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The Cybernetics’ Difference! CybSights—The President’s Series -Angus Jenkinson. 9 Dec 2020, 17:00-19:00 GMT
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The Cybernetics’ Difference! CybSights—The President’s Series Tickets, Wed 9 Dec 2020 at 17:00 | Eventbrite
DEC
09
The Cybernetics’ Difference! CybSights—The President’s Series
by Cybernetics Society — President’s Series
Free to members, £7.50 to others
On Sale 20 Nov 2020 at 00:00
Event Information
The President’s CybSight Series consists of talks by distinguished speakers on issues and challenges confronting modern society.
About this Event
Hosted by our President, Dr. John Beckford FCybS, the CybSights President’s Series is a new programme that will bring interesting people together to explore the relevance and contribution of cybernetics to addressing important challenges.
Each event will consist of contributions by two different speakers. Each will be followed by individual Q&A. These are then brought together by the President in a lively and engaging plenary discussion. Each will seek areas of convergence and divergence between the ideas explored.
Events will be held via Zoom on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 1700 to 1900.
Meetings are open to members of the Cybernetics Society and also the general public. Non-members are invited to join or give a donation. Booking is required.
The Cybernetics Society has been hosting conversations and lectures since the late 1960s.
#1 : December 9: The Cybernetics Difference
Address ing the distinct “go” of cybernetics and its value for contemporary and future science and society.
Introduction and Welcome: Dr. John Beckford, FCybS, President of the Cybernetics Society
John Beckford is a partner in Beckford Consulting, Non-Executive Chair of the Board of Rise Mutual CIC, a Non-Executive Director of both Fusion21 and CoreHaus (social enterprises) and Visiting Professor in both the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London and the Centre for Information Management, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. John holds a PhD in cybernetics from the University of Hull, is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and of the Royal Society for the Arts and a Member of the Institute of Management Services. He is President of the Cybernetics Society.
Angus Jenkinson, FCybS, Secretary of the Cybernetics Society
Why is cybernetics so important?
So important that it should become a major curriculum subject and essential for every senior manager, policymaker, designer, engineer, or ecologist — and many other disciplines? Angus will argue it does four things that change our understanding of the world. 4 ‘things’ that no other generally accepted science addresses so clearly. 1. Active instead of passive causality. 2. Tame instead of wicked problems. 3. Sensitive solutions to problem situations. 4. Active learning and dynamic design. These lead to the understanding that the world has two great orders of nature.
1 > When science rejected goal-driven behaviour in the 1600s it lost the ability to explain the behaviour of every living creature and every social institution. When cybernetics brought it back in the 20th century it provided the foundation for understanding and resolving the most difficult challenges of our time and times to come.
Conventional science until then — and still for many — thought the world operated on passive causality. Things happen to things and so energy and motion were transferred. Whatever happened was because of something that had already happened being transferred to it. By forces. As cause. Then cybernetics proved and demonstrated that there was active causality. All living creatures actively produce what they do. And do their best to make sure that nothing prevents it. That turns our understanding of the world inside out. And restores common sense.
2 > It turns wicked problems into tame problems. The advanced cybernetic designer knows how to filter the supposed problem to the real issues that will produce the desired outcome. It can do that with exquisite precision. There are many wicked problems. Such a technology is invaluable.
3 > Cybernetics runs on the experience that organisms have of the world. It knows how that works — whether it’s a butterfly or a global enterprise. It’s founded on the join between people and their world, living creatures and their world. That’s why it can help with ecological, social, and design challenges, from AI to saving butterflies and forests.
4 > Cybernetics is the science of living behaviour, achievement of success, and crucially of learning. It is the science — and discipline — that deals with a dynamic world. Old ideas do not work in new situations. Cybernetics explains how the very process of living is a process of learning and how we can turn that into the design of learning and adaptive behaviour.>> The world of the 21st-century therefore has two great orders of nature. The first is the world of passive causality, mechanical objects and technologies, things. Scientific technology has been mostly brilliant at this. (But they can do harm to the living.) The second is the world of active causality, the living, and the technologies that reflect this. Scientific technology has varied from the so-so to the awful at this. This century we need to solve the problems of the past for the sake of the future. The problems and ways to deal with them are social, technical, and eminently practical.
