[Essential listening:]
with Hubert Dreyfus, Fernando Flores, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard
Love and Philosophy, B. Scot Rousse, and Andrea Hiott
Apr 27, 2026
https://withoutwhy.substack.com/p/punk-tech-and-care-my-conversation
Recent Updates Page 13
Still Out of Control – Kelly (2026)
h/t Arthur Battram
Still Out of Control
Still Out of Control – by Kevin Kelly – KK
KEVIN KELLY
JUN 08, 2026
Eventually Out of Control was translated into a few other languages.
I published Out of Control 32 years ago (1994). I started writing it in 1989, which is a long time in the past for a book that promises to talk about the future. A lot in our world has changed in that time, including our attitudes about the future. Far too much has happened in the world of technology to be summed up in this note. But it is fair to wonder: how well has my book held up for the past 32 years? Is Out of Control still valid? Is it worth reading today? And what might I have written differently given what I know today? What, if anything, would I change?
The practice of complexity – Mowles (2026)
The practice of complexity
The practice of complexity – by Chris Mowles
Talking, theorising and practicing at the Complexity and Management Conference June ’26
CHRIS MOWLES
JUN 10, 2026
This year’s Complexity and Management Conference was entitled What does it mean to say the world is complex? Implications for practice. Jean Boulton kicked us off with a rich key note which grounded us in the complexity sciences and made the case for complex ontology – reality is complex.
For the rest of the day delegates discussed the implications of Jean’s presentation for their work, and some also hosted workshops of their own to convene discussions about their practice which might be of interest to others. These included Migena Shula, Kevin Flinn, Eric Wenzel, Sara Filbee, Jakub Perlak, Jana Filosof, and Franciska Fellegi.
As a reflection on the work on Saturday I gave a response on Sunday morning which was not in any way intended as a summing up, but a further opportunity for a reflexive turn on some of the themes which had emerged. It was also an opportunity to talk about, and to model, what the perspective of perspectives we refer to as complex responsive processes of relating has developed by way of practices to do justice to the insight that the social world is complex all the way down. This is in no way an attempt to claim a monopoly on the truth, but to demonstrate what 30 years of working with complexity ideas has meant for practice, the theme of the conference.
Rodrigo Nunes on Ecologies of Organization and Democratic Transformation — Future Histories International
Rodrigo Nunes on Ecologies of Organization and Democratic Transformation — Future Histories International https://www.futurehistories-international.com/episodes/s04/e03-rodrigo-nunes-on-ecologies-of-organization-and-democratic-transformation/
SRBS 2026
How might #SystemsThinking education be authentically redesigned? #WendyGregory + #GeraldMidgley reflect on history of MA Management Systems 1992-2003 at uniofhull.bsky.social “Emergent Innovation in Systemic Programme Design”, SRBS 2026, doi.org/10.1002/sres…
Evaluation is Never Neutral or Independent: Reflections on Valuing, Complexity and Systems Thinking
Evaluation is Never Neutral or Independent: Reflections on Valuing, Complexity and Systems Thinking https://thesystemsthinkingapprentice.substack.com/p/evaluation-is-never-neutral-or-independent?r=81ic5y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
The Lost history of Cybernetics. General Intellect Unit.
June and Kyle from the General intellect Unit podcast join Mia to explain what cybernetics is, its history in the Chilean revolution, and how we can use it to build a better socialist world.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/the-lost-history-of-cybernetics-92769653/
After Chile: A Second Chance for a Technological Revolution in Latin America – Ben Wood (2026) on LinkedIn on the story, and Víctor Ganón’s Metaphorum webinar (link to video included)
After Chile: A Second Chance for a Technological Revolution in Latin America
Ben Wood, PMP
Project Consultant | Builder | Systems Thinker
June 5, 2026
On September 11, 1973, fighter jets bombed the presidential palace in Santiago. By the end of the day, President Salvador Allende was dead, and the future Stafford Beer had been helping to build for Chile appeared to die with him.
