A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity

A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity | SpringerLink

• December 1943

A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity

• Warren S. McCulloch & 
• Walter Pitts 

The bulletin of mathematical biophysics volume 5, pages115–133 (1943)Cite this article

• 17k Accesses
• 156 Altmetric
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Abstract

Because of the “all-or-none” character of nervous activity, neural events and the relations among them can be treated by means of propositional logic. It is found that the behavior of every net can be described in these terms, with the addition of more complicated logical means for nets containing circles; and that for any logical expression satisfying certain conditions, one can find a net behaving in the fashion it describes. It is shown that many particular choices among possible neurophysiological assumptions are equivalent, in the sense that for every net behaving under one assumption, there exists another net which behaves under the other and gives the same results, although perhaps not in the same time. Various applications of the calculus are discussed.

pdf:

The Cybernetics Moment Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age Ronald R. Kline

The Cybernetics Moment | Johns Hopkins University Press Books

The Cybernetics Moment

Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age

Ronald R. Kline

How did cybernetics and information theory arise, and how did they come to dominate fields as diverse as engineering, biology, and the social sciences?

Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice

Cybernetics—the science of communication and control as it applies to machines and to humans—originates from efforts during World War II to build automatic antiaircraft systems. Following the war, this science extended beyond military needs to examine all systems that rely on information and feedback, from the level of the cell to that of society. In The Cybernetics Moment, Ronald R. Kline, a senior historian of technology, examines the intellectual and cultural history of cybernetics and information theory, whose language of “information,” “feedback,” and “control” transformed the idiom of the sciences, hastened the development of information technologies, and laid the conceptual foundation for what we now call the Information Age.

Kline argues that, for about twenty years after 1950, the growth of cybernetics and information theory and ever-more-powerful computers produced a utopian information narrative—an enthusiasm for information science that influenced natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, humanists, policymakers, public intellectuals, and journalists, all of whom struggled to come to grips with new relationships between humans and intelligent machines.

Kline traces the relationship between the invention of computers and communication systems and the rise, decline, and transformation of cybernetics by analyzing the lives and work of such notables as Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Warren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Herbert Simon. Ultimately, he reveals the crucial role played by the cybernetics moment—when cybernetics and information theory were seen as universal sciences—in setting the stage for our current preoccupation with information technologies.

Review by Andrew Pickering

Ronald R. Kline: The cybernetics moment: Or why we call our age the information age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. xi+336pp, $54.95 HB

(PDF) Ronald R. Kline: The cybernetics moment: Or why we call our age the information age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. xi+336pp, $54.95 HB

Ronald R. Kline: The cybernetics moment: Or why we call our age the information age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. xi+336pp, $54.95 HB

• February 2016
• Metascience 25(2)

• DOI: 
• 10.1007/s11016-016-0061-1

• Andrew Pickering

full text: http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Kaufmann%20The%20Sciences%20of%20Complexity%20and%20Origins%20of%20Order%20PSA%201990.htm

The Sciences of Complexity and “Origins of Order”

The Sciences of Complexity and “Origins of Order” | PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association: Vol 1990, No 2

The Sciences of Complexity and “Origins of Order”

Stuart A. Kauffman

• Abstract
• PDF

Abstract

This article discusses my book, Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution, in the context of the emerging sciences of complexity. Origins, due out of Oxford University Press in early 1992, attempts to lay out a broadened theory of evolution based on the marriage of unexpected and powerful properties of self organization which arises in complex systems, properties which may underlie the origin of life itself and the emergence of order in ontogeny, and the continuing action of natural selection. The three major themes are: 1) that such self organized properties lie to hand for selection’s further molding; 2) hence that the order we see is not due to selection alone, but in part reflects the order selection has always acted upon; 3) and finally that the marriage of natural order and natural selection may inevitably lead living entitites to a novel organized state, lying on the edge between order and chaos, as the inevitable evolutionary attractor of selection for the capacity to adapt.