Angus Jenkinson is the Secretary of the Society, a former business professor, tech entrepreneur, systems and thinking tools designer, consultant and CEO/company chair He is an organisational philosopher.and is developing a new scientific theory of organisations, called propriopoiesis. He has had a solo exhibition of photographic artworks.
Followed by discussion and Q & A
TBC
Second speaker TBC.
Interesting content on cybernetics.
An interesting speaker.
Followed by discussion and Q & A
Plenary Discussion
The aim of this session, moderated by John Beckford, is to draw out the complementary and competing ideas emerging from the two sessions.
Cybernetics Society – a learned society
The Cybernetics Society promotes and offers education and research opportunities in the rich field of cybernetics. In the CybSights series, including the President’s Series, we offer isghts conversations, lectures, case studies, analysis, education, and thoughtful entertainment.,
The Cybernetics Society – http://CybSoc.org – is a specially authorised learned society regulated by the FSA and established by a 1974 Act of Parliament. To join visit our membership system or pick the Join ticket.
Cybernetics plays into and strongly influences many scientific and practice fields including design, epistemology, ecology, biology, psychology and living behaviour, technology and engineering, social policy, and business practice, amongst others. Many feature in this wonderful set of aware and successful designers and thinkers.
Cybernetics offers a distinct “go” — techniques — to address local and global challenges of the 21st century.
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The Cybernetics’ Difference! CybSights—The President’s Series Tickets, Wed 9 Dec 2020 at 17:00 | Eventbrite
The Way of the Psychonaut with Fritjof Capra on Vimeo
source: (h/t systems innovation slack group)
The Way of the Psychonaut with Fritjof Capra on Vimeo
The Way of the Psychonaut with Fritjof Capra
This talk by Fritjof Capra was released through The Way of the Psychonaut project created by filmmaker Susan Hess Logeais exploring the life and work of Stanislav Grof, Czech-born psychiatrist and psychedelic psychotherapy pioneer.
In this video, Fritjof Capra recounts how his blending of quantum physics and Eastern philosophies was paralleled in Stan Grof’s merging of psychology and spirituality. The resulting collaboration between the two men brought scientific grounding to Transpersonal Psychology. Fritjof describes the interrelated nature of the universe, and how Stan’s work provided an experiential opportunity to explore this reality. He also notes how the new understanding of emergence validates Stan’s perspective on mental illness – as an inability to integrate experiences that can be resolved if fully explored. Fritjof ends by emphasizing the need to shift away from a mechanistic world view to one of networks that cooperate and seek novelty.
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The Way of the Psychonaut with Fritjof Capra on Vimeo
CECAN Webinar – Capturing Social Dynamics for Evaluation: Trajectory-Based Qualitative Comparative Analysis 11 November 2020, 13:00 – 14:00 GMT, with Lasse Gerrits and Sofia Pagliarin
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Webinar Registration – Zoom
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| CECAN Webinar: Capturing Social Dynamics for Evaluation: Trajectory-Based Qualitative Comparative Analysis Wednesday 11th November 2020, 13:00 – 14:00 GMTPresenters: Lasse Gerrits and Sofia PagliarinYou are warmly invited to join us for the following CECAN Webinar… Webinar Overview: Research methods usually struggle with the complexity of social processes, such as policy processes, and how they play out over time. As commonly acknowledged, the outcome of these processes observed ‘here and now’ is a result of what happened ‘back then’. We therefore need to account for the conditions back in time to explain what is happening now. We present a novel version of Qualitative Comparative Analysis, called Trajectory-based QCA (TJ-QCA). This method compares processes over time to highlight the combinations of conditions that contribute to the outcome. In the presentation, we will discuss the technique of TJ-QCA as well as the causal reasoning behind the technique. We will use examples from policy evaluation to demonstrate how the technique works. Of course, there will be ample time to ask questions. Presenter Biographies: Prof. Dr. Dr. Lasse Gerrits is professor in urban planning at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL). Dr. Sofia Pagliarin is professor ad interim in political science at the Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg (DE). They work together in aligning QCA with actual social complexity for the sake of policy and planning research. How to Join: This talk will take place via a Zoom Webinar – please click here to register for a place. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. In case you are unable to attend, a recording of the webinar will be uploaded to our website following the event.REGISTER FOR CECAN WEBINAR |
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Webinar Registration – Zoom
Complexity and Management Centre. Symposium/Practicum Saturday November 28th 2020.
