Month: July 2022

International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS)

I’ve been mentioning Systems and Systems Thinking increasingly as I explicitly formalise the metaphysics underlying my world-view and my various writing projects, technical synthesis and creative fictional narrative.

And I’m in “just write something” mode after 20+ years of intense reading and research trying to minimise distractions from what is now effectively my post-retirement day-job – still adding to an enormous reading  list (115 unread book entries), but rarely obtaining new reading material at the moment. However, several dialogues around the work – often whilst physically sitting in the pub – have thrown up some interesting stuff I just want to capture for now.

Comparing notes with Ant McWatt about reading and writing when sitting in the pub, we found we’d both had both experiences – interruptions that were essentially distractions and/or those that provided creative dialogue. In fact it was his own distraction (by me) from multiple writing projects we were originally talking about and Robert Pirsig’s version of the “just write something” advice his therapist gave him.

“Reading is a distraction from writing.”
– Robert Pirsig

Coincidentally – and I like coincidental connections – comparing those notes with Nick Summerhayes, he pointed me at a 2014 essay “Ant” had written on “Philosophy in Pubs” I’d not seen before?

As well as the first (general) link above, I had also mentioned my current local – (where live “Rock and Reel” – popular rock in the Celtic folk style, by Fat Medicine – is a regular attraction) – that I had experienced specific positive pub interruptions (as well as the basic “why are you reading that?”). In fact I have continued those discussions with the band-members on their nights off. So, well, then what?

It turns out, when I’d mentioned my topic of Cybernetics, that another regular, retiree Dennis Finlayson – retired from leading roles in international development – pointed out he too had a long-standing interest in Systems. After a bit of Stafford Beer and W Ross Ashby, turns out he’s a long-standing active member and past president of the ISSS (International Society for the Systems Sciences).

Given all the recent “God Talk” dialogue following the book-length chapter “The Sense of the Sacred” in Iain McGilchrist’s “The Matter With Things” and my adoption of “Sacred Naturalism” as the best handle for direct experience of nature beyond objective science orthodoxy, it was interesting to hear Dennis give this brief clarification on any negative perception of the place of the “spiritual” in this “would-be-scientific” context.

Well that is Sacred Naturalism if ever I heard it. Dennis’ “synergy” is a complex emergence beyond immediately reductive objective science. It even includes a recommendation for Karen Armstrong’s “Sacred Nature“. (I too have followed Armstrong over the years, but I hadn’t noticed those words in her latest title – also intriguing that the subtitle in that piece is “back to the garden” – Woodstock again. Fascinating when a plan comes together.)

I’ve mentioned before contacts with INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering) being the smartest people I’ve ever met. Anyway, ISSS I hadn’t interacted with directly before, but they were well represented at the 2021 Bogdanov conference and annual Mike Jackson Lecture at the Hull Centre for Systems Studies, Örsan Şenalp amongst others.

Minimal contact so far, intending to sign-up, but my “Systems Thinking 2020” post on the work of Anatoly Levenchuk is already shared on their ISSS blog.

Onward and upward.

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Post Notes:

Spotted a tweet from the Guardian overnight advertising their recent “Dine Across the Divide” sessions, including:

Billy Bragg <> Tim Martin
Diane Abbott <> Katharine Birbalsingh
Rufus Hound <> Geoff Norcott
Rev Richard Coles <> Richard Dawkins

Lo and behold, this morning Dennis shared the Coles <> Dawkins session, which I had resisted since I have little time for either these days. Much more sophisticated thinkers on both science and theology. However, it has the sub-headline:

[Dawkins] “The problem is [Coles] is
not swayed by evidence but by feeling”

Which neatly reflects where we’ve already got to many times before.

That statement hinges on what we mean by evidence, and said that way (by Dawkins) it means the orthodox – objective, repeatable – kind. ie the rules as set by science (*). The very sentence discounts “feeling” (or any subjective affect – “spiritual” direct experience of nature) from scientific consideration. And obviously it does so because the orthodoxy still has great difficulty agreeing “scientific” explanations of these, because it excludes their consideration, because … and so on – a strange loop.

The problem IS exclusion of the subjective by orthodox science and at best its reduction to the identifiable objects that lie behind subjective experience.

Reductionism is fine to analyse all the objective components from which the subjective arises, in logical causal chains from the most primitive observables. But greedy reductionism does more than that. It excludes any higher evolved, emergent systems as having their own causal influence (or will) independent of these primitives. Simple is good, most elegant generally (although even Occam has his pitfalls) but, with Systems Thinking, simplest doesn’t mean most primitive, it means simplicity at the most appropriate systems architectural level (John C Doyle etc.)