Project Cybersyn was over, and Beer’s dream that cybernetics might help humanity govern itself with greater intelligence, freedom, and dignity appeared destined for the dustbin of history.
Following Chile, Beer withdrew from public life and disappeared into the mountains of Wales for the next twelve years.
Until a letter arrived from Uruguay, from a man named Victor Ganón.
“Our country would like to offer you a second chance in Latin America to implement your ideas and establish a real-time control system for Uruguay. Would you accept it?”
Beer wrote back immediately:
“I have been waiting for 12 years for just such a letter…There is only one possible answer: YES!”
Links:
Metaphorum Webinar:
https://youtu.be/CvVXpD4w5zw?si=8JStPSBmo4B6gEwe
Victor’s book:
https://books.apple.com/au/book/urucib-uruguay-cibernetico-successfully-implementing/id6746205803
Victor’s Article:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-021-01351-5
After Chile: A Second Chance for a Technological Revolution in Latin America | LinkedIn
RIP Edgar Morin
RIP Jim Rutt (with John Krakauer on Why Neuroscience Needs Behavior and Tyson Yunkaporta on Ceremony, Skepticism, and Seeing in 3D)
Very sad to hear the news this morning that Jim Rutt died on May 27, 2026. Official announcement:
https://www.obaughfuneralhome.com/obituaries/james-jim-rutt
He was a big character and someone deeply involved with complexity, a Boomer Uncle or Grand-uncle par excellence, I think, and someone I listened to regularly with amusement and frustration – but a true, actual, explorer and thinker, open to challenge and deeply learning focused. Just yesterday I’d listened to and sent myself the link for this excellenct interview with John Krakauer, which aligns with so much of my thinking on neuroscience:
https://jimrutt.substack.com/p/ep-339-john-krakauer-on-why-neuroscience
And then I was pleased to see that his final published podcast was with Tyson Yunkaporta, his opposite in many ways – yet also someone with many similarities, finding commonality, who pays umprompted and heartfelt tribute to what he has learned from Jim, and which is openly reciprocated, and explored:
https://jimrutt.substack.com/p/ep-345-worldviews-tyson-yunkaporta
ChatGPT says I should summarise his life as:
“Jim Rutt occupied a rare position at the intersection of technology, complexity science and public discourse. As chairman of the Santa Fe Institute, an internet entrepreneur, co-founder of Game B, and host of The Jim Rutt Show, he spent decades creating conversations across disciplines and communities that otherwise might never have met. His enduring contribution wasn’t a single theory or institution but a relentless curiosity about how complex systems evolve and how humans might learn to navigate them more wisely.”
That’s pretty good actually, he was big and bold but also humble, a capitalist but also a convenor, a complexity thinker but always critical. Other links:
Longer biography
https://archania.org/p/individuals/internet-personalities/jim-rutt
Full backlog of his podcast
And his substack
https://jimrutt.substack.com/notes
And a recent interview with him:
https://blog.thomas.cr/p/the-next-10000-years-a-roadmap-for?hide_intro_popup=true
A typical bombacious perspective, and responses
A tribute from Jonathan Rowson
https://jonathanrowson.substack.com/p/howdy-on-the-other-side
And I’ll leave the last word to Jim
Problematique Dialogue 2026 retrospective – Ing (2026)
May 29, 2026 daviding
Problematique Dialogue 2026 retrospective – Coevolving Innovations
Icon, Likeness, Likely Story, Likelihood, Probability • 3
Re: Peirce List • Phyllis Chiasson
A more complete excerpt and the translator’s notes are very helpful here.
A probability (εικος) is not the same as a sign (σηµειον). The former is a generally accepted premiss ; for that which people know to happen or not to happen, or to be or not to be, usually in a particular way, is a probability : e.g., that the envious are malevolent or that those who are loved are affectionate. A sign, however, means a demonstrative premiss which is necessary or generally accepted.1 That which coexists with something else, or before or after whose happening something else has happened, is a sign of that something’s having happened or being.
