SCiO Virtual Open Meeting – 14 September 2020 18:30-20:30 with Steve Whitla and Ray Ison, and member-only event and videos

open meeting link

SCiO Virtual Open Meeting – September 2020 | SCiO

(Membership only £30/year – https://systemspractice.org/membership)

All events via https://systemspractice.org/events

We are continuing with our virtual events using Zoom. As we are running sessions every month, we will send out a notification each month with the next couple of months’ events included. We are continuing to alternate a Development Event and an Open Event. There is also a networking event a week after the Open Event (details in next mailing).

Our second members-only Virtual Development Event is in a couple of weeks’ time on the evening of 10th August. Our second open-to-all Virtual Open Meeting is in about seven weeks’ time on 14th September.

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SCiO Virtual Development Event – 10th August, 18.30 – 20.30 UK time (MEMBERS ONLY)

https://systemspractice.org/events/scio-virtual-development-event-august-2020

SCiO’s Development Days offer an opportunity to draw upon the collective expertise of SCiO members in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. By taking Development Events online, using the Zoom meeting platform, we aim to make them accessible to more SCiO members

Development Events are both for members who are just starting out on a journey to explore systems thinking approaches, and for those who have many years of exploration and practice.

We use break-out rooms within Zoom to keep group sizes friendly and interactive. Each ‘room’ is facilitated by SCiO members who have experience of systems thinking principles and practice. Following brief introductions, groups will discuss three topics, proposed and selected by attendees, which will then be briefly introduced and discussed. During these discussions your confidentiality and IP rights (where relevant) will be fully respected.

Please book via the website (www.systemspractice.org). Members booking prior to 4th August are invited to propose topics for discussion (optional) and to take part in a poll to choose which topics are selected for discussion at the 10th August event. Please provide a title and a brief (75 words or less) description of your proposed topic. Please email lesley.rowan@systempractice.org by clicking on the ‘book’ button and complete these details.

Note that introductions should not exceed 5 minutes and it is important also to consider what you want from the session. Not all proposed topics can be selected but we encourage you to take part even if yours is not.

Members booking after 4th August are still welcome to book to take part. Booking will close on 9th August.

A Zoom meeting invitation will be sent to all booked members.

Lesley Rowan – Development Day Director

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SCiO Virtual Open Meeting – 14th September, 18.30 – 20.30 UK time (ALL WELCOME)

https://systemspractice.org/events/scio-virtual-open-meeting-september-2020

Our second Virtual Open Meeting is in about 7 weeks’ time  on Monday 14th September, early evening 18:30 – 20:30h UK time. The event is free but there are only 100 “places” so if you wish to attend, please book asap via Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scio-virtual-open-meeting-september-2020-tickets-111692882418

or via the SCiO website (www.systemspractice.org). The sessions and Q&As will be recorded. Zoom details will be send out 24 hours before the meeting and again 2 hours before.

The programme for the virtual Open Meeting on 14 September is as follows:

18:30 – Welcome, SCiO notices, virtual housekeeping

18:40 – Community exercise

18:50 – Session 1 (presentation followed by Q & A ) – Steve Whitla – Creating shared meaning for systemic change

19:40 – Session 2 (presentation followed by Q & A) – Ray Ison – The hidden power of Systems Thinking – governance in a climate emergency

20:25 – Summary and close

More details of speakers and sessions:

Session 1 – Creating shared meaning for systemic change – Steve Whitla

Language is often a problem in complex organisational change, with different departments and stakeholder groups using the same words to mean different things, and using different words to mean the same thing.

As systems practitioners, we are constantly building models of organisations and their environments, but we too bring our own language and assumptions, and it’s often apparent that the models we create to tame complexity make little sense to those affected by it.

·         What would happen if we set out to represent systems in ways that maximised shared meaning for diverse audiences?

·         What might the consequences be, if a general audience affected by a systemic pattern had a simple, intuitive way of seeing, understanding, and sharing it with others?

This talk by Steve Whitla will provide a simple model for how we think about shared meaning, the pre-conditions necessary to create it, and some practical suggestions on how to bring systems models to life.

