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
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 .
