source (with full pdf)

Systems Thinking: A Comparison between Chinese and Western Approaches – ScienceDirect

Systems Thinking: A Comparison between Chinese and Western Approaches☆

lXingPan^aRicardoValerdi^bRuiKang^aShow moreAdd to MendeleyShareCitehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2013.01.108Get rights and contentUnder a Creative Commons licenseopen access

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison between Chinese perspectives on systems thinking and ideas from the West, primarily the U.S. and the U.K. In particular we focus on the debate between reductionism and holism which is one of the classical subjects of study in the philosophy of science. Just like the West, China experienced theoretical debate between holism and reductionism which spanned across a broad range of fields such as traditional Chinese medicine and reliability-centered systems engineering. The Chinese developed their own oriental systems methodologies based on the philosophical foundation of ancient oriental philosophy thoughts and dialectic principle, the most distinctive of which include the Meta-synthesis Approach and the Wuli– Shili–Renli approach. In the Western approach to systems thinking there are similar concepts of holistic thinking, synergism, and cause and effect. However, interesting differences exist between China and the West in the role of intuition in decision making. We explore these differences and discuss the implications for applying each approach in different problem solving contexts.

pdf: https://link.springer.com.sci-hub.se/chapter/10.1007%2F0-387-21722-3_11

Objects: Tokens for (Eigen-)Behaviors | SpringerLink

Objects: Tokens for (Eigen-)Behaviors

Keywords

Stable Behavior Mathematical Biophysics Behavior Figure Logical Calculus Notational Abbreviation These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

A seed, alas, not yet a flower, for Jean Piaget to his 80th birthday from Heinz, von Foerster with admiration and affection.

This contribution was originally prepared for and presented at the University of Geneva on June 29, 1976, on occasion of Jean Piaget’s 80th birthday. The French version of this paper appeared in Hommage a Jean Piaget: Epistémologie génétique et équilibration. B. Inhelder, R. Garcia, J. Voneche (eds.), Delachaux et Niestle Neuchatel (1977).

and

Eigenforms – Objects as Tokens for Eigenbehaviors – Kauffman (2003)

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Eigenforms-Objects-as-Tokens-for-Eigenbehaviors-Kauffman/a0e14bcc782a0f7c066d753ec7ded68ea8fcc224

Eigenforms – Objects as Tokens for Eigenbehaviors

• L. Kauffman
• Published 2003
• Computer Science, Psychology
• Cybern. Hum. Knowing

This essay is a contemplation of the notion of eigenform as explicated by Heinz von Foerster in his paper [4]. In that paper Heinz performs the magic trick of convincing us that the familiar objects of our existence can be seen to be nothing more than tokens for the behaviors of the organism that create stable forms. This is not to deny an underlying reality that is the source of these objects, but rather to emphasize the role of process and the role of the organism in the production of a living map that is so sensitive that map and territory are conjoined. Von Foerster’s papers [4,5,6] in the book [3] were instrumental in pioneering the field of second order cybernetics. The notion of an eigenform is inextricably linked with second order cybernetics. One starts on the road to such a concept as soon as one begins to consider a pattern of patterns, the form of form or the cybernetics of cybernetics. Such concepts appear to close around upon themselves, and at the same time they lead outward. They suggest the possibility of transcending the boundaries of a system from a locus that might have been within the system until the circular concept is called into being, and then the boundaries have turned inside out. As Ranulph Glanville has pointed out “The inside is the outside is the inside is the…” Forms are created from the concatenation of operations upon themselves and objects are not objects at all, but rather indications of processes. Upon encountering an object, after that essay of Heinz, you are compelled to ask: How is that object created? How is it designed? What do I do to produce it? What is the network of productions? Where is the home of that object? In what context does it exist? How am I involved in its creation? Taking Heinz’s suggestion to heart we find that an object in itself is a symbolic entity, participating in a network of interactions, taking on its apparent solidity and stability from these interactions. We ourselves are such objects, we as human beings are “signs for ourselves,” a concept originally due to the American philosopher C. S. Peirce [9]. In many ways Heinz’s eigenforms are mathematical companions to Peirce’s work. We will not follow this comparison in the present essay, but the reader familiar with Peirce is encouraged to do so.