Exploring the complexity of conflict and organising in the time of Covid-19.
The following is a contribution to the discussion leading up to the Symposium from Professor Nick Sarra, who is a member of the DMan faculty and a Consultant Psychotherapist in the NHS in the South West of the UK. Nick also teaches at Exeter University.
The booking page for the Symposium/Practicum will open to the public from Weds 14th October.
The potential for conflict in the clinical setting and in the time of the Covid pandemic.
Multiple narratives arise from all clinical situations. We have the narrative of the patient or those receiving care. We may also have narratives from all those involved in the patient’s life such as partners and relatives.Then again there are the narratives of the health care professionals involved and perhaps other agencies such as social workers or the police.
The increasing negotiation of…
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Ten Contextual Conversations
The Damage We’re Not Attending To – Issue 87: Risk – Nautilus
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The Damage We’re Not Attending To – Issue 87: Risk – Nautilus
The Damage We’re Not Attending To
Scientists who study complex systems offer solutions to the pandemic.
BY DAVID KRAKAUER & GEOFFREY WESTJULY 8, 2020
World War II bomber planes returned from their missions riddled with bullet holes. The first response was, not surprisingly, to add armor to those areas most heavily damaged. However, the statistician Abraham Wald made what seemed like the counterintuitive recommendation to add armor to those parts with no damage. Wald had uniquely understood that the planes that had been shot where no bullet holes were seen were the planes that never made it back. That’s, of course, where the real problem was. Armor was added to the seemingly undamaged places, and losses decreased dramatically.
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The Damage We’re Not Attending To – Issue 87: Risk – Nautilus
Whole-Scale Change Founded in 1981 Paul D. Tolchinsky and Albert B. Blixt
Paul Tolchinsky says:
I have (co)authored a chapter of the Collaborative Change Library that is now available on the myLibrary app (www.mylibrary.world) – you can access it on your phone, tablet, or computer. My chapter is: Whole-Scale Change [https://lnkd.in/gnzgkYs]. There are videos and supporting materials as well. I welcome your reaction and suggestions on the chapter and supporting resources. I’m curious to learn what you think and look forward to your feedback.
source: https://mylibraryworld.web.app/Collaborative%20Change%20Library/chapter/Whole%20Scale%20Change
Whole-Scale Change
Founded in 1981
Paul D. Tolchinsky and Albert B. Blixt
And so, next generation… we pioneers are moving to the next learning environment and leaving this one to you. My assignment to you, before I go, is the following: Stand on the shoulders of the pioneers who went before you… honor and learn from us… and then spring into the future with new and robust concepts that will be more than we old-timers ever dreamed of. You are the creative minds of this unfolding Millennium.
— Kathleen D. Dannemiller
The Continental AG Story:
How Whole-Scale Change helped the people of an automotive company transform its strategy, structure, and culture to make the leap from a past based on fossil fuels to an electric future.
The Challenge
The massive challenge facing the automotive industry today is how to make the leap from a century of combustion engines and fossil fuel to a future of electric and autonomous driving vehicles. In the automotive industry of today, you have a massive shift going on and no one wants to be left behind. Few companies know exactly what to do to catch the next wave.
In 2016, Continental AG, like its competitors, was heavily invested in hybrid engines and were very successful with their products in the auto market. The Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) division of Continental AG found itself on the outside of this dramatic shift, looking in, trying to reposition itself to be competitive in a completely different marketplace by 2025. The convergence of electric, autonomous and connectivity had changed the playing field and threatened their very survival.
As this shift was occurring, Continental needed to look holistically, think holistically and act holistically. In the HEV business, employees were smart about the market and wondering: “what are we doing to position ourselves for long term success?” They were also wondering, “what are the implications for me and my job?” A new leader joined the team with the task of repositioning HEV for long-term success, as a competitor in the autonomous, electric automotive sector. As the sponsor and champion of the change, the leader had to quickly (6 months) define a new strategy; re-align the people and structures; and, reshape the culture to embrace the uncertainty ahead.
