FAILING PRODUCTIVELY IN SYSTEMS CHANGE: KEY MINDSETS & PRACTICESBy CoCreative 23 Aug 2022
Failing Productively in Systems Change: Key Mindsets & Practices – NetworkWeaver
Category Archives: Discussion
A view or perspective on the world
The Illusion of Complexity by James Wilk
The Illusion of ComplexityJames Wilk
Introduction from the Editor
Complexity is not a feature of the world that can be modelled, or managed. Complexity is, rather, a function of our lack of understanding, or the way we have attempted to understand something—something which, once understood, can be seen to be fundamentally simple. Complexity needs to be filtered. The illusion of complexity, which continually renders our actions ineffective, results from the application of simplistic, sweeping midlevel abstractions to the idiosyncratic details of real-world situations. The radical implications for management and decision-making are the focus of this brief introduction to our contrarian view of complexity.—The Editors
CONTINUES IN SOURCE The Illusion of Complexity – by James Wilk – Change
Towards the full recovery of Alexander Bogdanov’s work and ideas
This blog project is meant to be a personal contribution to the collective process of the recovery of Alexander Bogdanov’s fascinating life work and ideas.
The project follows up and builds on two events I co-organized on 2 and 3 June 2021. I was very lucky to be the principal organizer of these events, which were the outcome of my ongoing research on Bogdanov’s Tektology, and I received great support from precious people like Fabian Tompsett, John Biggart, Gerald Midgley, Amanda Gregory, and Mike Jackson in realising them. The institutional hosts and supporters of the events were the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, the British Cybernetics Society, and the Financial University of Moscow.
The first of these events was the 2021 Annual Mike Jackson Lecture given online by renowned theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. The lecture was entitled ‘The Relational Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Alexander Bogdanov’s…
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Heinz Von Foerster Papers (Digital Surrogates) | Digital Collections at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
Heinz Von Foerster Papers (Digital Surrogates)
Heinz Von Foerster Papers (Digital Surrogates) | Digital Collections at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
via Mark Johnson, from Thomas Fischer:
Thank you to @TH0MASF1SCHER – this is an exciting collection of videos on cybernetics with Heinz von Foerster and Humberto Maturana “In cybernetics [] ethics becomes a central part of scientific activity” https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/ac64fb20-f570-0134-23e3-0050569601ca-0… @rupertwegerif @GubernatorHomo @carlgomb @antlerboy
This link includes two hosted plenary ASC conference recordings with von Foerster and Maturana.
Transcripts
Part one https://otter.ai/u/vVcSttm_NvigVkkVcKARL7ZyL_o
Part two https://otter.ai/u/GEG-hkUrvcawt9XpMPhwempCbd8
This Great Network of Interbeing, with Vince F Horn – Buddhist Geeks podcast
A really nice talk by Vince Horn on holism, networks, interbeing and so on.
This Great Network of Interbeing, with Vince F HornBuddhist GeeksRELIGION & SPIRITUALITYBUDDHISMbuddhismMeditationMindfulnessSocietyTechnologytibetan buddhismvajrayanavipassanazen© https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Website“‘To be’ is to inter-be.” – Thích Nhất HạnhIn this episode–taken from a Dharma Talk at the Garrison Institute in 2022–Vince Fakhoury Horn teaches on the complexity of Interbeing, looking at “it” from 3 distinct perspectives:Interbeing within OurselvesInterbeing with OthersInterbeing inside NatureTaken together, these three form a great network of Interbeing, one which opens us to the self-similar & fractal nature of interdependence. At every scale, we inter-are.
This Great Network of Interbeing, with Vince F Horn
Video
Overcast
https://overcast.fm/+Fgr-fuRg
Design Foundations For Systems Capital | by Griffith University Yunus Centre | Y Impact | Aug, 2022 | Medium
Griffith University Yunus CentreAug 17·5 min read·ListenLayering portfolios in context. Developed by The Yunus Centre Griffith University & Hatched for Design Foundations for Systems CapitalDesign Foundations For Systems CapitalDesigning an investment approach that fosters systems innovation and transformation
Design Foundations For Systems Capital | by Griffith University Yunus Centre | Y Impact | Aug, 2022 | Medium
h/t Mikael Seppala
Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses – Turchin et al (2022)
Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses | Science Advances
h/t Michael Garfield
PETER TURCHIN HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-1292-8100HARVEY WHITEHOUSE HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0001-6935-6724 SERGEY GAVRILETSDANIEL HOYER HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0003-2675-257XPIETER FRANÇOISJAMES S. BENNETT HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0003-3051-1672KEVIN C. FEENEYPETER PEREGRINE HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0001-9185-3348GARY FEINMAN HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-4787-2733[…]MAJID BENAM +8 authors Authors Info & Affiliations
SCIENCE ADVANCES
24 Jun 2022
Vol 8, Issue 25
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn3517
Abstract
During the Holocene, the scale and complexity of human societies increased markedly. Generations of scholars have proposed different theories explaining this expansion, which range from broadly functionalist explanations, focusing on the provision of public goods, to conflict theories, emphasizing the role of class struggle or warfare. To quantitatively test these theories, we develop a general dynamical model based on the theoretical framework of cultural macroevolution. Using this model and Seshat: Global History Databank, we test 17 potential predictor variables proxying mechanisms suggested by major theories of sociopolitical complexity (and >100,000 combinations of these predictors). The best-supported model indicates a strong causal role played by a combination of increasing agricultural productivity and invention/adoption of military technologies (most notably, iron weapons and cavalry in the first millennium BCE).
Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses
Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses | Science Advances
Using neuroscience & cybernetics to transform social organisations | Bobby Azarian & Arash Arabi – YouTube
Bobby Azarian has apparently been on the Joe Rogan thing. This was advertised on linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arasharabi_using-neuroscience-cybernetics-to-transform-activity-6962555285450211329-U3Wk?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web) by Arash Arabi where I said:
“Congrats on a really professional and interesting podcast / video interview…. I must admit I thought it seems like he knows his stuff and was giving a wide overview, but because it was *such* a wide overview, without real reference points to which theory (and which versions) he was referencing, I lost track bit and was unable to see what the ‘new perspective’ was that he was bringing. Perhaps I’m not at my best this evening, or perhaps I’m not the target audience 🙂
Anyway, I’ve subscribed and will share!”“PS I have a real prejudice against neuroscience (sorry!) so I was quite pleased to see it didn’t seem to really feature – but I don’t think cybernetics (which I am prejudiced in favour of!) really featured either?”
I would value perspectives on this!
Using neuroscience & cybernetics to transform social organisations | Bobby Azarian & Arash Arabi – YouTube
The risks of ‘seeing the whole’
Join the discussion on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_8-things-to-think-about-systems-complexity-activity-6964845434942959616-R3We/
Have you ever been encouraged to ‘see the whole’, or ‘think holistically’?
Have you read that it is critical for our #future that we ‘see the whole of the elephant’?
It’s true — but it’s not the whole story.
And because it’s a one-sided argument trying to rebalance a polarised, competitive world — arguments for ‘holism’ can undermine themselves by missing out the reality of people’s lives.
Here are eight things to think about re complexity | systemsthinking | cybernetics. They apply for management, innovation, society, ecology.
1 denying that we are part of a whole
It’s true: we are all connected. You can’t throw anything ‘away’ because there’s no ‘away’.
This insight can change lives — deeply, fundamentally. It can change organisations, and society — usually for the better.
But despite our best wishes and intentions, it somehow doesn’t change the world! Why?
2 believing we have seen the whole when…
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Systems thinking is old hat.. Don’t be mistaken. It was there before… | by Philippe Vandenbroeck | Aug, 2022 | Medium
Lean, with Joy and Mary…
Rude! 😉
I prefer to comment on a blog, on the blog itself. It helps to convert them from monologue to dialogue: which all bloggers appreciate. On this occasion, however, I have got too much to say and it would distract from the excellent blog on Lean, published by Joy Furnival.
A few weeks ago, while Joy was musing over Lean ‘being blamed for various supply chain failings’, we exchanged some thoughts on twitter, just to get the creative juices flowing. It looks like, given the tweets and the subsequent blog that we agree on many things, albeit from different perspectives, but I feel obliged to expand on a couple of Joy’s points, opinions, insinuations.
- Here’s Joy’s honest expression of what Lean means and her dismay at some of the crap that’s spouted, not it its favour. JOY
- And here’s one of my blatherings that explains Lean (in the middle of…
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THE origins of THE systems approach
Tracing the tracks of C. West Churchman
Last month I reread (and blogged) Churchman’s ‘The Systems Approach’ (1968) and was surprised to see that between the lines it contained practically the whole of the dialectical systems approach (the systems approach) as it finally took shape in 1971 (The design of inquiring systems) and 1979 (Enemies of the systems approach). In ‘The Systems Approach’ Churchman describes in fact how the dialectical systems approach emerged from the scientific systems approach (the “systems approach”) and operations research, something he had been working on very successfully from 1941 onward and the 1950s in particular, culminating in his ‘Introduction to Operations Research’ (IOR, Wiley, 1957; co-written by Russ Ackoff and Leonard Arnoff, one of the big guys behind Ernst & Young). Interestingly and speaking in a general sense, many of the ideas of ‘The Systems Approach’ of 1968 can be traced back in…
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Luhmann’s systems theory
Modern society [1] Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) was a German sociologist who developed a general systems theory of modern society. The American social systems theorist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was a major influence – for the idea of social systems -, but so were the Chileans Humberto Maturana (1928-2021) and his student Francisco Varela (1946-2001) – for the idea of autopoiesis. Steffen Roth (1976) is a very active Luhmann scholar. According to Luhmann modern society evolved from the 16th to 18th century by differentiating largely independent function systems such as law, politics, science, economy, religion, and media. The function systems were not so much human designs as globally emerging patterns of social differentiation in a historically evolving environment, which to a large extent was shaped by those same emerging function systems. ‘Social systems theory does not describe reality as it “essentially” is, but as what it has actually become – and it…
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The dynamics of transitions in socio-technical systems: A multi-level analysis of the transition pathway from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles (1860–1930) – Geels (2006)
The dynamics of transitions in socio-technical systems: A multi-level analysis of the transition pathway from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles (1860–1930)Dr. Ir. F. W. Geels
The dynamics of transitions in socio-technical systems: A multi-level analysis of the transition pathway from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles (1860–1930): Technology Analysis & Strategic Management: Vol 17, No 4
Twitter thread on a new book claiming that reductionism can explain everything
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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