[Leads on to quite a few other interesting life stories – h/t the Brain Inspired Complexity Group – https://stream.syscoi.com/2025/05/25/want-to-join-the-complexity-group-email-list-from-the-brain-inspired-podcast-by-paul-middlebrooks-reading-through-the-essays-in-david-krakauers-collection-of-classic-complexity-papers/]

Web of Stories – Life Stories of Remarkable People

31 Oct 2016

To hear more of Marvin Minsky’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Marvin Minsky – The amazing videophon…   The scientist, Marvin Minsky (1927-2016) was one of the pioneers of the field of Artificial Intelligence, having founded the MIT AI Lab in 1970. Since the 1950s, his work involved trying to uncover human thinking processes and replicate them in machines. [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2011] TRANSCRIPT: That strange period around the beginning of the artificial intelligence laboratory when I spent a lot of time… sometimes I went on trips with this wonderful man and Warren McCulloch had – at that time – he was already… he was one of the great pioneers of cybernetics. So, in fact before Norbert Wiener did… wrote his famous book called Cybernetics, which I think came out in 1949, McCulloch had been working on neural networks – maybe the first – and he had a little group of… he had a 14 year old prodigy named Walter Pitts in Chicago and they worked out this paper that was published in 1943, so, that’s many years before Norbert Wiener came on the scene. And he had been a psychiatrist, a physician… neurologist really, and started the neuroscience laboratory at MIT and was a very dramatic world class actor figure. And I went on trips with him and… and it gave me a new view of the world because… when McCulloch… I remember one day he said: ‘I’m going to explain something to the psychologists.’ And he had a sort of grand view of… of this… the importance of cybernetics, which was correct. Otherwise, you would have said he was delusional. And so, I went with him and it was a little meeting with about six or seven people. But he was on the stage and I realized that he was talking to the whole world. Normally, people are talking to their audience, but he would have very elaborate constructions and beautiful ways of saying things. But I had never met anyone for whom all the world was a stage; I think some… as someone put it. And from that, I got some sense that you shouldn’t waste people’s time with things that aren’t very important. Of course, nobody… nobody could live out such a commandment but, I must have spent most of a year just hanging around him and trying to understand how he could… see such importance in ordinary things. So in a way, it’s like Feynman, who would look at a little wave on the water and understand how the universe works. And McCulloch was very much like that for psychological things. He hated Freud because – in retrospect I think – because Freud was the best psychologist before him. And, you know Freud actually invented various forms of artificial intelligence and unlike the behaviorists, Freud thought of the mind as really a rather complicated thing not… not just a little feedback loop or something and… and imagined that it had many different structures which weren’t all compatible with one another and… so he… in retrospect, he had the first society of mind because it wasn’t just the conscious and unconscious, but he also had these sensors and whatever. Anyway, that was a… about a year when I got attached to this McCulloch and somewhere I wrote, maybe 100 years from now he will be seen as the greatest 20th century philosopher along with Russell and a few people like that.

Marvin Minsky – Warren McCulloch: For whom the world was a stage (100/151)

Marvin Minsky – Warren McCulloch: For whom the world was a stage (100/151) – YouTube

The complexity group meets periodically to discuss papers in the collection:

Foundational Papers in Complexity Science.

Meetings are open to anyone. They are recorded and shared with patreon supporters.

There are over 300 participants thus far.

The group was inspired by my conversation with David Krakauer. David created the foundations collection and wrote an excellent introduction to boot:

The Complex World: An Introduction to the Fundamentals of Complexity Science

Want to join the complexity group email list?

The complexity group meets periodically to discuss papers in the collection:
 
Foundational Papers in Complexity Science.
 
Meetings are open to anyone. They are recorded and shared with patreon supporters.

Complexity Group Email List | Brain Inspired

‘[W]e ought to aspire to provide the best theory so far as to what type of theory the best theory so far must be: no more, but no less.’

