Toronto, Ontario
Collision Gallery: Two pieces in the 2024 To Love series #AnellaSchabler @greenisch.tint in memory of her Korean grandmother: The Portrait is a traditional Korean knot made of red crochet yarn, The Reflection is a reminder of dishware and sculpted cabbage in the making of kimchi. Part of the @DesignTO Youth: Touchbase exhibition. (Collision Gallery, Wellington Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20240210
Chinatown Centre: Songs to welcome Lunar New Year with @SanthaTsang on the afternoon stage. Not only selections in Chinese dialects, I heard some Abba was I was leaving. Attendees scattered around the mall in crowds around calligraphy and other crafts. (Chinatown Centre, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20240210
Don Valley Auto Centre: Unanticipated guided tour of vintage 1920s Supertest gas pump in the waiting room of our local garage. Gas jockey would manually pump fuel into the glass measuring vessel on top, and then transfer to vehicle. Also in the back room, shown a more utilitarian compact pump that could be installed in a sidewalk location. (Don Valley Auto Centre, Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20240213May Yan Seafood Restaurant: Since Chinese New Year runs 15 days from new moon to full moon, we deferred our family lunch on weekend after Super Bowl and a son’s birthday. Double lobster and braised duck arrived after we finished the steamed bean curd and scallops in black bean sauce, and while still working through beef bricket bean curd hotpot, eggplant ground pork hotpot, sweet and sour fish fillets, mustard greens with conpoy scallop sauce, and king mushroom with pea leaves. Hand-picked order successfully achieved greater variety than the prescribed set menus. (May Yan Seafood Restaurant, Sheppard Avenue East, Scabrorough, Ontario) 20240217Mon Sheong Court: Third son turning over winning hand in first round of mahjong, still learning the rules of the game. Grandfather then easily won the next three hands, with second son taking the last, as fourth son and grandfather blocked each other waiting for the same tiles to turn up. This new experience was described as more dynamic than poker, where the skill is in everyone counting cards visible to all. (Mon Sheong Court, McNicoll Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20240217
Zhong Hua Men Archway: Six days before full moon ending Chinese New Year season, Lion Dance celebrating the Chinatown East neighbourhood around Gerrard Street East and Broadview Aveue. Drumming was preceded by photographs with local politicians, police officers, and children who enjoy posing for pictures. Parade proceeded east and then south, spitting out lettuce to spread wealth and good fortune at small businesses, maybe dodging the adjoining cannabis shops. (Zhong Hua Men Archway, Hamilton Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20240218
Centre for Social Innovation Annex: Book Launch for Strategy to Action by @kdemming interviewed by @tonyasurman at Six Degrees event @csitoronto. History of coming from Trinidad to work at @sigeneration, and then getting two endorsements for PhD to enter @OISEUofT. Most challenging question could be: what is the strategy for raising your child (who was present). (Centre for Social Innovation Annex, Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20240229
The 125th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario coincided with the closing day for the RSD13-RSDX online program. As a regular systems convening group, we’ve had monthly meetings since January 2013. Zaid Khan moderated a discussion including me (David Ing), Tim Lloyd, Allenna Leonard, and Kelly Okamura. We recollected starting as a spinoff from Design with […]
The International Society for General Systems Research formed circa 1956 became the International Society for the Systems Sciences in 1988. In 1985, Bela H. Banathy organized the annual meeting on the theme of “Systems Inquiring”. Proceedings normally are published in the year following. In 1987, John A. Dillon summarized Banathy’s perspective in the yearbook, General […]
For five immersive days, a team of six researchers had the opporunity to collaborate on ideas on rhythmic shifts (mostly based on Systems Changes Learning) and anticipatory systems (in the legacy of Robert Rosen). The 2024 Banathy Conversation was organized by the Creative Systemic Research Platform Institute, facilitated by Susu Nousala, Gary S. Metcalf, and […]
Systems Processes Theory has been under development for many decades, led by Len Troncale, a past president of the International Society for the Ssytems Sciences. Many have found getting a grip on the science to be a demanding task, both in scope and in depth. Over many decades, Lynn Rasmussen was a collaborator, refining and […]
The Socio-Technical Systems (STS) perspective, dating back to the studies of Eric L. Trist and Fred E. Emery, was on the reading list of organizational behaviour classes in my undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I got involved with the systems sciences and David L. Hawk, that the Socio-Ecological […]
Civic Tech can be described as projects using technology “for the public good“. Civic Tech may be related to, but different from Gov Tech. For the May 2024 Systems Thinking Onrtario, we had two knowledgeable guests in conversation. Dorothy Eng, executive director of Code for Canada since 2021, related her professional journey from engineering to […]
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
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 ›
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
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 […]