Anyway – Dennis describes his holistic / synergy view of the direct “spiritual” experience of nature – that sacred naturalism – in the spoken piece above. I think we agree already, but Dennis suggests I read Peter Corning (ISSS) “Nature’s Magic” for his holistic / synergy view. (Ordered naturally, despite the distraction. I hope to find something I’ve missed but I’m sceptical. Be great if someone could point me at a summary of Corning’s thesis.)

Interestingly – in Corning’s prologue (courtesy of Amazon’s “see inside”), he opens with Koestler’s “beyond reductionism” and goes on to use that formulation – essentially the synergy that the whole is more than the sum of the parts – or in my words, emergent objects (and subjects) have their own existence and causality in nature, beyond the reductively limited orthodoxy of science. There is more than reductionism. (Be interested to see if Corning succeeds in a scientifically accepted explanation for HOW that synergy creates more than the assembly of parts, that the emergent patterns / systems have their own reality and natural causality without appealing to the same “crossing the Rubicon” arguments as Friston / Solms? Don’t see Ergodicity in his index – one reason things are more than the sum of their parts is that their functional / process history affects the end result, not just the state of their physical components.  Anyway – Synergy or Emergence – the word doesn’t matter, it’s the “how” explanatory argument that matters, how the “assembly” – a process – creates stuff that didn’t previously exist.)

[(*) Dennett – “if you agree to argue only on your opponent’s basis, you’ve already lost” – lost the opportunity for agreement – the basis of the dialogue itself has to evolve through that “strange loop”. Dennett is significant here because, like Dawkins, he was one of the four horsemen in the polarising God vs Science wars, he’s just so much more sophisticated philosophically when he’s not at war.]

Beginning of the End for Trans Activism?

Over a period of years I’ve posted a fair bit on the “TERF Wars” (*) not because I have any skin in that game, but because (a) it’s a perfect example of divisive “identity politics” polarising a should-be-caring set of technical and human issues and values under sloganising ideologies and (b) that as well as lesbians, gays and trans, the most massive group of people undermined by it are over half the population – women.

Rebalancing feminine structures in the epistemology and ontology of human systems in the world – dominated by the male heritage and power structures in (say) science and philosophy – is one of my daily drivers, and identity politics of all kinds is clearly a strong ideological corruption of human understanding of such complex real-world systems, corrupting key institutions like the university and the media. I may not have skin in that particular game but I am passionate about how we resist and reverse the damage it causes more generally.

Today judgement was passed on Allison Bailey’s case of being discriminated against by her employer on the advice of Stonewall, that she could not hold and express “gender critical” views (like mine above) against Stonewall’s advice. She had no case directly against Stonewall, of course, but the judgement was clear that:

“gender identity theory as proselytised by Stonewall is severely detrimental” to women, and to lesbians [and gays, and trans, and humanity generally]” (**)

“Proselytised” notice – pure ideology. Well done Allison. Her employer was found liable and on the wrong side of human rights law for following Stonewall’s ideological advice. Enough, onward and upward.

#StonewallOut is lighting-up Twitter today.

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Post Notes:

(*) TERF War =
“Transwomen are women” vs “Women are a biological sex”
That is Trans Rights Activist / Gender Identity Theory (TRA / GIT)
vs Gender Critical (GC) positions. Personally I’m for using both sex and gender as intended, and against ideological positions. Activists necessarily blur facts to their ends. Some “Gender Crits” are too vocal the other way, even if motivated by defence. As Alice Dreger put it in her 2008 to 2015 experience:

[A] system in which scientists
and social justice advocates
are fighting in ways that poison
the soil on which both depend.

(**) These are Allison’s own words quoted in the summary judgement.  Obviously, Allison had no claim directly against Stonewall, it was her employer who failed her by – like so many other organisations – following Stonewall’s advice. The value in funding the case – suing Stonewall – was to get all of that out in a court. The full judgement is worth reading. The winner is caring common sense.

And two days later all media still glowing with activity against TRA Ideology.

Lots of good stuff in The Times piece.