Over the course of 12 months, applying Whole-Scale principles and practices, we engaged the whole system (over 2500 employees, in 10+ countries) in redefining strategy, re-aligning structure and reshaping the culture of this organization. Utilizing a series of small group and large group whole-scale events, we honored the past, evaluated the present and shaped a competitive future, where HEV could potentially become a key player.
Below you will find the change process we employed [Figure 1]. Together with the leadership team, we engaged a critical mass of staff, in maximum mix teams (microcosms of HEV) in diverging and converging activities, designed to explore and co-create solutions that everyone could support.
The Diverging Activity
To get the broadest look at the past, present, and future, the leadership team created 9 teams of staff (each a microcosm of the Business Unit). Each team had a name, and a focus, as described in Table 1. Each team had a charter, key questions for exploration, a sponsor and champion, and a chart, mapping the potential interdependencies between the various teams. For example, the Shark Tank team had the task of developing a USP (Unique Sales Proposition) and the sales pitch to the Executive Board. Their job was to leverage the wisdom of the other 8 teams and create a compelling sales pitch for why to invest in the HEV plan.
Table 1 . Continental AG Divergent Action Teams
The goals for this process were (1) as much divergent thinking as possible; (2) embrace the complexity of the situation; and (3) simultaneous working. Each team had 4 months to accomplish its task. The model was essentially an Appreciative Inquiry process. The months were roughly organized so that in month 1, each team did “Discovery” work, in month 2, “Dreaming”; month 3 “Deciding;” and in month 4 “Delivery” to the whole system.
The Converging Activity
There were two kinds of convergence activities over the six months. There were three large group meetings where all 150 members of the group came together to plan the work. The first was a launch meeting at the beginning. The second was to harmonize the work of the teams before submitting the strategy and new structure to the board. The third, and final, was a meeting to plan implementation.
Between the first and second large group meetings, smaller Checkpoints were held once each month as one portion of the “Discover-Dream-Decide” process was complete. At these Checkpoints a representative group from each of the teams came together to share what each team had accomplished and to “get whole” so that the work of the teams would be aligned before moving on to the next step. The steps were captured in a Global Project Change Roadmap .
source: https://mylibraryworld.web.app/Collaborative%20Change%20Library/chapter/Whole%20Scale%20Change
Strip Mall – The Strong Towns Podcast – What a new strip mall reveals about the massive disconnect between what’s “good” for the macro-economy and what’s actually good for a local community.
An excellent example of an excellent podcast and movement – essential listening. Also, I ike that the Strong Towns and the Meta people and everyone else is now planting gardens. I can imagine, in twenty or fifty years, the permaculture people smiling gently and sayig ‘welcome. What took you so long?’
Strip Mall
The Strong Towns Podcast
We advocate for a model of development that allows our cities, towns and neighborhoods to grow financially strong and resilient.
Strip Mall
June 1, 2020
What a new strip mall reveals about the massive disconnect between what’s “good” for the macro-economy and what’s actually good for a local community.
Reminder: The subscription bundle for the Strong Towns Academy is only available through Friday, June 5, 2020. This is your chance to get all nine courses at 83% off the a la carte price. These courses unpack the Strong Towns approach to everything from transportation and housing, to economic development and public engagement, and more. Get more information here: https://academy.strongtowns.org/p/subscription-bundle
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Strip Mall
68. IBP – Conspiracy Afoot
A new episode is here. The lingering challenge of conspiracies, fake news, and the emergence of information silos means that we as a global society are being confronted with a major challenge to our relationship to information, to facts, and to the epistemological challenges we have always been burdened with regarding knowledge and the act of knowing. Conspiracy Theories are with us to stay and if you look at them for longer than a glance, they begin to mutate, twisting into odd shapes that can appear familiar and alien all at once. We cannot afford to look down our nose at them any more, they are part and parcel of the world we inhabit, and we must contend with the wider issues they raise.
In this episode, recorded under quarantine, the Imperfect Buddha podcast explores the wider, hidden implications of the conspiratorial mindset and the challenges it represents. We look…
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Who are our fellow travellers?