That was the title of my extremely overwrought undergrad thesis (continued -‘Does Alasdair MacIntyre tell us how to identify a rationally acceptable system of ethics?’) in 1997 (https://www.academia.edu/10016029/1997_Benjamin_Taylor_undergraduate_thesis_does_Alasdair_MacIntyre_tell_us_how_to_identify_a_rationally_acceptable_system_of_ethics), and reflected the deep impact he had on me and my thinking, which has continued in mostly subtle ways.

I appear to have said:l (or this is an automatic AI summary – they were equally dense!):

‘The thesis examines MacIntyre’s view of modern ethics as irresolvable and interminable, highlighting the need for history to replace reification with justification. It introduces the concept of tradition, recasting irresolvability and interminability as incommensurability, and explores the possibility of communication through crisis. The work further discusses MacIntyre’s contextualist epistemology, rationality within a tradition, and the role of narrative in justifying ethical systems. It also addresses challenges such as relativism and perspectivism, and considers MacIntyre’s presentation of Thomism as a form of historicism that is neither relativist nor Hegelian. The thesis concludes by emphasizing the disquieting suggestions in MacIntyre’s work and the difficulty in establishing a tradition-based rationality with ultimately rational justification.’

He probably didn’t deserve my prognostications. But the multiple layers of his thinking – reflecting on the boundaries and origins of thinking itself, the situatedness and dependence and contingency of rationality and ethics – impressed me deeply and align with what I value most in systems |cybernetics |complexity and metarationality.

I was lucky enough to see him ‘live’ once, at a lecture in London that I think was organised by Anthony Grayling, and his mien and delivery spoke – as on the live and YouTube lectures I have seen since – of someone whose way of life was completely and deeply aligned with his thinking. This was reflected in the big shifts of belief and alignment he made during his life. His intellectual journey – from Marxism to Thomism – demonstrates a commitment to rigorous inquiry and openness to transformation.

So his death marks the passing of a philosopher whose work has profoundly influenced my own thinking and practice, and more importantly has been an important voice in the world In After Virtue, MacIntyre diagnosed the fragmentation of moral language in modernity and proposed a return to virtue ethics grounded in historical traditions and communal practices.

His critique of modern moral discourse and revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics have been central to my understanding of ethics within organisations and society. This perspective and his concept of “practices” have l informed my approach to organisational development, emphasising the cultivation of internal goods and the importance of narrative in shaping ethical practices.

His later work highlighted the role of vulnerability and dependence in human life, challenging the notion of the autonomous individual. MacIntyre’s emphasis on the historical and cultural embeddedness of moral reasoning, recognising that moral concepts evolve within traditions has also been of great value.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s legacy is one of profound philosophical insight coupled with a deep concern for the moral fabric of society. His work continues to challenge and inspire those of us committed to ethical practice in complex organisational and societal contexts.

RIP

Posts referencing MacIntyre featured here

Classic paper Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative and the philosophy of science / Alasdair MacIntyre. – The Monist, 1977 https://stream.syscoi.com/2018/09/23/epistemological-crises-dramatic-narrative-and-the-philosophy-of-science-alasdair-mcintyre-the-monist-1977/

Ben Sweeting (a fellow MacIntyre fan) https://stream.syscoi.com/2018/09/22/cybernetics-virtue-ethics-and-design-ben-sweeting-rsd16/

The meaning of the public good – https://stream.syscoi.com/2018/06/03/the-meaning-of-the-public-good-inquirer-opinion/

Psyberton – https://stream.syscoi.com/2023/02/13/whatever-next-psybertron-asks/

His classic lecture ‘the sources of unpredictability in human affairs’ – https://stream.syscoi.com/2021/05/26/alasdair-macintyre-the-sources-of-unpredictability-in-human-affairs-1972-youtube/

As per David Ing’s post on LinkedIn:

Timothy F.H. Allen, president of International Society for the Systems Sciences 2008-2009, passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by his family, on May 1, 2025.

With his work on ecosystem ecology, I learned more about living systems than anyone else in the systems community. After his retirement, he was proud of putting together a reader, so that other could continue to learn.