About Steve Whitla

Steve Whitla is the founder and director of Visual Meaning, a consultancy that draws together systems thinking and visual thinking for organisational change, and the co-author of the recently published Visualising Business Transformation (Routledge, 2020).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevewhitla/

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Session 2 – The hidden power of Systems Thinking – governance in a climate emergency – Ray Ison

In the age of the Anthropocene the need for new ways of thinking and acting has become urgent. But patterns of obstacles are apparent in any action, be they corporate interests, lobbyists, or outdated political and government systems.

In this presentation Professor Ray Ison will show how and why failure in governance is at the heart of the collective incapacity to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergencies. He will go beyond the analysis of the problem and demonstrate how incorporating systems thinking into governance at every level would enable us to break free of historical shackles.

The talk will also highlight some of the systemic failures of contemporary governance systems. A new generic governance system with three additional elements is proposed. To make the new system functional, effective, recovery of our systemic sensibilities, investment in cybersystemic literacy and systems thinking in practice (STiP) capability is needed. In addition to praxis reform old institutions that restrict STiP will have to be discarded and new institutions invented, Ray proposes 26 principles for designing/enacting systemic governance.

About Professor Ray Ison

Ray Ison is a Professor of Systems at the Open University since 1994, his research and scholarship spans the biophysical and social and is primarily interdisciplinary and collaborative. At the Open University, he was the head of the former Systems Department and Director of the Environmental Decision Making Program.

In addition to this he is also involved in: (i) managing and presenting the post-graduate program in Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP) and undertaking associated Systems scholarship; (ii) contributing to the activities of the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice (ASTiP) Group, including leading an initiative to create a LEVEL 7 (Masters) Apprenticeship for the Systems Thinking Practitioner based on the UK Apprenticeship Levy and (iii) undertaking international research.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ray-ison-0621117/

http://www.open.ac.uk/people/rli2

We look forward to seeing you online!

Open Meeting Director – Parag Gogate

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See also: Past Open Meetings Videos (Members only)

While you are in lockdown could be a good time to watch videos of previous Open Meeting Sessions. These videos of many past Open Meetings are available on the website – mostly for members only. The videos from the sessions are in the resources section as sessions. If you want to find just the sessions with attachments, select “resource type – sessions” and “attachments – yes”.  For each session the videos are visible as a video icon at the RH side of the blue bar under the main item. Other links/attachments also appear there.

Open meeting link

SCiO Virtual Open Meeting – September 2020 | SCiO

The Systems Sanctuary newsletter from 30 June 2020

http://thesystemstudio.com/

subscribe (recommended): http://thesystemstudio.com/new-page-2

to email them: https://thesystemstudio.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=89fce6d309dd2c3bf267c2848&id=e39ed9f88f&e=8f21bfcb89

their twitter: https://thesystemstudio.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=89fce6d309dd2c3bf267c2848&id=6daa1c9338&e=8f21bfcb89

TOP LINKS & INSPIRATION ON SYSTEMS CHANGE 
 
We are amid a major moment in response to structural and systemic anti-black racism and violence and to how COVID is laying bare inequities, highlighting the intersectional nature of this crisis. We are committed to our on-going learning and practicing in ways that center equity, decenter dominant systems, and that name systemic violence.

Coming up: We will launch another round of our virtual program Interrogating Whiteness for systems leaders with key leaders and thought partners. We are launching a publication series featuring incredible leaders that will share key insights & practices that support centering equity and ‘working across difference’ for systems change

We have been working on Illuminate – an International Systems Change Field Building project. As part of this we are launching new learning cohorts and an inquiry into the role of ‘Bridgers’ in systems change.

We launched a special Systems Sisterhood virtual Retreat so our Sisterhood Alumni could journey together through April and May of the COVID pandemic. We were joined by wonderful speakers Lopon Charlotte Rotterdam to introduce transformation practice, Melanie Goodchild on Healing in and Decolonizing systems practice, Marilyn Struthers on Reflections on the Long-view and Vanessa Reid on Sense making during transitions.

