science for change agents
DESCRIPTION
Theory of Science. 2nd outing in Aarhus @ Kaos Pilots. Much fun had.TRANSCRIPT
SCIENCE FOR CHANGE AGENTS
KAOS PILOTS FEB 2013
NICK JANKEL, WECREATE
@NICKWECREATE
DAY 1THE USE AND MISUSE OF SCIENCE
A FAST FORWARD THROUGH HISTORY, PARADIGMS AND COMPETING SCHOOLS OF SCIENCE, STARTING OUT WITH ”NATURAL SCIENCE”, PROVABILITY/REPEATABILITY, MOVING THROUGH VARIOUS SCHOOLS/PHILOSOPHIES LIKE POSITIVISM, BEHAVIOURISM, ENDING UP WITH QUANTUM PHYSICS AND CHAOS-THEORY. MOVING THROUGH SOCIAL SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, ETC.
A CHOICE OF LENSES AND METHODS
TODAY
WHY SCIENCE?WHAT SCIENCE?WHO SCIENCE?
5
“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of consciousness that created them.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
UNKNOWNSCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INTO CAUSESCOMPLEX / ADAPTIVE SYSTEMSAR / AL / AISCENARIO PLANNINGETHNOGRAPHY
“If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called ‘research’.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
A BRIEFHISTORY OF SCIENCE
“The hunt for the origins of modern science has long been a favourite occupation of historians. They differ widely about the key moment which saw science’s birth, tracing it to the philosophers of Classical Greece, or celebrating the canonical achievements of 17th-century heroes such as Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Boyle and Newton, or insisting with great plausibility that until at least the early 19th century, the typical institutions and techniques of the natural sciences simply didn’t exist. These different stories depend on widely divergent versions of what distinguishes the scientific enterprise, whether method, personnel, hardware or expertise.”
SIMON SCHAFFER
XMAS, 1758(53 YEARS LATER)
“This year the world is witnessing the most satisfying phenomenon that astronomy has ever provided, an event unique to this day, changing our doubts into certainties, and our hypotheses into demonstrations.”
THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
“Science originated from the fusion of two old traditions, the tradition of philosophical thinking that began in ancient Greece and the tradition of skilled crafts that began even earlier and flourished in medieval Europe. Philosophy supplied the concepts for science, and skilled crafts provided the tools.”
FREEMAN DYSON
ARISTOTLE
SCHOLASTICS
TELESCOPEGALILEO
MICROSCOPEHOOK, LEEUWENHOEK
MACHINESPENDULUMS, CALCULUS ETC.
“The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.”
ANATOLE FRANCE
COPERNICUS
GIORDANO BRUNO
GALILEO
EMPIRICALOBSERVATION
“Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough.”
IBN AL-HAYTHAM
INDUCTIONFRANCIS BACON
“There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immoveable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.”FRANCIS BACON
DESCARTESRATIONALISM / DEDUCTION
CERTITUDEAVOID BIASES OF MIND & SENSES
“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in the night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.”
ALEXANDER POPE
CLOCKWORKUNIVERSE
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
PIERRE SIMON LA PLACE
ENLIGHTENMENTVOLTAIRE, JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU, LOCKE, HUME ETC
AUTHORITYSCIENCE & REASONVS.TRADITION & RELIGION
REASONBECOMES MORE AND MORE LIKE MECHANISTIC MATERIALISM
19TH CSCIENCE GETS PROFESSIONAL
CHEMICALDEMISE OF PHLOGISTON THEORYACCURATE MEASUREMENT
PERIODIC TABLEMENDELEEV
ELECTROMAGNETISM
FARADAY & MAXWELL
EVOLUTIONDARWIN VS. PALEY
EVOLUTIONDARWIN VS. PALEY
FINCHESGRADUAL CHANGE (NO LEAPS)
SOCIALDARWINISM
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
CHARLES DARWIN
GERM THEORYPASTEUR, KOCH
“[I]t seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have now been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice…. An eminent physicist has remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
ALBERT MICHELSON, 1894
20TH CSCIENCE GETS SPOOKY/ED
RELATIVITYEINSTEIN
CHEMIST’S WAR
QUANTUMTHEORY
ENTANGLEMENT147 MILES
UNCERTAINTYLOCATION OR MOMENTUM BUT NOT BOTH
INCOMPLETENESSCONSISTENT OR COMPLETE BUT NOT BOTH
BIOLOGIST’SEUGENICS: NAZI ‘SCIENCE’
LYSENKOISMSOVIET ‘SCIENCE’
“He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists”ANDREI SAKHAROV
HOLOCAUSTINDUSTRIAL SCALE RATIONALISM
“Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.”
