pdf: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/Complexity-Evolution.pdf

Old version (2014-15): http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/Complexity-Evolution-old.pdf

go to the source for contact details and ongoing updates: Francis Heylighen: home page

Francis Heylighen: home page

I am a research professor at the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), where I direct the transdisciplinary research group on “Evolution, Complexity and Cognition, the Global Brain Institute, and soon the Center “Leo Apostel”. I am also affiliated with the Department of History, Art and Philosophy (HARP). I have for long been an editor of the Principia Cybernetica Project, an international organization for the collaborative development of an evolutionary-systemic philosophy, which is now essentially dormant after the death of its founder, Valentin Turchin .

The main focus of my research is the origin and evolution of complex, and in particular intelligent, organization. How do systems emerge, self-organize, adapt and achieve some form of cognition? I approach these problems starting from an ontology of actions or processes: the building blocks of reality are not material particles or “things”, but interactions. Systems are then merely stabilized, self-producing networks of processes. I have worked in particular on the development of collective intelligence or distributed cognition, and its application to the emerging “global brain“. I have also been looking at how individual agents tackle challenges via action, exploration, and learning, and how their interactions become coordinated via connectionist networks and stigmergy.

I use the underlying action ontology as a foundation for the integration of ideas from different disciplines into an evolutionary-cybernetic “world view” , which is to replace the static and reductionist Newtonian worldview. This broad evolutionary view, together with its practical applications on the Internet, has helped me to develop a broad, but concrete vision on the future of the information society. The main idea is that humanity is undergoing a metasystem transition towards a higher level of organization and distributed intelligence that can be conceived as a “Global Brain”.

I teach an introductory course on “Complexity and Evolution” at the VUB. My freely available lecture notes can be used as a textbook on the domain. I have also been teaching a more advanced course on Cognitive Systems . I will start teaching courses on the philosophy of technology, and on mind, brain and body in 2019 (in Dutch).

As a true interdisciplinarian, I have moreover done research and published papers about a wide variety of subjects in a wide variety of disciplines, from mathematical physics, via computer science and life sciences to linguistics, economics, sociology, psychology, philosophy and the meeting of art and science, including:

• Collective Intelligence, and the global brain
• Social Progress and the measurement of Happiness (with Jan Bernheim)
• Algorithms for Learning Webs (with Johan Bollen)
• Foundations of Cybernetics and Systems Theory (with Cliff Joslyn and Valentin Turchin)
• Evolutionary Development of Social Systems (with the famous methodologist Donald T. Campbell)
• Memetics or mechanisms for cultural evolution
• Formality/context-dependence in Linguistics (with Jean-Marc Dewaele)
• Maslow’s theory of the Self-Actualizing Personality
• Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and of Space-Time Structure (see also my PhD. Thesis)
• Gifted people and their problems (for those who recognize themselves in these traits)
• an agent-based analysis of adventure and narrative
• a cybernetic approach to ageing and life-extension
• Chemical Organization Theory as a new formal language for modelling self-organization and autopoiesis
• a new paradigm for the sharing economy
• how social systems “program” people to obey their rules

Publications

My list of some 200 publications (almost all downloadable) is available on my Google Scholar page, starting with the most cited. This includes a numerical analysis of my citations (nearly 9000) and my H-index (50: getting better and better…). To check the newest work, here is the same Google Scholar page, starting with the most recent. (Microsoft Academic Search produced a more limited coverage of my publications and citations, as do ResearchGate and Academia.)

A little more about myself

For more about my work, check my biographical sketch, or my more detailed”Notes for an intellectual autobiography“. I have produced some artwork and literary writing. Here is a selection of my best photos and my graphic work. To get an idea of my character, check my personality profile according to the “Big Five” psychological dimensions, and my Myers-Briggs personality type. For an idea of my tastes, here is a Youtube playlist of music I like. I am an enthusiastic adept of the paleolithic lifestyle: maximizing health and happiness by living more like our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The effect on my physical abilities is illustrated by my “athletic selfies”.

If you would like to see me in action, here are some videos:

• an interview where I explain why I find self-organization so fascinating (held at the Lakeside Labs in Klagenfurt, Austria, on a hot 2009 summer workshop),
• a talk I gave on “The Problem of Coordination in Self-organizing Systems” at the Lakeside Research Days 2010
• a presentation on stigmergy in digital ecosystems (at a 2007 conference at the European Commission in Brussels)
• a fragment of a documentary in the “Through the Wormhole” series
• a talk about the Global Brain at the 2014 Montreal Summer school on “Web Science and the Mind”
• a seminar about my strategy for health, fitness and life extension

If you’re curious how others see me, you can find references to my work on other web pages, such as an entry on me in Wikipedia, a satirical interview in “Wired”,the list of “Great Thinkers and Visionaries on the Net“, “Francis Heylighen: pioneer of the global brain” by Ben Goertzel, or a rather sensationalist feature article in New Scientist. On the web, you can also find a couple of interviews with me.

go to the source for contact details and ongoing updates: Francis Heylighen: home page

I realise I haven’t posted about this here before – in my quote for the cover, I said this, and I meant it:

Benjamin P Taylor, Chief Executive, Public Service Transformation Academy: ‘Every now and then, a book comes along which seems to encompass the whole of a field, explain it, critique it, and surpass it. Patterns of Strategy does just that for the practice of organisational strategy. Once you have read Patterns, you can never go back. It combines a learned and enjoyable treatise with immensely practical usability and should be on every leader’s desk, as a daily reference.’

(disclosure: I know Lucy and Patrick, am involved in www.systemspractice.org with them, especially Patrick, read and commented on a draft, and am accredited to use the approach and the ‘board game’ workshop).

The approach draws on systems thinking in a range of ways, most critically the concept of structural coupling (another syscoi.com omission which I’ll remedy shortlY).

It’s a book, a board game/workshop, and there are a few explainers in the video and website – UK Amazon Smile link for the book: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Patterns-Strategy-Patrick-Hoverstadt/dp/1138242675/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hoverstadt+loh+patterns+of+strategy&qid=1563355321&s=gateway&sr=8-1

video introduction here:

Patrick says in a recent LinkedIn comment:

There are several reasons conventional strategy doesn’t work, but there is one which on its own is capable of accounting for the failure rate.

Whether you start your (conventional) strategy from the inside out or the outside in, virtually none of the conventional approaches take into account what anyone else is going to do. They all assume its purely about us and what we want.

So imagine trying to drive down the road – fixed single-mindedly on where you want to go and ignoring what everyone else is doing – you wouldn’t get far without crashing and surprise surprise, strategy is no different. Which is something the military has known for millenia, but business has ignored.

If you want strategy that works, you have to look at the dynamics of relationships as the basis of it.

The good news is that this is a) a lot easier, b) a lot faster and c) a lot more effective.

Source: Patterns of StrategyPatterns of Strategy

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Excellent piece from David Ing, unearthing a very interesting original piece of research.

