Survey: Usefulness of a GST?

[Jack Ring]

WG Members,
In my previous emails I requested a response by Jan.9, regarding the Usefulness of a GST survey.
As of Jan. 16 I have received 1 response from the 100 WG members
Accordingly I conclude that the SysSciWG is not interested in clarifying a use case for a GST and hereby withdraw the survey and the presentation at IW15.
Onward,
Jack Ring

[Mike Dee]

Jack:

My apologies for not responding sooner.

IMPORTANCE OF GST?: I would state that GST is immensely important, and should be taught to all college students regardless of major. This does not mean that freshmen need to know differential equations. It does mean that GST provides a model through which to view the world, and its interconnectedness. I cannot imagine a more important concept for those who are interested in economics, social sciences, etc., not to mention the hard sciences.

It almost appears that people are possessed of the opposite notion, the "not-GST" knowledge. How many so called "college professors" live and teach in little disconnected worlds totally divorced from reality. Or legislators or executives for that matter. How about citizens who actually buy their tripe?

Perhaps the lack of knowledge of how to deal with difficult (I assiduously avoid the word "complex") problems explains the avalanche of stupidity coming from those across the world who make policy (particularly economic), and explains why there is so little pushback from a supposedly educated populace. As part of GST, we should teach the metaphors of the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics , and avoid the pitfalls of pixie-dust policy.

A GST would help us understand (or at least alert us to) what Sowell calls "thinking beyond stage 1".

So, yes, I vote that GST is of the most basic necessity, and certainly not for just those who call themselves SEs. Although, I've seen a lot of people who have the title "SE" who could use a good dose of GST themselves. (Heck, maybe even I...)

M. Dee

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[James Martin]

Mike,

I concur with your thoughts. Can you give some examples of GST's from your experience and perspective?

What aspects of these theories should be taught? And how best to teach about them?

James


Sent from my iPad

[Jack Ring]

Mike,
The ideas expressed here are certainly thought provoking.
However, lacking a numerical score there is not much basis for convergence on a WG consensus.
FWIW, I think we would be well advised to focus on what it takes to actually create systems than to worry about what college professors do or not do. No campus can provide a learning environment sufficiently robust to create systemists. c.f., INCOSE-TP-2003-015-01
Jack

[Len Troncale]

Jack,

Do you really think just because you post a request for responses on the "Usefulness of a GST" on your stream of comments on this Google site that 100 busy systems engineers (and some systems thinking types) are going to drop what they are doing to respond. As for me, I have almost totally not responded to any of the comments on this stream. James and Duane are keeping me busy responding to their requests so I do not even use this venue. I just happened upon it today. I agree very closely with the strong comments of Michael Dee and rather think a number of people I know in the SSWG do too.

Consider the possibility at least that this is not a valid survey to judge the challenge put forward. I was very much looking forward to your presentation on GST at IW'5 and to the comments of Kent Palmer on same. So I hope you will reconsider withdrawing.

Two Peer Review Panels of the National Science Foundation back in the 90's funded just one project of mine to the tune of $400,000 for creation of a year of computerized courses to essentially teach "stealth" systems science to undergraduates fulfilling their entire science requirement for general education. Sounds a bit like the image Michael Dee advocates below and folks like Luke Friendshuh wished they had available when they attended college. Yet INCOSE has not even heard of this Integrated Science GE (ISGE) based on systems science. It seems like NSF is getting interested again relative to their recent outreach with professional societies.

So please do reconsider presenting and do not be discouraged because of lack of response. It is not a true measure of the situation.     Len Troncale

[Jack Ring]

Len,

No, I do not presume that 100 SysSci members are going to do any specific thing. 

I do think it worthwhile to give them the opportunity to tell us whether and how a GST can be of use to them. 

Clearly, 98 told me that the topic is not sufficiently high on their interest list or that my request was too ambiguous.  So be it. I have many other things to do.

I see no utility in presenting a one-person survey finding. The lone responder is free to present it if he wishes.

And I do not presume that my view of the saliency of a GST is representative of the WG because my view is 1/100th of SysSciWG and 1/10,000th of INCOSE and 1/1,000,000 of all those world wide who are striving to create useful systems.

And, I stress, again, that this is not about what should be taught but about what systems people should know. There is plenty of evidence that a campus cannot be a sufficient and efficient learning environment for systems people.

Further, I really encourage you all to STOP treating systems engineering as something different from system science. As I introduced at the IS14 Panel system identification and design involve an intricate mixture of science and engineering.

