Summer slowly turning int autumn, sons travelled to California, leading to more couples time and eldercare.
Toronto, Ontario
Toronto Eaton Centre: The shooting fountain opened in 1977 remains covered and silenced, alongside many signs requesting that masked visitors keep moving. Volume of shoppers was moderate for the Friday of a Labout Day holiday weekend. It could be 2 years since I’ve been inside the building. (Toronto Eaton Centre, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210903Congee Queen Agincourt: An extended afternoon of straightening out my father’s mobile phone service led into a casual dinner out on a holiday weekend. My vegan diet wasn’t planned into their shopping for the weekend, so going out for dinner was an easier option. Followed by a few more hours of wrangling with smart devices that aren’t so straightforward for senior citizens. (Congee Queen, Sheppard Avenue East, Scarborough, Ontario) 20210904Front Campus: Big dig project at centre of university campus started in June as the Landmark Project, with a 3-year completion date. Boreholes 240 metres deep will enable a geothermal exchange field below a new underground parking lot. I remember the days in the 1970s when the ground would be saturated in the spring, as the submerged Taddle Creek would re-emerge. (Front Campus, King’s College Circle, University of Toronto, Ontario) 20210905Neville Park Loop: In daylight #TheliaShelton (2021) Share the Love sculpture from March @makewavesTo Luminosity exhibition doesn’t have the red glow visible at night. Installation sees empty streetcars loop from eastbound to westbound multiple times per hour. Driftwood endures beyond the one-month official period int he spring. (Neville Park Loop, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20200909Lakeshore Boulevard East: On weekends, the roadway eastbound from Cherry Street has been shut down, as the overhead concrete surfaces are being crushed and removed. There was an alternative not taken to remove the whole structure, so the pillars for a fixture for the foreseeable future. Weekday drivers to the east end are still getting used to alternative routes. (Lakeshore Boulevard East, east of Cherry Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210911Art Gallery of Ontario: Sculpture of formica and plexiglass bound with Everlast boxing wraps @juliadault (2014) Untitled 36, reinstalled here on November 2, 2020. Brighter colours inside the loops than I recall with (2013) Untitled 26 that I saw at #ScrapMetalGallery in 2019. Exhibits on display this visit may have more content indigenous to Canada, convenient since transcontinental shipping is likely reduced with the pandemic. (Art Gallery of Ontario, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20210915James Canning Gardens: Urban playground nearby benches where philosophical gymnastics with @zaid___khan extended beyond our western-dominated education. Late afternoon with no signs of children playing, cooling temperature called for a jacket on the bike ride home. Originally named Dundonald Street Parkette, there’s more greenspace in the sections of the Yonge Street Linear Park directly north. (James Canning Gardens, Gloucester Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210919Lakeshore Boulevard East at Bouchette Street: Looking west from the south curb, the surface of the ramps have been removed, leading nowhere up to an elevated road that has been removed and crushed. Surface traffic appears unimpeded, with daylight a welcome change to the prior shadows under the Gardiner Expressway extension. In the distance, the CN Tower is clearly visible towards the west waterfront. (Lakeshore Boulevard East at Bouchette Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210921Ryerson Student Learning Centre: Late afternoon weekday, few students evident on campus, light pedestrian traffic on Yonge Street north of Dundas Street. Surprised by more bike lanes occasionally reducing automotive traffic on Canada’s main street to two lanes north and south. Unseasonably warm temperatures may see one of the last days bicycling around in shorts. (Ryerson University Student Learning Centre, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210927
The Beaches Cinema: Arrived just in time before screening of #ShangChi at the local cinema. Unintended private screening for two, by consciously paying full price for 7pm show on a Monday. Inspection at front door for verification of double vaccination, with matching photo ID, masks on while in motion. (The Beaches Cinema, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20210927
As the book on Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0 was taking shape in March 2023, I was invited not only to serve as an editor, but also to contribute as an author. The edited volume is the final deliverable for the In4act project centered at the KTU School of Economics and Business in Kaunas, Lithuania […]
Beyond city-building as urban planning is the idea of a Music City. This sees development of cultural life across a wide variety of arts, alongside economic benefits brought to the region. At the 119th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario in March 2024, socio-cultural designer Adam Hogan and musician-designer Ziyan Hossain joined moderator Zaid Khan in conversation. […]
Having reached year 6 of an espoused 10-year journey, the Systems Changes Learning Circle is (again) convening monthly Dialogues on Social Innovation at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. Starting up in 2019, the Circle was convening regularly in the Climate Ventures space at 192 Spadina Avenue. The pandemic interrupted in-person meetings, and the […]
EQ Lab runs Dialogic Drinks, “the kind of philosophical discussion you have in a coffee shop or bar”, twice per week. Wtih this group interested loosely in questions on leadership, I was invited to host an online session on March 12 (evening in Hong Kong and Singapore, really early in Toronto) and on March 14-15 […]
At the 118th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario in February 2024, behavioral scientist Cameron D. Norman and design strategist Tara Campbell were invitied for a conversation guided by Zaid Khan. The panelists are both alumni of the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program at OCADU. Some time ago, they had conducted a research project on evaluation […]
An article on “sciencing and philosophizing”, coauthored by Gary S. Metcalf and myself, has been published in the Journal of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, following the ISSS 2023 Kruger Park conference in South Africa, last July. There’s a version cacned on the Coevolving Commons. This article started in a series of conversations […]
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 ›
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 […]
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) […]