Distinguishing the meanings made my head hurt a bit but it is worth persevering, I think. It is powerful in relating organisational dynamics of a ‘viable system’ type to interpersonal interactions and managerial dispositions.

Essentially, in looking at executive behaviour as maintaining the existence/identity/viability of organisations, three functions are identified:

Homeostatic functions – interpersonal behaviour directed to maintain homeostasis

Mediative functions – “Organization results from the modification of the action of the individual through control and influence.” – interventions supporting the organisation’s mutual adaptation with its environment.

Proactive functions – anticipating future environments and actively intervening

(There then follows a whole other thesis about certain executives having personal predispositions which lead them to prioritise one of these above the others).

I’m intrigued by relating these to functions in the Viable Systems Model – homeostatic system 2, mediative system 3, and proactive system 4.

I’m also intrigued by trying to relate these to the four requirements from both Oshry’s Organic Systems Framework and Beer’s Viable System Model, which are arguably very different – I set them out below – but my integrated four elements here:

• Differentiate: increase ability to adapt
• Homogenise: increase stability
• Individuate: increase autonomy
• Integrate the system as a whole

In this case, proactive functions would tend towards differentiation and individuation (Oshry’s ‘power’ dynamics), and mediative functions towards homogenisation and integration (‘love’ dynamics) – where would mediative fit?

(Oshry, Organic Systems Framework: differentiation and homogenisation at whole system level, individuation and integration at individual level

Beer, the Viable Systems Model: adaptability and stability at whole system level, autonomy and integration at sub-system level

Patrick Hoverstadt naturally sees the latter as provided dimensions that need to be ‘dialled up’ or ‘dialled down’ at particular times, which is plausible – I had previously seen them as optimising the levels of all four as appropriate to the system – a slightly different perspective)

This piece may also be the source of the old canard of distinguishing between ‘managers’ and ‘leaders’ – introduction to this HBR piece 2004 (https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different), which David also links to:

The difference between managers and leaders, he wrote, lies in the conceptions they hold, deep in their psyches, of chaos and order. Managers embrace process, seek stability and control, and instinctively try to resolve problems quickly—sometimes before they fully understand a problem’s significance. Leaders, in contrast, tolerate chaos and lack of structure and are willing to delay closure in order to understand the issues more fully.

And in Zaleznik’s piece:

To get people to accept solutions to problems, managers continually need to coordinate and balance opposing views. Interestingly enough, this type of work has much in common with what diplomats and mediators do, with Henry Kissinger apparently an outstanding practitioner. Managers aim to shift balances of power toward solutions acceptable as compromises among conflicting values.

Leaders work in the opposite direction. Where managers act to limit choices, leaders develop fresh approaches to long-standing problems and open issues to new options. To be effective, leaders must project their ideas onto images that excite people and only then develop choices that give those images substance.

The piece may also contain the antidote to this canard – which I think is the root of several problems with ‘leadership thinking’ – that an appropriate balance of both types of actions (regardless of dispositions) is required for organisational viability.

Source: Classes of executive functions: homeostatic, mediative, proactive | Zaleznik (1964) – Coevolving Innovations

A central objective of … training efforts [within and outside of universities] is to modify behavior, usually interpersonal, according to some set of norms that relate to organizational effectiveness or improved individual and group performance.

The purpose of this paper is to raise for inquiry the adequacy of existing notions of what interpersonal competence is, how it relates to the manager’s job, and the best means for helping managers achieve this competence. [Zaleznik (1964) p. 156]

Executive functions ensure the organization operates as a cooperative system through specialized authority; nonexecutive functions include technical activities of the organization that might be carried out by others.

A manager, according to Barnard (1958), operates in two spheres simultaneously. He performs a set of functions that relate directly to the technical aspects of his job, such as deciding on a brand name for a new product, or preparing a capital expenditures budget for the firm. Barnard calls these functions nonexecutive, and they can be expected to vary in content from job to job and organization to organization. Another set of functions that Barnard calls the executive functions of the manager deal with the organization as a co-operative system in which interpersonal phenomena are a significant aspect. To quote Barnard: [p. 156]

“It is important to observe, however, that, not all work done by persons who occupy executive positions is in connection with the executive functions, the co-ordination of activities of others. Some of the work of such persons, though organization work, is not executive. For example, if the president of a corporation goes out personally to sell products of his company or engages in some of the production work, these are not executive services. If the president of a university gives lectures to a class of students, this is not executive work. If the head of a government department spends time on complaints or disputes about services rendered by the department, this is not necessarily executive work. Executive work is not that of the organization, but the specialized work of maintaining the organization in operation.” (1958, p. 215). [pp. 156-157]

Earlier, Barnard states:

“Organization results from the modification of the action of the individual through control of or influence upon … [(1) purposes, desires, impulses of the moment, and (2) the alternatives external to the individual recognized by him as available]. Deliberate conscious and specialized control of them is the executive function.” (1958, p. 17)

The juxtaposition of these two quotations serves to raise one fundamental issue in considering the nature of interpersonal competence as an aspect of the executive role. Barnard stresses as the core of the executive function the problems arising from personal and interpersonal attributes of Organizations as systems of co-operation. [p. 157]

The first class of executive functions cites physiologist Walter Cannon, who was known for his 1932 book on The Wisdom of the Body.  Organisms, as open systems, are able to maintain constancy (e.g. body temperature).

Homeostatic functions

Barnard stresses as the core of the executive function the problems arising from personal and interpersonal attributes of Organizations as systems of co-operation. With his emphasis on executive work as “the specialized work of maintaining the organization ” he implicitly points to interpersonal behavior of the executive that is directed toward assuring the internal stability of the organization. This function may properly be related to the homeostatic processes discussed by Cannon (1915, 1945), whose concept of an organism suggests that certain automatic devices must operate within the system to maintain a steady state in the face of changing conditions in the environment.

Following this line of thought, one’s attention is then directed toward an understanding of the interpersonal processes that are associated with maintenance of this organization. These processes we shall refer to as the interpersonal behavior directed toward the homeostatic functions of the executive.  [p. 157]

The second class of executive functions — beyond a view of a single executive function — recognizes an open system intervening in its environment.

Mediative functions

The second part of the quotation from Barnard cited earlier produces a note different from maintenance. “Organization results from the modification of the action of the individual through control and influence.” This statement suggests that the executive function proceeds through a kind of intervention, not directed necessarily toward maintaining a steady state, but directed instead toward altering behavior and attitudes with conscious intent. The way behavior is to be altered presumably is determined by the organization’s problems of mutual adaptation with its environment. We can conceive of the environment as establishing a press on the organization, requiring some internal change. The executive function, then, is to influence individuals and groups within the organization to modify behavior and attitudes so that some different adaptation to the environment is established.

This second set of executive functions we shall call mediative, since it is concerned with internal cbange in response to environmental press. Now presumably mediative functions imply certain kinds of interpersonal processes that may or may not be different from the homeostatic.  [p. 157]

The third class of executive functions looks beyond the immediate of the homeostatic and mediative, with the open system anticipating future environment(s) and actively intervening.