A thoughtful thread that includes

“the story is very complex,
tainted by activist groups,
such as [fill in the blanks]”

#StonewallOut
#MermaidsOut
#DownWithIdeology
#ActivistLobbyingOutOfEmplymentEducationAndHealthcare

And the most succinct summary:

the end for ideological “affirmation” approaches

I’ve predicted the demise of this ideological travesty once or twice before, but there is a sense in which it is really happening this time:

Piecemeal Mindfulness

After Beery and Buzzy Mindfulness, this thought of Piecemeal Mindfulness comes from the god-talk around Iain McGilchrist. How to capture the sense of the divine or sacred in the real, natural world beyond any left-brained intellectual model of it. It continues to be the main and knottiest topic readers are left grappling with, even in the Discord discussion forum set up around the writer’s work. Any discussion inevitably involves the left-brain manipulating symbolic language, even when the active, embodied participation of the right-brain is the matter at hand and even where the language requires rhetorical or poetic interpretation beyond objects and logic. Some “things” are inexpressible, or only obliquely expressible, in language.

[And incidentally, it entirely parallels behaviour in the (now defunct) Robert Pirsig MoQ-Discuss forum – where ongoing use of a subject-object model in language remained a stumbling block to progressing the topic of dynamically experienced – radical-empirical – qualitative aspects reality, in the group discussion. As I said in my own sign-off, there’s only so far you can go with recycling discussions and eventually you just have to life the life.]

McGilchrist makes a point about a lesson learned in this discussion with Christian theologian Jonathan Pageau. There’s a lot of discussion on religious symbology and McGilchrist’s panentheist version of pantheism, but towards the end (~54.44) Pageau (not even having read McGilchrist’s book!) asks a direct question. “So, what advice would he give – to do, or to attend to – to bring about a change for the better to the problem of this western-left-brain dominated world?”

One thing that he is NOT advising is a piecemeal addition – decoration – of one’s life with (say) 30 minutes of mindful practice each day – or any other “just do this or that ” advice. Very much the reason he wrote the book that it is – and therefore the reason to recommend reading it – is to take on board the whole of it into the whole of life. A whole change of consciousness, a new vision of who we are – values, purpose and direction. And it is a rational, logical (left-brained) argument – using inspired language – for why it is not simple minded to pursue it, to attend to it, to be receptively open to it. That attention is a moral act. Seeing the world through the different lens – a left-right integrated view – provided by reading the book.

END

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Original rough notes:

(Lots on Christian religious symbology & metaphor …)
(More on Scheler again – hierarchy of levels of value and virtues – seems well reflected in Pirsig, Maslow etc.)
(And the need for religious view – signalled in the introductory clip – with purpose as the “pull” to higher things.)
(Panentheism again – and the Apophatic view – in his final chapter.)
(Something like consciousness as an ontological primary – consciousness and matter as manifestations – phases – of the same primary)
(Whitehead again – the divine as “processual” – things as merely “nominal”.)
( TMWT – precisely to lead people by logical steps to the open position – active receptivity / attention – that it is NOT simple minded to see the sacred beyond the reductive materialism. Attention as a moral act – Simone Weil and … Getting people to this state is more than / better than a recommendation (say) to take up mindful practice. Mission-accomplished in people writing to him about the life-changing effect.)

Buzzy Mindfulness

Quick thought:

On a relatively short walk (~5m) over the moors the other day, bright and warm with very little wind, starting by 9am to beat the worst of the heat and other people …

… faint but very noticeable was the continuous sound of zillions of bees going about their buzzyness across the miles of heather. Even whilst on the move it was possible to focus attention on that – and one’s footsteps – alone.

(Quite different to the “buzzing booming confusion of paradox“.)

Beery Mindfulness

I share the same story with BrewDog co-founder James Watt about drinking Sierra Nevada “West Coast” IPA and realising there was more to beer than bland big brands (*). Except for me it was 2005/6 in the US before it was imported to Europe / UK. In fact in those (eventually) 3/4 years in the US I was knocked-out by how many independent US brewers there were beyond the Budweisers and Millers of this world.

So when I came back to the UK (2009/10) via Norway (2008/9) the craft beer “revolution” had started whilst I was away. It was the guys in Norway that made me aware of BrewDog and “Equity for Punks”. I’d skipped the original 2007 Punk IPA and went straight to Tokyo and their Dark Horizon collaboration with Norwegian brewer Nøgne Ø (**).

[Declaration of interest. I am a BrewDog “Equity Punk” since EFP2 and 3.]

