Toronto, Ontario; Detroit, Michigan; Iowa City, Iowa; Fairfield, Iowa; Muscatine, Iowa; Port Huron, Michigan
English River lake freighter. Great Lakes water seem clear of ice, with small bulk carrier moored by Lafarge terminal in the Polson slip of the Toronto PortLands. In early spring, the vegetation doesn’t obscure visibility, over the fence from the Chinese supermarket. (Cherry Street, Toronto) 20150406Toronto IBM Club Retirees. Update on IBM Canada R&D Centre by @AllenLalonde, meeting the challenges of big data with collaborative innovation centres across universities, industry and government. CARET, SOSIP, CHIA, Ocean Networks Canada. Among retirees, seeing a few familiar faces. (St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150407Design with Dialogue, April 2015. Special session for SSHRC question, six parallel streams, video capture and live sketching. Pulled together on short notice by SFI masters students. (Lambert Lounge, OCAD U) 20150408DBC Trio. Early Thursday set of @LuisDenizSax Rich Brown @ErnestoCervini in @RexHotelToronto relaxed and casual. No festival crowds, just another workday on a city where the arts thrive. (The Rex, Toronto) 20150416Detroit Greektown. Saturday night busy in popular nightlife district downtown. Most of family visiting #1 son in Michigan. Last time I was here could have been in the 1970s, when the Greek presence was stronger. (Detroit Greektown, Michigan) 20150418MOCAD. Normal Shift by Coco Bruner at Art X Detroit , 10.5×15 foot Baltic Birch Plywood floor, invites viewers to walk on it at their own risk. Kresge Arts Foundation sponsors show in Midtown. (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) 20150419DIA. Alexander Calder 1970 La jeune filles et sa suites, on the lawn outside the Detroit Institute of the Arts, towers over local visitors. Family touring on a Sunday afternoon. (Detroit, Michigan) 20150419
Iowa Ave., Iowa City. Old Capitol Museum at west end, and U. Iowa biology buildings across the street from Japanese resto lunch downtown. Birthday girl is daughter of friend, they all grow up from high schoolers to serious university students. (Iowa City, Iowa) 20150423Herd of cattle. “I am an individual”? On the farm, cows are initially skittish of strangers, but then come to see what’s up out of boredom. Not a lot happens in the country. Few distractions. (Fairfield, Iowa) 20150426Riverside Park, Muscatine, Iowa. The Pearl Button riverboat, docked on the west side of the Mississippi River. Area famous for shells made into buttons, in the era before synthetic materials became popular. Brief rest stop before leaving the state. (Riverside Park, Muscatine, Iowa) 20150429
Refineries on the St. Clair River. Driving Gratiot Blvd in Port Huron on U.S. side of river, sign said scenic turnout. Small parking lot had view of industry on Sarnia waterfront, less than flattering impression of Canada. Short distance across water suggests proximity for smuggling, but expect that area is patrolled, and currents would make swimming treacherous. (Port Huron, Michigan) 20150430
Researching the philosophical foundations of systems theory to understand the meanings of “causal texture, contextualism, contextural” from the Tavistock legacy led to philosopher Stephen C. Pepper. The philosophical lineage and contributions of Pepper were the focus for the January online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario. A deep reading of Pepper’s work (over a month!) was […]
The first Systems Thinking Ontario session for 2023 is scheduled for January 9, on “Root Metaphors and World Hypotheses”. This is philosophical content, for which a guided tour and discussion will be better than attempting a solo reading of the World Hypotheses wiki on the Open Learning Commons. Upon announcing the session on social media, […]
The October online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario presented an opportunity for an update on progress made by the Systems Changes Learning Circle by 2022. A slide deck had been prepared an in-person seminar at the Universitat de Barcelona Graduate Programmes in Business, organized by Ryan C. Armstrong, one week earlier. Our regular monthly meeting, […]
Just before starting a trip to Spain, I received an invitation from Ryan C. Armstrong at the Universitat de Barcelona Business School to give some lectures. The students in the bachelor’s programme in international business had a short mention of systems thinking in the first lecture of the operationa management class. With that brief entry, […]
While the adaptive cycle and panarchical connections reflect the possiblity of movement from one stable state to another, it’s possible to get “stuck” in a disfavoured trap. Social ecological systems involve both natural systems and human systems. After widespread recognition of the 2002 Panarchy book, reflections in 2010 revealed further development of the theory and […]
In order to appreciate the influence of resilience science and panarchy on ongoing research into systems changes, revisiting foundational works sometimes resurfaces insights. In the 2002 Panarchy book, Chapter 15 provides a summary of findings. In the course of the project hat led to this volume, we identified twelve conclusions (Table 15-1) in our search for […]
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 ›
For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
In web conference, #HermanDaly says #EcologicalEconomics used to get attacked from the right, now it's from the left. Panel @revkin @jon_d_erickson @ktkish @sophiesanniti #TimCrowshaw #KatieHorner livestreamed #sustainwhat .Read more ›
Complementing the idea of a @longnow , @nfergus provokes the challenge of a #shortthen as the online social media platforms distract the larger perspectives on history.Read more ›
An online version of a special issue of Paunch (1980) on "Root Metaphor: The Live Thought of Stephen C. Pepper" has been preserved on the internet Archive
Attributed to Hippocrates is the use of the term kairos in observational methodology, and the presentation of significant findings. Just to be scholarly, Hippocrates is generally reported as a institution, rather than a person. Although Hippocrates is generally accepted as the father of medicine, few have recognized, or even realized, the extent to which he […]
Autopoiesis, as coined by Humberto Maturana, is in the contextualist root metaphor of Stephen C. Pepper, rather than the organismic root metaphor, say #HowardMancing and #JenniferMarstonWilliam .