Proactive functions

Ordinary observation shows a type of executive function that actively seek out environmental possibilities. Instead of being reactive to environmental press, the behavior is proactive and in a sense induces change in the environment to conform to the creative use of resources available within the organization. We need not dwell too long on establishing the significance of proaction. The automobile, for example, did not emerge from environmental press, but rather from innovative behaviors of certain individuals who used a new level of scientific and technological sophistication. Let us for purposes of discussion call the third set of executive functions the proactive, although innovative would do just as well.  [p. 158]

All too little is known about the psychology of proactive behavior, and this area of our understanding is at the frontier of knowledge. But what we do know suggests a conversion and release of aggressive energy directed toward altering the environment. It is anything but conservative, and typically becomes the type of managerial behavior that in its interpersonal frame tends to induce resistance, counteraggression, and in some cases outright hostility. We should note also how sharply the proactive set differs from the more conservative homeostatic and mediative sets. In terms of the primacy of goals, the homeostatic function stresses maintaining the stability of the system as the fundamental goal, sometimes to the point where it becomes a substitute for activity in the environment. Proaction, on the other hand, disrupts internal relations in the service of changing the environment. [pp. 158-159]

Zaleznik is modest in expressing proactive functions as at the “frontier of knowledge” in psychology in 1964.  Seeing executives with three distinct classes of functions opens up a range of approaches to leading.

To recapitulate, we have implicit in the delineation of three sets of executive functions, homeostatic, mediative, and proactive, a series of dimensions that relate to modes of interpersonal behavior, cognition, and problem-solving. These dimensions include the passive-active, conservative-innovative, inward-oriented-outward-oriented (in relation to the environment), a narrow-wide effective scope of thought and relationships, (Lazarsfeld & Thielens, 1958, pp. 262-265), a short-range-long-range span of thought.

Each manager is different, and thus has accumulated his or her own personality development, that is expressed in patterns of interpersonal behaviour.  Zaleznik draws on Freud for the organization of ego, with prior authority figures and cultivated competencies where successes lead to building the self-esteem to “lead from strength”.  Leading from weakness represents a developmental failure where unsolved problems in the current reality are repeated from the past.  While most think of Freud in the context of child development, Zaleznik sees that Freud also intended unfinished business to continue into later stages of life.

The energy that the manager can expend is described in three sets (with Zaleznik rejecting a fourth).

Predispositional sets

The sets represent essentially the direction of emotional energy outward, or the individual’s energy cathexes. The objects toward which the cathexes are directed are of two main kinds: persons and ideas. In one internal set the individual may direct his emotional energy toward the tasks — technically, we speak of his cathecting the idea aspects of work. The personal and interpersonal aspects of work are not cathected to the same degree and may even, in fact, be defended against (Moment & Zaleznik, 1963). [p. 160]

A second internal set consists of a strong orientation toward persons — the cathexis is directed toward human relationships. Tasks may assume relatively little significance in the individual’s inner need and value structure, and in fact the cognitive-technical aspects of work may be defended against. To indicate how these two predispositional sets relate to stimuli in the environment, let us examine a data specimen from my current research. [….]

A third predispositional set represents a fusion of cathexes. In this case, the individual in his inner world weighs both persons and ideas as important to him and blends them in his concerns with situations in the real world.

A fourth set exists which is real enough, but which for purposes of this paper had best be excluded from consideration. This set can be characterized as conflicted or ambivalent, in the sense that the cathexes are shifting and subject to immediate internal resistances and conflicts.

The three main predispositional sets we have presented in our discussion of individual development (cathexis of persons, ideas, and a fusion of persons and ideas) represent the center of outward concern of the ego. These concerns are a product of the ego processes discussed earlier (identification, self-esteem, and energy uitilization) and emerge through the various precareer stages of the life cycle. We have some evidence suggesting how the ego processes are related to the formation of the predispositional sets and it would be useful to cite some of this evidence, although it must be viewed as highly tentative at this stage (Moment & Zaleznik, 1963).

The remainder of the article refers to Figure 1, posing questions that might be resolved with additional research with managers prioritizing performances in different orders, depending on predispositions.

The matrix in Figure 1 permits us to ask several questions:

(1) Would there be a tendency for an individual with a dominant set of one kind to select for specialization one of the three executive functions?

(2) What types of interpersonal modalities are represented by the specializations implicit in each cell?

(3) From the point of view of organizational effectiveness, does optimal managerial behavior imply the capacity for flexibility in interpersonal modalities, or is there a requirement that the functions be performed within a constellation of executive roles that exemplify mutuality and complementarity?

(4) From the point of view of individual development through the career years, should emphasis be placed on flexibility in both functions performed and consequent modifications of the underlying predispositional sets?

(5) Or does individual development proceed more fruitfully by specialized functions. This idea is expressed by the shadings within each cell.

While every individual can probably shift interpersonal modes to conform to the various functional requisites, each set would appear to be selectively oriented toward a particular function. The person-oriented individual would perform most easily in the range of interpersonal behaviors associated with the homeostatic functions. We would assume that such an individual would, relatively speaking, avoid proactive functions. Under conditions where proaction was thrust upon him and avoidance became difficult, the defensive apparatus of the individual would be under stress.  [p. 163, editorial paragraphing added]

The idea-oriented individual, on the other hand, would perform most easily in the proactive functions, utilizing aggression and dominance as major components of his interpersonal style. Presumably, the homeostatic functions are not well understood by a proactive individual and may be strongly avoided. To continue our speculations, organizational effectiveness would seem to require as a prerequisite some mix in the performance of executive functions to assure both the securing of purpose and the maintenance of the internal capacities of the organization.  [pp. 163-164]

The article concludes with some view on education and development of the manager, with (i) role specialization to improve interpersonal performance guided by the individual’s stage in life cycle; /or (ii) role flexibility in reforming the organization rather than the individual.

This 1964 article by Zaleznik is more open-ended than the 1977 publication of “Managers and Leaders, Are They Different?”.  That writing, targeted at business executives, doesn’t use the phrases of nonexecutive and executive functions.  However, the systems foundations and psychological references are much clearer in the earlier article.

This article provides an appreciation that all managers are not equally proactive, and their predispositions may or may not be changed through additional educational development.

Footnotes

[1] The Oxford English Dictionary provides two meaning for proactive, with the first definition dating back to 1933, and the second definition citing a book, Zaleznik (1966) Human Dilemmas of Leadership.

Etymology: < pro- prefix² + active adj. In sense 1 after retroactive adj. (see sense 4 at that entry). In sense 2 after reactive adj., and probably influenced by pro- prefix¹.

1. Psychology. That affects subsequent learning, or the remembering of what is subsequently learned.

2. Of a person, action, policy, etc.: creating or controlling a situation by taking the initiative and anticipating events or problems, rather than just reacting to them after they have occurred; (hence, more generally) innovative, tending to make things happen.