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
PHYSICIST’SWAR
HIROSHIMAMANHATTAN PROJECT
ARMYINJECTING DISEASE IN 1950
COMPLEXINDUSTRIAL-MILITARY
WWWSOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS...
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
BODYOF KNOWLEDGE
METHODACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE
“Science is the systematic, rational acquisition of new knowledge.”
HAAPARANTA & NIINILUOTO
“[I]f you are going to teach people to make observations, you should show that something wonderful can come from them.”
RICHARD FEYNMAN
PROCESSFIND CURIOUS PHENOMENA / QUESTIONS
PROCESSFIND CURIOUS PHENOMENA / QUESTIONSOBSERVE A LOTMAKE UP A THEORYDESIGN EXPERIMENT TO TEST THEORYANALYSETELL EVERYONE ABOUT ITREPEAT (BY OTHERS)
“Science is an inherent contradiction — systematic wonder — applied to the natural world. In its mundane form, the methodical instinct prevails and the result, an orderly procession of papers, advances the perimeter of knowledge, step by laborious step… Who knows how many scientific revolutions have been missed because their potential inaugurators disregarded the whimsical, the incidental, the inconvenient inside the laboratory?”
THE GENERAL THEORY OF LOVE
“Science is not formal logic - it needs the free play of the mind in as great a degree as any other creative art. It is true that this is a gift which can hardly be taught, but its growth can be encouraged in those who already possess it.”
MAX BORN
MYTHOSLOGOS
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
EINSTEIN
“Science is the most exquisite tool that we’ve developed for measuring that hard, physical, material world. Then there is the world of ideas which is inside our head. I would say that both of these worlds are equally real – they’re just real in different ways.”
ALAN MOORE
Mystery kidney disease in Central America
WHAT MIGHT YOU WANT TO OBSERVE?WHAT DATA MIGHT YOU WANT?
OBSERVEINDUCE A THEORYDEDUCE A PREDICTION
THEORYTHEORY NEEDS TO CREATE HYPOTHESES TO TEST / VERIFY
FALSIFICATIONSCIENCE NEEDS TESTABLE PREDICTIONS
DEDUCTFROM GENERAL TO SPECIFIC
INDUCTFROM SPECIFIC TO GENERAL
WHAT PREDICTIONS MIGHT YOUR THEORY HOLD TRUE?WHAT EXPERIMENTS COULD YOU RUN?
AVOIDSUBJECT BIASEXPERIMENTER BIASSELECTION BIAS
RCT
IN DEVPT
WHAT RCTS COULD YOU RUN?
CRITERIATESTABLEREPEATABLEOBSERVABLEPREDICTABLE
CRITERIAOBJECTIVITYPUBLICITYCRITICAL THINKINGSELF-CORRECTIVENESSAUTONOMYPROGRESSIVENESS
VALUE-FREE?AGENDA-LESS?
“Science can (potentially at least) explain everything because its ways of trying to understand the universe by asking questions of it should not leave any areas off-limits. The methods of openness, inquiry, curiosity, theory building, hypothesis testing and so on can be adapted and developed to explore and try to explain anything.”
SUE BLACKMORE
GRANDNARRATIVE
PROGRESS!
TELEOLOYGEIST
CONTROL!PLANETPEOPLE
DEFINE!IQBMIHAPPINESSGDP
EXPLOIT!VALUEENERGY
KNOWLEDGEPOWER
“And God said: Let man have dominion of the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air. and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth over the earth.”
GENESIS 1, 26
ESSENTIALTRUTH / IDENTITY
FOUCAULTGENEALOGYDISCONTINUITY
FOUCAULTINDUSTRIAL-MILITARY
“A new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”
JEREMY BENTHAM
GAZECONSTRUCTS KNOWER AND KNOWN
“Which speaking, discoursing subjects – which subjects of experience and knowledge – do you want to ‘diminish’ when you say: ‘I who conduct this discourse am conducting a scientific discourse, and I am a scientist’?”
FOUCAULT
SURVEILLANCE
SOUSVEILLANCE
HISTORICALVS ESSENTIAL
DARWINIMPERIALISM & DOMINATION OF NATURE
BIOLOGYNOW IN CONTEXT OF CO-OPERATION & COLLABORATION
EVOLUTIONREVISITED WITHIN COMPLEXITY
GENENOT ISOLATED
25,000HOW DO WE GET SO COMPLEX?