We’ve been teaching Systems Change 101 and Systems Mapping with The Beneficial State Foundation.  And we are just about to launch a learning ecosystem pilot in partnership with Be The Peace focussed on addressing systemic gender based violence in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Tatiana & Rachel, Co-Founders,
The Systems Sanctuary

OUR THINKING
Check-out our shiny new guide for Systems Leaders: Building Ecosystems for Positive Change
Check us out talking on the Team Coaching Zone Podcast on Making Systems Leadership Possible
Interview with Sanctuary’s Tatiana Fraser Lets unpack that idea about working across difference in systems change
***NEW PROGRAMS THIS FALL***
The Systems Sisterhood: Women in Male Dominated Industries 
The Systems Sisterhood: Fundraisers Bridgers for systems change
Virtual Masterclass on Systems Change Theory, Strategy and Leadership Systems Sanctuary Masterclass in Systems 
PUBLICATIONS & WRITING
V useful – visual mental model Becoming anti-racist 
Racism scale where do you fall? 
Brilliant Adrienne Maree Brown A word for white people in two parts
Berkana Institute – Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale H/T Catherine Borgman
Arboleda Alex Evans, Casper ter Kuile and Ivor Williams, This Too Shall Pass; Mourning Collective Loss in the Time of COVID 19
Nora Bateson making a huge amount of sense here in My Health is Not My own
Arunditi Roy, Interview The pandemic is exposing all the injustices, inequity The Pandemic is a Portal,
and her article “As we pray for the change, now the change is here”
– A Red Table Wisdom Talk at Reach Yoga with Soul of The Mother Founder Diane Longboat. H/T Marilyn Struthers
Systems Change Field Builders Report – Convening Capacity Builders
Forbes – Tomorrow’s Leaders need to be Systems Thinkers

COURSES 
Extraordinary Tanya Birl-Torres, of So Humanity, who speaks on our Systems Sisterhood Program is leading a series of virtual embodied practice sessions for Yoga, Wholeness and the Black Body

COVID-19 resources from the Systems Dynamics Society – including conference plenary

source:

COVID-19
The COVID Plenary Recording is now available!This public plenary titled “Societal Containment of COVID-19” was chaired by Peter Hovmand. The presented work includes:Modeling the Transmission Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 and the Effects of Intervention Timing on COVID-19 Incidence by Jeffrey ShamanSimulation-based Estimation of the Early Spread of COVID-19 in Iran: Actual versus Confirmed Cases by Navid Ghaffarzadegan and Hazhir RahmandadHybrid Modeling with System Dynamics to Contain COVID-19 by Nathaniel OsgoodThis session was part of the Health Thread, sponsored by Homer Consulting.

This recording is now available on our Covid-19 resources page.  You are welcome to watch it and avail yourselves of other collected System Dynamics works relevant to understanding and containing this pandemicWATCH THE SESSION

We will collect resources here produced by SDS members and others that provide a systems view on the COVID-19 pandemic. Please email office@systemdynamics.org to suggest additions. Disclaimer:  Much of the work below has not been subjected to peer review.  It is work-in-progress and may be subject to errors and omissions.  We share this work in the spirit of openness and collaboration and learning and encourage you to review it with a mind open to growth and a willingness to offer constructive feedback to improve our collective knowledge. 

COVID-19

The Treachery of Images: On the Limits of Systems Maps Luke Craven on LinkedIn

source:

The Treachery of Images: On the Limits of Systems Maps | LinkedIn

The Treachery of Images: On the Limits of Systems Maps

  • Published on July 19, 2020

Luke CravenDirector at Australian Taxation Office6 articles Following

Images are treacherous, or so René Magritte would have us believe. The surrealist painter commonly played with the themes of perception, representation, and reality. In his famous work entitled The Treachery of Images, he depicted a drawing of a pipe with the caption, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (“This is not a pipe”). Of the painting he said, “if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe”, I’d have been lying!”