A very good historical review.

pdf: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.472.89&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Systemics and cybernetics in a historical perspective

Systemics and cybernetics in a historical perspective – François – 1999 – Systems Research and Behavioral Science – Wiley Online Library

Systemics and cybernetics in a historical perspective

Charles FrançoisFirst published: 07 April 2000 https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1743(199905/06)16:3<203::AID-SRES210>3.0.CO;2-1Citations: 46PDFTOOLSSHARE

Abstract

Systemics and cybernetics can be viewed as a metalanguage of concepts and models for transdisciplinarian use, still now evolving and far from being stabilized. This is the result of a slow process of accretion through inclusion and interconnection of many notions, which came and are still coming from very different disciplines. The process started more than a century ago, but has gathered momentum since 1948 through the pioneering work of Wiener, von Neumann, von Bertalanffy, von Förster and Ashby, among many others. This paper tries to retrace the history of the accretion process and to show that our systemic and cybernetic language is an evolving conceptual network. This is of course only a first and quite incomplete attempt, merely destined to give the ‘feel’ of the process. Systemic concepts and models are underlined in order to enhance the perception of the process, as well as its systemic significance. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cybernetics for the Social Sciences

Scott | Cybernetics for the Social Sciences | 1st edition | 2021 | beck-shop.de

Published: April 30, 2021

Scott

Cybernetics for the Social Sciences

A book. Soft cover

2021

VI, 130 pp.

In English

Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9789004464346

Format (W x L): 15.5 x 23.5 cm

Weight: 239 g

The work is part of the series:  Brill Research Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences / Brill Research Perspectives in Sociocybernetics and Complexity

Product descriptionBernard Scott has met a long-felt need by authoring a book that shows the relevance of cybernetics for the social sciences (including psychology, sociology, and anthropology). Scott provides user-friendly descriptions of the core concepts of cybernetics, with examples of how they can be used in the social sciences. He explains how cybernetics functions as a transdiscipline that unifies other disciplines and a metadiscipline that provides insights about how other disciplines function. He provides an account of how cybernetics emerged as a distinct field, following interdisciplinary meetings in the 1940s, convened to explore feedback and circular causality in biological and social systems. He also recounts how encountering cybernetics transformed his thinking and his understanding of life in general.

I have an affection for and an interest in ‘Game B’ and/but I can’t help thinkin there’s a peculiarly ‘Game A’, rationalist drive behind it. Like the thinking is almost there, but not quite… anyway, this is a nice example – a nice article but not a framing that fundamentally appeals to me.

From the Game B resoucre archive:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kVcMwjk2XvSaHCyopXyBy_dkNfdPDCCzqSuQjgVPd5Q/edit#gid=0

More on Game B at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/gamebcore

and

https://www.game-b.org/

source:

The under-appreciated drive for sense-making – ScienceDirect

The under-appreciated drive for sense-making

Author links open overlay panelNickChater^aGeorgeLoewenstein^bShow moreAdd to MendeleyShareCitehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2015.10.016Get rights and contentUnder a Creative Commons licenseopen access

Highlights

Sense-making is a fundamental human motivation.•

Sense-making is a drive to simplify our representation of the world.•

Sense-making is traded off against other ‘utilitarian’ motivations.•

Sense-making helps to explain information avoidance and confirmation bias.

Abstract

This paper draws attention to a powerful human motive that has not yet been incorporated into economics: the desire to make sense of our immediate experience, our life, and our world. We propose that evolution has produced a ‘drive for sense-making’ which motivates people to gather, attend to, and process information in a fashion that augments, and complements, autonomous sense-making. A large fraction of autonomous cognitive processes are devoted to making sense of the information we acquire: and they do this by seeking simple descriptions of the world. In some situations, however, autonomous information processing alone is inadequate to transform disparate information into simple representations, in which case, we argue, the drive for sense-making directs our attention and can lead us to seek out additional information. We propose a theoretical model of sense-making and of how it is traded off against other goals. We show that the drive for sense-making can help to make sense of a wide range of disparate phenomena, including curiosity, boredom, ‘flow’, confirmation bias and information avoidance, esthetics (both in art and in science), why we care about others’ beliefs, the importance of narrative and the role of ‘the good life’ in human decision making.

continues in source

The under-appreciated drive for sense-making – ScienceDirect

Rapid Transition Lab: Towards healthy, sustainable and just Swedish and planetary food system. Cool initiative from @DarkMatter_Labs @vinnovase @sthlmresilience !

