Enterprise AI is transitioning from simple single-LLM flows to complex agentic ecosystems—adaptive systems composed of multiple agents, tools, governed data, human workflows, and organizational policies. This keynote introduces a systems-science framework for designing and managing such ecosystems using principles of modularity, control, feedback, robustness, and socio-technical alignment.

We illustrate these concepts through practical examples drawn from real-world deployments of agentic AI systems within our enterprise—covering problem framing and task decomposition, model and tool selection, governed data access with role-based guardrails, deterministic scaffolding and orchestration, and SLO-driven optimization for quality, latency, and cost.

The framework emphasizes end-to-end observability through logging and tracing, alongside engineered feedback loops—data flywheels—that sustain performance and prevent regression. It also addresses critical failure modes such as brittle retrieval pipelines, unbounded tool execution, model drift, and hidden coupling. We conclude with proven mitigation strategies to help organizations evolve agentic AI from prototype experimentation into dependable, scalable enterprise infrastructure.

Bio

Rama Akkiraju is the Vice President of Enterprise AI at NVIDIA, where she leads the AI-at-NVIDIA mission to build Agentic AI platforms and AI agents that enhance employee productivity and drive business and operational effectiveness.

Previously, Rama was an IBM Fellow, Master Inventor, and CTO of IBM Watson AIOps. Over her career, she has led the design and development of enterprise AI products spanning generative and agentic AI, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition, human-computer interaction (HCI), decision support systems, business process management, and semantic web services.

A TED AI speaker and W3C standards contributor, Rama has co-authored more than 100 technical papers, holds over 50 patents, and has received multiple academic and industry honors. Her recognitions include four best paper awards (INFORMS, AAAI), Forbes’ Top 20 Women in AI Research (2017), Fortune Magazine ‘A-Team in AI’ in 2018, UC Berkeley’s Athena Award (2020), and AI Industry Leader of the Year (2022) by Women Leaders in Data & AI. She holds a master’s degree in computer science and graduated as valedictorian of her MBA program at New York University.

This digest was created in real-time during the meeting,based on the speaker’s presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. The digest has been made available for purposes of scholarship, posted by David Ing.

From model-centric to systems-centric

AI adoption is up, but scaling is hard.

• Sample Enterprise AI use cases: engineering, supply chain, security, employee productivity …
• At Nvidia, engineering are using AI in software development
• IT help desk have AI features

Simple LLM Workflow (Chat)

• User –> Prompt –> LLM (to public domain knowledge) –> Response

Enterprise (Chat + RAG, Retrieval Augmented Generation)

• User –> Prompt –> AI agent (to company vector database, RAG returns relevant passages/documents) –> LLM –> Response

e.g. HR Benefits QA: How much does Nvidia contribution to HSA?

A RAG Pipeline (Chat + RAG + Agent)

• User –> Prompt –> Router or Orchestor –> Agent –> Rephrased Question –> Retriever –> Retriever Reranger –> Answer Generation — Answer Generation with Citations

e.g. My laptop is stolen. What should I do?

Routing, as different AIs are better in different domains,

e.g. Rephrasing, because question asking about past 3 quarters , then analytics from quarterly results

New frontier: AI Agent with Task Automation (Chat + RAG + Agent + Tool that solves a problem)

• e.g. every day, show me my to-do list: email, Slack, action items in meetings, people are tagging in Google Docs or Sharepoint — means to-dos are spread across multiple data sources
• Can prioritize, and then kick off an Outlook agent to schedule a meeting

Advanced Multi-Agent Architecture: (Chat + RAG + Multiple Agents + Tools)

• Agent has access to memory (what was done previously), maybe a sandbox (to try out code)

e.g. Bug Management AI Copilot

• Both hardware and software
• Use to be keyword search
• Agentic AI can summarize, find similar bugs, deduplicate, or figure out larger quality questions in the software
• Complexity with data is SQL, vector database, semantic search, hybrid search

e.g. What are the main bugs associated with Deepseek reasoning models?

Demo: BugNeMo

• Summarize the bug
• Find me similar bugs
• Show my bugs (and it knows who the engineer is)
• What are the key insights into fixing this big, and who were the bigger contributors?

But scaling is hard –> systems science

• Gartner says > 40% of agentic projects will be cancelled by end of 2027
• Fortune says pilots doin’t show ROI

Agentic AI as a System

• Came after many years
• Build, Deploy, Run, Monitor, Govern, Connect (to Data), Inference engines (e.g. Claude, OpenAI)
• Need registry so that people can find already constructed
• Improve, with agent evaluation and data flywheel
• On top of this is agents

Agentic AI is a systems engineering problem

Vector databases need role access control (e.g. salary information)

• Easy to build pilot, but roles, security, sensitivity makes it hard

Employees sometimes shared sensitive information with outsiders, risk exposure

Agentic access is a living system

Systems problem, not a model problem

When you put into production, 90% accuracy isn’t good enough, need 99% and it’s not deterministic

• Need a control loop built in

Failure point in an Agentic Pipeline

• Router error, send to wrong place
• Query rephrasing error, e.g. mix up data
• Retrieval error, may not get write chunks
• Reranking could be off
• LLM hallucination
• Citation generation error

Things could break, doing into scale

• Runaway execution, e.g. scheduling an event, calendar not properly guarded
• Poor data management
• Poor attribution, don’t know where root cause is
• Security and compliance: not enough data, could get injection
• Test Driven Development not representative
• Need continuous learning loops

So many things can fail, how to deal

Framework (from control engineering) for Building Effective Data Flywheels ==> MAPE

• Monitor User Feedback
• Analyze and Attribute
• Plan Improvement
• Execute Improvements

Nvidia implemented this, improved accuracy, and removed latency with smaller models

Bounded autonomy levels for enterprise agents

• L0 Read only, risk of hallucination
• L1 Suggest, risk of bad recommendations
• L2 Execute with approval, risk of approval fatigue
• L3 Execute within policy/budget
• L4 Autonomous

Use MAPE as control loop, make A real

Next frontier: Multi-agent System Behaviour Optimization Under Real-world Complexity

• Not about the next smart foundational model
• Ensure robustness, by benchmarking, input prompt –> output

Can measure in benchmarking

With his work on ecosystem ecology, I learned more about living systems than anyone else in the systems community. After his retirement, he was proud of putting together a reader, so that other could continue to learn.

• Curtin, Charles G., and Timothy F. H. Allen, eds. 2018. Complex Ecology: Foundational Perspectives on Dynamic Approaches to Ecology and Conservation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235754 .

