Systems, Resilience, and Organization: Analogies and Points of Contact with Hierarchy Theory

Aim of this paper is to provide preliminary elements for discussion about the implications of the Hierarchy Theory of Evolution on the design and evolution of artificial systems and socio-technical organizations. In order to achieve this goal, a number of analogies are drawn between the System of Leibniz; the socio-technical architecture known as Fractal Social Organization; resilience and related disciplines; and Hierarchy Theory. In so doing we hope to provide elements for reflection and, hopefully, enrich the discussion on the above topics with considerations pertaining to related fields and disciplines, including computer science, management science, cybernetics, social systems, and general systems theory.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of ANTIFRAGILE'17, 4th International Workshop on Computational Antifragility and Antifragile Engineerin

A cybernetic perspective on methods and process models in collaborative designing

Cybernetic thinking provides a framework to understand the issues in creating and using methods and process models during collaborative designing. It can help understand what takes place while the creation and use is unfolding. This viewpoint allows methods and process models to be framed as aiding human decision-making, and as supporting the organisation of design activities. It casts light on how a team acts and what are they doing to solve design problems, by considering that they react to changes in the perceived solution state or goal state. Cybernetics thus provides an articulation of mechanisms for doing design. By identifying virtues that support creation and use of methods and process models during designing, cybernetics could thus help teams to design more effectively. This article considers the creation and use of process models and methods in design from a cybernetic perspective. We suggest that a process model and method are similar in nature, in that they both give guidance for progressing the design according to the circumstances encountered. Cybernetic principles are interpreted to help understand the role of modelling and method use in design process evolution.International Design Conference - DESIGN 201

The cybernetics of language

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.As a complement to the philosophy of language, the cybernetics of language-is to synthesise a picture of language as a whole; and runs into-(descriptive) difficulties where (at any one time) we can only speak about bounded portions of the world (Wittgenstein). This same difficulty permeates the short history of cybernetics in the concern for wholistic representation, and thus the concern of the cybernetics of language leads to (or arises in) the concern for the language of cybernetics. It becomes resolvable in the context of Second order cybernetics (i.e. the cybernetics of' describing as well as described systems (von Foerster)). The difficulty and the possibility of its resolution are introduced in terms of differences between Russell and Wittgenstein; in terms of the second order cybernetic discussions of the black box (seen as capturing Wittgenstein's silence and, in general, interpretation) and distinctions (G. S. Brown); and in terms of the distinction between natural and artificial languages and the problem of describing description (self-reference). Here the cybernetics of language concerns the nature of inquiry into our descriptive abilities and activities, and determines what we can and what we cannot (objectively) speak about. The notions of 'the function of language' and 'the existence of language' (presupposed in a first order description) are shown to be mutually interdependent, giving rise to a paradox of means (and giving rise to the question of the 'origin of language'). This paradox is resolved where a language is seen as constructed (for a particular purpose), and thus the circularity is unfolded, considering that (i) in terms of a constructive function of language, there is no language (something is in the process of being constructed); (ii) in terms of a communicative function of language, such a construction is in the process of being accepted (something is being negotiated); (iii) in terms of an argumentative-function of language, a language (accepted, eg. having, been negotiated) is used to negotiate things distinct from-this language. Language is seen as comprising the interaction between these activities. The cybernetics of language is developed in terms of the requirements for an observer to construct, communicate and argue: a language is constructed for the description of these processes in terms of the; complementarity between description and interpretation (underlying the process of construction) and the complementarity between saying and doing (enabling an observer to explore, eg. question, test and explain his construction and distinguish another observer; and enabling two or more observers to negotiate and accept relations and argue by distinguishing both a language and the things this is used to describe)

Network concepts in social theory: Foucault and cybernetics

Network concepts are omnipresent in contemporary diagnoses (network society), management practices (network governance), social science methods (network analysis) and theories (network theory). Instigating a critical analysis of network concepts, this article explores the sources and relevance of networks in Foucault’s social theory. I argue that via Foucault we can trace network concepts back to cybernetics, a research programme that initiated a shift from ‘being’ to ‘doing’ and developed a new theory of regulation based on connectivity and codes, communication and circulation. This insight contributes to two debates: Firstly, it highlights a neglected influence on Foucault’s theory that travelled from cybernetics via structuralism and Canguilhem into his concept of power. Secondly, it suggests that network society and governance are neither a product of neoliberalism nor of technological artefacts, such as the Internet. They rather resulted from a distinct tradition of cybernetically inspired theories and practices.Peer Reviewe