The world of systems mapping is filled with this paradox. While a system map is often a useful representation of a context of phenomena, it is always fundamentally incomplete.

If you were to write on a map “This is the system,” you’d be lying.

For more experienced systems practitioners, this point may seem obvious, but it is easy to confuse a map with the system it depicts. This confusion arises because of a logical fallacy called reification or the fallacy of misplaced completeness. It arises when an abstraction – a system map or model – is treated as if it were the actual system under examination.

Understanding reification

There are several drivers of reification in the practice of systems mapping, each of which layers upon the others to limit our ability to distinguish the map from the system itself. Many of these traits are baked into our cognition but recognising them is the first step in strengthening our ability critically reflect on our system maps and their role in driving transformative change.

1. Premature closure and confirmation bias

Research has shown that people think about a situation only to the extent it is necessary to make sense – perhaps superficial sense – of it. When sense is achieved, people often feel no need to continue or to further iterate their understanding of a context or situation. In medicine this is referred to as premature closure or the tendency to stop too early in a diagnostic process, accepting a diagnosis before gathering all the necessary information or exploring all the important alternatives.

Systems mapping is often undertaken with limited resources, on tight-deadlines, and only ever captures the dynamics of the system at a point in time. But even when a system map is explicitly couched as illustrative or provisional, the temptation is to use it for diagnosis and to drive decisions about what could or should be done to change the system.  

If this view of how system maps are used is correct, confirmation bias likely compounds the issue. Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to favour information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values and is difficult to dislodge once affirmed. Having arrived at a conclusion about the structure of the system, however prematurely, our brains are predisposed to seek evidence that supports our existing understanding and interpret new information in a way that aligns with our existing view.

Put simply, confirmation bias makes us overconfident that our system maps are an accurate depiction of reality, and to discount evidence that they are not.

2. Pattern recognition, Pareidolia and Type I errors

Our brains are pattern-detection machines that connect the dots, making it possible to uncover meaningful relationships among the barrage of sensory input we face. Pattern-recognition is crucial for human decision-making and survival, but we also make mistakes (i.e. seeing a pattern where none really exists) all the time. These mistakes are what statisticians would call a Type I error, also called a false positive.

No alt text provided for this image

Pareidolia, for example, is a form of pattern recognition involving the perception of images or sounds in random stimuli, such as seeing shapes in clouds, or seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns. Pareidolia happens when you convince yourself, or someone tries to convince you, that some data reveal a significant pattern when really the data are random or meaningless.

Some false positives, like seeing Jesus in a piece of toast, are largely harmless. Others, like believing a system map to be a high-fidelity capture of the system under examination are more problematic, particularly given our vulnerability to confirmation bias.

Take the human brain, for example. At one level, our maps of the brain are exceptionally accurate. We know what parts are where, how large they are, and what their purpose is. But in terms of really understanding all the functional relationships and the ways that the regions of the brain are communicating with each other, our understanding is limited. We don’t know whether regions are communicating through photonic or acoustic pathways, for example, but scientists infer, identify, and map patterns of communication regardless.

The mistake is believing a map to be a complete or accurate depiction of reality, which is why researchers typically conduct multiple studies to examine their research questions and continue to iterate different maps at different levels of detail and granularity. Having multiple maps and recognising that every map is incomplete helps avoid Type I errors and the reification of one view of a system over others.

3. System maps as silver bullets

This raises yet another paradox: if having multiple maps helps us build a more accurate picture of the actual situation or phenomenon under investigation, why do so many systems projects produce a single map?

There are countless examples. From the Foresight Obesity Map to single outputs of group model building exercises the message is the same: you only need one map to understand the dynamics of this system. This message plays into our cognitive biases and contributes to reification of certain view of the world.

This drive towards one map per project or problemis possibly driven by our desire for dominant monocausal explanations. Humans are energy-minimising cognitive systems, and probably for good evolutionary reasons. Monocausal explanations require less brain power to execute than complex explanations, even though that biases us towards solutions that look or feel as if they are single silver bullet.