Here’s the news forwarded by Tom Brandner

I am sorry to be the one to have to let you all know that Tim Allen passed away at his home at about 2:20AM in the early morning of May 1. He would have been 83 on July 6. For those who don’t know me, I did my doctorate with Tim from 1995 to 2001. I am in Madison and saw Tim often.

Here is what I know. Tim has been slowly fading over these last few years. He was finding it increasingly difficult to get around and most recently was using a wheelchair. Tim’s mobility was reduced after he recovered from a fall and broken hip a few years ago. Last year, in December, he fell again and broke a femur. He had surgery to pin the bone and was home from the hospital and rehab by the end of December. In the last few months Tim had been doing well, making good progress in his recovery. He was diligent with his physical therapy and improving his mobility. At his last doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, April 29, he was told to carry on and drink more fluids.

Tim’s wife Val and his twins Gwen and Harry were home with him. They tell me his last day, Wednesday, was a normal day at home. He was in bed around 8:30, his usual time. He woke up around 1:00AM to use the toilet, also normal. Gwen was still up and Val and her helped Tim. Afterward Tim was unusually wide awake for the hour, so Gwen asked him if maybe he’d like a snack. She took him to the kitchen and made him hot cocoa. They enjoyed cocoa, cookies and conversation until nearly 2:00. When she took Tim back to his bedroom, he was able to get into bed without trouble. Tim told them he thought he would sleep well for the rest of the night, he thanked Gwen for the snack, and told her and Val that he loved them.

Shortly after getting tucked in Tim asked Val to help him get in a better position in the bed to breathe easier. A few minutes later Val noticed Tim was not breathing and was unresponsive. That was about 2:20. She called for Gwen and Harry. They called 911. Harry did CPR until the paramedics arrived with the ambulance a few minutes later, but Tim had already passed on. Visits by the local sheriff, the medical examiner and the county coroner followed. They tell me the house was full of people until the funeral home folks took Tim’s body for cremation around dawn. 

Tim did not suffer. He had a wonderful night with his family and was simply gone. The suddenness of Tim’s passing is a shock for everyone in his family, but that shock is tempered by knowing that he died like he wanted, at home, in his bed, with the people he loved most at his side. 

Tim made his end of life wishes known to his family. He wanted to be cremated, no viewing, no ceremony or funeral. He thought his family should have a get-together to celebrate his life sometime later and that will likely happen this summer around his birthday. In typical Tim fashion, he said there must be champagne “chosen by someone competent.” These things will all be sorted out in time as everyone adjusts to Tim’s absence. 

You all knew Tim. He was larger than life in many ways. He didn’t do anything by half measures. He left his mark on all of us, one way or another. We will all miss him. I know I do.

Take care,

Tom Brandner

The instructions were modified from MacOS to Ubuntu Linux, by Daniel Kossmann, “How to install WordPress Studio in Ubuntu Linux” | Jun 15, 2024 at https://www.danielkossmann.com/how-to-install-wordpress-studio-ubuntu-linux/

I already had NVM installed, but in Terminal, with the result “command not found”.

In the Manjaro forum, I found a question on “Can’t run node apps from desktop when using nvm“.

You need to source nvm before you can use it. Do one of the following
or similar depending on your shell (and then restart your shell):

  echo 'source /usr/share/nvm/init-nvm.sh' >> ~/.bashrc
  echo 'source /usr/share/nvm/init-nvm.sh' >> ~/.zshrc

The installation of WordPress Studio worked fine after that.

Just to be complete, since I prefer KDE over Gnome, I invoked KMenuEdit to add the entry to my menu.

Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written.

• Starting with J.M.E. McTaggart’s (1908) seminal work against the reality of time, contemporary analytic philosophy of time has fallen into two camps: the A-theory and the B-theory (their names deriving from McTaggart’s terminology of “the A-series” and “the B-series” of temporal properties).
  • A-theories divide time into past, present and future, and the point of reference is set at “the present.”
  • B-theories, on the other hand, characterize temporal properties as earlier than, later than, and simultaneous with, and the point of reference is relative to each discourse.
• The debate over A-theories and B-theories of time focuses on the question of whether the present is “ontologically privileged” in the sense that present events and things are somehow more real than those wholly in the past or future.
  • For the A-theorists, the passage of time is akin to a one-directional arrow, progressing into a future that has not yet come into existence. Existence is defined in the alleged passage of time and is relative to “the present.”
  • For the B-theorists, on the other hand, time is eternal and events are identified as the contents of any position in time. The relationships among events are permanent in that what is earlier or later than a particular event, E, will always be earlier or later than E no matter how time progresses. Under this view, there is no “flow” of events and each event is forever locked into its position in time.
• The standard analysis of the Chinese conception of time is that time is non-linear and non-progressive,_¹ though some specify it as “cyclical” (Liu 1974; Loewe 1995), some as “hierarchical” (Cheng 1983) and some as “spiral” (Tang 1988; Chang 2009).
  • In this paper, I shall argue that the B-theory of time is a better analytical framework for the notion of time in the classic Yijing because,
    • first, it allows for the possibility of “temporal neutrality” from a holistic perspective, and
    • second, it is a “tenseless” theory of time, which is the paradigmatic model of time in the Yijing.
• According to McTaggart, the B-series of time cannot accommodate change; in this paper I shall therefore also examine how the notion of change is in fact compatible with the Yijing’s B-theory of time. [pp. 72-73, editorial paragraphing added]

The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless.

• In many respects, the standard Chinese conception of time is closer to the B-theory, and the best illustration of this conception of time is in the Yijing.
• To begin with, Chinese is typically a tenseless language.
  • There are no temporal inflections of verbs, or the corresponding separation of “was,” “is,” and “will be.”
  • There are of course adverbial modifiers, such as “le 了 (signifying completion),” “hai meiyou 還沒有 (not yet),” “jiuyao 就要 (about to)” or “zhengzai 正在 (in the middle of),” which one can use in Chinese to present the fact that one has done something, is doing something, or is about to do something.
• However, these modifiers are used to indicate the speaker’s subjective frame of reference. Verbs themselves are tenseless, and they signify eternalism about the truth condition of the propositions in which they appear [p. 76]

The Yijing (Book of Changes) there are 64 hexagrams. A Yijing reading at any time could be static (i.e. unchanging with a hexagram at the moment depicted as the same for the next moment) or dynamic (i.e. change from one hexagram to a different hexagram). A reading could then draw one of 64 static hexagrams, or 4096 dynamic hexagrams. Readings of the Yijing are contextual, so the hexagrams are related to a larger texture of which it is a part.

