Fwd: Systems Mini-Symposia Wed/Thu 19-20 October

[James Martin]

FYI 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Roelien Goede <nor...@isss.org>
Date: Mon, Oct 17, 2022 at 5:59 AM
Subject: Mini-Symposia WEDNESDAY 19 / THURSDAY 20 October
To: <mart...@gmail.com>

Dear James

Programme of Online Mini-Symposia in October (Abstracts at the end of the message)

We close our first theme on systems concepts in October, before starting a new theme in November on making sense of the landscape. For the month of October, our sessions are moving to a Wednesday/Thursday slot to easier accommodate the members in Australasia while still being accessible to others. The time slot is on a Thursday 7 AM in Sydney, and therefor 10 PM in central Europe on a Wednesday evening.  Some of the paper sessions will be more representative from the General Systems Theory paradigm’s perspective. The planned sessions are:

 

19/20 October: A number of shorter papers speakers including Janos Korn and Bruce McNaughty on GST. Please contact me if you want to have a slot in this session. SCROLL DOWN  for the ABSTRACT from Janos Korn. 

Bruce wrote:  I would like to share my explorations / experience into the GST Foundations of Systems Engineering as I had on 01-Oct.  This will build on the System definition presentation from 01-Oct.  There seemed to be a number of questions related to how the definition would be used.  These would be addressed in this next presentation.

 

26 October: Jamie Rose.

In November we move back to Saturdays. Please contact me if you want to contribute to the theme of “Making sense of the systems landscape”. These talks will be on how novices can be guided through the rich variety of systems methodologies.

San Francisco:   1  PM on a Wednesday

New York:           4  PM on a Wednesday

London, UK:       9  PM on a Wednesday

Central Europe: 10 PM on a Wednesday

Sydney Aus         7 AM Thursday (different from newsletter)

 

ABSTRACT FROM JANOS KORN

PARADIGM CHANGE IN ‘SYSTEMS THINKING’

 

A SUMMARY OF THE PRESENTATION

 

A description of the current state of affairs

‘Problem solving’ activity is universal in the living sphere, it is innate and applied instinctively. Survival and carrying out ambitions depend on its successful application.

 

However, humans have been using natural language, the primary model, as a means of navigation around the world and for the transmission of accumulated experience through  generations. In addition, humans by means of their limitless imagination added to by sense input and processed by the brain/mind into ‘thoughts’, turn the ‘thoughts’ into a vast range of symbolic structures or models (when the former is embedded in ‘medium’).

 

For the current studies, we consider three streams of ‘intellectual products’ or models as they have been developed over millennia through paradigm changes.

 

A. Problem solving

The instinctive ‘problem solving’ has been evolving into largely speculative variety of diagrammatic procedures involving design thinking and concentrating on ‘product design’. Methods of ‘systems engineering’ have evolved using diagrams and mathematical models.

B. Conventional Disciplines

The great majority of ‘intellectual products’ have been invented ranging from ancient philosophies to mysticism like graphology to conventional science which hit on the idea of using qualitative and quantitative properties as elementary constituents for constructing mathematical models. This product generated testable predictions as reliable knowledge. A hunting ground for ‘reductionism’.

C. Modern Disciplines 

Modern Disciplines like control engineering, OR, systems thinking, emerged during and after the 2nd WW and from the 1950’s. The task of these disciplines is not to produce ‘reliable knowledge’ but to generate methods of problem solving. Perhaps this has not been recognised fully and obscured by the generality of the ‘systemic or structural view’.

 

The problematic issue 

The current state of affairs of the human intellectual endeavour appears to be fragmented and to a large extent speculative where appropriate or not as produced by imagination. Their contribution to ‘problem solving’ to supplement the ‘innate/instinctive’ method, is not clear.

 

Proposed resolution of the problematic issue

A ‘systems theory’ is proposed to integrate ‘problem solving’ and ‘systems thinking’ through ‘design thinking’. This needs to admit a paradigm change in ‘systems thinking’ from some of the current beliefs to the introduction of principles closer to those used in the natural sciences and modelled by ‘linguistic modelling’ or processed natural language. This approach involves the use of currently available knowledge, software and application in organisations. However, it needs peer review and further development. The presentation reviews the current state of affairs and introduces the proposed ‘systems theory’ as far as possible.     

 

--

James