References

Zaleznik, Abraham. 1964. “Managerial Behavior and Interpersonal Competence.” Behavioral Science 9 (2): 156–166. https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830090208. Alternate search at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=5638923636825278132

Zaleznik,, Abraham. 1977. “Leaders and Managers: Are They Different.” Harvard Business Review 44: 67–78. Republished in 1992 Harvard Business Review v70 n2; and then 2004 Harvard Business Review at https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different.

Source: Classes of executive functions: homeostatic, mediative, proactive | Zaleznik (1964) – Coevolving Innovations

Mentioned in the OECD videos just linked – Soros identifies fallibility (model not mapping to reality) and reflexivity (a positive feedback loop where the fallibility is geared to drive more fallibility as potentially disconfirming feedback is received).

Source: Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity | Financial Times

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Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Save Save to myFT OCTOBER 26, 2009 Print this page In the course of my life, I have developed a conceptual framework which has helped me both to make money as a hedge fund manager and to spend money as a policy oriented philanthropist. But the framework itself is not about money, it is about the relationship between thinking and reality, a subject that has been extensively studied by philosophers from early on. I started developing my philosophy as a student at the London School of Economics in the late 1950s. I took my final exams one year early and I had a year to fill before I was qualified to receive my degree. I could choose my tutor and I chose Karl Popper, the Viennese-born philosopher whose book The Open Society and Its Enemies had made a profound impression on me. In his books Popper argued that the empirical truth cannot be known with absolute certainty. Even scientific laws can’t be verified beyond a shadow of a doubt: they can only be falsified by testing. One failed test is enough to falsify, but no amount of conforming instances is sufficient to verify. Scientific laws are hypothetical in character and their truth remains subject to testing. Ideologies which claim to be in possession of the ultimate truth are making a false claim; therefore, they can be imposed on society only by force. This applies to Communism, Fascism and National Socialism alike. All these ideologies lead to repression. Popper proposed a more attractive form of social organization: an open society in which people are free to hold divergent opinions and the rule of law allows people with different views and interests to live together in peace. Having lived through both Nazi and Communist occupation here in Hungary I found the idea of an open society immensely attractive. While I was reading Popper I was also studying economic theory and I was struck by the contradiction between Popper’s emphasis on imperfect understanding and the theory of perfect competition in economics which postulated perfect knowledge. This led me to start questioning the assumptions of economic theory. These were the two major theoretical inspirations of my philosophy. It is also deeply rooted in my personal history. The formative experience of my life was the German occupation of Hungary in 1944. I was not yet fourteen years old at the time, coming from a reasonably well-to-do middle class background, suddenly confronted with the prospect of being deported and killed just because I was Jewish. Fortunately my father was well prepared for this far-from-equilibrium experience. He had lived through the Russian Revolution and that was the formative experience of his life. Until then he had been an ambitious young man. When the First World War broke out, he volunteered to serve in the Austro-Hungarian army. He was captured by the Russians and taken as a prisoner of war to Siberia. Being ambitious, he became the editor of a newspaper produced by the prisoners. It was handwritten and displayed on a plank and it was called The Plank. This made him so popular that he was elected the prisoners’ representative. Then some soldiers escaped from a neighboring camp, and their prisoners’ representative was shot in retaliation. My father, instead of waiting for the same thing to happen in his camp, organized a group and led a breakout. His plan was to build a raft and sail down to the ocean, but his knowledge of geography was deficient; he did not know that all the rivers in Siberia flow into the Arctic Sea. They drifted for several weeks before they realized that they were heading for the Arctic, and it took them several more months to make their way back to civilization across the taiga. In the meantime, the Russian Revolution broke out, and they became caught up in it. Only after a variety of adventures did my father manage to find his way back to Hungary; had he remained in the camp, he would have arrived home much sooner. My father came home a changed man. His experiences during the Russian Revolution profoundly affected him. He lost his ambition and wanted nothing more from life than to enjoy it. He imparted to his children values that were very different from those of the milieu in which we lived. He had no desire to amass wealth or become socially prominent. On the contrary, he worked only as much as was necessary to make ends meet. I remember being sent to his main client to borrow some money before we went on a ski vacation; my father was grouchy for weeks afterwards because he had to work to pay it back. Although we were reasonably prosperous, we were not the typical bourgeois family, and we were proud of being different. In 1944, when the Germans occupied Hungary, my father immediately realized that these were not normal times and the normal rules didn’t apply. He arranged false identities for his family and a number of other people. Those who could, paid; others he helped for free. Most of them survived. That was his finest hour. * * * Living with false identity turned out to be an exhilarating experience for me too. We were in mortal danger. People perished all around us, but we managed not only to survive but to help other people. We were on the side of the angels, and we triumphed against overwhelming odds. This made me feel very special. It was high adventure. I had a reliable guide in my father and came through unscathed. What more could a fourteen-year-old ask for? After the euphoric experience of escaping the Nazis, life in Hungary started to lose its luster during the Soviet occupation. I was looking for new challenges and with my father’s help I found my way out of Hungary. When I was seventeen I became a student in London. In my studies, my primary interest was to gain a better understanding of the strange world into which I had been born, but I have to confess, I also harbored some fantasies of becoming an important philosopher. I believed that I had gained insights that set me apart from other people. Living in London was a big letdown. I was without money, alone, and people were not interested in what I had to say. But I didn’t abandon my philosophical ambitions even when circumstances forced me to make a living in more mundane pursuits. After completing my studies, I had a number of false starts. Finally I ended up as an arbitrage trader in New York but in my free time I continued to work on my philosophy. That is how I came to write my first major essay, entitled “The Burden of Consciousness.” It was an attempt to model Popper’s framework of open and closed societies. It linked organic society with a traditional mode of thinking, closed society with a dogmatic mode and open society with a critical mode. What I could not properly resolve was the nature of the relationship between the mode of thinking and the actual state of affairs. That problem continued to preoccupy me and that is how I came to develop the concept of reflexivity—a concept I shall explore in greater detail a little later. It so happened that the concept of reflexivity provided me with a new way of looking at financial markets, a better way than the prevailing theory. This gave me an edge, first as a securities analyst and then as a hedge fund manager. I felt as if I were in possession of a major discovery that would enable me to fulfill my fantasy of becoming an important philosopher. At a certain moment when my business career ran into a roadblock I shifted gears and devoted all my energies to developing my philosophy. But I treasured my discovery so much that I could not part with it. I felt that the concept of reflexivity needed to be explored in depth. As I delved deeper and deeper into the subject I got lost in the intricacies of my own constructions. One morning I could not understand what I had written the night before. At that point I decided to abandon my philosophical explorations and to focus on making money. It was only many years later, after a successful run as a hedge fund manager, that I returned to my philosophy. I published my first book, The Alchemy of Finance, in 1987. In that book I tried to explain the philosophical underpinnings of my approach to financial markets. The book attracted a certain amount of attention. It has been read by most people in the hedge fund industry and it is taught in business schools but the philosophical arguments did not make much of an impression. They were largely dismissed as the conceit of a man who has been successful in business and fancied himself as a philosopher. I myself came to doubt whether I was in possession of a major new insight. After all I was dealing with a subject that has been explored by philosophers since time immemorial. What grounds did I have for thinking that I had made a new discovery, especially as nobody else seemed to think so? Undoubtedly the conceptual framework was useful to me personally but it did not seem to be considered equally valuable by others. I had to accept their judgment. I didn’t give up my philosophical interests, but I came to regard them as a personal predilection. I continued to be guided by my conceptual framework both in my business and in my philanthropic activities—which came to assume an increasingly important role in my life—and each time I wrote a book I faithfully recited my arguments. This helped me to develop my conceptual framework, but I continued to consider myself a failed philosopher. Once I even gave a lecture with the title “A Failed Philosopher Tries Again.” All this has changed as a result of the financial crisis of 2008. My conceptual framework enabled me both to anticipate the crisis and to deal with it when it finally struck. It has also enabled me to explain and predict events better than most others. This has changed my own evaluation and that of many others. My philosophy is no longer a personal matter; it deserves to be taken seriously as a possible contribution to our understanding of reality. That is what has prompted me to give this series of lectures. * * * So here it goes. Today I shall explain the concepts of fallibility and reflexivity in