• In the Yijing, each hexagram symbolizes a local environment in which a particular state of affairs progresses according to situational variables as well as the human action taken in the previous state of affairs.
• The Yijing’s notion of time is characterized in terms of moments of events, and has a pragmatic dimension: “time” also signifies “the right moment” for thought or action.
• In other words, the Yijing’s time is not just a marker in a historical timeline, separable by the indexicality to the moment of recording (such as present or past); rather, it is a dynamic flow of multiple timelines, with events related to one another in their particular timeline.
• The significance of an action is relative to its particular timeline, outside of which the action means nothing [p. 78, editorial paragraphing added]

In Chinese philosophy, time does not have the sense of chronos (i.e. clock time), and more of the sense of kairos (i.e. felt time).

• In the Yijing, the word “time” (shi 時) has three major connotations:
  • the first refers to the calendrical division of the seasons,
  • the second to the temporal moment or situation in which one finds oneself, and
  • the third to an evaluative sense of proper timing.⁶
• The first sense of “time” is descriptive of natural phenomena, which exemplify both change (seasonal rotation) and non-change (the pattern of the four seasons). However, even though this sense of “time” merely concerns seasonal changes, it implicitly signifies the importance of observing subtle seasonal change so that one can best foster natural growth.
• It is from this sense that the second sense of “time” in the Yijing is derived: “time” is imbued with a humanistic significance attached to each temporal moment in time. Since time is divided into temporal contexts and in each context there are certain appropriate deeds befitting the time, a prescriptive sense of what ought to be done is also closely related to the word “shi” in the Yijing.
• The notion of “shi” in the Yijing is not an abstract notion depicting temporal flow, nor is it merely a pragmatic notion signifying an appropriate response to a temporal context. It is also embedded in deontological situational ethics: each moment in time calls for what ought to be done in that situation.
• Considering specific passages from the Yijing that reference “shi” helps illustrate these three senses:
  • [A] “shi” means “season,” as in “sishi 四 時 ” (four seasons) or “seasonal changes” …
  • [B] “shi” means “the occasion,” which represents an opportunity, or simply “the situation one is in” …
  • [C] “shi” means “timely” or “befitting the time,” which has an evaluative dimension …. [pp. 78-80, editorial paragraphing added]

The result is a shift from synchronic thinking (i.e. coming together at a point in time) towards diachronic thinking (i.e. coming together through time). This influences the interpretation of a reading of the YiJing at any moment in time.

• In the Yijing’s conception, the development of the universe is a continual flow of dynamic changes, and no frame of reference can be considered static or determined.
  • If we consider the universe as the perpetual flow of temporal becomings, then any given state of affairs can only be depicted symbolically and attributively (versus “referentially”),⁸ since as soon as we attempt to refer to that state of affairs, it is already long past.
• Borrowing from McCall’s terminology, we can call the complete state-description of the world a “universe-picture” (McCall 1976, 340), signifying the “snapshot” feature of our state-description.
  • Each hexagram in the Yijing represents exactly such a snapshot of the world, since each hexagram can be seen as representing a diachronic state of affairs, progressing in time while being temporally captured by the hexagram’s symbolic depiction of this state of affairs.
  • Although these snapshots are of the complete world-state, they have their focal points, which can be seen as depicting local states of affairs.
• However, when we zoom in on any particular focal point, we must also remember that it is a snapshot of the whole world, and thus what happens in the periphery could very well have an impact on the focal area in the next temporal slice.
  • No local state of affairs can be completely isolated from the rest of the world-state, and each local state of affairs represents a field of action that is partly indeterministic due to possible influences from other developments outside of this focal zone.
• In the Yijing’s sixty-four hexagrams, some correspond to others by reversing the order of their constituent lines; some are derived from others through the change of single lines from yin to yang or vice versa. These formalistic interrelations are undertaken by the authors of the Yijing to represent the interconnections of states of affairs [pp. 81-82, editorial paragraphing added].

The Yijing could be described as following path dependence.

• In the Yijing’s delineation of the sixty-four hexagrams, the hexagrams do not represent unique time-slices of a time flow marked by changes of natural phenomena, but rather types of relational states in the context of other events, which jointly symbolize states of affairs in the human world. [….]
• The Yijing does not depict an independent passage of time in which events are permanently characterized as
  • “what has happened,” “what is happening,” or “what will happen.”
• Rather, each happening is defined in relation to other happenings in the spatiotemporal region as
  • “what precedes it,” “what comes afterwards,” and sometimes as “what co-occurs.” [p. 82, editorial paragraphing added]

In applying this way of thinking, there may be a possibility for actors to accelerate or delay actions. This could relate to the idea of propensity, and the strategies of Sun Tzu.

• The diachronic state of affairs represented by each hexagram is a temporal sequence, which Li-chen Lin calls a “hexagram time” (Lin 1995, 104), and can be seen as a B-series of states of affairs.
  • Within each relational state of affairs represented by a hexagram, states of affairs are best analyzed as standing within the B-framework of time:
    • earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than.
• In other words, each line of a hexagram signifies the transition from what came earlier to what will happen next. […..]
• What constitutes the temporal significance (i.e., the timing) of an event or action is its occurrence in a particular temporal sequence.
  • This is why time is signified as an occasion—if the event follows from an earlier state of affairs in this sequence, its occurrence is in accordance with the time; if it will bring about a later state of affairs in the sequence and the later state of affairs is desirable or felicitous, then it is a timely event.[p. 82-82, editorial paragraphing added]

In tying together yinyang, qi (as dissipating and concentrating), and the Yijing, the hexagrams simplify movements in the 6 yao (lines) that make each up.

• In the Yijing’s worldview, the perpetual change of the world’s states of affairs is due to the fact that the basic elements of all things are the fluid compositions of qi in its two modes: yin and yang.
  • As Wonsuk Chang points out, “Time in the Yijing is a fundamental aspect of perpetual change, expressed in terms of yin and yang, without any final destination” (Chang 2009, 225).
• Qi is a fluid substance, which continually expands and condenses, moving up or down and in all directions.
  • Since individuals are constituted by qi, their properties and interrelationships are inevitably in constant flux.
  • Hence, a state of affairs with individuals, their properties, and their interrelationships cannot possibly stay immutable.
  • It would be impossible (physically and metaphysically, and perhaps even logically) to confine any state of affairs to a single point of time, as McTaggart does with single events.
• As soon as we pick out a simple state of affairs, it has already advanced to the next state of affairs. A complex state of affairs, on the other hand, contains multiple changing states of affairs, which may each have its own sequence of B-properties of time [pp. 86-87, editorial paragraphing added.

