Re: [Kb-complexity] RE: Kb-complexity Digest, Vol 1, Issue 3

[Pete Bond <plbond@polytechnics.fsnet.co.uk>]

Hi all, I suspect I will be in the minority of this list of 21 as I'm
principally interested in the application of the living systems theory of
Humberto Maturana and Francsico Varela, sometimes refered to as Autopoietic
Theory. 

I believe that 'complexity' thinking' is a development of 'systems thinking'
which Checkland said was thinking about the world as a system. Maturana's
view is that systems thinking is much more fundamental even than that.
This is my interpretation of what Maturana and Varela's position might be.
If the view is accepted then it seems that all thinking is systems thinking.

?Behind the simplest idea of a system, stands the basic act of splitting the
world in what we consider separable and significant entities.¹ (Varela &
Goguen, 1978, p. 293)

A system comes into being through a most fundamental process of cognition,
that of distinguishing. As we distinguish an object or entity from its
medium or background, we simultaneously create a relation. The entity and
its relations are crucial to explaining the operation of any particular
system. The person doing the explaining is referred to as an observer.
Everything, Maturana says, is said by an observer to another, who might be
another observer or one's self. One's self is distinguished from one's
bodyhood, the medium through which one¹s self acts upon the environment. The
bodyhood is therefore the medium of the self. In the act of distinguishing,
we assign properties to an entity through which it is then characterised.
Distinguishing the same object in differing context may lead to new and
additional properties being assigned. For example, a stone found in the
shadows might be distinguished and assigned the property of sharpness, in
the sunshine it might also be assigned the property of iridescence. Thus,
when a unity or entity is distinguished it is also characterised by the
properties that the operations of distinction assign to it ( Maturana 1978).

If this approach is of interest to anyone then I'm up for a conversation.

-- 
peter bond
Learning Futures