pdf https://cepa.info/fulltexts/1817.pdf

Despite the fact that I tend to believe that systems, complexity, and cybernetics are better viewed as part of one extended and intermingled family of ideas and approaches, and that there are other and better ways to divide the field that these broad headings (see https://stream.syscoi.com/2020/04/21/bringing-together-some-reason-and-old-threads-on-systemsthinking-is-complexity-is-cybernetics/#comment-478 ) , it is possible at the very least to distinguish a number of pieces and perspectives which focus on concepts of complexity etc.

From a recent request on linkedin, I have curated some of them (posted here within the last few years), which I think, together, form an interesting overview (they include links to some more authoritative overviews, but this list in no way claims authority):

Warren Weaver – classic 1948 paper ‘science and complexity’

Science and complexity – Weaver, 1948 (classic paper introduction 2004)

A useful comparison of Gershenon (2020) – an avowedly ‘complexity’ approach with Espinosa, Harnden, and Walker (2007) – an avowedly cybernetics approach:

Guiding the Self-Organization of Cyber-Physical Systems, Gershenon (2020) cf Beyond hierarchy: A complexity management perspective , Espinosa, Harnden, and Walker (2007)

A good facebook comment by Gerald Midgely on ‘complexity science’ in comparison with cybernetics and systems thinking:

Bringing together some recent and old threads on #systemsthinking is #complexity is #cybernetics

A historical account (from 2019) which draws on a few key methods:

Complexity and systems thinking – January 2011, Merali and Allen

Emergence: complexity and organisation (2004)

Systems theory and complexity – Emergence: Complexity and Organization – Richardson (2004)

Some quotes from the depths of history on complexity concepts

some quotes on the theme #complexitythinking is #systemsthinking (is #cybernetics)

A request (not mine) from twitter for books about complexity:

Books on the topic of complex adaptive systems

Editorial by Carlos Gershenson (highly focused on computational work):

Editorial: Complexity and Self-Organization

A big and good resource which (I don’t have to say it, perhaps) seems to me not to credit systems and cybernetics appropriately
https://stream.syscoi.com/2021/03/03/complexity-explained/

An introduction to complexity theory:
https://stream.syscoi.com/2021/02/28/an-introduction-to-complexity-theory-by-jun-park-medium/

‘Dancing landscapes’, a piece which focuses on a key concept form Scott E Page’s ‘understanding complexity’ Great Courses course

Dancing Landscapes – artilce by Tim Maly, RISD Center for Complexity, and sources from Scott E. Page and his ‘Understanding Complexity’ course on ‘The Great Courses’

Three approaches to complexity by second-generation representatives of key thinkers:
https://stream.syscoi.com/2021/03/15/video-complexity-and-the-social-world-building-on-the-legacy-of-allen-byrne-stacey-and-cilliers-complexity-physics-org/

A piece from Martin Reynolds on ‘traditions of complexity and systems science’

Traditions of ‘Complexity and Systems Science’?

from January 2021 – Causality and complexity: the myth of objectivity in science – Chem Biodivers 2007 – Mikulecky
https://stream.syscoi.com/2021/01/30/causality-and-complexity-the-myth-of-objectivity-in-science-chem-biodivers-2007-mikulecky/

From a management blog – Herding Cats – a compendium of resources

Herding Cats: A Compendium of Managing Complex Systems

In the words of the Santa Fe Institute:
https://stream.syscoi.com/2020/11/16/what-is-complex-systems-science-and-reading-list-santa-fe-institute/

Others using the word:
Alicia Juarrero
https://stream.syscoi.com/2021/02/07/systems-and-constraints-discourse-martin-gurri-interview-with-alicia-juarrero-2020/

Thea Snow:

Embracing complexity in government – a story about gardening and thinking in systems :: Thea Snow :: City of the future :: Participate Melbourne

 Complexity Weekend Online Community of Practice   Join the May 2021 cohort of this unique Applied Complexity journey, featuring a Pre-Weekend experience starting 3/21 and a fully-interactive team-forming Weekend experience Friday 5/21 through Sunday 5/23 Register Now (closes April 26th) or Join Mailing List (Registration fee is offered on a sliding scale) What is Complexity?

