, usually in a particular way, is a probability: e.g., that the envious are malevolent or that those who are loved are affectionate. A sign, however, means a demonstrative premiss which is necessary or generally accepted. That which coexists with something else, or before or after whose happening something else has happened, is a sign of that something’s having happened or being. (Aristotle, Prior Analytics, 2.27.70a3–10).
Reference
- Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Resource
- Theme One Program • User Guide • Appendix A
cc: Academia.edu • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Mathstodon
cc: Research Gate • Structural Modeling • Systems Science • Syscoi
In Memoriam: Peter Checkland (1930–2026)
[On day when I was in (virtual) attendance at a service for Oliver Westall (my dad’s best and lifelong friend: https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/intranet/news/article/oliver-martin-westall-acss-frhists and evidently a truly good man) at Lancaster University, it can as a shock to hear of the death of Peter Checkland]
Søren Kerndrup gives a lovely and very fitting tribute here: In Memoriam: Peter Checkland (1930–2026)
(1) Post | LinkedIn
Here is Checkland himself, appropriately at the OR Society, from 2081:
A nice tribute to (more than) 50 years of Soft Systems Methodology (also OR Society):
https://www.theorsociety.com/ORS/ORS/Publications/Magazines/IOR/July-2025/SSM_Checkland.aspx
Systems explained, by Checkland also fittingly, on the OU website):
A nice short summary of his ‘journey’:
His piece Soft Systems Methodology: A Thirty Year Retrospective
A piece I came across he wrote in 2021 [another echo of a world that is leaving us: my dad was a big Trad jazz man]
And other references here on syscoi.com – surprisingly tangential but perhaps illustrating his ‘background status’ in recent years, despite enormous influence [similarly, he has never been central to my personal thinking or practice – not explicitly, though implicitly hugely important]
The Hand That Thinks – Complexity, causality and the gap nobody manages – Aziz (2026)
Main article:
https://abaz786.substack.com/p/the-hand-that-thinks
On LinkedIn, Abdul posted/asked
New piece on Substack: The Hand That Thinks – complexity, causality, and the gap nobody manages.
Most critiques of complexity frameworks stop at the critique. This one tries to go further.
The argument in brief:
1) Senge’s famous line – “cause and effect are not closely related in time and space” – is self-defeating. It uses the reductive model to critique the reductive model.
2) Cynefin and Jackson’s SOSM and CSP are genuine advances. But even the most sophisticated pluralism, when organised as a process of methodological selection, leaves one question insufficiently examined: what kind of observer is doing the selecting?
3) Complexity is not a property of situations. It is a relational quantity – it exists between a system and a describing observer. Change the observer and you change the complexity.
4) Almost no methodology makes explicit the distinction between organising models (neurological – VSM, SSM, CSH) and structural models (anatomy and physiology – Enterprise Architecture, Agile, Organisational Design). The gap between them is where most transformation fails.
5) That gap cannot be managed with a one-off consultancy engagement that hands over to a unitary IT delivery. It must be perpetual. That is what the hashtag#ViableOperatingModel is designed to do.
Along the way: Maturana and Varela, Kauffman on Constraint Closure, Beer’s Triple Index, Gell-Mann on complexity as a relational quantity and a pragmatist reframing of what it means to develop as a practitioner.
And a Yorkshire verdict on where we currently find ourselves.
hashtag#EnterpriseArchitecture hashtag#DataMesh
Whilst general feedback is always welcome, I am especially interested in informed reactions to the specific hypotheses:
1) The organising model vs structural model distinction, how it could hold in practice
2) The Hand That Thinks metaphor as a way into the VSM
3) Complexity as a relational quantity and its dual implication for developing both situation and observer
4) The Systemic Performance Surface (not a dashboard) as the instrument that makes perpetual mediation operational
5) Domain-based VSM as a foundation for Data Mesh architecture
I am keen to follow up in individual conversations. This is not about right or wrong, or defending a particular approach. It is about developing understanding together.
I will tag a few people, who I believe are in the know, will push back, add to, or redirect where needed. These are people who live theory in practice and vice versa. If it helps a few others along the way, all the better.
Cybernetics – Viable Systems Model – Cybersyn – applied to Commitment Pooling in ancestral and today’s technologies – Ruddick (2024)
(3) Cybernetics – Viable Systems Model – by Will Ruddick
WILL RUDDICK
MAY 16, 2024
Applying Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model to Decentralized Organization – Kelsie Nabben & Michael Zargham (2022)
Lineages of Systems Practices – by Laura Winn and Saskia Rysenbry – January 29, 2026
[A good example of how ‘systems practice’ means many different things to different people. I would say this is a good example of many of the most important lineages present in what is generally called ‘systems change’]
How might we go about visualising lineages of systems practices?
Lineages of Systems Practices – School of System Change
A couple of years ago, us two – Saskia Rysenbry and Laura Winn – working together at the School of System Change – spent a few months in Aotearoa New Zealand. In the swirling energy of a post-cyclone summer season, we started to visually explore our understanding of how different currents of systems change thinking had come about, the lineages they have formed, and where the tools and frameworks of this field situate themselves in wider origins of practice. The image we created – beautifully drawn by Saskia – has now had the chance to be socialised with multiple groups of people, and we would like to share it more widely.
https://www.schoolofsystemchange.org/blog/lineages-of-systems-practices
A Brief Introduction to UltrastabilityWorshipping the Band of Limits – Rollin (2023)
Organismically-inspired robotics: homeostatic adaptation and teleology beyond the closed sensorimotor loop – Di Paolo (2003)
January 2003
(PDF) Organismically-inspired robotics: homeostatic adaptation and teleology beyond the closed sensorimotor loop
Authors:
Ezequiel Di Paolo
Ikerbasque – Basque Foundation for Science
Paralipomena of Cybernetics – Finding lost things – Manion (2026)
May 11, 2026
Paralipomena of Cybernetics
Paralipomena of Cybernetics – by Sean Manion
Finding lost things
SEAN MANION
MAY 11, 2026
SCiO UK Virtual Open Meeting – 18 May 2026, 18:30 UK time (BST)
All welcome
Virtual Open Meeting: A series of presentations of general interest to Systems and Complexity in Organisation’s members and others.
About this Event
SCiO organises Open Meetings to provide opportunities for practitioners to learn and develop new practice, to build relationships, networks hear about skills, tools, practice and experiences. This virtual meeting will be held on Zoom.
Speakers:
Robin Stowell – Is safety breaking the Laws?
Anne Gambles – Cross-institutional Community of Practice of Communities of Practice (CoP of CoPs
https://www.systemspractice.org/events/scio-uk-virtual-open-meeting-may-2026
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