• for: example - systems thinking, quote -: many people are complex systems thinkers

• quote:

  • many people are complex systems thinkers even though they don't know it
• Thomas Homer-Dixon

• date: 2023

• examples: complex systems clichés

  • the whole of greater than the sum of its parts
    • nonlinearities
  • the straw that broke the camels back
    • emergence

• comment

  • the first one could be that systems are not the same as just all the parts
  • the second one could also represent Tipping points and nonlinearities of complex systems

I suspect within the living community in question. The scientific model of being an outside observer falls flat in a complex environment, as any self-styled observer is part of it, and can only succeed by realising that. Brings me to action research too. If they're hard to find from outside such a living community that's probably because they don't partake in the academic status games that run separate from those living communities. How would you recognise one if you aren't at least yourself a boundary spanner to the living community they are part of?

Head resting on hand in deep thought.

Peoplelokbacktotheirtimeasdualisticthinkers,andto theirfaiththatiftheyjustputenoughefortintoproblem solvingsolutionswouldalwaysapear,asagoldeneraof certainty.Anintelectualapreciationoftheimportanceof contextuality and ambiguity comes to exist alongside an emotional craving for revealed truth.