general terms. Tomorrow I shall apply them to the financial markets and after that, to politics. That will also bring in the concept of open society. In the fourth lecture I shall explore the difference between market values and moral values, and in the fifth I shall offer some predictions and prescriptions for the present moment in history. * * * I can state the core idea in two relatively simple propositions. One is that in situations that have thinking participants, the participants’ view of the world is always partial and distorted. That is the principle of fallibility. The other is that these distorted views can influence the situation to which they relate because false views lead to inappropriate actions. That is the principle of reflexivity. For instance, treating drug addicts as criminals creates criminal behavior. It misconstrues the problem and interferes with the proper treatment of addicts. As another example, declaring that government is bad tends to make for bad government. Both fallibility and reflexivity are sheer common sense. So when my critics say that I am merely stating the obvious, they are right—but only up to a point. What makes my propositions interesting is that their significance has not been generally appreciated. The concept of reflexivity, in particular, has been studiously avoided and even denied by economic theory. So my conceptual framework deserves to be taken seriously—not because it constitutes a new discovery but because something as commonsensical as reflexivity has been so studiously ignored. Recognizing reflexivity has been sacrificed to the vain pursuit of certainty in human affairs, most notably in economics, and yet, uncertainty is the key feature of human affairs. Economic theory is built on the concept of equilibrium, and that concept is in direct contradiction with the concept of reflexivity. As I shall show in the next lecture, the two concepts yield two entirely different interpretations of financial markets. The concept of fallibility is far less controversial. It is generally recognized that the complexity of the world in which we live exceeds our capacity to comprehend it. I have no great new insights to offer. The main source of difficulties is that participants are part of the situation they have to deal with. Confronted by a reality of extreme complexity we are obliged to resort to various methods of simplification—generalizations, dichotomies, metaphors, decision-rules, moral precepts, to mention just a few. These mental constructs take on an existence of their own, further complicating the situation. The structure of the brain is another source of distortions. Recent advances in brain science have begun to provide some insight into how the brain functions, and they have substantiated Hume’s contention that reason is the slave of passion. The idea of a disembodied intellect or reason is a figment of our imagination. The brain is bombarded by millions of sensory impulses but consciousness can process only seven or eight subjects concurrently. The impulses need to be condensed, ordered and interpreted under immense time pressure, and mistakes and distortions can’t be avoided. Brain science adds many new details to my original contention that our understanding of the world in which we live is inherently imperfect. * * * The concept of reflexivity needs a little more explication. It applies exclusively to situations that have thinking participants. The participants’ thinking serves two functions. One is to understand the world in which we live; I call this the cognitive function. The other is to change the situation to our advantage. I call this the participating or manipulative function. The two functions connect thinking and reality in opposite directions. In the cognitive function, reality is supposed to determine the participants’ views; the direction of causation is from the world to the mind. By contrast, in the manipulative function, the direction of causation is from the mind to the world, that is to say, the intentions of the participants have an effect on the world. When both functions operate at the same time they can interfere with each other. How? By depriving each function of the independent variable that would be needed to determine the value of the dependent variable. Because, when the independent variable of one function is the dependent variable of the other, neither function has a genuinely independent variable. This means that the cognitive function can’t produce enough knowledge to serve as the basis of the participants’ decisions. Similarly, the manipulative function can have an effect on the outcome, but can’t determine it. In other words, the outcome is liable to diverge from the participants’ intentions. There is bound to be some slippage between intentions and actions and further slippage between actions and outcomes. As a result, there is an element of uncertainty both in our understanding of reality and in the actual course of events. To understand the uncertainties associated with reflexivity, we need to probe a little further. If the cognitive function operated in isolation without any interference from the manipulative function it could produce knowledge. Knowledge is represented by true statements. A statement is true if it corresponds to the facts—that is what the correspondence theory of truth tells us. But if there is interference from the manipulative function, the facts no longer serve as an independent criterion by which the truth of a statement can be judged because the correspondence may have been brought about by the statement changing the facts. Consider the statement, “it is raining.” That statement is true or false depending on whether it is, in fact, raining. Now consider the statement, “This is a revolutionary moment.” That statement is reflexive, and its truth value depends on the impact it makes. Reflexive statements have some affinity with the paradox of the liar, which is a self-referential statement. But while self-reference has been extensively analyzed, reflexivity has received much less attention. This is strange, because reflexivity has an impact on the real world, while self-reference is purely a linguistic phenomenon. In the real world, the participants’ thinking finds expression not only in statements but also, of course, in various forms of action and behavior. That makes reflexivity a very broad phenomenon that typically takes the form of feedback loops. The participants’ views influence the course of events, and the course of events influences the participants’ views. The influence is continuous and circular; that is what turns it into a feedback loop. Reflexive feedback loops have not been rigorously analyzed and when I originally encountered them and tried to analyze them, I ran into various complications. The feedback loop is supposed to be a two-way connection between the participant’s views and the actual course of events. But what about a two-way connection between the participants’ views? And what about a solitary individual asking himself who he is and what he stands for and changing his behavior as a result of his reflections? In trying to resolve these difficulties I got so lost among the categories I created that one morning I couldn’t understand what I had written the night before. That’s when I gave up philosophy and devoted my efforts to making money. To avoid that trap let me propose the following terminology. Let us distinguish between the objective and subjective aspects of reality. Thinking constitutes the subjective aspect, events the objective aspect. In other words, the subjective aspect covers what takes place in the minds of the participants, the objective aspect denotes what takes place in external reality. There is only one external reality but many different subjective views. Reflexivity can then connect any two or more aspects of reality, setting up two-way feedback loops between them. Exceptionally it may even occur with a single aspect of reality, as in the case of a solitary individual reflecting on his own identity. This may be described as “self-reflexivity.” We may then distinguish between two broad categories: reflexive relationships which connect the subjective aspects and reflexive events which involve the objective aspect. Marriage is a reflexive relationship; the Crash of 2008 was a reflexive event. When reality has no subjective aspect, there can be no reflexivity. * * * Feedback loops can be either negative or positive. Negative feedback brings the participants’ views and the actual situation closer together; positive feedback drives them further apart. In other words, a negative feedback process is self-correcting. It can go on forever and if there are no significant changes in external reality, it may eventually lead to an equilibrium where the participants’ views come to correspond to the actual state of affairs. That is what is supposed to happen in financial markets. So equilibrium, which is the central case in economics, turns out to be an extreme case of negative feedback, a limiting case in my conceptual framework. By contrast, a positive feedback process is self-reinforcing. It cannot go on forever because eventually the participants’ views would become so far removed from objective reality that the participants would have to recognize them as unrealistic. Nor can the iterative process occur without any change in the actual state of affairs, because it is in the nature of positive feedback that it reinforces whatever tendency prevails in the real world. Instead of equilibrium, we are faced with a dynamic disequilibrium or what may be described as far-from-equilibrium conditions. Usually in far-from-equilibrium situations the divergence between perceptions and reality leads to a climax which sets in motion a positive feedback process in the opposite direction. Such initially self-reinforcing but eventually self-defeating boom-bust processes or bubbles are characteristic of financial markets, but they can also be found in other spheres. There, I call them fertile fallacies—interpretations of reality that are distorted, yet produce results which reinforce the distortion. * * * I realize that this is all very abstract and difficult to follow. It would make it much easier if I gave some concrete examples. But you will have to bear with me. I want to make a different point and the fact that it is difficult to follow abstract arguments helps me make it. In dealing with subjects like reality or thinking or the relationship between the two, it’s easy to get confused and formulate problems the wrong way. So misinterpretations and misconceptions can play a very important role in human affairs. The recent financial crisis can be attributed to a mistaken interpretation of how financial markets work. I shall discuss that in the next lecture. In the third lecture, I shall discuss two fertile fallacies—the Enlightenment fallacy and the post-modern fallacy. These concrete examples will demonstrate how important misconceptions have been in the course of history. But for the rest of this lecture I shall stay at the lofty heights of abstractions. I contend that