Curtin, Charles G., and Timothy F. H. Allen, eds. 2018. Complex Ecology: Foundational Perspectives on Dynamic Approaches to Ecology and Conservation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://lnkd.in/gxj8NKDt .

More details on news forwarded by Tom Brandner is reposted at https://lnkd.in/gN7Csbv2

(1) Post | LinkedIn

Click the link to see Stefan’s pdf in the post

For over 20 years, I’ve been trying to make systems thinking more visible and impactful in German-speaking countries — in organizations, education, and leadership. Honestly, it’s not a job marked by quick wins. It often feels like gardening in a climate not yet suited for this particular plant. The fruit ripens slowly — if at all. But I keep going, because I deeply believe: without systems thinking, any transformation remains superficial.

Two years ago, I started a personal experiment: two smartphones, two numbers, one person. One phone engages only with German-language content, the other with English-language content. (Interestingly, both algorithms now merge into one feed on my desktop — like a digital biotope.) The contrast is striking: there are significant differences in tone, topics, ethical framing, solution-orientation, and how theory translates into practice. And spoiler alert: systems thinking is practically invisible in German discourse. That’s why I’ve collected and condensed a few reflections — short, pointed, and ready for discussion.

💬 What do you think? What does it take for you to think, lead, and act systemically?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Stefan Knabe https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-knabe-79a8361a6/

Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stefan-knabe-79a8361a6_thinking-about-stefan-knabe-ugcPost-7330972125631000577-jooE/?rcm=ACoAAACuq-oBecVFDW6PCf3lkoG-peMeuLBeoho

SCiO systems and complexity in organisation

20 May 2025

Viable Service Management – Operational Loops

#Steve looks into the operations space of service management systems where the user interfaces with the organisation. The focus is on three particular ‘services’: IT services, car repairs, and healthcare; and shows the similarities and differences in how they manage the different types of ‘repair’ (cybernetic) loops. Of particular interest is how the user is drawn into the organisation for these processes.

Systems Research and Behavioral Science is inviting applications for the role of Editor-in-Chief

Systems Research and Behavioral Science: Editor-in-Chief Recruitment

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/10991743a/homepage/call-for-applications/eic

Medium/Kumu blog

Pando Funding: Financing System Change Networks

By Robert Ricigliano and Anna Muoio

https://blog.kumu.io/pando-funding-financing-system-change-networks-58050718f093

Pando Funding: Financing System Change Networks

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amuoio_what-if-the-way-we-fund-change-is-actually-activity-7330280480136642560-mcMM/?rcm=ACoAAACuq-oBecVFDW6PCf3lkoG-peMeuLBeoho

12th EUS International Congress

15 > 17/10/2025, Brussels, Belgium, Online Conference

https://www.ues-eus.org/2025/introduction.html

ANTICIPATING SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS

OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Call for Abstracts

Dear Madam, Sir,

For the 12th International Congress of the European Union for Systemics (UES2025), the submission deadline for abstracts is extended to May 31, 2025!

> To find more information about the conference, visit the website : www.ues-eus.org/2025

> To submit your abstract, log in the UES 2025 conference submission portal provided by Microsoft : Submission Portal.

Register on CMT and check “UES2025” in the Conference List.

We look forward to receiving your contribution and welcoming you to the UES2025 Congress!

Should you have any questions, feel free to contact us at congress-ues2025@uclouvain.be.

Best regards,

Nikitas A. Assimakopoulos, President, Conference Chair

Damien Claeys, General Secretary, Conference Co-chair

Alejandra Acevedo De Los Ríos, Conference Co-chair

Barry Oshry writes:

What Lies Beneath – Barry Oshry Attached is a comprehensive, refinement of my 5 + decades of research and insights about organic systems. I wrote it during COVID because I thought it was an opportunity to bring my thinking up to date and reach out to audiences we hadn’t been reaching. I think the paper is the best, most up-to-date version of the framework. As its creator, my vision continues to be to put this information into the hands of as many potential users as possible – trainers, program participants, clients, and curious learners. Use it well. Barry Oshry Click here to download “What Lies Beneath”

Book now for SysPrac25 

Early bird discounts available through June 2025

Join us at SysPrac25. This year’s conference promises a vibrant mix of inspiring talks, interactive jam sessions, insightful keynote addresses, and fireside chats with leading voices in the field.