EPIGENETICSDNA METHYLATION
CONSTRUCTEDSOCIALLY
SCIENCE
SSKEDINBURGH / BATH
TACITAGREEMENTSKNOWLEDGE
PARADIGMKUHNFOUCAULT EPISTEME
KUHN...PRE-PARADIGM PARADIGM (NORMAL SCIENCE) ANOMALY CRISIS RESPONSE & EMERGENCE OF NEW PARADIGM
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
MAX PLANCK
SHIFTSPTOLEMAIC COSMOLOGY - COPERNICANARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS - NEWTONIAN PHYSICSNEWTONIAN PHYSICS - EINSTEIN’S RELATIVITY CLASSICAL MECHANICS - QUANTUM MECHANICS LAMARCK - DARWIN’S THEORY STATIC BRAIN - NEUROPLASTICITY
REVOLUTIONINCOMENSURABILITY
INVISIBLETEXT BOOKS SHOW LINEARITYCUMULATIVE KNOWLDEGE
DECLINEEFFECT
RELATIVISMAAARGH
MATERIALISMSTOPS BEFORE BIG BANG AS NO OBJECT / MATERIAL
CRITIQUESCIENTISM
OBSERVESOMETHING
SUBJECT /OBJECT
VARIABLESPLITS UNITY OF EXPERIENCE
“For is it not possible that science will create a monster? Is it not possible that an objective approach that frowns upon personal connections between the entities examined will harm people, turn them into miserable, unfriendly, self-righteous mechanisms without charm or humour? "Is it not possible," asks Kierkegaard, "that my activity as an objective [or critico-rational] observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?" I suspect the answer to many of these questions is affirmative and I believe that a reform of the sciences that makes them more anarchic and more subjective is urgently needed.”
PAUL FEYERABEND
GOETHEDELICATE, EMPATHIC EMPIRICISM
300 YEARS BEFORE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION
“It is a calamity that the use of experiment has severed nature from man, so that he is content to understand nature merely through what artificial instruments reveal and by so doing even restricts her achievements...Microscopes and telescopes, in actual fact, confuse man's innate clarity of mind.”
GOETHE
TAWHIDISLAMIC SCIENCE
DISENCHANTMENTOF WORLD
“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations.”
MAX WEBER, 1918
SCIENCEVS PSEUDOSCIENCE
CARGOCULT
WHAT IS SOCIALSCIENCE?
156
POSITIVISMDESCRIBECONTROLPREDICT
COMTEPOST-REVOLUTION
“From science comes prediction; from prediction comes action.”
COMMTE
CHANGE!DISSATISFACTION WITH WHAT IS
ANTIPOSITIVISMMAX WEBER
“[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. [Never] is the 'meaning' thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of a priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.”
MAX WEBER 1922
HERMENEUTICSTURN
GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTEN
NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN
VERSTEHENVS. ERKLÄREN
“Until we invent time-travel and really get a handle on the multiverse, science tells us little about history, for example. Science may be able to tell us why we like music, why certain types of sound appeal more than others, but not why Bach is the best.”
A REALIST PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE: EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING
LITERARYTURN
AUTHOR IS DEAD
TRUTHS(S)RELATIVISMPOST MODERNISM (IRONY)
TRUTHWHO OWNS IT?(AND WHAT DO THEY GET FROM IT?)
FRANKFURTSCHOOL
CRITICALTHINKING
“The emancipation of human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.”
HORKHEIMER
“The means of communication, the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers to the producers and, through the latter to the whole social system. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood...Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior.”
HERBERT MARCUSE
1-DMAN
MARXISTTHEORY
“Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”
MARX
DECONSTRUCTIONDERRIDA ETC.
“The positivist thesis of unified science, which assimilates all the sciences to a natural-scientific model, fails because of the intimate relationship between the social sciences and history, and the fact that they are based on a situation-specific understanding of meaning that can be explicated only hermeneutically ... access to a symbolically prestructured reality cannot be gained by observation alone.”
JURGEN HABERMAS
“No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.”
PAULO FREIRE 1970
IS vs OUGHT
SOCIAL SCIENCETRUE? VALUE-FREE?
“'It is imperative that we give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it is beyond our reach. There is no authority beyond the reach of criticism.”
KARL POPPER
DIALOGICTRUTH
BAKHTIN
“What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now. The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he finds himself.”