From completeness, there’s a section on “McTaggart’s A-Theory and B-Theory” at https://iep.utm.edu/time/#H12

McTaggart is making several assumptions here. First, he does not believe time is real, so his remark that the A-series and B-series mark out positions in time is only on the assumption that time is real, despite what he, himself, believes. Another assumption is that longer-lasting events are composed of their point events. Also, there are a great many other events that are located within the series at event a‘s location, namely all the other events that are simultaneous with event a.

Using the standard time diagram with time increasing to the right along a horizontal line, event a in McTaggart’s B-series (see picture above) is ordered to the left of event b because a happens before b. But when ordering the same two events into McTaggart’s A-series, event a is ordered to the left of b for a different reason—because event a is more in the past than event b, or, equivalently, has more pastness than b. The A-series locates each event relative to the present; the B-series is created with no attention paid to the present, but only to what occurs before what.

McTaggart is making several assumptions here. First, he does not believe time is real, so his remark that the A-series and B-series mark out positions in time is only on the assumption that time is real, despite what he, himself, believes. Another assumption is that longer-lasting events are composed of their point events. Also, there are a great many other events that are located within the series at event a‘s location, namely all the other events that are simultaneous with event a.

Using the standard time diagram with time increasing to the right along a horizontal line, event a in McTaggart’s B-series (see picture above) is ordered to the left of event b because a happens before b. But when ordering the same two events into McTaggart’s A-series, event a is ordered to the left of b for a different reason—because event a is more in the past than event b, or, equivalently, has more pastness than b. The A-series locates each event relative to the present; the B-series is created with no attention paid to the present, but only to what occurs before what.

Suppose that event c occurs in our present and after events a and b. Although the philosophical literature is not in agreement, it is usually said that the information that c occurs in the present is not contained within either the A-series or the B-series itself, but is used to create the A-series. That information of c‘s being in the present tells us to place c to the right of b because all present events are without pastness; they are not in the past. Someone constructing the B-series places event c to the right of b for a different reason, just that c happens after b.

One influential treatment of McTaggart’s idea is to say a future event will shed its intrinsic, non-relational A-property of futureness to eventually acquire presentness, then shed that property in favor of some pastness, then shed that, too, in favor of even greater pastness, and so forth. McTaggart himself did not accept this notion of shedding properties. McTaggart himself believed the A-series is paradoxical, but he also believed the A-properties (such as being past or being two weeks past) are essential to our concept of time. So, for this reason, he believed our current concept of time is paradoxical and incoherent. This reasoning is called McTaggart’s Paradox.

Suppose that event c occurs in our present and after events a and b. Although the philosophical literature is not in agreement, it is usually said that the information that c occurs in the present is not contained within either the A-series or the B-series itself, but is used to create the A-series. That information of c‘s being in the present tells us to place c to the right of b because all present events are without pastness; they are not in the past. Someone constructing the B-series places event c to the right of b for a different reason, just that c happens after b.

One influential treatment of McTaggart’s idea is to say a future event will shed its intrinsic, non-relational A-property of futureness to eventually acquire presentness, then shed that property in favor of some pastness, then shed that, too, in favor of even greater pastness, and so forth. McTaggart himself did not accept this notion of shedding properties. McTaggart himself believed the A-series is paradoxical, but he also believed the A-properties (such as being past or being two weeks past) are essential to our concept of time. So, for this reason, he believed our current concept of time is paradoxical and incoherent. This reasoning is called McTaggart’s Paradox.

Reference

Liu, JeeLoo. 2017. “The B-Theory of Time and the Notion of Change in the Yijing.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China 12 (1): 72–89. https://doi.org/10.3868/s030-006-017-0006-3. Cached at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317011557_The_B-Theory_of_Time_and_the_Notion_of_Change_in_the_Yijing

#i-ching, #philosophy, #yijing

— 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, there are very different approaches to what constitutes a cognitive perspective in matters of philosophy.

The prime possibilities along these lines are three:

• substantive commitments — different basic premises for philosophical reasoning,
• methodological commitments — different modes of argumentation or substantiation different styles or paradigms’ of reasoning,
• axiological commitments — different standards of epistemological value as to what
  constitutes an important issue or a good argument.

Substantive perspectivism is perhaps the most familiar and orthodox approach. It takes the line that different philosophical positions emerge from different axioms, different fundamental assumptions about the nature of things. Philosophers develop their doctrines differently through proceeding from different fundamental commitments. Stephen C Pepper’s pluralistic philosophy of distinctive “world hypotheses” and R G Colhngwood’s endorsement of diversity based on “ultimate presuppositions” were developed as theories along essentially these lines.

By contrast, methodological perspectivism regards the variation of methods and procedures of inquiry as the basis of philosophical diversity. Different societies, traditions, and eras each have their own characteristic ways and means for addressing philosophical issues — different intellectual procedures for addressing and resolving intellectual problems. And since the way in which they handle their questions is different, so, correspondingly, will be the sorts of answers they obtain. [p. 121, editorial paragaphing added]

However, axiological perspectivism is something else again It sees the crux of perspectival differences as lying in the sphere of values — in the domain of norms and standards of assessment—holding that the difference among these evaluative mechanisms is the root source of all those other sorts of differences. Accordingly, the pluralism engendered by axiological perspectivism is the most radical and far-reaching of these positions. For it produces a domino effect that moves down the entire line. The interdependency of substance and method means that different methodologies will carry different substantive commitments in their wake. And the role of cognitive values in the substantiation of rational beliefs means that different axiological orientations will underwrite different methodologies [pp. 121-122, editorial paragaphing added]

— end paste —

Rescher argues for axiological perspectivism, “For both thesesand methods need rational validation in terms of something more fundamental. [p. 122] Others might disagree.

Reference

Rescher, Nicholas. 1994. A System of Pragmatic Idealism,. Vol. 3. Metaphilosophical Inquiries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400863839/a-system-of-pragmatic-idealism-volume-iii-pdf .