(3) Mikael Seppälä on Twitter: “Rapid Transition Lab: Towards healthy, sustainable and just Swedish and planetary food system. Cool initiative from @DarkMatter_Labs @vinnovase @sthlmresilience! #systemschange #foodsystems #systemsthinking https://t.co/lWZepUql9d https://t.co/JH4DBsKdGJ” / Twitter

source (inside the Illuminate Mighty Networks – joining required)

Illuminate Luminary Fund | Illuminate

Illuminate Luminary Fund

Request for proposal: deadline 9/15

What is Illuminate? 

A collaborative network committed to cultivating the field and practice of systems change towards a just, equitable and regenerative future for all.

Our aim is to facilitate connectivity that leverages existing resources, practice and experience in a nimble, light way.  We create opportunities to connect field builders, learn from each other and use our collective power to advance systems practice and engage and support the development of many more practitioners. 

Why should I listen? 

The Illuminate network is growing. We have leveraged our collective networks to engage more deeply and more internationally, to meet the needs of the emerging field of systems change in its many expressions and practices. 

This is an invitation to join Illuminate at a pivotal stage and contribute to our shared learning and inquiries. We invite you to submit a proposal specifically in one of two areas:

1. New Systems Change Learning Communities: Regional or thematic communities of practice in new geographic locations (outside of the UK, US and Canada) 
2. New Edgy Inquiries: Inquiries about the edges of the field of systems change practice 

We invite proposals for $10,000 for each inquiry/learning community

Background 

The “dominant” and “formal” field and practice of systems change has been historically occupied by white, academic, western ways of knowing, being, and doing. And much of our current network is centered around the UK, US and Canada.  

As a network, we recognize that there are many ways into the work of systems change, including movement building, social justice and change, facilitation and through many lineages of practice and experiences.  We intend to expand our community and to create communities of learning and inquiry from multiple contexts and locations. 

We want to make new friends, meet new colleagues to help us learn more collectively about what works and what doesn’t in systems change practice. 

We want to build the Illuminate network by engaging in live inquiries. 

Our objectives:

• Connect the field of systems change
• Illuminate practitioners and thought leaders who are working on the edges of the current field
• Support and share learning across the field of systems change
• Advance practice of systems change
• Strengthen the learning and integration of equity, justice, and systems change 

Who we are: Our collaborators

• Turtle Island Institute
• McConnell Foundation
• Emergence Collective
• Systems Sanctuary
• Mastercard Foundation
• CoCreative
• School for Systems Change
• LankellyChase Foundation
• CKX (Community Knowledge Exchange)
• RWJ Foundation
• Institute for Strategic Clarity
• Chandler Foundation
• Pisces Foundation
• Inner Activist
• Catalyst 2030
• Omidyar Group
• Garfield Foundation
• Academy for Systems Change

More specifically 

New Systems Change Learning Communities (Node)

Regional communities of practice and inquiries in new geographic locations (outside of UK, US and Canada)

• You have identified a gap in the systems change field and you want to convene a group of systems change practitioners regionally to support learning and advance the field of practice. 
• We would love to find people/formations who are passionately experimenting with the tools and frameworks of systems change practice in regions outside of the US and the UK
• Illuminate has several other nodes focused on connecting systems change capacity builders, funders, and curriculum in academia. Examples of current nodes in the network: River Delta Capacity Builders, Funders node, Curriculum node. 
• We’d love to know – what are the live questions about how to do systems change in your region? How widespread is the practice? 
• With the $10k we will invite you to convene friends, colleagues and other stakeholders in your world who are also passionate about creating the conditions for systems change and create gatherings to strengthen and relationships between you 
• We are open-minded about what this could look like and would love to hear your ideas 
• You, as leader of the node will be invited to the Learning cohort in Illuminate, where we convene all the leaders of the nodes around the project to stop, reflect and build relationships together to make collective sense of what we’re learning about systems change 
• You will build your international network and have seed money to build your network locally 
• We are looking for people who already have a mental list of people to convene at your first gathering. 