HANS-GEORG GADAMER
PRAGMATISMBETWEEN IDEALISM & EMPIRICISM
“In Aristotle’s words phronesis is a ‘true state, reasoned, and capable of action with regard to things that are good or bad for man.’ Phronesis goes beyond both analytical, scientific knowledge (episteme) and technical knowledge or know-how (techne) and involves judgments and decisions made in the manner of a virtuoso social and political actor.”
BENT FLYVBJERG
PHRONESISWHERE ARE WE GOING?IS THIS DESIRABLE?WHO GAINS AND WHO LOSES, AND BY WHICH MECHANISMS OF POWER?WHAT, IF ANYTHING, SHOULD WE DO ABOUT IT?
MAPNOT NECESSARILY THE TERRITORY BUT IT CAN HELP GUIDE US PRACTICALLY
PRACTICALPHILOSOPHY
INTENTION KNOWLEDGE TERMS LENSES
KNOW ‘TRUTH’ EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS
NATURALISM / REALISMPROOF
REDUCTIONISMEMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
INDUCTION / DEDUCTION
PREDICT / CONTROL NATURE
CORROBORATION OF WHAT WORKS INSTRUMENTALISM EVIDENCE BASE
RCTS
APPRECIATE / EMPATHISE
UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THINGS ARE HERMENEUTICS
SEMIOTICSCONTEXT
QUAL / QUANTPO
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
DISEMPOWER CRITICISM OF WHY THINGS ARE
STRUCTURALISMPOST MODERNISM
DECONSTRUCTION‘ARCHEOLOGY’
CRITICAL THEORY
IMPROVE INSIGHT INTO HOW TO CHANGE THINGS EMANCIPATION
SYSTEMS / CYNEFINACTION RESEARCH
CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
DAY 2SYSTEMS THINKING & COMPLEXITY
13 vs 333
HOW DO YOU SOLVE MY BACK ACHE?
“We still have not seen much movement on... the deep systemic issues that cause the current cluster of crisis symptoms to be reproduced time and again. I believe that the most important root issue of the current crisis is our thinking: how we collectively think.”
C OTTO SCHARMER
HOW WE THINKLINEAR, REDUCTIONIST, MECHANISTICSEPARATE FROM NATURE / EACH OTHERNATURE / PEOPLE THERE TO BE USEDEXIST TO COMPETE, CONSUME, PRODUCE
LINEARITYCAUSE / EFFECTBLAME AGENTS / INTENTIONSREALISM / SCIENTISM
“Reality is made up of circles, but we see straight lines. Herein lies the beginnings of our limitation as systems thinkers.”
PETER SENGE
SYSTEMINDIVIDUAL PARTSPARTS AFFECT EACH OTHERWHOLE MORE THAN SUMPERSIST IN DIFFERENT SETTING
“There can be no scientific study of society, either in its conditions or its movements, if it is separated into portions, and its divisions are studied apart.”
AUGUSTE COMTE
SYSTEMSHAVE IDENTITIES WHICH RESIST CHANGERESPOND TO INTERVENTIONSATTEMPT TO SHAPE PEOPLE / PLACESCOMPLEX BEHAVIOURLEARNSYMBOLIC EXCHANGES
SYSTEMICCOMPLEMENTARY INTERACTIONSTRIGGERS, DRIVERS, RESPONSESPATTERNS EMERGE OVER TIMESYSTEMS CAUSE BEHAVIOUR (VICE VERSA)MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITYINTENTIONS ARE NOT ALWAYS CLEAR
DIALOGICCONSTRUCTED & REALTANGIBLE & CONCEPTUALCREATE & CREATED
TAUGHT TO ANALYSE, MECHANISELINEAR MODE OF THINKING (LANGUAGE)BIASES & ASSUMPTIONSSYSTEMS MASQUERADE AS EVENTS
HARD!
systems images
CHALLENGINGTAUGHT TO ANALYSELINEAR MODE (LANGUAGE)BIASES & ASSUMPTIONSMASQUERADE AS EVENTS
“Unlike curiosity or empiricism, holism takes a while to acquire and appreciate.”
NICHOLAS CHRISTAKIS
WHOLENESSBIOLOGY: VON BERTANALFY
CONSTELLATIONSFAMILY DYNAMICSMUTUAL OWNERSHIP EMPATHIC DISCOVERY
“Can we talk about the wholeness of life? Can one be aware of that wholeness if the mind is fragmented? You can't be aware of the whole if you are only looking through a small hole.”
