Toronto, Ontario; Waterloo, Ontario
Heliconian Hall: Quintet @Soren_Nissen @TorontoJazzFest performs music inspired by months living in India, composed after return to Toronto. Closing evening of the festival, some exterior signs have already been removed. (Heliconian Hall, Hazelton Avenue, Yorkville, Toronto, Ontario) 20180701 Willowdale: Browsing new family generations photo book, routed from Houston to Los Angeles to Toronto. Quiet summer day with Canada Day observance, since July 1 fell on a Sunday. (Willowdale, North York, Ontario) 20180702UWaterloo Env3: Two days @CANSEE Graduate Student Research Symposium, serving as discussant on early stage projects. Invited as a systems sciences lurker in the ecological economics community. (University of Waterloo, Environment 3, Waterloo, Ontario) 20180705 Vari Centre: Internet bots talk @gtalug by Don Tai at a leisurely pace. Venue moved to huge lecture theatre, audience actually sitting close to the front. Informed participants contributing comments interactively. (GTA Linux User Group, George Vari Engineering and Computer Centre, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario) 20180710 Balmoral Park: Leisurely dinner at home of friends since UToronto B.Comm. days. Agreed that we’ve lived through some good decades, as the world has gotten tougher for later generations. Options of 2000 Bordeaux and Iranian cuisine worth falling off strict diets as small indulgences. Early summer evening, with insects cooperating in the back yard. (Balmoral Park neighbourhood, North York, Ontario) 20180714 Hart House: Map Room is a shady lounge, a rest stop on the way back from bicycling across the city, on a hot summer Sunday. An convenient destination for an alumnus, I didn’t hang out here when I was a student, because I lived so close to campus. Teens playing sports on the fields outside. (Hart House, University of Toronto) 20180715Visual Analytics Lab: Synthesis maps @OCADU_SFI graduate students for Systems Thinking Ontario monthly meeting. Big screen of the Visual Analytics Lab a special affordance not usually available to us, with a long conference table instead of sitting in a circle. (OCADU, 205 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180716 CSI Regent Park: Henna art @csiTO by Bibi Noor, during Party on the Patio, top floor of the Daniels Spectrum building. An opportunity to bridge the three buildings across the city, and meet members with their families in a relaxed time. (Centre for Social Innovation, Regent Park, Dundas Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20180719Woodbine Park: Cloudy @BeachesJazz @LailaBiali @Larnell_Lewis @RossMacIntyre William Sperandei show mixing jazz and reinterpreted pop music, with Canadian references. Break from morning rain left muddy field, sun is losing against grey. (Beaches Jazz Festival, Woodbine Park, Toronto, Ontario) 20180722 CSI 215: Playshop @csiTO @kcscooper @CycleToronto @anika__ Al Chick on #designthinking prototyping for youth and adults on cycling safety. Not related to, but coincident with City of Toronto deadline for #VisionZero applications, towards reducing collisions of pedestrians, cyclists, transit users and motorists. (Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20180726
Harbourfront: Glass studio @HarbourfrontTO quiet inside, new glass to melt at 2050°F or 1220°C. Contrast to the web side of the building, full of visitors and music playing on a summer Sunday. Quick tour of the galleries, I haven’t seen the exhibitions in a few months. (Harbourfront Centre, Queen Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180729
The International Society for General Systems Research formed circa 1956 became the International Society for the Systems Sciences in 1988. In 1985, Bela H. Banathy organized the annual meeting on the theme of “Systems Inquiring”. Proceedings normally are published in the year following. In 1987, John A. Dillon summarized Banathy’s perspective in the yearbook, General […]
For five immersive days, a team of six researchers had the opporunity to collaborate on ideas on rhythmic shifts (mostly based on Systems Changes Learning) and anticipatory systems (in the legacy of Robert Rosen). The 2024 Banathy Conversation was organized by the Creative Systemic Research Platform Institute, facilitated by Susu Nousala, Gary S. Metcalf, and […]
Systems Processes Theory has been under development for many decades, led by Len Troncale, a past president of the International Society for the Ssytems Sciences. Many have found getting a grip on the science to be a demanding task, both in scope and in depth. Over many decades, Lynn Rasmussen was a collaborator, refining and […]
The Socio-Technical Systems (STS) perspective, dating back to the studies of Eric L. Trist and Fred E. Emery, was on the reading list of organizational behaviour classes in my undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I got involved with the systems sciences and David L. Hawk, that the Socio-Ecological […]
Civic Tech can be described as projects using technology “for the public good“. Civic Tech may be related to, but different from Gov Tech. For the May 2024 Systems Thinking Onrtario, we had two knowledgeable guests in conversation. Dorothy Eng, executive director of Code for Canada since 2021, related her professional journey from engineering to […]
On my May trip through the UK, I accepted an offer to lead an Expert-Led Session at the University of Hull. I had previously been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies, but haven’t travelled to the Hull for some years. As we worked out the arrangements, I found out that the seminar […]
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
