Abstract
This chapter starts by offering an explanation about explanations. It then invites the reader to consider seriously the explanations offered about (i) the nature of explanations, (ii) the role and place of emotions, and (iii) embodied knowing. Four aspects of being a systems practitioner are then addressed. The first is being aware of the constraints and possibilities of the observer. The second is understanding understanding and knowing knowing. The third is learning, and the fourth is being ethical. The concept of social technologies is introduced as a means to appreciate how technology mediates, thus enhancing or constraining, the effective juggling of the B-ball; that is how we are when we are a systems practitioner.
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Notes
- 1.
Following Maturana [27] I understand the social dynamics of explanations to be a key aspect of being human and which begins to be learnt in early childhood. Maturana says (ibid p. 148) that an ‘explanation is an answer to a question about the origin of some particular experience of the observer that is asked in such a way that it explicitly or implicitly demands an answer that satisfies the following two conditions: (i) the answer must consist in the proposition of a mechanism or process that, if it were allowed to operate, would give rise in the observer as a result of its operation the experience that she or he wanted to explain; (ii) the generative mechanism or process proposed as an answer must be accepted as doing what it claims to do by an observer, who could be the same person that proposes it, because it satisfies some other condition that he or she puts in his or her listening.’
- 2.
I will say more about embodiment later in this chapter – at this stage it is worth noting that embodiment is a term I take from theoretical and practical concerns in a number of disciplines about embodied or embedded cognition, a position in cognitive science, for example, stating that intelligent behaviour emerges out of the interplay between brain, body and world (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodiment. Accessed 16th July 2009).
- 3.
I am grateful to Peter Roberts for his original work on which this is based.
- 4.
My reference to history makes it sound like colour perception is learned – and partly it is. We learn the names of nuances of wavelengths that are relevant in our culture. But there is also “relativistic colour coding” that means we see colour by ratios of stimulation of cones, not by wavelength of light. We don’t work the same way as the instruments we invent to record colour.
- 5.
This may often involve developing and using different muscles, i.e. differences in our body.
- 6.
We usually vilify other cosmologies as “myths” because we know better now.
- 7.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science: ‘most observations are theory-laden – that is, they depend in part on an underlying theory that is used to frame the observations. Observation involves perception as well as a cognitive process. That is, one does not make an observation passively, but is actively involved in distinguishing the thing being observed from surrounding sensory data. Therefore, observations depend on some underlying understanding of the way in which the world functions and that understanding may influence what is perceived, noticed or deemed worthy of consideration.’ (Accessed 25th January 2009).
- 8.
And at the same time we have specified a domain (a framing) in which that particular split makes sense. This is probably much more significant than the particular split because people will discuss the boundary, but never realise they have already accepted the domain, or they will think they speak of the same split, but it won’t be the same if they have done it in different domains [3].
- 9.
In systems theoretical terms the word ‘environment’, as “that which surrounds”, is the correct term but it has no relation to the so-called physical environment – it is an abstract or conceptual notion that only arises whenever a system of interest is distinguished by someone.
- 10.
The concept circle is also brought forth in this action – but in every day life most of us have from an early age, as part of our tradition of understanding, the concept circle and thus when we distinguish circles in everyday life the boundary usually disappears from view. Mainly we only become aware of most borders when something is ambiguous.
- 11.
This is not BAD, it is how we and language are constituted. We manage just fine, unless we fall into the trap of certainty. And knowing this is how we operate opens up the option for new perspectives that better fit our situation.
- 12.
See von Foerster [49]; people assume Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle only pertains to elementary events but a more useful framing might be to say he invented it for that, but it has far wider application!
- 13.
We would be so hampered in doing our daily tasks if ALL the time we had to think like this! Reflecting alters our path, but then for a while we just want to engage. It can be thought of as an ongoing dynamic between engaging and reflecting.
- 14.
This phenomenon is likely to be of interest to systems educators – Pille Bunnell [4] in response to my observation says: “I wonder how much that is the approach to the explanation per se. Though I admit it takes me about 25 h of class time to build up to a point where no one becomes ‘angry’ though some (less than 10% of the class) will not accept this in the long term. Others do take it as a fundamental shift.”
- 15.
By including this quote I want to make it clear that I am not interpreting it as “my right to believe whatever I like and declare that as knowledge” but because it offers a perspective that differs widely from the mainstream understanding of what most scientists do when they claim scientific knowledge.
- 16.
I return to the issue of social technologies in Section 5.5.
- 17.
The evidence for this set of claims can be found in the early work of Benjamin Whorf who found, for example, that ‘the strange grammar of Hopi gives rise to different modes of perceiving and conceiving’ (see Carroll [5, p. 17]).