New Edgy Inquiries:

Inquiries about the edges of the field of systems change practice 

• You have a field level question that you know others are asking and will help advance the field and practice of systems change.  
• Examples include: what is the role of bridging in systems change from non-dominant locations? What is the relationship between healing self and healing systems?
• Systems change is an emerging field of practice with a growing number of tools and frameworks which can be helpful in different contexts 
• You will have a burning question – that you have a hunch (or actually you know) would generate unique insight about systems change 
• You might not call yourself a systems change practitioner, but your work is all about using different methods to create meaningful systemic change 
• You, as leader of the node will be invited to the Learning cohort in Illuminate, where we convene all the leaders of the nodes around the project to stop, reflect and build relationships together to make collective sense of what we’re learning about systems change 
• You will build your international network and have seed money to build your network locally 
• We are looking for people who already have a mental list of people to convene at your first gathering. 

Our selection process 

We will prioritize: 

• applicants from diverse communities and contexts outside of the usual actors in the emerging systems change field. 
• Communities and inquiries that have a clear integration of equity and justice across their proposal.

Criteria

• You are a systems change leader with the capacity to convene other systems change leaders and practitioners
• You are working in a community that would benefit from convening and learning
• You are able to convene a group of practitioners from your network of at least 30 people who would come if you asked them to explore questions about how to shift systems in service of equity and justice and a regenerative future for all. We recognize that people might not call it ‘systems change.’

Please fill out the google application form here.

Deadline: September 15, 2021Posted Thu, August 5

Illuminate Luminary Fund Request for proposal: deadline 9/15

Illuminate Luminary Fund | Illuminate

source:

Systems convening: leadership for the 21st century | Centre For Public Impact (CPI)

August 5th, 2021

Shaheen WarrenProgramme Manager, Europe

Jenny OppenheimerProgramme Manager, Lankelly Chase

Systems convening: leadership for the 21st century

Article highlights

.@CPI_foundation has partnered w/ @LankellyChase @theRSAorg @WengerTrayner to develop a new book ‘Systems Convening: A crucial form of leadership for the 21st century’Share article

“As a form of cross-boundary leadership, systems convening is an approach well suited to the most complex of challenges, with the potential to help all institutions thrive in the 21st century.” Learn more in our new book.Share article

Why is #systemsconvening important? It elevates a different kind of leadership, it’s a better approach to sharing power, it understands the importance of earned legitimacy and it provides the tools to embrace complexity.Share article

COVID-19 and the ensuing global pandemic has represented the greatest public health challenge of a generation. Yet, this is just one of a number of complex global challenges that we face: an expansive list that also includes climate change, growing inequality, food security, migration, and many others. It is undeniable that both state and non-state actors are being asked to solve increasingly complex problems. 

So how might we respond to these challenges, and what questions need to be explored along the way? Often in our work, we focus on how people make their best contribution: What leadership is required when dealing with the greatest complexity faced by a generation? What skills and capabilities are valued and most impactful? Do we already have the tools and techniques to respond to 21st century challenges, and if yes, where does this expertise exist? 

Enter Systems convening.

continues in source:

Systems convening: leadership for the 21st century | Centre For Public Impact (CPI)

August 9 (the second Monday of the month) is the 92nd meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration will be on Eventbrite at https://normal-accidents-st-on.eventbrite.ca.

Systems Thinking Ontario – 2021-08-09

2021-08-09

August 9 (the second Monday of the month) is the 92nd meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration will be on Eventbrite at https://normal-accidents-st-on.eventbrite.ca.

Normal Accidents, High Reliability, Wicked Messes

Have we learned from brushes with disaster, or have we become complacent about complexities in everyday life?

On March 28, 1979, an accident with a nuclear reactor occurred at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. Twelve days earlier, an Academy Awards winning film The China Syndrome had opened with a story fictionalized from a 1975 fire at a nuclear plant in Brown’s Ferry, Alabama, raising public awareness of an issue. For a Presidential Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, sociologist Charles Perrow contributed organizational analysis report. On a sabbatical to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1981-1982, that report expanded to include other high-risk systems, becoming the Normal Accidents book, published in 1984.