situations that have thinking participants have a different structure from natural phenomena. The difference lies in the role of thinking. In natural phenomena thinking plays no causal role and serves only a cognitive function. In human affairs thinking is part of the subject matter and serves both a cognitive and a manipulative function. The two functions can interfere with each other. The interference does not occur all the time—in everyday activities, like driving a car or painting a house, the two functions actually complement each other—but when it occurs, it introduces an element of uncertainty which is absent from natural phenomena. The uncertainty manifests itself in both functions: the participants’ act on the basis of imperfect understanding and the results of their actions will not correspond to their expectations. That is a key feature of human affairs. By contrast, in the case of natural phenomena, events unfold irrespective of the views held by the observers. The outside observer is engaged only in the cognitive function and the phenomena provide a reliable criterion by which the truth of the observers’ theories can be judged. So the outside observer can obtain knowledge. Based on that knowledge, nature can be successfully manipulated. There is a natural separation between the cognitive and manipulative functions. Due to their separation, both functions can serve their purpose better than in the human sphere. At this point, I need to emphasize that reflexivity is not the only source of uncertainty in human affairs. Yes, reflexivity does introduce an element of uncertainty both into the participants views and the actual course of events, but other factors may also have the same effect. For instance, the fact that participants cannot know what the other participants know, is something quite different from reflexivity, yet it is a source of uncertainty in human affairs. The fact that different participants have different interests, some of which may be in conflict with each other, is another source of uncertainty. Moreover, each individual participant may be guided by a multiplicity of values which may not be self-consistent, as Isaiah Berlin pointed out. The uncertainties created by these factors are likely to be even more extensive than those generated by reflexivity. I shall lump them all together and speak of the human uncertainty principle, which is an even broader concept than reflexivity. The human uncertainty principle I am talking about is much more specific and stringent than the subjective skepticism that pervades Cartesian philosophy. It gives us objective reasons to believe that our perceptions and expectations are—or at least may be—wrong. Although the primary impact of human uncertainty falls on the participants, it has far-reaching implications for the social sciences. I can explicate them best by invoking Karl Popper’s theory of scientific method. It is a beautifully simple and elegant scheme. It consists of three elements and three operations. The three elements are scientific laws and the initial and final conditions to which those laws apply. The three operations are prediction, explanation, and testing. When the scientific laws are combined with the initial conditions, they provide predictions. When they are combined with the final conditions, they provide explanations. In this sense predictions and explanations are symmetrical and reversible. That leaves testing, where predictions derived from scientific laws are compared with the actual results. According to Popper, scientific laws are hypothetical in character; they cannot be verified, but they can be falsified by testing. The key to the success of scientific method is that it can test generalizations of universal validity with the help of singular observations. One failed test is sufficient to falsify a theory but no amount of confirming instances is sufficient to verify. This is a brilliant solution to the otherwise intractable problem: how can science be both empirical and rational? According to Popper it is empirical because we test our theories by observing whether the predictions we derive from them are true, and it is rational because we use deductive logic in doing so. Popper dispenses with inductive logic and relies instead on testing. Generalizations that cannot be falsified, do not qualify as scientific. Popper emphasizes the central role that testing plays in scientific method and establishes a strong case for critical thinking by asserting that scientific laws are only provisionally valid and remain open to reexamination. Thus the three salient features of Popper’s scheme are the symmetry between prediction and explanation, the asymmetry between verification and falsification and the central role of testing. Testing allows science to grow, improve and innovate. Popper’s scheme works well for the study of natural phenomena but the human uncertainty principle throws a monkey wrench into the supreme simplicity and elegance of Popper’s scheme. The symmetry between prediction and explanation is destroyed because of the element of uncertainty in predictions and the central role of testing is endangered. Should the initial and final conditions include or exclude the participant’s thinking? The question is important because testing requires replicating those conditions. If the participants’ thinking is included, it is difficult to observe what the initial and final conditions are, because the participants’ views can only be inferred from their statements or actions. If it is excluded, the initial and final conditions do not constitute singular observations because the same objective conditions may be associated with very different views held by the participants. In either case, generalizations cannot be properly tested. These difficulties do not preclude social scientists from producing worthwhile generalizations, but they are unlikely to meet the requirements of Popper’s scheme, nor can they match the predictive power of the laws of physics. Social scientists have found this conclusion hard to accept. Economists in particular suffer from what Sigmund Freud might call “physics envy.” There have been many attempts to eliminate the difficulties connected with the human uncertainty principle by inventing or postulating some kind of fixed relationship between the participants’ thinking and the actual state of affairs. Karl Marx asserted that the ideological superstructure was determined by the material conditions of production and Freud maintained that people’s behavior was determined by drives and complexes of which they were not even conscious. Both claimed scientific status for their theories although, as Popper pointed out, they cannot be falsified by testing. But by far the most impressive attempt has been mounted by economic theory. It started out by assuming perfect knowledge and when that assumption turned out to be untenable it went through ever increasing contortions to maintain the fiction of rational behavior. Economics ended up with the theory of rational expectations which maintains that there is a single optimum view of the future, that which corresponds to it, and eventually all the market participants will converge around that view. This postulate is absurd but it is needed in order to allow economic theory to model itself on Newtonian physics. Interestingly, both Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek recognized, in their famous exchange in the pages of Economica, that the social sciences cannot produce results comparable to physics. Hayek inveighed against the mechanical and uncritical application of the quantitative methods of natural science. He called it scientism. And Karl Popper wrote about “The Poverty of Historicism” where he argued that history is not determined by universally valid scientific laws. Nevertheless, Popper proclaimed what he called the “doctrine of the unity of method” by which he meant that both natural and social sciences should be judged by the same criteria. And Hayek, of course, became the apostle of the Chicago school of economics where market fundamentalism originated. But as I see it, the implication of the human uncertainty principle is that the subject matter of the natural and social sciences is fundamentally different; therefore they need to develop different methods and they have to be held to different standards. Economic theory should not be expected to produce universally valid laws that can be used reversibly to explain and predict historic events. I contend that the slavish imitation of natural science inevitably leads to the distortion of human and social phenomena. What is attainable in social science falls short of what is attainable in physics. I am somewhat troubled, however, about drawing too sharp a distinction between natural and social science. Such dichotomies are usually not found in reality; they are introduced by us, in our efforts to make some sense out of an otherwise confusing reality. Indeed while a sharp distinction between physics and social sciences seems justified, there are other sciences, such as biology and the study of animal societies that occupy intermediate positions. But I had to abandon my reservations and recognize a dichotomy between the natural and social sciences because the social sciences encounter a second difficulty from which the natural sciences are exempt. And that is that social theories are reflexive. Heisenberg’s discovery of the uncertainty principle did not alter the behavior of quantum particles one iota, but social theories, whether Marxism, market fundamentalism or the theory of reflexivity, can affect the subject matter to which it refers. Scientific method is supposed to be devoted to the pursuit of truth. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle does not interfere with that postulate but the reflexivity of social theories does. Why should social science confine itself to passively studying social phenomena when it can be used to actively change the state of affairs? As I remarked in The Alchemy of Finance, the alchemists made a mistake in trying to change the nature of base metals by incantation. Instead, they should have focused their attention on the financial markets where they could have succeeded. How could social science be protected against this interference? I propose a simple remedy: recognize a dichotomy between the natural and social sciences. This will ensure that social theories will be judged on their merits and not by a false analogy with natural science. I propose this as a convention for the protection of scientific method, not as a demotion or devaluation of social science. The convention sets no limits on what social science may be able to accomplish. On the contrary, by liberating social science from the slavish imitation of natural science and protecting it from being judged by the wrong standards, it should open up new vistas. It is in this spirit that I shall put forward my interpretation of financial markets tomorrow. I apologize for dwelling so long in the rarefied realm of abstractions. I promise to come down to earth in my next lecture. Thank you.