… there is a greater degree of coherence to the Daodejing than a first reading might suggest. Chapters are sometimes grouped around specific themes and subjects. For example,

* chapters 1 and 2 are centered on the theme of correlativity,
* chapters 18 and 19 contrast natural and conventional morality,
* 57 through 61 all begin with recommendations on proper governing of the state,
* 67 through 69 are about prosecuting war,
* chapters 74 and 75 deal with political oppression and the common people,

and so on. We have appended a thematic index that reveals at least some of such editorial organization.

Ames and Hall (2003), p. 8, editorial paragraphin added

Those looking to the Daodejing for answers may be disappointed, because it only presents more questions to be considered, perhaps like listening to a song.

… when we turn to reflect on how the selected wisdom sayings of the Daodejing function, we can assume that they, like the repertoire of songs, have a kind of unquestioned veracity that comes from belonging to the people and their tradition. We can further observe that this veracity is made corporate by a reading strategy that co-opts the reader.

Two often remarked characteristics of the Daodejing are palpable absences:
* it contains no historical detail of any kind, and
* it offers its readers no doctrines in the sense of general precepts or universalistic laws.

The required “framing” of the aphorism by the reader is itself an exercise in nondogmatic philosophizing where the relationship between the text and its student is one of noncoercive collaboration. That is, instead of “the text” providing the reader with a specific historical context or philosophical system, its listeners are required to supply always unique, concrete, and often dramatic scenarios drawn from their own experience to generate the meaning for themselves.

This inescapable process in which students through many readings of the text acquire their own unique understanding of its insights informed by their own life experiences is one important element in a kind of constantly evolving coherence. The changing coherence of the text is brought into a sharpening focus as its readers in different times and places continue to make it their own.

Ames and Hall (2003), p. 8, editorial paragraphin added

There are a variety of translations and commentaries on the Daodejing. Ames and Hall rely on the 1982 version by D.C. Lau, that is based on the Wang Bi text.

The Daodejing comes down to us today in several different versions. How do we decide which text to take as a master for our translation? [1]

[1] In this discussion of the text, we have relied heavily upon the research and sometimes speculative insights and conclusions of D. C. Lau (1982) and Robert Henricks (1989, 2000), and would refer the reader to their fuller accounts.

• Lau, D. C. (1982). Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
• Henricks, Robert (2000). Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Henricks, Robert (1989)). Lao-tzu Te-Tao Ching. New York: Ballantine.

Ames and Hall (2003), p. 73

In the Glossary of Key Terms, there is a major insight that the Daodejing should be read a processual, i.e. think verbs, not nouns!

There is one general point that we would make in our interpretation of this classical Chinese language. Above we have argued for a processual understanding of classical Daoist cosmology. If this account is persuasive, it means that the vocabulary that expresses the worldview and the common sense in which the Daodejing is to be located is first and foremost gerundive. Because “things” in the Daodejing are in fact active “processes” and ongoing “events,” nouns that would “objectify” this world are derived from and revert to a verbal sensibility. The ontological language of substance and essence that is sedimented into the English language tends to defy this linguistic priority, insisting upon the primacy of “the world” rather than the process of the world “worlding” and the myriad things “happening.” It is a fair observation that a careful reading of the introduction and this glossary are made necessary by the fact that our European languages can only most imperfectly “speak” the world being referenced in the Daodejing.

Ames and Hall (2003), p. 57

Reference

Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. 2003. Dao de Jing: A Philosophical Translation. Ballantine Books. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/3170/dao-de-jing-by-roger-t-ames-and-david-l-hall/.

#change, #chinese-philoosphy, #dao, #daodejing, #laozi, #nature

diachronic ADJECTIVE

1. Lasting through time, or during the existing period. 1857–

• 1857 The two creations—the extinct and the extant—or rather the prochronic and the diachronic—here unite.
• P. H. Gosse, Creation 87

Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233.

A borrowing from Greek, combined with an English element.

• Etymons: Greek διά, χρόνος, ‑ic suffix.
• < Greek διά throughout, during + χρόνος time + ‑ic suffix

For completeness, prochronic relates “to a period before time began:”

If we prefer an American definition over the British, Merriam-Webster emphases “change”, citing French rather than Greek origins.

diachronic adjective

: of, relating to, or dealing with phenomena (as of language or culture) as they occur or change over a period of time

Etymology
borrowed from French diachronique, from diachronie DIACHRONY + –ique

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic,” accessed April 10, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diachronic.

From research into situated learning, a figure illustates the distinction between synchronic and diachonic .

A 1998 manuscript would seem to be related to a 1996 dissertation by Lynda D. Stone, that would be published as a book chapter in 2000 book Vygotskian Perspectives on Literacy Research: Constructing Meaning Through Collaborative Inquiry.

… methodologically we attempt to look at both the social practice of literacy learning and the moment-to-moment construction of that practice. As a consequence, we also use theoretical perspectives of such scholars as Bakhtin (1981), Bourdieu (1977; 1991), Foucault (1977), and Goffman (1959; 1961; 1974; 1981) to more richly understand social phenomena such as social identities, hybridity, and hierachies and power relations. in learning contexts. Thus, by integrating micro and macro analyses of learning environments, we are able to investigate the social, spatial, and temporal organizational dimensions of literacy learning practices, that is, diachronic and synchronic dimensions of activity (Gutierrez, 1993,1995; Stone,1996b). [p. 4, emphasis added]

[….]

… to understand better the relationship between literacy learning and its contexts, we examine the gestalt, or the whole practice and the history of those practices in situ. Practices are socially and culturally organized and, thus, encode a social and cultural history. Practice becomes a rich unit of analysis because practices are constituted over time by multiple activities that stretch and change. Accordingly, a focus on practice makes visible the social and cultural history of the practice, an understanding of what is being accomplished in the moment, as well as an understanding of the future goal or object of activity. In Figure 1 below, we illustrate the relationship between the history of actions and the face-to-face interactional sequences that constitute the historical nature of those actions:

Figure 1 portrays the interrelationship between the “regularized acts” of situated practices occurring in the moment and the history of actions that constitutes background meaning or source of mutual knowledge used for the social production of knowledge (Giddens, 1979).

Reference

Gutiérrez, Kris D., and Lynda D. Stone. 1998. “An Emerging Methodology for Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Literacy Learning: Synchronic and Diachronic Dimensions of Social Practice.” UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Synchronic-and-Diachronic-Dimensions-of-Social-Guti%C3%A9rrez-Stone/e43897e97ac7e064a9d92d0103bf8dec84301c86.