J KRISHNAMURTI
MULTIVERSEMANY STAKEHOLDERS / PERSPECTIVEMULTIPLE INTENTIONSMANY FRAMES / INTERPRETATIONS
INTERVENTIONSHIGHLY CHARGEDMANY SCOPING CHALLENGES
MAPPINGSYSTEMS
SYMPTOMSVS. ROOT ‘CAUSES’
WEBOF CAUSATION
DEPENDENT ORIGINATION
“No effect arises without cause, yet no effect is predetermined, for its causes are multiple and mutually affecting. Hence there can be novelty as well as order.”
JOANNA MACY
FEEDBACKOSCILLATIONS BETWEEN POSITIVE & NEGATIVE LOOPS (& INTENTIONS)THE PAST FEEDS INTO THE FUTURE
BOUNDARIESWHERE?
“A system is anything we happen to draw a boundary around. ”
RICHARD VERYARD
LAWUNINTENDED CONSEQUENCESSURPRISES!
STATEPREFERRED OR NOT
NOT NORMATIVE ‘RIGHT’ OR ‘WRONG’
“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary - the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.”
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
SWEETSPOTS
STATUS QUOMAINTAINED BY OUTDATED ASSUMPTIONS
PLATOCONVENIENT LIES
DEFENDEDBY THE GROUP THINK OF THOSE IN POWER
© Wecreate 2012
BREAKTHROUGH
SWITCHED ON LEADERSHIPBREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION
THE EXTENT OF THE BREAKTHROUGH
DEPENDS ON HOW DEEP WE ARE WILLING TO GO INTO WHAT IS
POSSIBLE
BREAKTHROUGH
© Wecreate 2012
BREAKTHROUGH
SWITCHED ON LEADERSHIPBREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION
BREAKTHROUGH
“Jump to an answer - you might as well jump to the river.”
RUSSIAN PROVERB
238
Breakthrough Opportunity
© wecreate 2012
Breakthrough Proposition
Problem
What is the problem, in human terms?
Proposition
What is the current proposition that results inthis probelm?
Assumptions
What do we have to believe to generateand validate this proposition?
Breakthrough Insight
What kind of headline ideas couldseize this opportunity?
What proposition emerges from thisinsight?
What is a more insightful, future-positivebelief?
BREAKTHROUGH
239THE BREAKTHROUGH SWITCH
What is the current proposition that results in this problem?
240
A BILLION PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE CLEAN WATER -
CHOLERA EPIDEMICS KILL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
Breakthrough Opportunity
© wecreate 2012
Breakthrough Proposition
Problem
What is the problem, in human terms?
Proposition
What is the current proposition [product offer, business model, org process] that leads to this problem?
Assumptions
What do we have to believe to generate and validate this proposition?
Breakthrough Insight
What kind of headline ideas could seize this opportunity?
What proposition maximises accessibility, usability and enjoyability?
What is a more powerful, liberating and abundant view ofhuman nature /life?
BREAKTHROUGH
CHOLERA
Raise money to buy and deliver equipment (drill boreholes, pumps, lifestraws) to provide water. More
investment needed to maintain technology.
A billion people do not have clean water - cholera epidemics kill
hundreds of thousands.
New things / technology is the best way to solve problems.
Money solves problems.The people need help.
.
Focus investment on empowering and enabling people (with media tools, comms etc)
to use it in new ways to increase health - virally.
The Folded Sari
Existing equipment - the sari - can be re-purposed to solve problems.
The people welcome empowerment.
242
99% OF MICROBES FILTERED50% REDUCTION IN CHOLERA
70% STILL FILTERING 5 YEARS LATER + VIRAL
SPREAD
REAMP.ORG
PM
ANTSNEITHER INDIVIDUAL NOR GROUP BEHAVIOURSIGNALINGADAPTATION TO WEATHER / ATTACKHOW THROUGH EVOLUTION?
COMPLEX / ADAPTIVEBRAINSHEART MUSCLEIMMUNE SYSTEMINSECT COLONIESGLOBAL ECONOMY
“You have to be a certain kind of complex system to adapt, and you have to be a certain kind of complex system to coevolve with other complex systems. We have to understand what it means for complex systems to come to know one another — in the sense that when complex systems coevolve, each sets the conditions of success for the others. I suspect that there are emergent laws about how such complex systems work, so that, in a global, Gaia- like way, complex coevolving systems mutually get themselves to the edge of chaos, where they're poised in a balanced state. It's a very pretty idea. It may be right, too.”