We don’t recognise this bias in the practice of systems mapping, but producing one map for a particular system is the same prescribing one treatment for a particular illness.

In both cases, there is no silver bullet. Multicausal explanations are necessary if we are going to properly engage with and map complex systems, even if using them is not our default cognitive setting.

Overcoming our biases

Almost every moment throughout the day, we are making decisions. However, most of us are unaware of the thoughts, buried beliefs, prejudices and biases that influence our decisions, and therefore, most people are unconscious of how they impact our decisions.

Systems practitioners are probably better than most at being aware of the more common cognitive biases, but ultimately, we are all human and our brains are very good at playing tricks on us. The world of systems mapping is not immune to the challenges of confirmation bias, nor to our desire to understand the world through monocausal goggles.

While many biases are universal, the way they impact different areas of practice is divergent and unpredictable ways. Identifying these biases and their impact on how we map the systems around us will help to bring more consciousness and humility into the work of systems practice.

continues in source:

The Treachery of Images: On the Limits of Systems Maps | LinkedIn

The Abuse of Science, Logic, and Authority and the neglect of systemic thinking. “Nice” example: Coronavirus Lockdown – John Raven (April 2020)

Posting on behalf of John Raven (from http://eyeonsociety.co.uk/resources/fulllist.html)

Full updated article: http://eyeonsociety.co.uk/resources/Abuses-of-Science-and-authority-COVID-19.pdf

(original link posted was the shorter version: http://eyeonsociety.co.uk/resources/Coronavirus-Abuse-of-Science.pdf)

What is Complexity University?

(It is not entirely clear – but via the Systems Innovation Slack…)

What is Complexity University? A new type of educational paradigm for a complex world 

What is Complexity University? — COMPLEXITY UNIVERSITY

OMPLEXITY UNIVERSITYAboutWhat is Complexity University?Completion CertificatesGift CultureContactEngageReadWatchTestimonialsJOIN A COURSE

What is Complexity University?

A new type of educational paradigm for a complex world 

Complexity University is part of 10-in-10; a cross between a foundation, a marketplace and a university. It has been designed on the basis of two decades of disciplined practice tackling complex challenges. 

We see ourselves as a new breed of organisation.

Rather than being daunted by complexity, we are at home in complex situations, seeing them as opportunities for changing systems no longer fit for purpose.

The paradigm underpinning our work, developed by reflecting on decades of practice, is relentlessly pragmatic. We are interested in effectively tackling society’s most complex challenge in practice.

Modernity and postmodernity have given rise to a particularly difficult and novel snarl of problems. While we can look at ancient lifestyles and cosmologies as models of sustainable living when compared to our own, we cannot necessarily turn to them to figure out what to do about the situation we find ourselves in. 

The long march of ideologies that characterised the twentieth century is over. This news has yet to filter through to the last desperate holdouts, still clinging to a fiction that one ideology might win over another. Ideological responses, that is, responses espousing normative choices regardless of context are no longer fit for purpose.

Our fight then, is with the high modernist paradigm of strategic planning, with its associated “best practices,” and cultures of response. We believe that this paradigm is a zombie paradigm, dead but still lurching around biting and infecting people.

Here are a set of Rules of Thumb, Practices and Orthodoxies underpinning our work. Click each to learn more.

Continues in source

What is Complexity University? — COMPLEXITY UNIVERSITY

Love-hate for man-machine metaphors in Soviet physiology: from Pavlov to “physiological cybernetics” – Gerovitch (200)

source

Love-hate for man-machine metaphors in Soviet physiology: from Pavlov to “physiological cybernetics”. – Abstract – Europe PMC

Love-hate for man-machine metaphors in Soviet physiology: from Pavlov to “physiological cybernetics”.