- 18.
Creole in this context means a blend or hybrid of English and the speakers original language.
- 19.
But what is “information”? Is there such a thing at all? I claim it is not a thing, but an arising within – from the Latin roots ‘in formare’; for example, following Bateson, famous for the phrase ‘the difference that makes a difference’, information could be said to arise when someone distinguishes a difference in two domains. In this context information is an explanatory principle.
- 20.
Finding an image to depict the concepts that I consider important has been a challenge – this figure owes much to a Michael Leunig cartoon for inspiration.
- 21.
As I have outlined “making a distinction” is the basis of new experience but over time the act of making a distinction falls into the background as we discern a situation according to an accepted distinction. For example, if we have already distinguished “chair” we can sit on it, pick it up, invite someone else to sit in it… without having to distinguish it as a chair each time! The reason distinctions are so important is that once made they are taken for granted. This makes operational sense but when we are not aware that this is what we do we can end up in traps of our own making.
- 22.
As outlined earlier, for simplicity these figures don’t show a key human dynamic, namely our conversations with other people, which of course greatly influence how our understanding develops, how we “learn”. The ‘real world’ situation too is an abstraction – we are never apart from or independent of such situations.
- 23.
To explain a little further for those who are not British – prominent British leaders such as Winston Churchill often had or were photographed with a ‘British bulldog’ – a breed developed in Britain. This breed came to symbolise a form of British nationalism – if you were British – or a form of oppression if you were subject to British imperial rule. The Union flag itself is a flag generated as part of nation building from the flags of constituent UK nations – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- 24.
By choice von Foerster means enhancing the opportunity to consider the implications of acting one way or another. This does not happen if one is given rules. Rules preclude consideration of alternatives because the action is specified. Treated superficially the concepts espoused by von Foerster can be easily misunderstood, as seems to have been the case with the UK Labour Government who, when Tony Blair was PM, made much of ‘increased choice’, as in say the operation of the National Health Service. Simplistically they seem to have reduced the concept of choice to the provision of options in contexts that did not matter to patients – the choices that were offered were not choices that mattered to those who used the health service, i.e. the choices were not grounded in the circumstances of patient’s own lives. As Seddon observes [38, p. 15] ‘to say people have choice when they are in no position to make one is disingenuous.’
- 25.
The distinction between systemic and systematic practice was addressed in Chapter 2; I also return to these distinctions at the end of Part II.
- 26.
This applies only if we don’t remain in the default position of thinking there is no other. Usually people do not choose their position, they don’t even know they have one!
- 27.
The action of adjusting or adapting to enable purposeful action amongst those with different understandings and interests.
- 28.
Based at The Open University, UK.
- 29.
As in something between, connected but not directly.
- 30.
The word ‘artifact’ is revealing in this context. It can be understood as an ‘art-in-fact’ and thus raises questions about the nature of social facts – an epistemological divide suggests itself.
- 31.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_institutional_economics for more background (Accessed 24th April 2009).
- 32.
I am not claiming that all action and thus practice is purposeful – very often the attribution of purpose, as with intention, arises in reflection, not as a precursor to what we do. In other words we do what we do and then seek a way of describing why. But we have also evolved a manner of living or conversing about ‘what is to be done’ of which rationality is but one facet. This book is based on my experience that enhancing the quality of talking about what might be done benefits the nature and quality of what is done – but I do not make a claim that in the moment we do what we claim we were going to do, or that we have even done what we claimed.
- 33.
- 34.
Those experienced in this sort of practice will understand that in similar situations some would prefer to act in the acceptance of a fiction that those presenting their ideas actually know what to do. Such an attitude is fostered in some of the main discourses on ‘leadership’.
- 35.
Sometimes “I don’t know” can be an abrogation of responsibility but on other occasions it can entail the acceptance of a deeper responsibility. The consultants in this example presumably demonstrated the latter in their initial interview – and evidently followed through. It is easy to pretend to engage in a collaborative process or to follow a prescription for participation and not really engage deeply.
- 36.
Patricia Shaw and I at one period discussed extensively our approaches to practice and found that we had quite profoundly different preferences. My own is to do much more planning or designing at an early stage after becoming as aware of the context as is possible. But then to be open to the unfolding circumstances in the practice situation and act in an emotion that is free to change, not one that tries to hold onto the plan or design. My argument for this form of practice is that it enhances one’s behavioural repertoire in the moment providing the practitioner with more variety and choices.
- 37.
For a well-articulated critique see Checkland and Poulter [8, p. 148–153].
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Ison, R. (2010). Juggling the B-Ball: Being a Systems Practitioner. In: Systems Practice: How to Act in a Climate-Change World. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-125-7_5
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