”Cum grano salis”

This short note is devoted to presentation of the essential points in the history of collaboration between the present-day Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence of the University of Granada and the Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Science, with special emphasis on the place, taken in this collaboration by Control and Cybernetics. Thus, I mention encounters, conference meetings, jointly undertaken projects, as well as certain selected publications. In doing this, I also try to delineate the substance matter of the collaboration, which formed the backbone of it

Systems thinking and practice for action research

This chapter offers some grounding in systems thinking and practice for doing action research. There are different traditions within systems thinking and practice which, if appreciated, can become part of the repertoire for practice by action researchers. After exploring some of these lineages the differences between systemic and systematic thinking and practice are elucidated – these are the two adjectives that come from the word 'system', but they describe quite different understandings and practices. These differences are associated with epistemological awareness and distinguishing systemic action research from action research. Finally, some advantages for action research practice from engaging with systems thinking and practice are discussed

Fruits of Gregory Bateson’s epistemological crisis: embodied mind-making and interactive experience in research and professional praxis

Background: The espoused rationale for this special issue, situated “at the margins of cybernetics,” was to revisit and extend the common genealogy of cybernetics and communication studies. Two possible topics garnered our attention: 1) the history of intellectual adventurers whose work has appropriated cybernetic concepts; and 2) the remediation of cybernetic metaphors. Analysis: A heuristic for engaging in first- and second-order R&D praxis, the design of which was informed by co-research with pastoralists (1989–1993) and the authors’ engagements with the scholarship of Bateson and Maturana, was employed and adapted as a reflexive in-quiry framework.Conclusion and implications: This inquiry challenges the mainstream desire for change and the belief in getting the communication right in order to achieve change. The authors argue this view is based on an epistemological error that continues to produce the very problems it intends to diminish, and thus we live a fundamental error in epistemology, false ontology, and misplaced practice. The authors offer instead conceptual and praxis possibilities for triggering new co-evolutionary trajectories

Governing in the Anthropocene: What Future Systems Thinking in Practice?

The revealing and concealing features of the metaphor ‘earth as Anthropocene’ are explored in an inquiry that asks: In the Anthropocene what possible futures emerge for systems thinking in practice? Framing choice, so important yet so poorly realised, is the starting point of the inquiry. Three extant conceptual pathway-dependencies are unpacked: governance or governing; practice or practising and ‘system’. New data on the organisational complexity within the field of cybersystemics is presented; new ‘imaginaries’ including systemic co-inquiry and institutional recovery are proposed as novel institutions and practices to facilitate systemic transformations within an Anthropocene setting. The arguments of the paper are illustrated through a research case study based on attempts to transform water and/or river situations towards systemic water governance. It is concluded that future systems research can be understood as the search for effective ‘imaginaries’ that offer fresh possibilities within an Anthropocene framing

Systems practice and the design of learning systems: orchestrating an ecological conversation

Human beings live in language and only they can take responsibility for how they think and act. So what understandings of response are possible? The relationship between responsibility and response-abilty is explored in the light of emerging critiques of the prevailing Western attitude to reason, viz: Lakoff and Johnson's (1999) fundamental challenge to prevailing models of Western thought. They argue that reason (on which much practice is built, including research practice) is: (i) not disembodied, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies and bodily experience; (ii) evolutionary, in that abstract reason builds on and makes use of perceptual and motor inference present in 'lower' animals; (iii) is not universal in the transcendent sense but rather universal in that it is a capacity all humans share; (iv) mostly unconscious; (v) largely metaphorical and imaginative and (vi) not dispassionate but emotionally engaged. Systems practice is introduced as a means to orchestrate a particular type of conversation; it is also an ecological conversation. As a species our unique selling point is that we can engage in conversation. In the process we bring forth both ourselves and our world. To converse is to turn together, to dance, and thus an ecological conversation is a tango of responsibility. A conversation is inventive, unpredictable and is always particularizing to place and people. Drawing on experiences of teaching systems thinking and practice for environmental decision making a praxiology is outlined for stakeholder responsibility and response-ability. It is argued that capacity building in systemic inquiry and the design of learning systems are central to this praxiology