Gerovitch S

Author information

Science in Context, 01 Jun 2002, 15(2):339-374
DOI: 10.1017/s0269889702000479 PMID: 12467273 

source:

Love-hate for man-machine metaphors in Soviet physiology: from Pavlov to “physiological cybernetics”. – Abstract – Europe PMC

Anokhin Petr Kuzmich PRINCIPAL ISSUES OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF FUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS (1973) – and Soviety Cybernetics

Thanks to Arseny Krasikov, a little exploration of Soviet Cybernetics:

Victor Glushkov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Glushkov

https://kpi.ua/en/glushkov-about

https://history.computer.org/pioneers/glushkov.html (ooh – he shares a birthday with me and Stephen Fry :-))

His OGAS (“National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing”) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS

‘A lost cyber utopia’ https://strelkamag.com/en/article/what-happened-to-the-soviet-internet

source (in Russian – I used Google Chrome’s automatic translation function)

PRINCIPAL QUESTIONS OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF FUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS

Anokhin Petr Kuzmich
PRINCIPAL ISSUES
OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF FUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS
1973

Anokhin

FIRST PART-


GENERAL BACKGROUND
It is difficult to find a moment in the history of civilization that could be said that it was then that the idea of ​​integrity, of the unity of the world, arose. Probably, already at the first attempt to understand the world, a thinking person was faced with an amazing harmony between the whole, the “universe”, and separate details, parts.

           In essence, this problem is relevant not only for biologists, but also for physicists, economists, and other specialists. It is enough to follow the extremely interesting discussion between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein to understand what a burning problem is the development of these new principles of a holistic approach to the object under study. In this discussion, two approaches to the question of how to ensure the level of a specific whole in scientific research, for example, an organism, collided, and at the same time not lose the huge advantages of the level of the finest analysis.

As you know, Niels Bohr expressed his point of view in a concept known as the “principle of complementarity.” According to this concept, a whole and holistic approach should give the researcher the opportunity to find additional characteristics of the studied object, more or less expressing the specific features of the whole. He believes that the observation conditions, i.e. the perspective in which we observe the object under study can change in the course of research and this provides additional support points for a comprehensive knowledge of the object. At its core, this approach, expanding the possibilities of studying a holistic object, puts the researcher in the position of an observer who determines how the observed phenomena develop.

Albert Einstein, on the contrary, sought to find an approach that would replace Bohr’s phenomenological approach with a dynamic approach that allows one to penetrate into the nature of internal interaction in some complex integral phenomenon.

While with the help of the phenomenological approach to the whole process it is possible to determine how the objects under study are arranged, Enshtein’s approach is to present the empirically found regularity as a logical necessity.

It is now important for us to emphasize that the discussion between the two greatest scientists of our time takes as something definite and obligatory the search for the transitional principle of a holistic approach to phenomena. The point is only in what form this principle could be most effective for a specific research work, since a holistic approach in general, while remaining a researcher’s dream, did not provide any constructive solutions at the same time for formulating the tasks of everyday research. “Whole” and analytical experimentation still coexisted in two parallel planes, without enriching each other.

The emergence of a systems approach gave scientists some hope that, finally, the “whole” from a diffuse and non-constructive form will take on a clear outline of an operational research principle. However, before analyzing the reasons why this principle was not found, we want to give a brief assessment of the development of a systems approach in various physiological schools.

The term “system” has a very ancient origin, and there is hardly any scientific direction that did not use it. It is enough to recall the “circulatory system”, “digestive system”, etc., which are still accepted by some researchers as expressing a systematic approach. For the most part, the term “system” is used when it is about something brought together, ordered, organized, but, as a rule, the criterion by which the components are assembled, ordered, organized is not mentioned.

These common disadvantages are natural. We must not forget that the consistent application of the systemic principle to phenomena of various classes (organism, machines, society) is not a simple change of terminology, a rearrangement of only the order of research methods. The systematic approach to research is a direct consequence of the change in the theoretical approach to understanding the objects under study, i.e. to some extent, a consequence of a change in the very form of thinking of the experimenter. Naturally, such a process cannot be instantaneous.

As will be shown below, the most characteristic feature of the systems approach is that in research work there cannot be an analytical study of some partial object without an accurate identification of this particular in a large system. Thus, from a strategic and practical point of view, the researcher should first of all have a specific concept of the system, which should satisfy the basic requirements of the very concept of the system, and only then formulate the point of the system that is subject to specific research.