You’ll experience:

• Story moments that bring systems thinking to life through real-world case studies
• Hands-on workshops exploring the topics that matter most to practitioners
• Engaging sessions selected by the community—including students and early-career professionals

SysPrac25 will include an embedded Summer School and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) track – designed to build real-world competence and deepen your practical application of systems thinking.

Participants can build their own conference experience, selecting sessions à la carte based on interest and need.

Special Discounts Available

We’re pleased to offer a range of discount codes for different participant types and booking options. Enter the code when booking to receive your discount, and use the Early Bird rate up and until the end of June 2025.

For Non-Members

• Day One or Day Two (Early Bird): Use code EARLY20 to get £20 off, reducing the price to £130
• Full Conference (Early Bird): Use code EARLY40FULL to get £40 off, bringing the total to £210

For SCiO Members

• Day One or Day Two (Standard): Use code SCIO20 for £20 off, making the price £130
• Full Conference (Standard): Use code SCIO40FULL to receive £40 off, reducing the price to £210
• Day One or Day Two (Early Bird): Use code SCIO30 for an enhanced £30 off, lowering the price to £120
• Full Conference (Early Bird): Use code SCIO50FULL to save £50, with a final price of £200

For Students

• Day One or Day Two: Enter code APP75 for an incredible £75 discount, bringing the price down to £75
• Full Conference: Use code APPFULL100 for a £100 discount, paying just £150

Be sure to use the correct code based on your participant type and booking option to secure the best rate.

We can’t wait to welcome you to SysPrac25 – where systems thinking meets real-world impact!

SysPrac25 Is Now Open for Booking! | SCiO – Systems and Complexity in Organisation

A deep dive into the 1943 paper by Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow, its historical context, and its continuing contributions to philosophy of science, diverse intelligences and more.

Jesse Parent

Oct 17, 2024

On ‘Behavior, Purpose and Teleology’: Enduring Insights from a Cybernetics Classic

On ‘Behavior, Purpose and Teleology’: Enduring Insights from a Cybernetics Classic

[On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/774241602654986/?multi_permalinks=9819588948120161, Örsan Şenalp  

says:

Alex Williams’ recent work that aims to update the Gramscian (thus Marxian) theory of hegemony based on cybernetics, second order cybernetics and social complexity science, indicates the right direction yet it misses the most fundamental ingredient for such a vital project. Thais is Bogdanov’s general science of organization which was precursor to both Gramsci’s theory and the systems-complexity paradigm. Theory of hegemony is in its essence is a theory of organization.

[https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-19795-7](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-19795-7) ]

____

First book to integrate complexity theory with the theorisation and practice of hegemony
Deploys new theoretical resources to rethink the persistence of neoliberalism since 2008
Provides a detailed and original reading of Gramsci, synthesising recent scholarship to demonstrate the absolute modernity of his core ideas

How can we understand power in a world of ever-growing complexity? This book proposes that we can do so by rethinking the theory and practice of political hegemony through the resources of complexity theory. Taking Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony as its starting point, the book argues that the intricacies of contemporary power can be mapped by applying concepts drawn from complexity theory, such as emergence, self-organisation, metastability, and generative entrenchment. It develops an original account of social complexity, drawing upon critical realist sociology, analytic philosophy of science, Marxist and continental philosophies, and neoliberal and anarchist thought. It then draws out the elements of Gramscian hegemony that already align with complexity concepts, such as the balance of forces, common sense, and the historic bloc. On this basis, the book sets out the different dimensions of complex hegemonic power before using this theory to interpret the nature of the power of neoliberalism since 2008.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-19795-7?fbclid=IwY2xjawKY6-hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETF0RGQ0Zk9Jd0R0dnk4QmVTAR7Sh-mntCMbDV_WDo7uyu0iDijQ6gfhgzmmvTnTOAbCgEUwQ465GG6w383hPQ_aem_0plXnLv0wF14si3KwgE1kw