Jack

[Mike Dee]

Jim:

The most salient example is the tinkering of the US government with markets, creating "too big to fail" scenarios. Best example is Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Any economist worth his/her salt could have (should have) predicted the results of forcing taxpayers to own the risk, while politicians reaped the benefit (forcing banks to make loans to the unworthy), along with their paid participants (construction industry and banks). Economics SHOULD be politically agnostic, but results show otherwise. If economics is properly applied (and utilizes a valid system model), it should be able to predict the result of such policies.

An educated populace would have been able to see what was coming. Many people did. 3 times congress held hearings between 2001 and 2006. Each time the hearings were shot down as a an attack on Franklin Raines. I will leave it to the reader to do the research and learn why it was couched as an attack on Raines, or just "greed". No, it was self-defeating policy.

Simply put, as a nation we did not allow ourselves to put 2+2 together.

The exact same thing can be said of interventionist economic policy - stimulus as they say. If Deficit spending stimulates the economy, then why after $18 trillion of deficit spending is the US economy not our of debt? Yet, every time we have a recession, the same old mantra occurs: STIMULUS!

More succinctly, with a better understanding of SYSTEMS (GST) perhaps we as a society would be better at spotting the internal contradictions.

Another good example might be the Ethanol Subsidy. Or, just pick any politically inspired program or subsidy.

Ever stop to think that a subsidy is how congress forces taxpayers to pay for what the taxpayers don't want?

Maybe GST is a means to ending the "Sucker's Bet"

I defer to Nassim Taleb now. Its all in "Anti Fragile".

Hope that helps.

[Mike Dee]

Jack (and all):

I see a GST as being one of the basic tools we need to approach any problematic situation. I agree that we should not draw a thick line between SE and SS. SS can benefit from the empirical world of real-life SE instances, just like SE can benefit from SS developing a formal theory (set of constructs) that is well tested.

A better knowledge of the philosophy of science would be nice, too. From my own experience, I think I gained more useful knowledge in the SSWG blogs than in both MS programs combined.

So, whether we are engaged in economics, public policy, treating human patients, or developing a Mars mission, it would be nice to see GST formalized and utilized. We need to avoid being suckers.

[G. R. Freeman]

Here is a note from one who had to go on mute due to a position taken with our govt a few years ago. Over this period, I have been reading this and other related streams, and yes, virtually every post, with great interest, respect and admiration for those who continue to advance the area of science to which I (and many others) have dedicated our lives.  Thank you for keeping the conversations vibrant and often quite amusing.  Jack, et all, I would encourage the continuation of sharing, for just when you think no one is listening is the very moment another's life is changed.  Also, if one drinks from only a single well, then one should not be be surprised if over time the consistency of taste yields little flavor.  Jack, respectfully suggest that this may be a good opportunity to cast your survey in alternate waters.  It may yield very interesting results from which we would all benefit.  Miss you all!! Richard PS: Back on mute....  

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[JohnK]

Jack, perhaps an incorrect conclusion - I think people just need reminding (like me).  Clearly I think it is important since I'm working on one. But why?  The first pages of Rosen's book "Life Itself" spell it out in terms of the soft-hard systems/science divide. It is a barrier to progress in many disciplines and it exists purely from ignorance at this point. We have the information we need to dissolve that barrier, but people don't want to do it because of all that is invested and because they are not fully convinced, having been so highly trained to believe it is not crossable. This may be the major theme for ISSS in 2016.

[Jack Ring]

JohnK,

Quite so. Probably a reminder or a better form of survey would have produced more responses. 

Regarding "people don't want to do it because of all that is invested and because they are not fully convinced” I presumed this would not apply to the 100 members of the SysSciWG.

Anyway, addressing the situation you describe would be a good ISSS topic.

Jack

[JohnK]