An enthymeme is a syllogism from probabilities or signs ; and a sign can be taken in three ways — in just as many ways as there are of taking the middle term in the several figures : either as in the first figure or as in the second or as in the third.
- E.g., the proof that a woman is pregnant because she has milk is by the first figure ; for the middle term is ‘having milk’. A stands for ‘pregnant’, B for ‘having milk’, and C for ‘woman’.
- The proof that the wise are good because Pittacus was good is by the third figure. A stands for ‘good’, B for ‘the wise’, and C for Pittacus. Then it is true to predicate both A and B of C ; only we do not state the latter, because we know it, whereas we formally assume the former.
- The proof that a woman is pregnant because she is sallow is intended to be by the middle figure ; for since sallowness is a characteristic of woman in pregnancy, and is associated with this particular woman, they suppose that she is proved to be pregnant. A stands for ‘sallowness’, B for ‘being pregnant’, C for ‘woman’.
If only one premiss is stated, we get only a sign ; but if the other premiss is assumed as well, we get a syllogism,2 e.g., that Pittacus is high-minded, because those who love honour are high-minded, and Pittacus loves honour ; or again that the wise are good, because Pittacus is good and also wise.
In this way syllogisms can be effected ; but whereas a syllogism in the first figure cannot be refuted if it is true, since it is universal, a syllogism in the last figure can be refuted even if the conclusion is true, because the syllogism is neither universal nor relevant to our purpose.3 For if Pittacus is good, it is not necessary for this reason that all other wise men are good. A syllogism in the middle figure is always and in every way refutable, since we never get a syllogism with the terms in this relation4 ; for it does not necessarily follow, if a pregnant woman is sallow, and this woman is sallow, that she is pregnant. Thus truth can be found in all signs, but they differ in the ways which have been described.
We must either classify signs in this way, and regard their middle term as an index (τεκµηριον)5 (for the name ‘index’ is given to that which causes us to know, and the middle term is especially of this nature), or describe the arguments drawn from the extremes6 as ‘signs’, and that which is drawn from the middle as an ‘index’. For the conclusion which is reached through the first figure is most generally accepted and most true. (Aristotle, Prior Analytics 2.27, 70a3–70b6).
Translator’s Notes
- If referable to one phenomenon only, a sign has objective necessity ; if to more than one, its value is a matter of opinion.
- Strictly an enthymeme.
- If the signs of an enthymeme in the first figure are true, the conclusion is inevitable. Aristotle does not mean that the conclusion is universal, but that the universality of the major premiss implies the validity of the minor and conclusion. The example (<all> those who have honour, etc.) quoted for the third figure contains no universal premiss or sign, and fails to establish a universal conclusion.
- i.e. when both premisses are affirmative.
- Signs may be classified as irrefutable (1st figure) and refutable (2nd and 3rd figures), and the name ‘index’ may be attached to their middle terms, either in all figures or (more probably) only in the first, where the middle is distinctively middle.
- Alternatively the name ‘sign’ may be restricted to the 2nd and 3rd figures, and may be replaced by ‘index’ in the first.
Reference
- Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Resource
- Theme One Program • User Guide • Appendix A
cc: Academia.edu • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Mathstodon
cc: Research Gate • Structural Modeling • Systems Science • Syscoi
Bet hedging (biology)
Shared by https://x.com/male_leo_xxvi in a cybernetics chat
Why we don’t get complexity: Stafford Beer, ‘requisite variety’ and systems thinking
Why we don’t get complexity: Stafford Beer, ‘requisite variety’ and systems thinking. Claire Hartnell. https://open.substack.com/pub/clairejhartnell/p/why-we-dont-get-complexity-stafford?r=slo6&utm_medium=ios
Machine Intelligence is not Artificial – Part 7
Machine Intelligence is not Artificial – Part 7. Sean Manion. https://seanmanion.substack.com/p/machine-intelligence-is-not-artificial-d42?r=slo6&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
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