Toronto, Ontario
One City Hall: View southeast from 12th floor of apartment tower in historic Old Chinatown. After Asian businesses moved west to Spadina, a 12-storey office tower was built in 1974, then bombed by the Italian Mafia in 1977 and feared with bad feng shui. In 1999 that tower was imploded, and then replaced by three towers completed in 2007. (111 Elizabeth Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210306Eastern Avenue at Carlaw Avenue: Sign of the times with “Cyclists Accommodated With Only Minor Delays”, suggesting that automobiles and trucks will be completed diverted. Consistent with the joke that Canada has two seasons: winter, and construction. Temperature swing of 10 degrees Celsius has citizens abandoning parkas. (Eastern Avenue at Carlaw Avenue, Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20210310Jeff’s No Frills: Scheduled appointment to receive AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, responding to call for under-age 65 subjects. Received quick jab in office of grocery store, in the afternoon after National Advisory Community on Immunization expands recommendation of formulation for all ages. Ontario pharmacists are now reporting that supply is depleting, hard to plan more than a week ahead. (Loblaws Pharmacy at Jeff’s No Frills, Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20210316Centenary Hospital: Father receiving Moderna vaccination, with second appointment scheduled 16 weeks away. Registration on vaccineto.ca led to coordination by local hospitals, decentralized registration online with friendly reminder phone call. Venue on the eastern edge of Metro Toronto has physical distancing not common in the downtown core. (Margaret Birch Wing, Scarborough Health Network Centenary Hospital, Ellesmere Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20210318Philosophers Walk: Looking south beyond university campus, CN Tower in the far distance, on a bench alongside @zaid___khan. Discussed science as a pursuit of better answers, with philosophy as a pursuit of better questions. The tension between attention and intention can be portrayed as a struggle between phenomenology (ecological epistemology) and teleology. Spring equinox drawing out many pedestrians with upswing in temperature. (Philosophers Walk, Queen Park Crescent West, University of Toronto) 20210321Essroc Silos: Crews convening amongst earth movers, on the growing berm for the south end of the new Cherry Street North Bridge. On the roll-up door of the defunct Essroc cement plant, the Framework photograph of 130 Commissioners Street installed in October 19 by #VidIngelevics and #RyanWalker hasn’t faded. The industrial heritage of the Port Lands persist. (Essroc Silos, Cherry Street, Toronto Port Lands) 20210323MEC: A trip for bicycle brake pads is mundane, but shopping in person seems extraordinary after pandemic shut down changes to pandemic grey zone. Cantilever style brakes aren’t so common these days, the charitable might describe my old bike with a steel frame as vintage. (MEC, Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20210327
Bike and Forth Services: Acquired another modest bicycle with low regret if it’s stolen. I found the vintage Miyata mountain bike on Facebook, posted by James. John installed slick tires, and tuned up the cables. Neighbourhood bike shops are getting rarer in the big city. (Bike and Forth Services, Danforth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20210328
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 […]
