Wrapped up paperwork on closing out family buildings in Gravenhurst, returned to classes and technical conferences in usual pattern of learning.
Toronto, Ontario; Markham, Ontario; Gravenhurst, Ontario; North York, Ontario
Harbourfront Centre: Cycle of heating glass in furnace, shaping with pliers and then applying torch @HarbourfrontTO Craft and Design studios. Curves might have been for the neck of a bird in glass, I didn’t observe any blowing. Watching artists at work always a warm venue, particularly on the first day clocks return to standard time, and darkness comes earlier. (Harbourfront Centre, Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20191103CASCONxEvoke 2019: Workshop #CASCONxEvoke led by @RohanAlexander @prof_lyons on Barriers to Data Science Adoption: What Existing Frameworks Aren’t Working, with industry panelists providing perspectives. Definitions for #ArtificialIntelligence , #MachineLearning, #DataScience blurred under misconceptions and unfounded expectations. Session served as kickoff towards a research proposal that might be executed over the next 5 years. (CASCONxEvoke conference, Hilton Conference Centre, Markham, Ontario) 20191105Riverside neighbourhood: Removing gazebo cover in the backyard, as chances of warm weather diminish. The sprinkle of snow didn’t stay last week, but frost in the evenings is coming. We might have chosen a warmer day, but the fall has been unusually busy. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20191110Systems Thinking Ontario: Update at #SystemsThinking Ontario https://wiki.st-on.org/2019-11-11 on http://systemschanges.com research progress, making distinctions between ecological and behavioral perspectives, on #GeoffreyVickers #AppreciativeSystems reality judgment, value judgment and instrumental judgment. Introduced basics on #ObjectProcessMethodology used to improve the rigour in our modelling. Agenda change announced just 3 hours before scheduled start, topic changed with our original speaker unexpected still in Europe. (Lambert Lounge, OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20191111Sharpe Street West: Last visit to the family buildings, picking up photographic slide carousels that wouldn’t fit on our prior (presumed last) visit. Came and left in less than an hour, routing around the snowbank to load into the car. We already had a meeting in Orillia, so the extended drive north for personal effects was based on expecting that future generations might appreciate these artifacts when elders can’t explain them. (Sharpe Street West, Gravenhurst, Ontario) 20191114Pycon 2019: What @CBCNews knows about Canadians @robroc #PyData @pyconca, analyzing text with #word2vec on corpus of 6 years of news stories. Looking for similarities, didn’t find biases reported in American research. Using gensim and spacy, cosine similarity training took hours, but then model allowed audience to interactively ask questions. Montreal is to poutine, as Vancouver is to sushi. (Python Canada 2019, The Carlu, College Park, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20191116Pycon 2019: Data Insights from Linked Data #JordanPedersen @UofTLibraries @pyconca @rwangca @swcarpentry in #PyData track http://shorturl.at/rtJOV . Described RDF, into notebook with RDFLib and SPARQL, now exploring graph databases. Alternative ways of cataloguing records in library. (Python Canada 2019, The Carlu, College Park, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20191117St. Michael’s Hospital: Looking over shoulder of lab technician for carotid ultrasound, unofficially read as normal. Precautionary diagnostic in assessing risk associated with high blood pressure, since my family practice doctor wants to prescribe medication, and my Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor assesses me as normal. Ultrasound is non-invasive, seemly more common in Asia, as the technician says that those patients arrive with previous histories in hand. (St. Michael’s Hospital, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20191118Toronto Biennial of Art: At @TorontoBiennial, approaching the neon sign #LaurentGrasso 2012/2019 Visibility Is a Trap refers to #MichelFoucault #panopticon, as the viewer becomes illuminated by the installation. The exhibition question of what does it mean to be in relation, so viewers become part of the show. Venue is large, a former automobile dealership with repair bays, this temporary space will likely be replaced as with the tower next door. (Toronto Biennial of Art, 259 Lake Shore Boulevard East, Toronto, Ontario) 20191123
Forest Lawn Crematorium: Japanese handbell on path to becoming a family heirloom, handed down from grandfather, now through father to daughters. Celebration of life for an artist who led a quiet life, remembered by spouse as a square who became a hippie. Our children played together in the parenting centre, when we first moved downtown. (Forest Lawn Crematorium, Yonge Street, North York, Ontario) 20191129
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 […]
On my May trip through the UK, I accepted an offer to lead an Expert-Led Session at the University of Hull. I had previously been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies, but haven’t travelled to the Hull for some years. As we worked out the arrangements, I found out that the seminar […]
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 […]