Jack,  I greatly appreciate your efforts and the efforts of SysSciWG and when I attended before I was tremendously impressed with the quality and character of thinking in the group. Furthermore, we are circling around the right questions. But it would be a mistake to say the members do not have strongly inculcated concepts of self, world, God, universe, reality, etc. I should definitely explain my comment that "People don't want to do it" -- I'm speaking of al of us, SysSciWG, ISSS, and myself included. The barriers to a GST are, in my opinion, deeply rooted in the psyche of Mankind. To make even a little progress is a big deal.  I began this life thinking everything was mechanical - the Newtonian world view. I was certain of it and I made fun of the 'soft' ideas and disciplines agreeing with Rutherford that physics was the only science and everything else is stamp collecting. It is not an exaggeration to describe the thought system this way (as Rosen does). SysSciWG has suspended disbelief as one would in a play, but we are still waiting to see the play, then judge. At that earlier time in my life I didn't even suspend disbelief. The shock was when I took quantum physics and found us discussing philosophy. I would say that since then it has been a continuous exploration of the alternative leading to what I'm still struggling to understand now. When I found Rosen's work I was totally delighted - he was speaking my language and I understood and accepted all of it. I could write some of it. However, I still didn't truly 'believe' it. In dreams I would discover that I was scared to death of it. I might awake thinking "this is crazy - what am I doing? - I'm abandoning all of science and rational thought" or something to that effect. After coffee and a strong self-talking-to I would go over the logic of relational thinking and eventually convince myself that I had no alternative but to continue down that road.  I think for anyone (using myself as an example) to explore GST, which is a form of holism, you have to be willing to dig deeply into your own make-up, do some real soul searching. It is quite inconsistent to think that we can find a general explanation for external reality without having to make some very major changes internally. That's what I was alluding to - it was not a judgmental thought, but a compassionate one. In the end I believe that the root of a GST is actually quite simple to comprehend, but it is not easy to accept.  Remember the debate about just particle theory - which is only one step toward a GST. Bohr's famous quip to Heisenberg and Poli was: "“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."  -- To arrive at a GST we will very likely have to accept ideas that we currently believe to the core of our being, are insane. If that is not true, it is very hard to understand what the quantum physicists were doing a century ago, why it worked, and why the desperate attempts to disprove or avoid it were proven to fail, through rigorous effort to the contrary. J.A. Wheeler was seeing the tip of the iceberg: "We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense this is a participatory universe.” The rest of the iceberg may well be that everything is both observed and observer; that it is a universe based in models and nothing more tangible than that.   If this is so, who can claim to understand it? We are in the Matrix. My hope at present, like Rosen, is that there may be useful models of the models.

[Jack Ring]

JohnK, 

I appreciate and do not dispute your claims. 

I simply suggest that one way to converge on a GST is to encourage dialog regarding how a GST (whatever that is) would foster and foment a systemist’s effort to devise a specific system concept. 

Such quest is a form of grounded theory development in which the participants are the students, not the teachers.

I intend to continue the quest. In fact, the blue bird of happiness recently caused me to be invited to ASSESS at the Santa Fe Institute wherein I learned on one day a strong rationale for and usage-features of what I will now call System3.0, sufficient for near-wicked problems for which suppression systems must be highly autonomous (their bumper sticker says Systemist On Board).

More soon.

Jack

[joseph simpson]

Jack:

Is this the event?

http://c4uc.org/News/Summit.aspx

http://cyonresearch.com/News/newsid439/141/mid/439/NEW-Analysis-Simulation-and-Systems-Engineering-Software-Summit-.aspx

Can you provide any more detailed information about the event?

Have fun,

Joe

Joe Simpson

“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. 

Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. 

All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

George Bernard Shaw

[Jack Ring]

Yes.

My memo coming re: System3.0 (SysML and SEBoK being System2.3)

Key Consensus items (prioritized) were;

Most: Need for pre-CAD methods and tools (geometry) [group largely unaware of UML, SysML, Modelica, etc.]

2. Design-centered workflow (SE and simulation silo’s must be integrated) Semantics agility.

3. Useability (including quality of conveyed models) [Topic of Quality, V&V, largely avoided]

4. Impact of Web/Cloud/Mobile modes of SE/Simulation

5. Knowledge capture

6. interop of heterogeneous things

7. Model fidelity and timeliness

8. Un-sexy stuff

9. Licensing issues

Further exploration will be done at COFES, April, 2015.

Jack

[joseph simpson]

Sounds like a lot of fun...

[JohnK]

Jack,

I think the problem with ultimate solutions, i.e., some supposed philosophical truth like my holon theory, aside from the question of being correct or not, is precisely what you identify; the lack of tools to do it. I've actually been pushing in that direction, developing some analytical methods on paper, but what it really needs is programming a new informatics architecture, something like Oracle but with slightly different assumptions. For someone, individual or company, to invest in that they have to believe the theory. So there's a chicken-egg relation between accepting the theory and building the tools, and its using those tools that would really test the value of the theory.  I've found some encouragement in identifying other tools that have been developed more or less from experience, and then demonstrating that they actually have a very similar basis (but without the theory their application isn't very deep and not a solid test). I would love to find someone at SFI who is crazy enough to fund development. Meanwhile, all I can do is waive my arms.