In the field of physiological research, I.P. Pavlov was perhaps the first to use the expression “system” for some special cases of his experimental work. It is primarily about the formation of a dynamic stereotype. As you know, this system is created by the fact that the stereotyped order of the same conditioned stimuli is repeated from day to day. As a result of a long training session, this order of stimuli, detected by the amount of saliva specific for a given stimulus, manifests itself even when the same stimulus is used.

Direct electroencephalographic studies of the brain at the time of creating such a dynamic stereotype, carried out in our laboratory by A.D. Semenenko, showed very interesting properties of the brain as a whole. Thus, for example, it turned out that to each forthcoming stimulus in the case of a strengthened dynamic stereotype, the brain automatically, i.e. only on the basis of previous training and regardless of a real external stimulus, prepares a state that qualitatively reflects exactly the stimulus that was used in this place many times in previous trainings. Of course, the stereotypical states of the brain created in this way, reflecting the complex of conditioned stimuli of a given experimental day, are far from their physiological sense from that systematic approach, which is booming recently. Nevertheless, these experiments showed that the brain, on the basis of the acquired experience, can create some integral states that combine the stimuli of a whole experimental day and open up independently of the actual experimental situation.

continues in source:

Anokhin Petr Kuzmich PRINCIPAL ISSUES OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF FUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS 1973

PRINCIPAL QUESTIONS OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF FUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS

Socio-Technical Systems, Service Systems Science – Coevolving Innovations (David Ing)

source:

Socio-Technical Systems, Service Systems Science – Coevolving Innovations

Socio-Technical Systems, Service Systems Science

 July 19, 2020  daviding 0 Comments

In order to move forward, the Systems Changes Learning Circle has taken a step backwards to appreciate the scholarly work that has come before us.  This has included the Socio-Psychological SystemsSocio-Technical Systems and Socio-Ecological Systems perspective, from the postwar Tavistock Institute for Human Relations.  The deep dive on “Causal texture, contextualism, contextural” takes us back to 1934-1935 articles by Pepper, Tolman and Brunswik.  These influenced Fred Emery and Eric Trist in their famous 1965 article.

In Trist’s later years (i.e. between 1977-1985, when he was in Toronto at York University, with the Action Learning Group). the younger researcher with whom he was collaborating most was Calvin Pava.  There is a great summary of Pava’s work and life in Austrom and Ordowich (2019).

Through some fortunate coordination, I was able to meet Doug Austrom in Indianapolis in August 2018, having discovered a preprint of the article, just a few days before I was to travel to Iowa.

continues in source:

Socio-Technical Systems, Service Systems Science – Coevolving Innovations

Master’s thesis – Arseny Krasikov (2008) The Viable System Model in the analysis of the project management

Department of Electrical Engineering

Master’s thesis – Arseny Krasikov (2008)

The Viable System Model in the analysis of the project management

http://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fembeds%2F3025790%2Fcontent&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fdoc%2F3025790%2FMaster-s-thesis-The-Viable-System-Model-in-the-analysis-of-the-project-management&image=https%3A%2F%2Fimgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com%2Fimg%2Fword_document%2F3025790%2F111x142%2Ff7573a59ea%2F1411455924&key=b7276e97d3f840f38fbdb95eb1242b10&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=scribd

Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world | openDemocracy, Passmore (2002)

source:

Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world | openDemocracy

Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world

Rob Passmore

7 November 2002

Stafford Beer achieved the hardest of all pedagogic tasks: he changed the way people think. His protean influence stretches from generations of inspired students, through Salvador Allende’s Chile, to the collective brain of openDemocracy. A huge, life-affirming figure has passed, but his work will long survive, says our international editor.

Stafford Beer, scientist, poet, painter, founder of Management Cybernetics and world leader in operational research, who has died at the age of 75, was much larger than life. The handsome photograph that one accompanied the Guardian obituary is entitled ‘Subversive Showman’. If he fitted neatly into neither the British establishment, nor the academic nor indeed the business world, it was partly because of the sheer impact of the man – but also because of what he had to say.