- I very much see that there are a large number of movements aligned with my views on systems/cybernetics/complexity and their application, including but not limited to the list below
- Epistemic status: putting it out there as a starting point, aware of lack of nuance and details, for example, a distinction that needs to be made between deep foundational ideas and their technologies, and enabling technologies that might simply be useful in helping along the way. (Much as, in developing the Systems Thinking Practitioner Apprenticeship in the UK – https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/systems-thinking-practitioner/ – we differentiated between core systems application knowledge and facilitation skills and approaches)
- Safety 2.0/ Safety Differently / Human Factors, and road safety
- Strong Towns/urban design and related fields
- Permaculture
- Road safety differently
- Systems convening, systems weaving and a bunch of approaches than can potentially be clearly enough differentiated to be identified
- Transition Towns
- ‘Teal’ and stuff
- Teacher Tom and other good thinking on child development and teaching
- Various forms of theatre and constellations work
- Various forms of embodiment work
- The Collective Journey concept
- Evolutions of Lean, Theory of Constraints, Agile
- Meta- stuff (meaning crisis, metamodernism, meaningness, ‘Game B’ etc – there are many here)
- Developments of Buddhism and shamanism, and no doubt other aspects of spirituality
- Aspects, at least, of the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’
- Adult/vertical development of various stripes
- Transdisciplinary thinking (and to some extent interdisciplinary thinking)
- Some aspects of ‘international development’ thinking
- some deep history from authentic human traditions – usually marginalised and ‘othered’ minority, indigenous people, and some of the deracinated, genericised versions of the same (‘Way of Council’ etc)
I would welcome additions to this list! It’s lacking in nuance at the moment, for sure, but it is certainly enlivening to me to see aspects and reflections of the same combination of things like:
- embodiment and intellectual reflection, with practices around both
- deep patterns, drivers, and structures along with pragmatic application
- multi-level and multi-perspective thinking and analysis
- and a degree of irony and lack of self-seriousness at the best moments as well…
cheers
Benjamin
#gamebINSIGHTS FOR THE JOURNEY – Insights for the Journey
A video series to help you reinvent your organization
INSIGHTS FOR THE JOURNEY – Insights for the Journey
A good twitter thread about ‘human factors’, ‘safety differently’ etc
One of the really powerful and interesting ‘aligned movements’ – this thread has some good links to key people and also discussion of the roots, development, and the risk of ‘wrecking synergy to stake out territory’ inherent in these fields:
What is ergodicity? | LARS P. SYLL
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What is ergodicity? | LARS P. SYLL
What is ergodicity?
23 Nov, 2016 at 10:27 | Posted in Economics | 2 Comments
Why are election polls often inaccurate? Why is racism wrong? Why are your assumptions often mistaken? The answers to all these questions and to many others have a lot to do with the non-ergodicity of human ensembles. Many scientists agree that ergodicity is one of the most important concepts in statistics. So, what is it?
Suppose you are concerned with determining what the most visited parks in a city are. One idea is to take a momentary snapshot: to see how many people are this moment in park A, how many are in park B and so on. Another idea is to look at one individual (or few of them) and to follow him for a certain period of time, e.g. a year. Then, you observe how often the individual is going to park A, how often he is going to park B and so on.
Thus, you obtain two different results: one statistical analysis over the entire ensemble of people at a certain moment in time, and one statistical analysis for one person over a certain period of time. The first one may not be representative for a longer period of time, while the second one may not be representative for all the people.
The idea is that an ensemble is ergodic if the two types of statistics give the same result. Many ensembles, like the human populations, are not ergodic.
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What is ergodicity? | LARS P. SYLL
We Need To Talk About Ergodicity
You have a gun which holds six bullets, but only has one in the chamber. You use it to play a game of Russian roulette with a group of 19 other people. Each of you takes one turn in spinning the chamber, holding the gun to your temple and pulling the trigger. If you are successful you win £1m, if not, well, then you die. Whilst this may not be an appealing proposition, your chance of death is relatively low (17%), and potential for becoming a millionaire high (83%). It is also far more attractive than an alternative version of the game where instead of playing with a group, you play on your own. In this instance there are still 20 turns but each time the gun is directed at your head. The odds on the outcome for you in this instance are not so favourable.
These contrasting approaches to…
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