John

[JohnK]

Jack,  I'll add one more comment. In the Fall grad seminar I just completed I encountered this exact issue - how much to teach vs. establishing an environment of mutual dialog and discovery. It was a tricky balance. The participants of course voted for more dialogue and less instruction. So did I because it was experimental. But this was not the first time people have considered the question of whole systems (the intended focus of the seminar). And the best minds we have had in the human race have not arrived at a clear idea. So, where would just open dialogue go? Would I not likely end up with a failed Seminar that had no focus? In fact, the guts to try it came for having an idea of what might work. So, I was obligated to present that idea with enough detail that we could evaluate it. It had to be a balance, and yet one in which I constantly said "think for yourself, but think about this example". It generally worked and will probably be done again; it did not fail from lack of focus or too narrow a focus. Of course the participants preferred the evaluation part to the definition part.

I did not want to push one solution just because it is mine, so we explored many frameworks. But it was also unreasonable to expect the class to discover a new approach without some hints. So, I opted to present the framework as well as I could with ample caveats for each to decide for themselves. That worked out OK, and we did reach some concensus. It was a 2CR Seminar, so it could have remained at a survey level. But about half the students found it to actually change their view. 

So, while I agree with the dialectical approach, I also found that it is essential to have some proposed answers, if they exist and can save invention time. It has to be a balance between a proposed framework and then open dialogue about it. The holon theory itself says this. It describes it as a necessary cycle between four aspects, which I could describe as 1. What it is, 2. What it does, 3. How it is designed, 4. What it means.  The cycle repeats, exploring different cycles of meaning and existence.  Running the cycle upward 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-etc. is inductive; what we would do in thinking about something in class for example, figuring it out. Running the cycle 'downward' 4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1 is generative or deductive, actually creating something, perhaps as nature does. Both are iterative and involve holographic cycles.  Our think tank is reasoning upward to figure stuff out, but engineering and teaching go the other way, to make or establish things. The cycle itself has both implications (it is itself a bottom up and top-down cycle in opposite domains). Its a very strange logical object because it actually goes both directions at the same time.

So, I suppose all this is to say something obvious that everyone already knows; that reinventing the wheel is a fine process if combined with trying out some wheels.

JK

On Monday, January 19, 2015 at 1:24:00 PM UTC-7, Jring7 wrote:

[Jack Ring]

JohnK,

Very interesting. Thank you. My perspective differs in that I am not interested in students but in practitioners faced with designing a problem suppression system, particularly when they wonder whether the design is necessary, sufficient and efficient. My survey seeks to elicit their ideas regarding what a GST does for them (your aspect 2) in the context of their purpose (your aspect 4). I want to avoid nominations of what GST is (your aspect 1) or how it got that way (your aspect 3). Once we have a list of what they want a GST to do for, to, and with them then perhaps we can parse the list by domain meanings and identify the invariants.

OBTW, I think the tooling already exists. In the early 1990’s we used Smalltalk to specify classes that represented system elements, relations and behaviors. That model could be animated (token passing) and evaluated (temporal, thermodynamic, etc. effects) thereby emulating the envisioned system. Primitive work back then but we could see light at the end of the design tunnel.

[Michael Dee]

My apologies for previous ambiguity regarding purpose (uses) for GST. Simply I believe GST would provide a common basis for rational problem solving, as well as evaluating the efficacy of offered solutions, whether we are talking technology, economics, policy, etc.  as a society I believe we have lost the ability to think critically.  GST might be a part of the therapy when integrated with other concepts in critical thinking. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Jack Ring]

Michael,

Good. How about a step deeper than what a GST may help you do. How about how a GST might inform and affect you to make the right modeling choices.

[JohnK]

That would be my aspect 3, by the way.  Not about the GST (if you are not interested in that direction), but the other direction - how the GST informs practice  ("in - forms", "forms in", ie.,  formal cause). Aspect 1 relates to observables, so how you might test it or know where development is at. My thesis is that all four aspects are involved in any comprehensive approach.

JK

[Jack Ring]

Our views differ in that I am striving to ignore 1. what GST is and 3. How GST is designed until after choices are made about 2. what GST does for the designer and 4. ehat that contribution means to the designer.

[Mike Dee]

Jack:

Yes, that is what I am getting at.  Thanks for helping me articulate it.

We have been suckers for poor models masquerading as scientific fact (economics, climate, etc.), abused by slick politicians and salesmen.  Hence my previous examples.  

A GST would be the basis for modeling, which would be the basis for the expression of the theory for which a hypothesis test might be devised to evaluate claims.

GST for the academic sake of GST is not useful.   GST as a basis for critical thought is indispensable to the cause of reason.  Of course, this would not work for the hucksters of the world.

MDee