Our Point of View Changes Everything

A point of view is only a view from a point.

Different points of view are abundant in this world. Many of these points of view are shared in order to help us live together in community: they are raw material to what we call culture.

There are also times were a collective point of view ceases to be at service to our society and becomes the opposite, it becomes something that locks us into a narrow view of the world.

Reminds me of a great question that I’ve learned from Sandra Janoff e Marvin Weisbord (originally from Russell Ackoff) that helps me when looking at how we differentiate things:

Which are the differences that make a difference?

Differences that make a difference are the ones rich in diversity, differences that create unity by understanding and acknowledging what is different and allowing separation. Differences that don’t make a difference are only stereotypes. That also implies that when we “make a difference”, we are performing a contextual action.

I have seen that much of the work of a person who invites for learning is to pay attention to the context and ask this question of “which differences…” to himself.

Since my old friend Marge Schiller shared with me the video below, I’ve been using it when talking about conversational leadership and dialogic relations.

As learning hosts we can create and invite spaces where stereotypes, a result from us listening to the same old standard story, can be brought to perspective and new stories can be created. In the end, our collective is all about the stories we tell.

We can only reflect and act on communications that are already part of our system. It’s important to reflect on how dis-empowering that is. There is absolutely nothing I can do to change a system I’m already part of. Period.

As I’ve been exploring what this could mean in terms of creating and hosting spaces of learning and systems design, it might not be clear the possible alternatives into changing systems. So here we go.

There is No Changing Society

According to this view, it is indeed not possible for members of society to change society. Because of us being communicators born and made within society, no one has the privilege to oversee our whole societal system. This can’t be done neither practically nor theoretically, as both are, in this case, communications all the same.

It is the end of saving-the-world type of activism. Society will only change as we adapt to changes from the environment. Environment being everything we don’t talk about and therefore don’t see, don’t acknowledge in our daily conversations.

Contributions for Real Change

On the other hand, there is a lot for us to do in influencing the classical sub-systems of society. Sub-systems are systems within society such as the economy, schooling, healthcare, etc.

Society and Some of Its Subsystems

But what exactly can we do if we are part of the sub-systems of society as well?

Not much from within the system itself: economists won’t do anything but react and refract what happens outside the economic system, translating the environmental change in economic language and adapting accordingly.

The same is true for other sub-systems, frequently represented by institutions like business organizations, hospitals, schools, governments, NGOs, international bodies, etc.

They all speak their own language and re-structure their conversations based on outside perturbations. If the environment does not change — or change is not perceived by the system — nothing happens.

Different Words Create Different Worlds

I believe that possibilities of change come from stepping out of the sub-system you find yourself into. This does not mean creating an alternative sub-system or institution like alternative schooling or alternative healthcare. It means to create a space that is clearly de-institutionalized.

In order to avoid the alternative institution, one hint is to invite conversations where people are not in the same sub-system of society. The remix and re-creation of systems come from a dialogue between different worlds, not necessarily too different, just different enough.

The remix of language that comes from this dialogue is the true spark of creativity that can change things. To see the new language in action we need to host spaces where different worlds can come together to learn/re-create.

In my last article there was an exploration about complexity and the use of language. Patterns, not the number of actual connections between elements, were indicating system complexity.

Patterns are Structures in Systems

Structures in this case does not mean pre-defined forms that “structure” systems but rather the pool of possibilities of action of a system that itself can recognize. A system has (or recognizes) only a limited amount of possibilities in order to reduce complexity in its operation.

In any system the identification of patterns are really useful to describe them objectively and systematically. This act of describing is slightly different in social systems because they are based on meaning. Describing in social systems is an act of giving meaning, an act of re-creation of the system itself.

This recursive description/re-creation shows that identification of patterns or structures in social systems are acts of re-creation of the system and not objective selections. It also shows that although social systems depend on structures to reduce complexity, they can’t be truthfully described in advance by those structures/patterns.

Recursiveness of Meaning Generation

In common with natural systems, social systems would also contain a selection of element relations to reduce complexity. Language, for example, has a structure of meaning making and without it we couldn’t coordinate understandings and actions.

The act of description of a social system is also the act of its re-creation.

It is the recursiveness of meaning generation in social systems that indicates a difference from natural systems. Here the communications that are elements of meaning in social systems are not restricted by patterns identified in advance, but patterns can be re-created as we communicate.

A very simple description of social matters can embed high complexity and still be presenting its full meaning (as opposed to a simplified explanation of a natural phenomena, for example). An easy process of deciding between two places to go on holidays can be easily described, but may not be a simple scientific task.

Social Systems and System Complexity

Social systems hold a paradox — it contains a structure in form of meaning patterns so complexity can be reduced and allow a more reasonable predicability in social interaction. On the other hand, the selection of structures makes the description and re-creation of meaning a more complex task.

The reduction of complexity of the system immediately generates higher system complexity. Communications and meaning, when restricted to identified patterns, allow us to visualize and predict, but it also increases complexity and unpredictability because it represents a chosen fraction of the whole system.

The paradox can be juggled with, of course. As we need both the predicability and the re-creation of meaning, there is space for both structured and poetic communications. It is our job to sense when those conversations are needed and to host spaces for them.

Reading about language, dialogue and complex systems used to be paralell readings with some things in common. Today, language and complexity seem to clearly show their interdependency as we have been exploring social systems as meaning systems based on communications.

System Complexity and Language

This connection reminded me of Murray Gell-Mann’s definition of complexity and it’s connection to language. In his book The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex, Gell-Mann correlates complexity with the extension of our language description of its identity and relations.

Scenarios to explore Complexity

The picture is an example inspired by the book. Uses dots and connections between them to explore the concept of complexity. Scenario A is a simple one to describe compared to Scenario B – let’s say: A shows dots 1 to 5, no connections between them. How would you describe Scenario B? Certainly identifying the connection between dots and describing it.

What is interesting on Gell-Mann’s approach is that Scenario C, which apparently would induce us to think it’s a complex one, actually could be described much like A: C show dots 1 to 5, all connected to all.

Scenario C then shows the same complexity as Scenario A. The first show randomness (all connected), the other absolute control (no connections).

The description of B, on the other hand, requires more words and would be therefore more complex.

This structure of dots and connections representing elements and its relations is a theory of system complexity, a theory that intuitively describes the complexity of the natural world: patterns between elements are responsible for complexity (certain organelles only connect to certain parts of the organism).

Patterns, not the quantity of relations, indicate complexity.

Would that be true for social systems as well?

If we consider humans as the elements constituting society and communications as relations between them, we would get by analogy that a more complex social system is the one that communications are restricted to identified patterns.

In the next article I’ll explore why this system complexity as a theory might not be suitable to represent social systems.

Read More

• The Simple and the Complex: The Science of Complexity – Transcription of interview with Murray Gell-Mann