#change, #philosophy, #time

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Introduction

Apart from the first two introductory readings this volume tries to track some of the major fields of application of systems thinking.

They are instances, the editor believes, where old problems have been fruitfully cast in a new light by a new approach. In each instance insight has been achieved by connecting together what the disciplinary approach had rendered asunder, and by repositioning data within a newly identified superordinate system. These efforts meet Angyal’s distinction between systems thinking and causal analysis (see, in Volume 1, the Introduction to Volumes 1 and 2).

What is noticeably absent is any apparent urge towards a general systems theory. The question these studies raise appears to be ‘How many substantive systems (assembly lines, forms of subsistence agriculture, living languages) share the characteristics identified in a particular instance?’ and not, ‘How many characteristics can we find that are common to all living systems?’ (e.g. Miller, 1965). The latter pursuit seems inevitably to lead us into abstractions and back to the library. The former, as in this volume, do not bypass the libraries but must lead us to closer contact with the practical involvements of people.

What does this portend for the future of systems thinking? [p. 9]

Each of the lines of thought expounded in the first seven parts seems very likely to be a stepping-stone to further development. The problems they tackle may not be traditional problems but they are certainly ones that we now find pressing. They arise from broad changes in our world that are not likely to go away. The most general explanation for the extent and nature of this change is that western societies, at least, are shifting remorselessly from what Feibleman and Friend (Reading 2, Vol. 1) described as ‘participative, subjective’ systems where ‘the governing relation is asymmetrical dependence’ towards ‘participative, complemental’ systems where the governing relation is symmetrical dependence’. Angyal (Reading 8 herein) gives some useful criteria for following such a system change. His key point is that the conflict between system principles does not stabilize at some point of compromise. If we take a broad view of our societies it certainly seems that the new problem areas are commonly concerned with how we live, learn and communicate outside the traditional framework of dominant hierarchies. [pp. 9-10]

Why this question should now be so prominent on the human agenda is another matter (Emery, 1977). Given that it is we must expect a temporary disarray in systems thinking as each turns his mind to the task nearest to hand in his traditional part of the vineyard.

Perhaps this volume will make some contribution to a greater awareness and appreciation of the theoretical innovations of those others in diverse fields who are essentially co-workers.

Reading 26 (in Part Eight) requires some comment.

As Ackoff and I pointed out in 1972, at the end of our first attempt to define ideal-seeking systems, ‘Understanding of this aspect of system behaviour, however, seems to be essential if we are to solve the problems of adapting to the increasingly turbulent environments we are producing for ourselves’ (p. 247). We were well aware that we were doing no more than push the door ajar. The ideals themselves that we identified, as distinct from the theoretical characterization of ideal-seeking systems, seemed to have a peculiar musty flavour in a world listening to the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the like. We had, I think, been too influenced by the centuries of philosophical and theological discourse that served the myth that people’s institutions can be ideal-seeking. [p. 10]

The second reading in Part Eight could as easily have gone in with the planning papers in Part One or the governance papers in Part Seven. I chose to put it in Part Eight because the need to operationalize the pursuit of ideals is the most pressing of all of these problems and existing methodologies for this are extremely inadequate. [pp. 10-11]

References

Ackoff, R. L., and Emery, F. E. (1972), On Purposeful Systems, London, Tavistock.

Emery, F. E. (1977), Youth Victims, Vanguard or Vandals, Melbourne, National Youth Council.

Miller, J. G. (1965), ‘Living systems: cross level hypotheses’, Behavioral Science, vol. 10, pp. 380-411.

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Source

Emery, Fred E., ed. 1981. “Introduction.” In Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, 2:9–11. Penguin Modern Management Texts. Harmondsworth: Penguin Education.

The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings.

#fred-e-emery, #penguin, #systems-thinking

The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings.

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Introduction

In the selection of papers for this volume, two problems have arisen, namely what constitutes ‘systems thinking’, and what systems thinking is relevant to the thinking required for organizational management? The first problem is obviously critical. Unless there were a meaningful answer, there would be no sense in producing a volume of readings in systems thinking in any subject. A great many writers have manifestly believed that there is a way of considering phenomena which is sufficiently different from the well-established modes of scientific analysis to deserve the particular title of systems thinking. Reasons for believing that the distinction is of value are spelt out in the first selections.

There have in fact been two arguments for a systems approach to the analysis of living phenomena.[1]

• [1] Throughout the volume we have kept to the strand of thought that runs from theorizing about biological systems in general to social systems. We have practically ignored the strand that arises from the design of complex engineering systems. Through such movements as operations research and cost-benefit analysis this influence is being strongly felt by management but its methods and language are so different as to require separate treatment.

First has been the argument that only such an approach will reveal the ‘Gestalten’ properties that characterize the higher levels of organization which we call ‘living systems’. It will be noticed that we are parenthesizing the key terms. This pretty well indicates the uncertain state of knowledge in this field.

Second has been the argument that many of these Gestalten properties are common to the different levels of organization of living matter (from bacteria to human societies) and hence provide a valid and powerful form of generalization. [p. 7, editorial paragraphing added]

There is at least one further line of argument although it has had little apparent attraction to the main contributors to the systems approach. This is that a systems analysis of living organizations is likely to reveal the ‘general in the particular’. Analysis of part systems in cause-effect terms, for example, of liver disorders, death rates, recruitment, training, or productive efficiency, builds up a certain kind of knowledge. However, the total systems of which they are a part usually offer alternative paths which will minimally meet organizational requirements and/or provide substitute feedback control systems, Analysis of the total system is likely to reveal those properties, general to the species, that have enabled the species to adapt and survive in its typical environment. This line of argument clearly accepts the first argument, namely that there are Gestalten qualities of living organizations that are unlikely to be revealed by the ordinary modes of scientific analysis. It goes beyond this in suggesting that there may be properties that can be generalized to the ‘species’ and yet claim no necessary generalizability to all living systems because systems analysis presupposes a knowledge of what functions the part systems can undertake. Without this knowledge it would be very difficult indeed to determine what the total system was supposed to be coordinating and controlling. [pp. 7-8]

We posed a second question, ‘What systems thinking is relevant to the thinking required for organizational management?’ The editor believes that it has been shown that living systems, whether individuals or populations, have to be analysed as ‘open systems’, i.e. as open to matter-energy exchanges with an environment. Human organizations are living systems and should be analysed accordingly. The fact that it faces us with the task of analysing forbiddingly complex environmental interactions gives us no more of an excuse to isolate organizations conceptually than the proverbial drunk had when searching for his lost watch under the street lamp because there was plenty of light when he knew he had lost it in the dark alley. [p. 8]

