Toronto, Ontario
Ontario Place West Channel: From the southeast tip of Marilyn Bell Park, boardwalk gives a view of the silos @OntarioPlace West Islands. Fond memories of the venue from my childhood, when the programming was focused on family education about the province. Pleasure boats presumably headed for the north marina. (Ontario Place West Channel, Lake Shore Boulevard West, Toronto, Ontario) 20200601Lower Don Recreation Trail: Don Mills Road Underpass eastbound from E.T. Seton Park is new to me, despite decades of bicycling around the city. Just north of junction of West Don River branch and main Don River, bridge wends over rail tracks. Routed from Thornecliffe Park to the north, coming down a very long hill that I wouldn’t want to bike up on. (Don Mills Road Underpass, Lower Don Recreation Trail, Don Mills, Ontario) 20200609Ashbridges Bay Skateboard Park: One of 14 skateboard parks open in Toronto, with city is still in Phase 1 reopening while most of province is in Phase 2. Clear, bright afternoon, although temperatures barely warm enough to wear shorts. On bike path, parents guiding children on small bicycles, while racers in spandex zoom by. (Ashbridges Bay Skateboard Park, Lake Shore Boulevard East, Toronto, Ontario) 20200616Cruise Ship Terminal: When/if a Great Lakes passenger vessel requiring a second floor gangway docks in Toronto, the Port of Toronto is ready. However, the pandemic has pre-empted the cruising season for the year, not that many ships visit our city. The other side of the buildings has been rented out for film production offices, and the massive parking lot is cordoned off for automobile dealer inventories. (Cruise Ship Terminal, Unwin Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20200624King Street West at John Street: Wider sidewalks by restaurants in the theatre district has enabled city dwellers finally in Covid Phase 2 reopening to enjoy a summer Friday night physically together. Bicycling by the storefronts, I noticed the interiors were largely vacant, so the 2 metre distancing wouldn’t be a problem. This cluster of open businesses isn’t the norm, however; nearby blocks see maybe 25% with lights on to welcome customers. (King Street West at John Street, Theatre District, Toronto, Ontario) 20200626Paul Kane Parkette: Small green space facing south, in front of facade incorporated in the 1985 construction of a coop complex on the north side of the building. Paul Kane was a painter, born in Ireland, living at this site 1853 to 1871. I’ve never stopped at this venue, but was out bicycling, and found a comfortable place to take a phone call, after passing through the relatively quiet Pride Weekend hangouts. (Paul Kane Parkette, Wellesley Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20200627
Fentster: Storefront gallery @MakomTO installation @RDavidovitz (2020) What Will Remain stained glass sculpture has cracked panes, when inspected more closely. Toronto-based artist pays tribute to grandfather who would repair broken windows in post-war Vilna (then Poland, now Lithuania). On the eve of statutory holiday, few people on the street, except for pizza pickups next door. (Fentster / Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism, College Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20200630
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 […]