Complexity Weekend | May 21, 2021 – May 23, 2021

 Complexity Weekend

Online Community of Practice  

Join the May 2021 cohort of this unique Applied Complexity journey, featuring a Pre-Weekend experience starting 3/21 and a fully-interactive team-forming Weekend experience Friday 5/21 through Sunday 5/23

Register Now (closes April 26th) or Join Mailing List

(Registration fee is offered on a sliding scale)

What is Complexity?

Now in a session with June Holley, and I can’t believe I haven’t linked to this before?! Network Weaving is a really significant part of the

NetworkWeaver – Weaving System Shifting Networks

NETWORK WEAVING

During the twenty-first century, activity will increasingly take place in self-organizing, system shifting networks. This site offers resources and discussion space for those who want to better understand network approaches to transformation and improve their skills in facilitating this transition.

This is also the site for the Network Weaver Consultants Network, a loosely affiliated group of consultants who provide a wide range of network services for organizations, networks and communities.

Go to the Network Services page to see a list of ten network services and which consultants offer each service.

source:

NetworkWeaver – Weaving System Shifting Networks

Thanks to Roger James for pointing this out, and its links to scenario planning.

Classic article:

“Memory of the future”: an essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness

D H Ingvar

• PMID: 3905726

Abstract

The classical tripartite concept of time divided into past/present/future components, has been applied to the analysis of the functional cerebral substrate of conscious awareness. Attempts have been made to localize and to separate the neuronal machineries which are responsible for the experience of a past, a present, and a future. One’s experience of a past is obviously related to one’s memories. Memory mechanisms (in the conventional sense) have a well known functional relation to superficial and deep parts of the temporal lobe. Some such mechanisms presumably have a more widespread distribution. The experience of a present or a “Now-situation” is mediated by the sensory input. This input also exerts a role for conscious awareness of an inner Now-situation, independent of current afferent impulses, as shown by numerous observations on sensory deprivation. The main discussion is devoted to the experience of a future. Evidence is summarized that the frontal/prefrontal cortex handles the temporal organization of behaviour and cognition, and that the same structures house the action programs or plans for future behaviour and cognition. As these programs can be retained and recalled, they might be termed “memories of the future”. It is suggested that they form the basis for anticipation and expectation as well as for the short and long-term planning of a goal-directed behavioural and cognitive repertoire. This repertoire for future use is based upon experiences of past events and the awareness of a Now-situation, and it is continuously rehearsed and optimized. Lesions or dysfunctions of the frontal/prefrontal cortex give rise to states characterized by a “loss of future”, with consequent indifference, inactivity, lack of ambition, and inability to foresee the consequences of one’s future behaviour. It is concluded that the prefrontal cortex is responsible for the temporal organization of behaviour and cognition due to its seemingly specific capacity to handle serial information and to extract causal relations from such information. Possibly the serial action programs which are stored in the prefrontal cortex are also used by the brain as templates for extracting meaningful (serial) information from the enormous, mainly non-serial, random, sensory noise to which the brain is constantly exposed. Without a “memory of the future” such an extraction cannot take place.

pdf: https://www.prospectivepsych.org/sites/default/files/pictures/Ingvar_Memory-of-future-1985.pdf

Memory of the future (Fuster, 2014)

https://www.cambridge.org.sci-hub.se/core/books/neuroscience-of-freedom-and-creativity/memory-of-the-future/1BE1B971ACD2E9E42ADD6360BE28B6B2

Memories of the future: new insights into the adaptive value of episodic memory (various, 2013)

Karl K. Szpunar^1,2*, Donna Rose Addis^3,4, Victoria C. McLelland^3,4 and Daniel L. Schacter^1,2