In the 1990s, a group at Berkeley initiated by Todd LaPorte noticed some high-hazard organizations who able to consistently manage risks to be failure-free. The organizations included the (i) Air Traffic Control System (FAA); (ii) Electric Operations and Power Generations Departments (Pacific Gas and Electric); and (ii) peacetime flight operations in the U.S. Navy. These cases were studies as High Reliability Organizations.

Many of the researchers continue to meet in the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM). In the study of complexity, Ian Mitroff has labelled some situations as wicked messes.

This Systems Thinking Ontario session will be led as a discussion group by David Ing. A short introduction will be provided. Participants will then be encouraged to contribute their impressions of the pre-readings, relate their experiences and/or ask questions.

Venue:

• The link for a Zoom conference will be sent upon preregistration.
• Unfortunately, due to the pandemic OCADU, sLab (Strategic Innovation Lab), 205 Richmond Street West, Room 410 is not available!

Suggested pre-reading:

Articles in reflection:

• Le Coze, Jean-Christophe Le. 2015. “1984–2014. Normal Accidents. Was Charles Perrow Right for the Wrong Reasons?” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 23 (4): 275–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12090. [alternative search on Google Scholar]
• Bourrier, Mathilde. 2011. “The Legacy of the High Reliability Organization Project.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 19 (1): 9–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5973.2010.00628.x. [alternative search on Google Scholar]
• Mitroff, Ian I., and Ralph H. Kilmann. 2021. “Wicked Messes: The Ultimate Challenge to Reality.” In The Psychodynamics of Enlightened Leadership: Coping with Chaos, 21–24. Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71764-3_3. (open access as Chapter 3)
• Mitroff, Ian I., and Ralph H. Kilmann. 2021. “Heuristics and Meta-Heuristics for Coping with Messes.” In The Psychodynamics of Enlightened Leadership: Coping with Chaos, 49–58. Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71764-3_8. (open access as Chapter 8)

Original works:

• Perrow, Charles. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with high risk technologies. New York: Basic Books. [preview of updated 2011 edition on Google Books]
• LaPorte, Todd R., and Paula M. Consolini. 1991. “Working in Practice But Not in Theory: Theoretical Challenges of ‘High-Reliability Organizations.’” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 1 (1): 19–48. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a037070. [alternate search on Google Scholar]
• Rochlin, Gene I. 1996. “Reliable Organizations: Present Research and Future Directions.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 4 (2): 55–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5973.1996.tb00077.x. [alternate search on Google Scholar]
• LaPorte, Todd R. 1996. “High Reliability Organizations: Unlikely, Demanding and At Risk.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 4 (2): 60–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5973.1996.tb00078.x. [alternate search on Google Scholar]

Agenda

“An Interesting Window View“, CC-BY JL Johnson 2012. [Three Mile Island, by Harrisburg International Airport]

Post-meeting artifacts

Bloggers are encouraged to write about their learning and experiences at the meeting. Links will be added to this page.

Identity Management in an Institution of Higher Education: A Case Study Using Structural Coupling and Fractal Enterprise Model

Identity Management in an Institution of Higher Education: A Case Study Using Structural Coupling and Fractal Enterprise Model | Bider | Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly

pdf

[PDF] Boundary critique and its implications for conflict prevention | Semantic Scholar

Boundary critique and its implications for conflict prevention

• G. Midgley, Luis A. Pinzón
• Published 2011
• Economics, Computer Science
• Journal of the Operational Research Society

This paper reviews developments in the theory of boundary critique, which has been used in a number of OR projects to support conflict resolution. The authors argue that this theory (and associated models) is also useful for conflict prevention. It indicates the need to support people in discussing their differences before conflict arises. Potential conflicts can be reframed through dialogue focusing on values, and participative governance can institutionalise fair processes for making decisions in the absence of consensus. Some of the boundary critique models also support people in recognising and countering the systemic conditions that enable stereotyping, stigmatisation and the victimisation of minorities. The paper ends by presenting a new model that was originally developed to inform mediation practice, but also has implications for conflict prevention. This helps explain how different interpretations of a common concern arise, and suggests ways to improve mutual understanding between people and/or reframe the common concern in order to defuse a potential conflict. 

View on Taylor & Francis

pdf at researchgate.net

more in source including pdf link:

[PDF] Boundary critique and its implications for conflict prevention | Semantic Scholar