Anyway, relevant to the Psybertron agenda is this interview of “Captain” James Watt by a sympathetic Steven Bartlett (of Huel and Dragon’s Den fame). It’s a long interview that stands by itself but in the last 2 or 3 years it’s been a rocky ride for BrewDog as the growth from zero to £2bn in 15 years – and the transition from 2 men and a dog to 3000+ people international company – has exposed the limitations of the individual James’ determined single-minded passion in terms of management style and consequent culture. Like all such mega-entrepreneurs, the “Ellon Musk” can be a bit weird, intimidating and socially inept when it comes to people management. There will be tears, and there have been. BBC Scotland has documented these in a mostly factual way, but without any evident sympathy for the wider reality. For me rather than legal proceedings, this latest interview stands as the response to those documentaries.

(Like all mythology, not everything is literally true, that’s the point.)

Given all the recent McGilchrist left-right-brain & sacred-naturalism topics here, what is fascinating in the interview are two points. One, the recent admission of potential “autism” and therapeutic investigation thereof as part of problem and solution, telling in combination with James’ emphasis on “objective” targets and on the “scientific” advice they were getting on their green ambitions. And two, the use of “mindful” breathing therapy as part of dealing with the immediate stressful engagement with the physical world.

The evolution of an organisation is natural. The sooner more organisations and institutions – like BBC journalism – value the spiritual, sacred, right-brained elements of nature beyond an autistic fixation with the objectively rational the better for all of us?

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(*) There were always “real ales” and Belgian beers, but these stuck to very “traditional” standards. Declaration – I’m a CAMRA member too 🙂

(**) Nøgne Ø (like Haand another small Norwegian brewer) is a microcosm of the industry and why BrewDog remain different. Nøgne Ø Still operate from their own relatively small brewery with their own branded products, but sold out as businesses – owned by Hansa in Norway, in turned owned by the Royal Unibrew drinks conglomerate in Denmark.

McGilchrist at Embercombe

Missed this conversation last night, so watching the recording today.

Just VERY rough notes for conversation.

What is the matter?
Doesn’t actually answer – but talks around that we all seem to see the plight of western humanity.
Then a long summary of TMWT (inc repeat of TMAHE HH content)

Attention – a moral act
Perception
Judgement – a moral act
Intelligence – cognitive as well as emotional / affective.
Attention as honest encounter – neither PoMo (all is constructed) nor naive reductive (it’s all objectively out there).

Summary of HH
Right – comprehension
Left – apprehension
Map & Terrain as usual

Epistemology
Reason / rationality and Intuition / creativity / imagination

(Negative re “algorithms” X again. ie new science understanding involves creative intuition.)

Tosh about
Arty / Hippie Right
vs
Boring / Sensible / Reliable Accountant Left
In fact left is much more unreliable.

The problem … decline of civilisations losing their L/R balance – the decline can be rapid (years), but new recovery can be very long (centuries).

Can’t be solved by an algorithm X (again).

The problem of social-media chat rooms … left-brain dominates
But we can all begin from the life we lead – tend our own garden, etc.
Prefer “nature” to “environment”.

Human as a computer X again.

Whole synthesis / integration of brain hemispheres.
Seat of consciousness in mid-brain structures? (See Solms)
Endocrine system very much part of brain behaviour, not just neurons. McGilchrist needs to read Solms.

Goethe / Steiner
Jung / Nietzsche
Dionysian / Apollonian

Charlie Rykken (Where does our sense of unity come from – .) – IMcG – Fractal rather than modular – bits that do know about other bits and their relations as a whole – Systematic (holistic) whole. – CR – Relationship between mental – causality (local) & communication – panentheism and panpsychism. Yes!

Joel’s question – language and definitions hemming us in – yes. Especially English / European languages. (I think it’s more to do with what the symbols / words symbolise than the fact we need to have them – allow us to reference shared experience – so more about the kinds of experience (other than things).

Much on Sacred and Divine ?- again – from the  chair.
Scheler pyramid of values – (must check directly).

Theists vs atheists most thoughtful about existenece of divine means?
A subject that cannot be captured in words, so could argue better NOT to have written about it. Agnosticism – Active receptivity – using Rayner’s language again.

Change coming about the sacred – as with modern panpsychist movement.(My position – sacred is real and important, but it’s not supernatural – it’s the RH view.)

Most primitive view – God as engineer  – setting the world machine in motion – X – again, gotta get all the language “dissing” machines out of the way.

(Complexity of real genetic evolution … not his topic … Zombie ants / rats etc. – become a meme – zzzz.)

Hope vs Despair
Urgency of the young – hmmm. (Double-edged)
Trust & Question (ie not cynical – we do need trust – but thoughtful)
Compassion – common in all spiritual / religious traditions.