Frans Hermans and I

Dr. Hermans has some great ideas for me... helping IPA through future stages of it's evolution.

Where today, IPA works very well for evaluating and integrating smaller theoretical models, Frans showed how very large models could be evaluated using methods and software from graph theory, network theory, social network analysis  (basically, we treat the concepts as people and the causality as communication).

This is a very important concern. We need these kinds of advanced tools if we hope to create policy models of sufficient breadth and depth to allow us to understand and resolve the problemsof the world.

Nodir and I

Working with Dr. Nodir Djanibekov. He is continuing to develop a very insightful study of scholarship in Central Asia.

Connecting at the edge of Chaos

For those of you who are following this blog for more intellectual insights, here is a new thought on a key idea that many of us have been  wrestling with.

At the center of this issue Is the notion of parsimony. Generally considered  synonymous with the idea that theories  should be as small and simple as possible.

As noted in my articles, there are many scholars who argue for theory that is not parsimonious. And, of course, my research indicates that there is no great reason to have theory that is parsimonious, except to make it convenient. To solve the problems of today's world, however, we don't need tools that are convenient, we need tools that work.

A better standard, then, is to create theories that are more complex and more systemic - to represent our world which is both complex and systemic.

Now, I would like to add one more idea to the mix.

Perhaps it is important that we create series of such high levels of complexity that we cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the theories. Because, then we will have an indicator that our theories are one step closer to replicating our minds and our realities... Which are so complex that we cannot possibly understand them.

In this way, we are pushing ourselves to the "edge of chaos" where many new insight are said to occur.

The Wall

Not much left of the Berlin Wall today!

Mural of the world. .. in progress

Ok, one more picture on the kunst festival.   These guys are doing an awesome mural. A representation of the world. Not bad for a day's work!

48 hour student neukolln kunst festival

Monika Berstis is doing some cool stuff at the intersection of art, recycling and science.  Phenomenologically, she noted that different types of stores seemed to use plastic bags of similar color. Naturally, she explored to find a rainbow of colors! More pictures below of her studio space... and the art behind the curtain. 

Refugees Welcome

'nuff said

This was not even (officially) part of the 48 hour art project. Yet, I found it appealing. There was another photo, which appears to be simply waves on the shore. Until you looked closely to see bodies of refugees. The caption was something like, "blink at reality until you feel comfortable "

Checkpoint Charley and the Einstein Cafe

A perfect juxtaposition - an expression of freedom and intellectual imagination.

Many lanes. . . A good idea

Love having pedestrian lanes, bike lanes... yes, we can all get along!

Berlin pride

Pride demonstration after US supreme Court decided in favor of gay marriage.  They were playing "going to the chapel and we're going to get married. .."

Berlin side trip

The Tiergarten is really very nice. Here is only a small, quiet corner. Might post more on Berlin later... quite a town!

Alexander Prishchepov and I

Marvelous fun with causal mapping as Dr. Prishchepov explores deeper understandings of land system change for agriculture, reforestation, and the development of more effective theories and policies.

Ethics, multicultural, interdisciplinary

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3si65yhre2ojdtu/Ethics-muticultiural-interdisciplinary-Seminar.pdf?dl=0

Abstration, causality, orthogonality

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hs4yxwok0wtaqaq/Abstraction-Causality-Orthogonality-Seminar.pdf?dl=0

CAS, Complex Adaptive Systems, Logic Structures

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0nq14894h2skuku/CAS-%26-Logic-Structures-Seminar.pdf?dl=0

Presentation on the Philosophy of science and the limits of positivism, systems thinking

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5usgk4chme9ywd/Philosophy-of-Science-ST%26CT-Seminar.pdf?dl=0

Undergraduate Presentation

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3d8vo9ussj5xkb8/Undergraduate-lecture.pdf?dl=0

PDF of Graduate Presentation

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ndrvd2eamqvlus/Graduate-lecture.pdf?dl=0

PDF of Introductory Presentation

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tucolmdbsv1fgax/INTRODUCTORY-LECTURE.pdf?dl=0

Philosophy, complexity, systems, and...

Many views of the world coming together in this international gathering.  Nadir, Chris, Vlad, & Steve. Solving the problem of understanding the world.

One formula to solve it all

Vladislav Valentinov in action! Mo's Daniel's Bar, Cafe, and Lounge.

Presentation in action

Just an "action" photo of me presenting a very very short history of science. 

Low humor

May the lord of puns protect and preserve us. Here in Leipzig, as you see in the picture, every door to the opera house has a large. .. Handel.