[One of those papers with ‘a lot going on’ – the paper of the book. h/t Arthur Battram, who also shared https://rushkoff.substack.com/p/the-fascist-atmosphere – good to read in parallel]

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy

• June 1995
• 38(1-2)

DOI:10.1080/00201749508602373

Authors:

Charles Spinosa

Fernando Flores

Hubert L. Dreyfus

Download full-text PDF

Abstract

Both the commonsensical and leading theoretical accounts of entrepreneurship, democracy, and solidarity fail to describe adequately entrepreneurial, democratic, and solidarity-building practices. These accounts are inadequate because they assume a faulty description of human being. In this article we develop an interpretation of entrepreneurship, democratic action, and solidarity-building that relies on understanding human beings as neither primarily thinking nor desiring but as skillful beings. Western human beings are at their best when they are engaged in producing large-scale cultural or historical changes in the way people and things are dealt with. The three domains of human activity where these historical changes are most clearly accomplished are entrepreneurship, democratic action, and solidarity. Section I, guided by a roughly Kuhnian notion of holding on to an anomaly until it re-gestalts the way we see things, offers a general interpretation of how skillful human beings open up new worlds by changing their shared background practices in three ways: reconfiguring, which makes a marginal practice central; crossappropriation, in which one domain of practices takes over useful practices from another domain; and articulating, whereby dispersed or confused practices are brought into clearer focus. An entrepreneur creates a product which reconfigures the practices. This interpretation of entrepreneurial skills is contrasted with current accounts that overlook ehtrepreneurship to concentrate on instrumental or theoretical models of business activities. Section II claims that the most exemplary kind of political action in a liberal democracy is that of political action groups. Such groups produce a change in a nation’s background practices through a kind of speaking that leads to massive cross-appropriation. We describe Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and suggest that it both satisfies the requirements for genuine democratic action that we have established in our examination of other views and lacks their disadvantages. We conclude that the relatively detached action suggested by current theories of liberal democracy fail to do justice to democratic practice. The final section argues that those who claim that a single highest value or procedure provides a source of solidarity that satisfies all the competing interests in a multi-cultural nation always arrive at a solidarity that is too thin to provide for the serious sort of commitments that one would be willing to die for. We propose that solidarity in multi-cultural states implies commitment to a set of thick values, and that when one realizes that these thick values construct one’s identity one is willing to die for them. While political action concerns itself with ordering values, solidarity involves the cultivation of them in such a way that no ordering of them matters. But solidarity is not to be understood as a subjective feeling. It is rather the experience of a group identity, a ‘we’, that sees things and deals with things in terms of shared concerns. This ‘we’ comes to recognize itself when the actions it engages in transform it. The paradigmatic action that transforms such a ‘we’ occurs when a culture figure articulates some forgotten concern or value. As in the cases of entrepreneurship and democratic action, a culture figure cultivates solidarity by changing the background practices in a historical manner. It is concluded that traditional theoretical accounts, by overlooking the primacy of involved skillful activities and the importance of background change, fail to capture the source, the function, and the point of entrepreneurship, liberal democracy, and solidarity.

Link

(PDF) Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity

[well, this certainly seems all present and correct. No lies detected. Includes link to the book at https://monoskop.org/images/2/24/Guattari_Felix_Chaosmosis_An_Ethico-Aesthetic_Paradigm.pdf ]

Timothy Jackson – Chaosmosis

This week Timothy Jackson joined Coop and Taylor to discuss Felix Guttari’s Chaosmosis: An Ethico-aesthetic Paradigm.

Stream Timothy Jackson – Chaosmosis by Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour | Listen online for free on SoundCloud