A great deal of work has been done in the social sciences to elucidate the properties of social systems considered as isolated entities. We shall not draw on this material. Management is concerned with the control of social systems, technologies, and markets. Our central purpose in selection has been, therefore, to depict the emergence and clarification of the view that living systems are essentially ‘open systems’, not ‘closed systems’. Despite Koehler’s contribution (Reading 3) in 1938 and Angyal’s (Reading 1) in 1941, the major impact came from von Bertalanffy (Reading 4) in 1950. It is perhaps unfortunate that this impact gave rise to a movement for General Systems Theory along with its search for dynamic principles common to all kinds of systems living or mechanical. This movement has been attractive to those with a systems engineering orientation, but has so far failed to further its unifying mission and has tended to overshadow the carly recognition by Ashby and Sommerhoff that if living systems are to be treated as open systems we must be able to characterize their environments. [pp. 8-9]

In Part Three we present a set of papers which have sought to deal specifically with the properties of environments that are relevant to adaptive behaviour.

These efforts are all concerned with global properties of organizational environments. In this capacity these theories seem to be far removed from the specificity of organization-environment relation that Sommerhoff shows to be necessary for a science of living systems. The gap may well prove to be more apparent than real. As Gibson (1966) and Tomkins (1953) have argued, living systems probably learn and hence adapt because of their ability to react to the general and less variable properties of the environment, rather than because of their sensitivity to the concrete events and objects which do after all yield a constant flux of stimulation. Measuring organizational environments along the dimensions suggested by Simon, Ashby, and the others, may be all that is required to realize Sommerhoff’s general theory.

Part Four brings together papers that concern the extension of these notions to social systems. It will be clear that these efforts have barely begun to encompass the richness of thought exhibited in the preceding sections. There is no reason why the serious student of management should not regard this as a challenge to join in the bridging operation. To encourage this we present six principles which reach back as far as the work of Koehler in order to identify lessons of value to systems management:

1. The primary task of management is to manage the boundary conditions of the enterprise. The boundaries of an enterprise are those levels of exchange with the environment which allow it to survive and grow. They can be managed only by managing the co-variation of internal and external processes. In so far as a manager has to co-ordinate or otherwise resolve internal variances then he is distracted from his task. [p. 9]

2. The goals or purposes of an enterprise can be understood only as special forms of interdependence between an enterprise and its environment, They cannot be identified with the state of equilibrium that is the end-state for closed systems. The state of equilibrium represents a minimum level of potential energy or capacity for work. The enterprise seeks to establish and maintain those forms of interdependence that enable it to maximize its potential energy or capacity for work. As in Koehler’s example of the flame (pp. 63-5), a steady state is achieved only at the level of maximum potential energy. The form of this potential capacity and the exchanges are determined by the special forms of interdependence into which the enterprise enters, but achievement of a steady state is the most general dynamic trend in an open system. [pp. 9-10]

3. An enterprise can achieve a steady state only when there is (a) constancy of direction, i.e. despite changes in the environment or in the enterprise, the same outcomes or focal conditions are achieved. Put another way, the system remains oriented to the same end; (b) that with respect to that end, the system maintains a rate of progress toward it which is within limits defined as tolerable. A more precise statement of ‘rate of progress’ might be that the enterprise achieves the required focal condition with lesser effort, with greater precision for relatively no more effort, or under conditions of greater variability. In any of these cases, the level of exchange would be more favourable to the enterprise. One implication of this proposition is that an enterprise can have no equilibrium state such as can be found in physical systems (because in the former case, the relevant internal and external variables – are capable of independent variation)– the state of one does not automatically determine the other). A positive implication is that an enterprise cannot hope to achieve steady state (except accidentally) unless it sets a mission for itself in terms of outcomes that are capable of achievement and yet are sufficiently beyond present performance to allow for some measurable degree of progress.

4. Given the last two propositions, the task of management is governed by the need to match constantly the actual and potential capacities of the enterprise to the actual and potential requirements of the environment. Only in this way can a mission be defined that may enable an enterprise to achieve a steady state. However, the actions of management cannot in themselves constitute a logically sufficient condition for achievement of a steady state. [p. 10]

5. A ‘steady state’ for the system cannot be achieved by any finite combination of regulatory devices or mechanisms that are aimed at achieving a steady state for some partial aspect of the system such as input-output rates, internal change, or environmental contact. In a human organization, the two requirements for a steady state, unidirectionality and progress, can be achieved only by leadership and commitment. The end-state of the system must be clearly enough defined and agreed upon to enable the system to be oriented toward it regardless of a wide range of changes in their relations. Secondly, the members of the organization must be so committed to the end-state that they will respond to emergencies calling for greater efforts. The basic regulation of open systems is thus self-regulation — regulation that arises from the nature of the constituent parts of the system. [pp. 10-11]

One corollary is that it is only within this framework that regulatory mechanisms, such as cost controls, can make an effective contribution. In creating these mechanisms it is essential to ensure that they do not run counter to, or undermine the requirements for self-regulation, and to remember that mechanisms which are appropriate in one phase of a system’s existence may, with a change in location with respect to the mission, become inappropriate.

The measure of whether these processes of self-regulation are operating effectively, of whether the system is healthy and maturing, is to be found in the steady growth of potential capability with respect to the mission. In the case of any enterprise, the critical question at any time is whether it is more capable than before of fulfilling the tasks arising from its mission. A good record of recent performance, e.g. high profit yield, would not in itself exclude the possibility that potential capacity had in fact been reduced.

6. An enterprise can only achieve the conditions for a steady state if it allows to its human members a measure of autonomy and selective interdependence. This proposition is clear enough when applied to organizations composed of professionals. It is less clear that it applies to enterprises in general because it introduces an assumption which is new in this context, namely that individuals themselves have open-system characteristics and can be related to each other or to organizations only in ways that are appropriate to such systems. In particular, commitment presupposes that the individual has sufficient autonomy to exercise choice. The requirement that the co-ordination of components be maximally brought about by themselves (proposition five) requires some sacrifice of autonomy and to that extent threatens commitment. This threat can be lessened by allowing selective interdependence.

These principles barely draw upon the potential of systems theory for management theory. They also show little evidence of a coherent and comprehensive theory from which such principles could be rigorously deduced. Nevertheless it is in finding new ways of looking at things that men have managed in the past to advance scientific understanding. [p. 11]

We have tried to select readings that would excite readers to a new way of looking at mundane realities of human organization. They have been arranged to lead from the earlier to the later papers and from consideration of systems in general to social systems in particular.

