Emergence from hibernation at home, as winter gives way to spring
Toronto, Ontario; Hamilton, Ontario
Woodbine Beach: Winter Stations art installation #CemreÖnertürk #EgeÇakır (2022) “Enter Face” designed as two dark boxes, now has two lounge chairs not in the original specification. Shorter east box has three holes where participants can stick their heads in, for a common view of a textured transparent screen while physically isolated. The taller west box textured vertical screen looks inland, with lakeside metal rails despite signs discouraging climbing. (Woodbine Beach, Toronto, Ontario) 20200306Commissioners Street, east of Saulter Street: Looking west into the sunset, the Commissioners Street bridges are in place, but Don Roadway is being rebuilt at a higher elevation to protect this east bank from flooding. The westside route to the new bridge will be wider with bike paths along the north side of River Park. Construction won’t be complete until 2024. (Commissioners Street, east of Saulter Street, Port Lands, Toronto, Ontario) 20220310Cherry Street North Bridge: New bridge for crossing the Keating Channel is in place, awaiting new north-south road and LRT routes, completion not until 2024? This is one of four bridges in the Port Lands districts, viewed from the older Cherry Street Lift Bridge. The bike route north of Lakeshore Boulevard has been closed, and the detour along Villiers Street is muddy. (Cherry Street North Bridge, Keaing Channel, Toronto, Ontario) 20220316Harbourfront Artport Gallery: Esmarkbreen glacier in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard #LauraMillard (2021) Collapse shows clear image in lightbox up top, spilling out below as impermanence into a printed fabric inspired by installations of crumpled paper. Part of the Shared Terrain group exhibition in cultural exchanges between artists and designers from Canada and the Nordics. Apparel change away from winter, as a bright spring day gives optimism for the end of snowbanks. (Artport Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220317Jollibee Heartland: First experience @JollibeeCanada, international cultural tourism to @Seafood_City Missisauga without leaving the country. Battered fried chicken was good, gravy an added feature! Palabok rice noodles with pork and shrimp a larger departure from western norms. Walking supermarket aisles, we recognize a few Filipino brands, but Chinese supermarkets typically don’t have the variety or price points that expats might find familiar. (Jollibee, Heartland Town Centre, Boyer Boulevard, Mississauga, Ontario) 20210318
Devil’s Punchbowl: Exploring the #waterfalls of #Hamilton, wending way across the ridge of the Niagara Escarpment by Stoney Creek to find the south-facing view of a ribbon of melt water as winter turns to spring. Impressed by coloured layers of red shale, grey shale, limestone and shale dolomite from the end of the last ice age. North-facing outlook over Hamilton Harbour, with the Keeper of the Cross installation from 1966 a noticeable landmark. (Devil’s Punchbowl, Ridge Road, Stoney Creek, Ontario) 20220318
111 Elizabeth Street: On request, farewell speech by @Ryan_Ing, upon his coming departure from Toronto to NYC this coming week. Friends invited to parktake in food, a psychic reading, and a pro protographer creating a collage of faces for the evening. Guests asking parents about the move to the Big Apple, it’s not even a change in time zone away from us. (111 Elizabeth Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210319Dim Sum King: Three tables for lunch, more than originally thought would attend at the first gathering of the Lowkong Society after the pandemic halted socializing. The house on Huron Street is now in the past, so we’ll look to a new future. Met a few cousins, an era of English-first speakers now shows much grey hair. (Dim Sum King, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220320Yueh Tung: After years of Wedneday night takeout dinners with three sons during the pandemic, we’ll only have two on most weeks. Taking advantage of Old Chinatown location across the street from the apartment building, before clearing out kitchen appliances and lots of the little conveniences acquired to maintain a real home. Contexts packed into two vehicles for temporary storage in vacated bedroom back at the house, on the expectation of cascading down to the last son to move out. (Yeuh Tung, Elizabeth Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20220323
Riverside neighbourhood: Arborists @TOtrees outside my window this morning, sawing at the linden tree in our front yard. Pruner in the articulated boom lift (cherry picker) with shears above, collector of branches on the ground, below. The sapling was owned by the city when we moved in so many decades ago, and has been professionally maintained mostly without our attention. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20220331
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 […]