His self-appointed task was to bring an often unwelcome message to whoever would listen, including the twenty-two governments who hired him as a consultant over the years, about the need for ‘effective organisation’ in companies, social services, great institutions, whole countries, and international communities, if they were not to be left behind by technological advance, threats to economic survival, and loss of faith in established authority – by, in short, complexity and change.

Some people ‘got it’: they joined the band of friends and followers from around the world, and were rewarded by Stafford’s patient and loyal interest in their own efforts to apply what they had learnt. They were inspired by his various favourite dicta, such as ‘Don’t bite my finger: look where it’s pointing’, or ‘You accuse me of using big words that you find hard to understand. But you need big words for big ideas. And you should find it hard to understand.’

Many more, who were nevertheless profoundly influenced by his work, found these admonitions unfashionable and irritating, and his many books unreadable. They often failed to see the indefatigable energy which he devoted to trying to make himself better understood: Stafford’s ideas in Latin, in thirteen languages, in poetry, in a summary for business schools, as applied to car engines, hospitals, prisoners or stars.

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Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world | openDemocracy

The 12 Design Principles of Permaculture as Rules of Living | by Erin Meyer | Land And Ladle | Medium

source:

The 12 Design Principles of Permaculture as Rules of Living | by Erin Meyer | Land And Ladle | Medium

The 12 Design Principles of Permaculture as Rules of Living

Erin Meyer

Erin MeyerFollowingOct 18, 2017 · 3 min read

Image for post
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/sites/default/files/images/permacultureprinciples.jpg

There are 12 design principles in permaculture. I think they can be applied to daily life, work and play which will allow us to live happier and healthier, to work more effectively and to create a more sustainable world.

Here are the 12 principles:

Observe and interact.

Catch and store energy.

Obtain a yield.

Apply self-regulation and accept feedback.

Use and value renewable resources and services.

Produce no waste.

Design from patterns to details.

Integrate rather than segregate.

Use small and slow solutions.

Use and value diversity.

Use edges and value the marginal.

Creatively use and respond to change.

How can we use these principles to guide our life or our work?

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The 12 Design Principles of Permaculture as Rules of Living | by Erin Meyer | Land And Ladle | Medium

COVID‐19 – how a pandemic reveals that everything is connected to everything else – Sturmberg (2020) – Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice – Wiley Online Library

COVID‐19 – how a pandemic reveals that everything is connected to everything else Joachim P. Sturmberg MBBS, MFM, PhD, DORACOG, FRACGP Carmel M. Martin MBBS, MSc, PhD, MRCGP, FRACGP, FAFPHM First published: 06 July 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13419

COVID‐19 – how a pandemic reveals that everything is connected to everything else – Sturmberg – – Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice – Wiley Online Library

Jessica Flack on Twitter: “Shannon, father of information theory + titan of 20th c. science combined rigor, playfulness + insatiable curiosity (to?) invent a powerful but simple formalism linking thermodynamic entropy to information content. Jaynes’ 1957 paper on that connection https://t.co/I23qjDlXOP https://t.co/FuLbRZlZBQ” / Twitter

The best policymakers are systems thinkers – here’s how to get started – Systems thinking

The best policymakers are systems thinkers – here’s how to get started – Systems thinking

The best policymakers are systems thinkers – here’s how to get started

Posted by:Professor John Clarkson, Posted on:7 July 2020 – Categories:Learning

Policy makers using systems mapping
Policy makers using systems mapping

I’m a systems engineer at heart but also passionate about design. Systems thinking has grown on me over many years of practice and research and I now do all that I can to promote it. 

I’m often asked to define a ‘systems approach’ and where to get started with systems thinking.

Forget the textbooks. Don’t worry too much about the theory. I’m not saying these things aren’t valuable. I’m simply saying that they can wait.

continues in source… https://systemsthinking.blog.gov.uk/2020/07/07/the-best-policy-makers-are-systems-thinkers-heres-how-to-get-started/