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11708605/3662022.pdf?sequence=1

Remembering Possible Times: Memory for Details of Past, Future, and Counterfactual Simulations (various, 2020)
Felipe De Brigard, Bryce Gessell, Brenda W. Yang, Gregory Stewart, and Elizabeth J. Marsh

Link to scenario planning:

another link:

https://geraldashley.blog/2018/04/21/memories-of-the-future/

and a piece on market research and links to futures work more broadly:

https://www.greenbook.org/mr/market-research-methodology/memories-of-the-future/

WE HAVE ARGUED at some length in another place that the mechanical equilibrium model and the organismic homeostasis models of society that have underlain most modern sociological theory have outlived their usefulness. A more viable model, one much more faithful to the kind of system that society is more and more recognized to k, is in process of developing out of, or is in keeping with, the modern systems perspective (which we use loosely here to refer to general systems research, cybernetics, information and communication theory, and related fields). Society, or the sociocultural system, is not, then, principally an equilibrium system or a homeostatic system, but what we shalt simply refer to as a complex adaptive system.

continues in source: http://coevolving.com/transfer/2013-ISSS-Buckley/1968_Buckley_SocietyAsAComplexSystem_ocr.pdf?source=post_page—————————

h/t Liam Mahon, and then I found the document hosted on David Ing’s coevolving.com

Sweden Game Arena

Systemic design is for many game designers like water to fish: we swim in it daily, but we have a difficult time articulating exactly what it is. Mike Seller’s talk provides useful, practical definitions of important concepts like systems, emergence, and interactivity, as well as a cohesive framework for creating systems and systemic effects in game and AI design.

A Systemic Approach to Systemic Design – Mike Sellers – YouTube

BOUNDARYLESS CONVERSATIONS PODCAST — SEASON 2 EP #13 Trans-contextual Organizing: Shifting Perceptions — with Nora Bateson Nora Bateson joins us for an earnest conversation where we delve into invisible assumptions, entanglement, and trans-contextual organizing. Together we explore what embracing a complexity standpoint truly means for an organization and for the relationships taking place within it and between that and other organizations.

Trans-contextual Organizing: Shifting Perceptions — with Nora Bateson | by Boundaryless | Mar, 2021 | Stories of Platform Design

BOUNDARYLESS CONVERSATIONS PODCAST — SEASON 2 EP #13

Trans-contextual Organizing: Shifting Perceptions — with Nora Bateson

Nora Bateson joins us for an earnest conversation where we delve into invisible assumptions, entanglement, and trans-contextual organizing. Together we explore what embracing a complexity standpoint truly means for an organization and for the relationships taking place within it and between that and other organizations.

https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/trans-contextual-organizing-shifting-perceptions-with-nora-bateson-5a2f233b9d23

American Society for Cybernetics – ASC

Models are not good or bad, right or wrong, only more or less useful in a given context. — Stafford Beer During this ASC Series event Jude Lombardi facilitated a conversation between two long-term members and past-presidents of the ASC, Allenna Leonard and Larry Richards, about the life and work of Stafford Beer. As many might know, Beer was a prolific producer of many things — in a variety of domains. He was, according to Leonard, a “polymath—a scientist who painted, wrote poetry, taught yoga and cooked a delicious Yorkshire pudding.” Event page and links to papers: https://asc-cybernetics.org/asc-speak…

ASC Speakers Series #4 – Leonard and Richards on Stafford – YouTube

jude lombardi In this video short from the 1993 American Society for Cybernetics conference in Philadelphia PA. Humberto Maturana talks about the history of humanity, desires, wants, freedom and responsibility.