STUART KAUFMANN
COMPLEXNON-LINEAR COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOURFEEDBACK, SIGNALING & INFO PROCESSINGADAPTATION VIA LEARNING OR EVOLUTIONHAVE A HISTORYNESTED HIERARCHIESSELF-ORGANISED EMERGENCE
WEBOF CAUSATION
ROBUSTNESS, FLEXIBILITY, SPONTANEOUS INNOVATION.
SEMI-AUTONOMOUS FUNCTIONING NEEDING MINIMAL
SUPERVISION
SELF-ORGANISATION
CONTROLNATURAL RESPONSE TO FIX COMPLEX PROBLEMS
BUT LOSE RESILIENCE & CREATIVE OF SYSTEM (AND FAILS)
“If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order, Yet who seeing the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all.”
STUART KAUFFMAN
BIRDSSTAY CLOSEMATCH VELOCITYAVOID OBSTACLES
BIRDSSTAY CLOSE (COHESION)MATCH DIRECTION & VELOCITY (ALIGNMENT)AVOID COLLISION (SEPERATION)
WEATHERNON-LINEARNON-EQUILIBRIUM
BUTTERFLYEFFECT
CHAOSPOSITION, MASS, VELOCITY NOT ENOUGH TO PREDICT
HUMANSDO NOT OPERATE IN EQUILIBRIUMS EITHER
NETWORKSC. ELEGANSBRAINWEBHOLLYWOODNATIONAL GRIDMETABOLISMGENE EXPRESSION
NETWORKSSMALL WORLD
SCALE FREEHUBSHETEROGENOUS NODESSELF-SIMILARITY
1/n
RICHGET RICHER
EPIDEMIOLOGYSEXUAL HUBS IN HIV
RESILIENCEEXCEPT FOR HUBS!
FAILURECASCADING
EDGEOF CHAOS
MAXIMUM RATES OF GENERATION / EVOLUTION
EDGE OF
CHAOS
ORDER
DISORDER
© Wecreate 2012
BREAKTHROUGH
SWITCHED ON LEADERSHIPBREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION
CHAOS
BREAKTHROUGH
PREFERRED ORDERCURRENT ORDER
AGILEATTENTIONEXPERIMENTROBUSTOPEN TO MULTIPLE POSSIBILITIES
LEADERSHIP AT EDGE OF CHAOS
MAKINGCHANGE IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS
“Thinking more deeply about institutions and complexity raises major dilemmas for development interventions. On the one hand, tackling poverty, achieving social justice and protecting the environment clearly require institutional transformation. On the other, institutions cannot be effectively changed in a neatly planned, top-down manner.”
JIM WOODHILL
“Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic… Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.”
N. NICHOLAS TALEB
REMEMBERDYNAMIC, RICH INTERACTIONSDIFFERENT PEOPLE, DIFFERENT LEVELSFEEDBACK LOOPSNON-LINEAR, UNPREDICTABLEEMERGENT CHARACTERISTICSSMALL CHANGES CAN HAVE LARGE IMPACTSHISTORY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
HUMANITYCHANGE CAN ONLY HAPPEN WITH PEOPLE
RECEIVEDWISDOM DOESN’T ALWAYS APPLY
CYNEFINIBM ET. AL.
“Often the only way to improve a complex system is to probe its limits by forcing it to fail in various ways.”
KEVIN KELLY
Disorder
Simple
Predictable causes and effectsUse best-practice
Focus on co-ordination
ComplicatedKnown causes and effects
Use good practiceFocus on co-operation
ComplexUnderstandable root causes
Use emergent practice (harness principles)
Focus on collaboration
Chaotic
Unknowable causes / effectsUse new practice
Focus on co-creation
Sense. Analyze. Respond
Sense. Categorize. Respond
Sense. Explore. Respond
Explore. Sense. Respond
The Cynefin Model
“Part of reinventing the sacred is to heal...injuries that we hardly know we suffer. If we are members of a universe in which emergence and ceaseless creativity abound, if we take that creativity as a sense of God we can share, the resulting sense of the sacredness of all of life and the planet can help orient our lives beyond the consumerism and commodification the industrialized world now lives, heal the split between reason and faith, heal the split between science and the humanities, heal the want of spirituality, heal the wound derived from the false reductionist belief that we live in a world of fact without values, and help us jointly build a global ethic. These are what is at stake in finding a new scientific worldview that enables us to reinvent the sacred.”
STUART KAUFFMAN
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