Mild January weather during pandemic constraints, month ending with snowfalls and cold weather alerts.
Toronto, Ontario
Duncan Street: From Queen Street West, looking due south, the CN Tower is illuminated, but not with the light show of the previous evening New Year’s Eve. Big flakes of snow starting falling, minutes after taking this shot. Return journey on bicycle covered by glove and coats in white. (Duncan Street south of Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20210101Massey Harris Park: Pushing silver button on blue stanchion under #JamesMcLeod (2006) “Evolution Unrolling” art canopy doesn’t start water feature, both due to winter season and pandemic restrictions. Overhead pattern evokes rope, chain and DNA, reflecting the times and cultures of the neighbourhood history with headquarters for farm equipment manufacturing. Park replaced one block of Crawford Street thoroughfare, as an affordance for residents of nearby apartments to meet and/or walk their dogs. (Massey Harris Park, King Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20210109Eastern Avenue at Leslie Street: Just before lunch, electrical power went out at the house. Reports of a two truck hitting an pole led to @TorontoHydro forecast of service restoration within 4 hours. Biked over to find lineman finishing off rewiring. Lights came back on 30 minutes before sunset. (Eastern Avenue at Leslie Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210115Riverdale Park West: Tree carved with owls on top, and raccoon inside, located just south of Riverdale Farm. In the open air, families together and friends socially distanced in clusters, despite the local attractions closed for pandemic lockdown mandated by the province. Horses visible in the pens at the periphery behind closed gates. (Riverdale Park West, Riverdale Park Road at Carlton Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210116Louis Kesten Lane: Extreme cold alert in the laneway behind our house, with snow lingering on the ground from 3 days ago. Bundled up for a walk in the fresh air, but not for very long. Optimistically, the forecast for a week from now could be for rain. (Louis Kesten Lane, Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20210129
Humber Bay Arch Bridge: Skim ice at the mouth of the Humber River gives way to open water flowing south into the bay by Sunnyside. The CN Tower in downtown Toronto is visible to the east. Clear weather saw many pedestrians enjoying fresh air, bundled up for below-freezing temperature. (Humber Bay Arch Bridge, Toronto, Ontario) 20210130
Diana thought that we should have a family portrait, because our family travel rarely finds six of us at home at the same time. We asked Mary to snap the photos, because she’s a professional who is always checking the hair of interviewees on television. She told us to meet at Riverdale Park during “golden hour” — just before sunset.
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 […]
