Toronto, Ontario; Scarborough, Ontario; Markham, Ontario.
Beach Skateboard Park. Spring has really arrived in Toronto, but people not yet wearing shorts. Transition from winter wear to light top clothes seems practically overnight. (Ashbridges Bay, Toronto) 20150502Bike helmet selection. When safety equipment all looks about the same, is made with similar materials, and ranges in price from $22 to over $200, the conscientious shopper takes quite a while to decide. The last bike helmet may be a decade old, so the perhaps thriftiness isn’t the most important attribute. (Mountain Equipment Coop, King Street West, Toronto) 20150507Yonge and Grenville Streets. Two storey storefronts demolished, foundations for @YCcondos 66 floor glass tower in progress. Intensification of downtown core, a few blocks north of Ryerson University and Yonge-Dundas Square. I don’t remember this construction project starting, the warm weather means bicycling more frequently. (462 Yonge Street, Toronto) 20150509Silver City Fairview. No lineup at suburban Tuesday matinee of Avengers movie in its second week. Stadium seating in non-3D room, a better way to enjoy a Hollywood blockbuster. (Cineplex Silver City Cinema, Fairview Mall, North York, Ontario) 20150512Table of ten. Chinese dinner on a weekday night with aunt, cousin, sister, father. Only one son attending, so our branch not dominating the table. Lobster, Peking duck, lots of Cantonese dishes, all consumed. (Perfect Chinese Restaurant, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150513
Unwin Ave bridges. Graceful bike bridge has two lanes, chunky car bridge has single lane. Just west of the entrance of the Outer Harbour Marina in the Portlands, following the Toronto Waterfront Trail. Smokestack of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station in the background. (475 Unwin Street, Toronto) 20150514Monarch Park underpass. StreetARToronto mural by Elicser celebrates mother nature and mothers depicted in micro-financed community development by Stephen Lewis. Ribbons were cut in November 2014, just discovered in springtime bike ride east on Danforth Ave. past Greenwood Ave, with a little turn south. (Monarch Park, Toronto) 20150516Lowkong cemetery monument Annual visit to honour ancestors, with traditional whole roasted pig and chickens for standup lunch. Four of us represented our family branch, as others travelling out of town. Declined on dinner, we’ll have our own remembrance of mom and our branch in two weeks when the family can convene. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150517Natrel Pond, Harbourfront. Congestion of canoes and paddleboats in 2 feet of water, on a busy Victoria Day at Harbourfront Centre. Walkways filled with people enjoying the weather, ships ready to tour the harbour. (Harbourfront Toronto) 20150518Tommy Thompson Park view west. Downtown Toronto from the Minor Trail Transition view over Embayment C, by the turnaround on the Multi-Use Trail Section 2. Only halfway down the way, but going further south would cross a pedestrian bridge. Shameless disregard of signs saying the Leslie Street Spit is only open on weekends, many runners and cyclists are out on a Monday 6 pm, after construction access closes at 4:30. (Tommy Thompson Park, Toronto) 20150526Cemetery visit in the rain. Family visiting from out of town meant limited window for annual visit to gravesites. Waited on car for a break in the rain, which turned out to be brief. Digging into sod for new plants deterred by hitting clay. Threaded time together with other events on a busy weekend schedule. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150530Trinity College 8T0 35th reunion: Actually 39 years since first meeting many of this University of Toronto class at orientation week. Wine tasting in the Combinations Room, a place to to gather while dining from the buffet in Strachan Hall, then continuing to a pub on Harbord Street. Mostly recognized the faces, names were aided by wearing labels. Group photo at 8:15 p.m., for the people who could hang on that long. (Trinity College, University of Toronto) 20150530 Photo album at https://goo.gl/photos/LMe7umtd4mVioUVX7Cheongsam store. Sister shopping for formal wear turns out to influence spouse who finds a size that fits. Day visiting family turns into running errands while in the neighbourhood. Strip plaza just east of Pacific Mall has more permanent businesses with conventional storefronts. (Bo Bo Fashion, Market Village, Markham, Ontario) 20150531
Digging into philosophies underlying the systems sciences, pragmatism seems to have been a strong historical foundation for some research streams. In ongoing discussions, Gary Metcalf and I have been approaching pragmatism from two directions. Gary has been tracking from mid-1800s forward, listening to the audiobook The Metaphysical Club, with a history of figures living through […]
The ties between systems thinking and pragmatism are apparently strong, but the breadth in the philosophy of pragmatism can be confusing. Within the tradition, one of the threads is called nonrelativistic pragmatism, proposed by systems luminaries C. West Churchman with Russell L. Ackoff, descending from the work of philosopher Edgar A. Singer, Jr. A concise […]
A luminary in the systems movement, C. West Churchman, showed some respect for Chinese philosophy, with the I Ching (Yi Jing) in particular. Deborah Hammond was encouraged by West Churchman into joining and becoming a historian of the systems movement. In her 2003 book, Hammond wrote of her conversations with Churchman, back into his days […]
The 1969 publication of Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery as a Penguin Modern Management paperback, can be regarded as a milestone. The articles date from the 1940s to the 1960s, when the first wave of systems thinking was on the rise. For the June session of Systems Thinking Ontario, we stepped […]
Within the Systems Thinking Ontario community, we were fortunate to have Nenad Rava step up to explain how the Sustainable Development Goals came to be, and relate them to systems change. This May session of Systems Thinking Ontario was a quick follow-on for the March edition on Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the SDGs. […]
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
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 ›
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 ›
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 […]
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