Humberto Maturana and The Tango of Responsibility – YouTube

Announcement from Gerald Midgley, Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull (as posted by Mike on facebook)

MIKE C JACKSON LECTURE

You may know that we have an annual ‘Mike C Jackson Lecture’, thanks to an alumnus donation. Our speaker this year (June 2nd) will be Carlo Rovelli, who is a quantum physicist. His most recent book, Helgoland, starts the job of connecting the fundamentals of systems science with quantum mechanics. He goes back to the work of Bogdanov at the time of the Russian revolution, and explains how Bogdanov proposed a universal theory of organization that can be used to understand the fundamentally relational nature of quantum phenomena. This is very significant for systems science and systems thinking, as it promises to put the ‘science of organizing’ back at the centre stage of mainstream disciplinary science. Finally, let me thank Orsan Senalp. It was through him that this lecture became possible. Indeed, Orsan will be organizing a mini-symposium after the main lecture, not least because Carlo Rovelli is very keen to engage with post-Bogdanov systems scientists and systems thinkers. More information (including dates for both the Lecture and mini-symposium) will follow soon.

source:

Composing a Life: Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson on Our False Mythos of Achievement and the Messy, Nonlinear Reality of How We Become Who We Are – Brain Pickings

Composing a Life: Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson on Our False Mythos of Achievement and the Messy, Nonlinear Reality of How We Become Who We Are

“The knight errant, who finds his challenges along the way, may be a better model for our times than the knight who is questing for the Grail.”

BY MARIA POPOVA

“Living has yet to be generally recognized as one of the arts,” proclaimed a 1924 guide to the art of living while, across the Atlantic, Bertrand Russell was contemplating what the good life really means. And yet as the twentieth century wore on and consumption eclipsed creativity, our ideals of and ideas about what constitutes a good life grew increasingly fogged by the cult of having, to which we submitted the art of being as a sacrificial offering.

In the mid-1970s, the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm turned to the problem of setting ourselves free from the chains of our culture. Fromm was a seer of a different order — so much so that legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead would turn to him for advice on the most challenging aspects of living — and insisted that “the full humanization of man requires the breakthrough from the possession-centered to the activity-centered orientation.” But it took more than a decade for this sobering spark to kindle the light of awareness in the hearth of culture.

Few people have been more instrumental in this awakening to the authentic life than anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson (b. December 8, 1939), Mead’s daughter. Her 1989 treatise Composing a Life (public library) endures as an immensely insightful inquiry into our culturally conditioned mythologies of achievement and success, and what it takes to transcend them in order to live an authentic, meaningful life — a life that is invariably far messier and more strewn with contradiction than our misleading cultural mythos of self-actualization allows.

continues in source:

Composing a Life: Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson on Our False Mythos of Achievement and the Messy, Nonlinear Reality of How We Become Who We Are – Brain Pickings

source:

Naturalising narrated – Cognitive Edge

Naturalising narrated

Dave Snowden March 28, 2021 MANAGING COMPLEX SYSTEMS, REFLECTIONS

In recent times I’ve been engaged in a series of interesting exchanges with Dr Mike Jackson OBE, hereinafter referred to as Mike.  I have a visiting chair at Hull University where he is Emeritus Professor and as well as a fair number of mutual friends including Yasmin Merali and Gerald Midgley.   I have been provisionally scheduled to give the Mike Jackson memorial lecture in 2023, Peter Senge gets the slot in 2020 I gather, so there will be some interesting contrasts to be made.  This year will see Carlo Rovelli is leading a symposium on the work of Alexandr Bogdanov whose work in systems has been much neglected so I am looking forward to that.

I should also make clear at this point my gratitude to, and respect for, the work that Mike has put into understanding not only Cynefin but the wider fields of complexity and systems.  It makes an exchange both interesting and rewarding and allows for a non-homogenising understanding of the wider field.  We share concerns about the rejection of all Systems Thinking by Stacy, and the, at times arrogance of the agent-based modellers of what I call Computational Complexity.

Now the exchanges, while interesting, have led to a certain amount of bafflement on my part as a large part of my responses have been along the lines of but that isn’t what I am saying and that isn’t what Cynefin is about and variations on that theme.  When this happens it is usually a result of the way one or other party is framing the problem and/or the way the idea is being communicated.  Two recent events resulted in a breakthrough for me at least, the light dawned and while I don’t yet hold said light in the palm of my hand I think I am getting there.

contiues in source:

Naturalising narrated – Cognitive Edge