Robert Lamb says:

“I found this link this morning that might be worth a mention on SYSCOI https://oecdtv.webtv-solution.com/5504/or/NAEC-masterclasses-on-new-approaches-to-economic-challenges.html  (there’s an option to download for offline viewing). Note this is the morning session; there’s a link on the page for the afternoon session.

Haven’t watched it yet, but looks like an interesting day’s seminar including agent based and SD modelling and the obligatory nod to complexity.”

It is indeed interesting!

Source: NAEC masterclasses on new approaches to economic challenges

Source: Two Lyapunov Functions for Flexible Organizations – Munich Personal RePEc Archive

pdf:

Click to access MPRA_paper_8204.pdf

Source: Gregory Bateson changed the way we think about changing ourselves | Aeon Essays

Why isn’t Alan Turing more central in systems thinking/cybernetics?

Wikipedia article below and:

pdf –

Click to access turing.pdf

slides about Turing – http://dosequis.colorado.edu/Courses/MethodsLogic/Docs/Turing.pdf

Turing’s Theory of Morphogenesis: Where We Started, Where We Are and Where We Want to Go – Thomas E. Woolley, Ruth E. Baker, and Philip K. Main – https://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/maini/PKM%20publications/428.pdf

photos of the original paper – http://www.turingarchive.org/viewer/?id=476&title=2

Source: The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis – Wikipedia

The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Turing’s paper explained how natural patterns such as stripes, spots and spirals, like those of the giant pufferfish, may arise naturally.

“The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis” is an article written by the English mathematician Alan Turing in 1952 describing the way in which natural patterns such as stripes, spots and spirals may arise naturally out of a homogeneous, uniform state.^[1] The theory, which can be called a reaction–diffusion theory of morphogenesis, has served as a basic model in theoretical biology.^[2]

Reaction–diffusion systems

Main article: Reaction–diffusion system

Reaction–diffusion systems have attracted much interest as a prototype model for pattern formation. Patterns such as fronts, spirals, targets, hexagons, stripes and dissipative solitons are found in various types of reaction-diffusion systems in spite of large discrepancies e.g. in the local reaction terms. Such patterns have been dubbed “Turing patterns“.^[3]

Reaction–diffusion processes form one class of explanation for the embryonic development of animal coats and skin pigmentation.^[4][5] Another reason for the interest in reaction-diffusion systems is that although they represent nonlinear partial differential equations, there are often possibilities for an analytical treatment.^[6][7][8]

I found another systems institute!

More in source: About us – Centuri Living Systems

Presentation

The Turing Centre for Living Systems (CENTURI) is an interdisciplinary project located in Marseille (France).

CENTURI aims at developing an integrated interdisciplinary community, to decipher the complexity of biological systemsthrough the understanding of how biological function emerges from the organization and dynamics of living systems.

The project federates 15 teaching and research institutes in biology, physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering and focuses on Research, Education and Engineering, 3 missions that hold interdisciplinary as their core principle.

The research and training programmes implemented under the auspices of CENTURI will foster new collaborations, will transform practices, will attract new talents and thereby contribute to making the Luminy campus a leading site for the ​​interdisciplinary study of biological systems.

Governance

The Turing Centre is under the scientific direction of Pr. Thomas Lecuit, Research Director (IBDM). Five committees provide the executive director with expertise and advice on the distribution of the collaborative means and management of the whole project.

Why CENTURI ?

The name “CENTURI” has been chosen to the honor of Alan Turing, famous mathematician and computer scientist, but also pioneer in theoretical biology.

In 1952, he published a seminal paper entitled “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis”, a landmark in theoretical biology. It triggered a whole new field of mathematical enquiry into pattern formation, deciphering reaction-diffusion mechanisms and their consequences in dynamic living systems.

 Read more about Alan Turing

CENTURI is laureate of the National call ”Instituts Convergences” of the French State in the context of the ”Investments for the Future” programme (2nd PIA). The project will recruit more than 100 people (researchers, engineers, PhD students, Post-docs) over 9 years with a budget of € 20 million co-funded by the French National Research Agency and the A*MIDEX Foundation.