No, I am not going to apologize; I am only calling it the way I see it.

Who could not love Leipzig?

Coffee and cake in a passageway.

I arrived on the last day of the Bach festival. Music everywhere!

So many antique shops, that it should be a sister city to Petaluma.

Reminder

A sad reminder of times gone by; that we must work that much harder today, to be sure such times are not faced in the future.

The yin-yang meta-level task for the 21st century

There appears to be a yin yang relationship between our data... and the logics we use to organize the data. The emergent result of that interaction is human understanding. Neither, by itself is sufficient for generating actionable knowledge. When there is a higher quality and quantity of each and when the two are in balance, then we are able to have a better understanding of the world and achieve more reliable success.

In ancient times, they had observational data, but only limited logics. That imbalance led to spurious speculation in attempting to reach understanding. Examples such as lodestones having breath, or a geocentric universe.

During the dark ages, numerous arguments arose around the nature of those speculations. Eventually we came to realize that there was an imbalance. We needed more data to resolve arguments. For example, without a way to measure pins and angels, one could not come to a reliable conclusion about how many might dance on the head of a pin.

The new logic was more structured than the old. Think, for example of Toulmin's rules for resolving diputes of science. This new and more useful logic led to a drive for data. And, the scientific revolution was the result. The ensuing balance between data and logic provided us the laws of physics, advances in medicine, and so on.

Today, that apprach has been so successful that we are inundated with data. Again, we are out of balance. And, as in ancient times, we are driven to spurious conclusions. We have only a pretense of knowledge. We do not even know what we are missing. We conduct careful research to gain amazing amounts of data, then use that data to generate theories that do not work and policies that are terrible failures.

The challenge of the 21st century, and for our generation, is to find a new balance. We may do this by developing new logics for understanding our data.

When we do this, we will have a new revolution comparable to the scientific revolution. And the world will be changed in astonishing ways that we cannot predict... nor yet understand.

Panel discussion

Heading to the end of a very interesting confernce. Food security is threatened by a combination of growing population, global warming, and weather uncertainty.  Corruption and waste also contribute to reduce security.  These will lead to increasing catastrophe including human hunger. This, in turn, leads to social instability, including discontent and revolution.

Great research by many participants
Also, wonderful insights  by (among many others ) Dr Leslie Lipper of FAO. She noted that "evidence based policy" is not enough. We need to understand the larger picture. There is no "silver bullet" we need to have coordination between policies.  Between,  for example, adaptation and mitigation of agricultural change.

Transdisciplinary brilliance

I had the great pleasure to talk with and hear a brilliant presentation by this fellow: Dr Tuck Fatt Siew.

He is using causal mapping to create and integrate perception graphs of key stakeholders to understand complex problems of water usage in China.

I hope to collaborate with him in future projects!

Transdisciplinary brilliance

I had the great pleasure to talk with and hear a brilliant presentation by this fellow: Dr Tuck Fatt Siew.

He is using causal mapping to create and integrate perception graphs of key stakeholders to understand complex problems of water usage in China.

I hope to collaborate with him in future projects!

Alfons Balmann at the IAMO Forum

Welcoming address

Meanwhile. ..

Great conversation with deep and creative thinkers at the scientific foresight unit following my presentation of IPA and ASK MATT.  Here, I am honored to receive a tour of the EU parliament from Lieve Van Woensel. No wonder I feel happy!

Travelling and reflecting

Travelling to Brussels today. Looking forward to meeting Kees pieters & Mixel Kieman! Then, tomorrow, looking forward to intresting conversations with Lieve Van Woensel and the wonderful people at STOA & EPRS.

An amusing reflection along the way. .. we  have Google Translate for communicating between people of different nations. But where oh where is the APP to translate between academic disciplines? !

Musings

I find it interesting to engage in conversation with people who know as little english as I know their language.

When we are forced to interpret we have the opportunity to realize that we will not get it right. Indeed, we are absolutely incapable of the creating perfectly transparent interpretation. And, in that moment we may realize that, in light of imperfect understanding, we must input our own belifs in the place of the missing understanding. And, in that moment we find we are not only talking to some other person, we are also communicating with ourselves.  So if we say that person is smart, beautiful, ignorant, intelligent, or whatever... we are really saying those things about ourselves. The same applies for all we say for all we communicate with our families friends and neighbors. In short, or perhaps in metaphor, communication becomes as much of a reflective mirror as it is a transparent window.

Mark the MOST helpful merchant

Here is possibly the best shop in Halle. A magnificent selection of cheese, bread, meats, and wines from around the world (including Coppola). This is Mark. He in NOT drinking on the job. He is the most helpful merchant in town... helping me find an excellent assortment of adult beverages!