For Part One we have selected the earlier papers that explicitly or implicitly argue for a new logic in the study of complex systems that display purposive or adaptive behaviour. What these authors have in mind is something more than the model of causal analysis usually associated with the physical sciences; it is also something less than a rigorous predictive theory of some restricted area of behaviour. This latter feature has occasioned some misguided criticism to the effect that theories that cannot predict and hence cannot be experimentally confirmed or disconfirmed are not scientific theories. Such criticism overlooks the all-important role in scientific development of our guiding metaphors and our principles for mapping the real world (Kuhn, 1962). If systems theorizing improves the ‘internal coherence, implicative structure, freedom from the clutter and comprehensiveness’ (Chein, 1967) of the maps we make of human organizations, then we must judge it as a scientific advance.

The selections in Part One only partly argue their case by pointing to principles of system action that can be inferred from their definition of a system. However, the papers in the remaining sections were specifically selected to sample the variety of efforts that have been made to meet scientific requirements of coherence, mplicative structure, etc. These efforts have been very varied. It is almost as if the pioneers, while respectfully noting each other’s existence, have felt it incumbent upon themselves to work out their intuitions in their own language, for fear of what might be Jost in trying to work through the language of another. Whatever the reason, the results seem to justify this stand-offishness. In a short space of time there has been a considerable accumulation of insights into system dynamics that are readily translatable into the differing languages and with, as yet, little sign of the divisive schools of thought that for instance marred psychology during the 1920s and 1930s. Perhaps this might still happen if some influential group of scholars prematurely decide that the time has come for a common conceptual framework. [p. 12]

To give ready access to this variety we decided to select in terms of individual theorists instead of conceptual areas such as coordination, control, regulation, temporal integration. Likewise, to allow space for each theorist to develop his body of concepts and principles we have had to restrict the range of the sample and to leave out articles of great merit as well as those which are essentially polished rehashes or reviews. We can only hope that the heaviness of the resulting selection will be found justified by the number of unmined diamonds that exists in even the earliest.

The importance of a solid ground in this new and explosive field is such that we have not tried to depict the frontiers of systems theorizing, except in the last section introducing notions of systems management. For those wishing to extend their range of coverage in the areas represented here they could do no better than turn to the General Systems Yearbooks. For those eager to see what is happening at the frontiers the best single source is probably the journal Artorga.

The editor is grateful to the Center for Advance Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, for the peace and quiet he needed to prepare these Readings.

References

CHEIN, I. (1967), “Versity vs. truth in the scientific enterprise’, address to Division of Philosophical Psychology, American Psychological Association, 3 September.

GIBSON, J. J. (1966), The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Houghton Mifflin.

KUHN, T. (1962), Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press.

TOMKINS, S. S. (1953), Affect, Imagery and Consciousness, Springer, vol. 1.

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The diligent reader may also be interested in “World Hypotheses, Contextualism, Systems Methods“, with an excerpt from “Part One: Precedents to Systems Theory”, that highlights the omission of Stephen C. Pepper, for reasons of space.

Source

Emery, Fred E. 1969. “Introduction.” In Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery, 1st ed., 1:7–13. Penguin. http://books.google.ca/books?id=G2tHAAAAMAAJ.

The four concepts are: (i) interrelationships; (ii) perspectives; (iii) boundaries; and (iv) dynamics.

At 16m36s into the recording, the debate turned to Jackson for a response.

[16m36] Thanks, Barb. I’m concerned with the way in which we use systems thinking in evaluation. I’ll try and pick out some issues that I see with the Systems Concepts approach, which means the use of interrelationships, perspectives, boundaries, and dynamics in evaluation practice.

[17m00s] And to make the case for what I think is the clearer guidance that Critical Systems Practice can give.

[17m09s] A problem with the concepts is that they don’t reflect the full range of systems thinking or the full range of systems approaches.

[17m20s] They’re actually a relatively narrow set of concepts if you look across the systems field.

[17m30s] If you were to take one of the best known system thinkers, Peter Checkland, he comes up with a notion that the key consistent concepts are communication and control (cybernetic concepts) and emergence and hierarchy.

[17:47] Patrick Hoverstadt, who is the the chair of System and Complexity in Organizations, the UK professional body for systems thinking, comes up with 33 systems principles in his recent book The Grammar of Systems.

[18m05s] I think it’s not doing systems thinking justice, and possibly not doing evaluation much good, just to stick to four concepts out of the very many that exist in systems thinking, all reflecting upon different systems approaches. So that’s my first point.

[18m26s] My second point is that I feel that the the concepts can be interpreted very differently by different people, according to their existing world views, and that concepts on their own, separated from the world views or the historical theoretical traditions which make them meaningful, are actually relatively empty, and meaningless.

[18m56s] You have to see concepts within a system of signs, a language game, which gives them meaning.

[19m07s] So for example, the concept of interrelationships in System Dynamics, that means causal relationships in feed forward and feedback loops.

[19m18s] In Soft Systems Methodology, interrelationships refers to the relationships between different stakeholders and their particular world views.

[19m30s] And so totally different to meanings there. And I could say the same for all of the concepts.

[19m36s] So boundaries in System Dynamics means all those things which you regard as endogenously influential on the system.

[19m48s] Boundaries in Critical Systems Heuristics means what values are, what facts are included, in a particular decision to change something some way, and which are excluded, and what the impact that has upon stakeholders.

[20m05s] So, unfortunately, I think the the concepts are pretty meaningless unless you take them back to their root metaphors or the intellectual traditions from which they emerge.

[20m14s] Now the danger of that, for me, is that the people who are using these concepts are likely to interpret them according to their existing world views.

[20m25s] And as we know, the tradition in much of evaluation and in much management theory is to go back to the mechanistic perspective.

[20m33s] And I feel that people will have no difficulty whatsoever interpreting these concepts according to a mechanistic worldview that they already have.

[20m43s] Therefore, I argue that the clearer guidance offered by the range of systems methodologies which are Incorporated within critical systems practice can provide clearer more precise guidance and is a better way of using systems approaches and evaluation.

https://youtu.be/lnyfpC8E4O8?t=995

Most listeners would not be aware that, with root metaphors, Michael C. Jackson is referring to Root Metaphors described by Stephen C. Pepper, or Root Metaphor Theory.