Source: A Brief History of Systems Science, Chaos and Complexity

A Brief History of Systems Science, Chaos and Complexity

Daniel Christian Wahl

Jul 8 · 6 min read

Since the beginning in the 1950s, when people like Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Kenneth Boulding developed the field of ‘General Systems Theory’ and Norbert Wiener and Jay Forrester developed the field of ‘Cybernetics’, there have been many attempts to break free from the reductionist paradigm and develop a more holistic and systemic understanding of the complexity of the world we live in.

Early systems thinkers were still ultimately aiming to improve their ability to better predict and control the system in question. The introduction of insights from chaos theory and non-liner mathematics into systems science sparked the development of complexity theory.

Interconnectedness, unpredictability, and uncontrolability are key characteristics of all complex dynamic systems. In dealing with complexity rather than mechanisms, the aim of science shifts from improving our ability to predict and control to aiming to better understand the dynamics and relationships of the systems we participate in so that our participation can be more appropriate.

“Complexity theory is becoming a science that recognizes and celebrates the creativity of nature. Now that’s pretty extraordinary, because it opens the door to a new way of seeing the world, recognizing that these complex dynamic systems are sensitive to initial conditions and have emergent properties. We have to learn to walk carefully in relation to these complex systems on which the quality of our lives depends, from microbial ecosystems to the biosphere, because we influence them although we cannot control them. This knowledge is new to our western scientific mentality…”.

— Brian Goodwin (et al., 2001, p.27).

The sciences of complexity are a variety of process-oriented areas of research exploring non-linear dynamics within complex systems. The simplest definition for a complex system is any system with more than three interacting variables. Complexity is thus a common feature of the world we inhabit.

When we speak about chaos theory it is important to understand that chaos does not refer to a state of absolutely incoherent disorder, rather “the scientific term chaos refers to an underlying interconnectedness that exists in apparently random events.” Briggs and Peat explain: “Chaos science focuses on hidden patterns, nuance, the sensitivity of things, and the rules for how the unpredictable leads to the new”(Briggs & Peat, 1999, p.2).

Chaos theory provides a radically different framework for studying complex dynamics. It highlights the limitations that are inherent in a reductionistic and mechanistic — linear cause and effect based — analysis of complex systems.

[castellani complexity map]

“Chaos theory teaches us that we are always a part of the problem and that particular tension and dislocation always unfold from the entire system rather than from some defective “part.” Envisioning an issue as a purely mechanical problem to be solved may bring temporary relief of symptoms, but chaos suggests that in the long run it could be more effective to look at the overall context in which a particular problems manifest itself.”

— Briggs & Peat (1999, pp.160–161)

In Seven Life Lessons of CHAOS, John Briggs and F. David Peat unfold seven lessons for embracing some of the deeper insights of chaos theory in our daily lives:

• Be Creative: engage with chaos to find imaginative new solutions and live more dynamically.
• Use Butterfly Power: let chaos grow local efforts into global results
• Go with the Flow: use chaos to work collectively with others
• Explore What’s Between: discover life’s rich subtleties and avoid the traps of stereotypes
• See the Art of the World: appreciate the beauty of life’s chaos
• Live Within Time: utilize time’s hidden depths
• Rejoin the Whole: realize our fractal connectedness to each other and the world.

In my 2006 PhD thesis I wrote a chapter on ‘Understanding Complexity: A Prerequisite for Sustainable Design’. The work seems to be gaining in significance and interest with the years. I am grateful that back then the lack of post-doctoral funding for the kind of trans-disciplinary work I was doing on ‘Design for Human and Planetary Health’ invited me to leave mainstream academia and work in the fruitful and fertile intersections of the disciplines and the sectors. It has helped me hone my neo-generalist skills in education, facilitation, whole systems design, consultancy, research, communication and weaving complex alliances and partnerships for transformative innovation and change.

The for me most significant insights I gained from systems science, chaos and complexity are summarized in these articles:

Facing complexity means befriending uncertainty and ambiguity

May God us keep from single vision and Newton’s Sleep! — William Blake (1802)

medium.com

Why do we need to think and act more systemically?

The power and majesty of nature in all its aspects is lost on one who contemplates it merely in the detail of its parts…

medium.com

Donella Meadows recommendations for how to dance with and intervene in systems

Donella H.Meadows was one of the co-authors of the 1972 Club of Rome Report on Limits to Growth which contributed to…

hackernoon.com

Avoiding extinction: participation in the nested complexity of life

Designing for positive emergence and planetary health?

hackernoon.com

In preparation for a recent keynote I gave at the 6th International Conference of Reporting 3.0 I summarised some of the lessons I learned in my by now 20 year exploration of how to embrace the paradox of emergence and design. On the one hand I believe it is vital to accepts uncertainty, not-knowing, and unpredictability fully to the point of deep humility. On the other hand, I also believe that we need to choose to act from the conviction that we can design for positive emergence in complex systems even if it is not an exact science and we cannot know with certainty how our efforts will turn out to affect transformative change.

How do we design for positive emergence in complex dynamic systems?

I believe we can live partially into the answer to this questions by charting pathways based on constant feedback generated by asking ourselves the following guiding questions. They might inform a deeper understanding of how to participate appropriately in these complex systems:

Who are the participants in the systems and what is meaningful to them?

Who is connected to whom & what are the qualities of their connections?

What information flows in the system & what is the quality of the information?

Which actors/agents/participants need to be engaged more/better?

What kind of qualitative and quantitative information needs to flow between participants?

What connections in the system need to be woven and nurtured?

Are we paying enough attention to context, relationships, patterns, qualities, uniqueness of place and health/wholeness?

…

This is not a complete nor definitive list, simply reflections on the way. Asking such questions can — I believe — contribute to the emergence of diverse regenerative cultures carefully adapted to the bio-cultural uniqueness of place. It can do so everywhere, but differently and appropriately.

If you like the article, please clap AND remember that you can clap up to 50 times if you like it a lot ;-)!

Daniel Christian Wahl — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on regenerative whole systems design, regenerative leadership, and education for regenerative development and bioregional regeneration.

Author of the internationally acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures

Wiki for Collaborative Studies of Arts, Media and Humanities

Cybernetics

A bibliographical genealogy of cybernetics in the United States, France, Soviet Union, and Germany in the 1940s and 1950s, followed by a selected bibliography on its impact across the sciences.

Source: Cybernetics – Monoskop

Another example – Cybernetic Volume 1, No. 1, Summer-Fall 1985

Click to access Cybernetic_Vol_1_No_1_1985.pdf

Books books books

(click ‘previous entries’)

Digital library of arts and humanities

Source: Cybernetics — Monoskop Log

Go to link for the podcast!

Source: The Recurring Case of ‘Recursion’: a pattern for making sense of the world | CBC Radio

Ideas

The Recurring Case of ‘Recursion’: a pattern for making sense of the world

People are fascinated to see the same thing on multiple levels, says author