Relaxing and Reading

a light rain falls on the tranquil courtyard of IAMO. Meanwhile, I enjoy a cup of tea while reading an excellent dissertation by Cappella doctoral candidate Janice Graham.

Philosophy of science and the limits of positivism

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9deuysc8gh6bxlc/1draft-Philosophy%20of%20Science%20ST%20and%20CT%20-%20Advanced%20Seminar.pptx?dl=0

Fencing in Germany

There are places, mostly in my mind, where I am known as the fencing philosopher  ;)

Here are some of the fencers at the Fecht Centrum in Halle, Germany.  Lots of great open bouting (with many fencers who are younger, faster, and more talented than I ). Overseen by the supportive Matthias Hertel.

I am very grateful to the wonderful people here who make me feel so welcome... and try to stab me. What more could I ask?

Nozilakhon Mukhamedova

Nozila is a research associate at IAMO working on her PhD.  Her focus is on land and water reform in central Asia.  Like most doctoral candidates she suffers from having too much knowledge... and a slight difficulty finding how to put all the pieces together into a coherent picture. Here, we're talking about using IPA to map multiple theoretical perspectives - to create that picture and provide a map for moving forward on her dissertation.

Expect amazing things from this person!

Dr. Vladislav Valentinov

A contemplative thinker of great philosophical depth and dedication. Here, Vladislav is using IPA to develop a more effective theory of structural change. Of additional distinction are the works of art on his wall - provided by his talented daughters!

Martin Luther University of Halle - Wittenberg

This is just one of the most awesome universities in history. Here, they started teaching in German instead of Latin.. and teaching rational common sense instead of church dogma. And... just for fun... Hamlet was said to have rece6his education here.

With Dr. Zhanli "Jerry" Sun

Jerry is a big thinker - his mind moves with elegant dexterity between diverse topics from geography to agent based modelling, and Bayesian networks. Here, we are talking about theories of structural change from a complex adaptive systems perspective.

Comparative architecture

The new and the old... each beautiful in its own way.

After a delicous dinner with Vladislav & Sabine

After the children have gone to bed.

Action logics of agents: from gathering to farming

It may be interesting to consider how agents ie individuals use more complex and more systemic logics to achieve greater success. Here is a quick - & - dirty example. first, for hunter - gatherers, the logic is quite simple and linear. Find food, see food, get food, eat food. Easy! second, also more complex, is the logic necessary for an agrarian agent. There, the agent must understand how the combination of Sun, soil, water, and seeds R concatenated to result in the growth of food. With that, the food is then found obtained and consumed. Thus the agrarian logic includes / subsumes the gatherer logic. and, of course, makes the gatherer part of the process so much easier. The main idea here, is that agrarian agents have and use a logical structure that is more complex and more systemic then the logic structure of the gather agent. thus, we may see that the logic provides a better representation of our complex and systemic world. And, as a result, supports the greater success of the agrarian agents compared with the gatherer agents.

This suggests a very interesting question. when considering ourselves as agents, who are using a logic of some complexity and systemicity. How complex and systemic is your / my logic of life, and how much more successful / productive / fulfilled might we be if we increase the complexity and system icity of our logics?

Thinking on the steps

Moritzburg Castle provided some shade, while local vendors on Market Pltz provided some lunch. Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink could not attend. However, a draft chapter on strategic agency provided good reading. Solid review of the topic and a new viw through the lens of VSM.

No visit to Halle is complete without a look at the salt museum. When you think salt... you might not normally think of a saw and a pick!

Alles gut!

I have never in the USA had bratwurst so delicious!

Maketpaltz, Halle. In the shadow of Handel, they are promoting beer from ice-filled sidecar rigs... while dueling with squirting guns. After my grueling day of meta-analysis an intellectual conversation with Dr. Valentinov. .. well, let's just say life becomes wonderfully surreal. Now... for some Gelato!

Espresso, kuken and preparing for presentations

What a way to start the day. Life is good!

Introductory Lecture

Wonderful people at the overview today! Great participation and insightful questions.  I am looking forward to the next presentation!  Here are the slides for today's lecture : https://www.dropbox.com/s/mo5qefoe1m9s0sn/DRAFT%20-%20INTRODUCTORY%20LECTURE.pptx?dl=0

Settling in

I am slowly settling in. this is a view of the interior courtyard from my room.

Changing flights in Frankfurt

I had forgotten what a large airport this is. Good exercise walking between gates. And every amenity desired.